McCain, Obama similarities on oil, gas, energy only go so far, expert suggests

President Bush’s call this week for Congress to end its decades-old ban on offshore oil and gas drilling has highlighted key differences in the big-oil platforms of presumptive Republican and Democratic presidential nominees Barak Obama and John McCain, suggests William Lowry, an expert on the politics of environmental and energy issues at Washington University in St. Louis.

Washington University Antarctica team to install seismographs

A team of seismologists from Washington University in St. Louis, like members of the starship Enterprise, will “boldly go where no man has gone before” after Thanksgiving this year. The team, led by Douglas A. Wiens, Ph.D., Washington University professor of earth and planetary sciences in Arts & Sciences, will go to remote regions of Antarctica to place seismographs in both east and west Antarctica to learn about the earth beneath the ice, and glean information about glaciers, mountains and ice streams.

Bush’s State of Union may be least consequential in a generation, suggests congressional expert

Steven SmithPresident George W. Bush’s State of the Union address on Jan. 23 may be remembered as one of the least consequential State of the Union addresses in a generation, but its presentation could open the door on a period of real legislative compromise as both parties struggle to boster reputations in advance of the 2008 elections, suggests Steven Smith, an expert on congressional politics at Washington University in St. Louis. Video Available

New book urges ecologists to think “outside the helmet”

Image courtesy of the Cellar Store, San Bernardino, CA.A new book is persuading ecologists to think “outside the helmet”.An ecologist at Washington University in St. Louis has co-authored a new book that is forcing the pith helmet set to “think outside the helmet.” Jonathan M. Chase, Ph.D., assistant professor of biology in Arts& Sciences at Washington University and Mathew A. Leibold, Ph.D.,associate professor of integrative biology at the University of Texas at Austin, take on one of the tenets of ecology, niche theory, which holds that species evolve and thrive because of their particular environment and what activities they do to shape that environment, providing them their niche, if you will.