Ginkgo fruits and fall leaves. (Photo: Joe Angeles/Washington University)
Washington University’s glorious ginkgo allée, located just east of the John M. Olin Library, was part of the historic Cope and Stewardson plan for the campus. The ginkgo tree’s unique fan-shaped leaves turn brilliant golden yellow in fall.
Renner
The gingko tree is also an example of a dioecious plant: one that has either male or female flowers, not both. Such sexual specialization comes at a cost to plants. But even so, hundreds of land plant lineages have independently evolved separate sexes.
Why and how this happened has been a longstanding question for biologists. Susanne S. Renner, honorary professor of biology in Arts & Sciences, is co-author of a new review that tackles the genetic basis of sex determination in plants. The study was published in Nature Plants in March.
Two-year $980,000 award to support education access, social justice in two prisons
Students at the Missouri Eastern Correctional Center in Pacific, Mo., in 2017. (Photo: Joe Angeles/Washington University)
April 19, 2021 SHARE
Washington University in St. Louis’ Prison Education Project (PEP) has won a two-year $980,000 grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The award resulted from the Mellon Foundation’s “Future of Higher Learning in Prison” competition.
“This has been quite a year,” said Robert Henke, professor of drama and of comparative literature in Arts & Sciences, who serves as PEP director as well as co-principal investigator of the Mellon grant. “Last spring, because we were no longer able to have on-site classes, we worked with WashU and the Missouri Department of Corrections to make the switch to virtual instruction. It has been a steep learning curve for everyone involved.”
April 16, 2021 SHARE
Welcome to Class Acts, a celebration of remarkable graduating students at Washington University in St. Louis. In our first installment, Class Acts showcases three incredible makers artist Erin Lewis, who created a multidisciplinary “cancer tool kit” to capture her own experience with the disease; engineer Alex Levy, who led the design of WashU Racing’s Formula One car; and Noor Bekhiet, who founded a pop-up market for immigrant and refugee artists.
In upcoming weeks, we will highlight graduating students who have made an impact through their advocacy, research, work to improve equity in health care, and efforts to build a stronger St. Louis.
Study: Scant evidence that ‘wood overuse’ at Cahokia caused local flooding, subsequent collapse
The remains of the most sophisticated prehistoric native civilization north of Mexico are preserved at Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site. (Photo: Joe Angeles / Washington University)
April 8, 2021 SHARE
Whatever ultimately caused inhabitants to abandon Cahokia, it was not because they cut down too many trees, according to new research from Washington University in St. Louis.
Archaeologists from Arts & Sciences excavated around earthen mounds and analyzed sediment cores to test a persistent theory about the collapse of Cahokia, the pre-Columbian Native American city in southwestern Illinois that was once home to more than 15,000 people.
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Orange is new ‘block’
Photosynthetic organisms tap light for fuel, but sometimes there’s too much of a good thing.
New research from Washington University in St. Louis reveals the core structure of the light-harvesting antenna of cyanobacteria or blue-green algae – including key features that both collect energy and block excess light absorption. The study, published Jan. 6 in Science Advances, yields insights relevant to future energy applications.
Scientists built a model of the large protein complex called phycobilisome that collects and transmits light energy. Phycobilisomes allow cyanobacteria to take advantage of different wavelengths of light than other photosynthetic organisms, such as green plants on dry land.