Science/Technology videos
Combating the rising water Is the epic battle to control the Mississippi's flooding each Spring inevitable? Washington University hydrogeologist Robert Criss says no. Blowing the levees is a 1920s tactic, he says, and we ought to be beyond that now. Play >
2011/05/10
What did a seismologist make of the 9.0 magnitude Japanese quake? Doug Wiens, PhD, professor and chair of earth and planetary sciences in Arts & Sciences, provides some perspective. Play >
2011/04/28
How did the Japanese quake compare to other recent quakes? Michael Wysession, PhD, associate professor of earth and planetary sciences, runs the numbers. Play >
2011/04/28
A living building The International Living Building Institute recently recognized Washington University in St. Louis' Living Learning Center as a Living Building. The Washington University building, located at the Tyson Research Center in west St. Louis County, was one of only two buildings to meet the institute's Living Building Challenge in 2010. The challenge is widely recognized as the world's most rigorous green building performance standard. Play >
2011/02/18
When did you know? David A. Peters, PE, PhD, McDonnell Douglas Professor of Engineering, talks about his choice to pursue a career in aerospace. Play >
2011/02/10
Skipping the spinal cord The goal of brain-computer interfaces is to control muscles directly from the brain's cortex, skipping the intervening spinal cord. In this movie each yellow line represents the instantaneous firing rate of a neuron in the motor cortex. The yellow spikes morph as the man moves because each neuron is tuned to a different direction in space. If the vectors from all of the neurons are added together (yellow arrow), they predict the arm's next movement (blue arrow). Play >
2011/02/10
EECoG performance in 2009 In this real-time movie, a monkey tries to move a cursor over the colored section of a circle with the help of an epidural electrocographic (EECoG) grid picking up signals from motor cortex. Play >
2011/02/10
ECoG performance in 2006 In 2006 a teenager played Space Invaders with the help of an electrocorticography (ECoG) grid that used signals from the area of his motor cortex that normally controlled his right hand and his tongue to move the cursor left and right. Play >
2011/02/09
A comparison of time reversal and time reversal plus ultrasonic tagging In both cases photons take random paths through tissue. Some are lost (blue) but others (green) will reach the mirror on the other side of the tissue. The mirror is a special phase conjugate mirror that turns the light around and sends it back on its original path, as though time had been reversed. Clever as this is, by itself it isn't very useful because the light scatters again as is backtracks (left). In the new method, called TRUE, ultrasound is focused into the tissue (small black ring). Light passing through the ultrasound field is tagged by it and selectively returned by the mirror to its virtual source, the ultrasound focus (right). Instead of scattering, the light is brought to a focus inside the tissue. Play >
2011/02/08
Working to reduce Carbon Emissions A new research facility at Washington University in St. Louis, allows engineers to study different approaches to reducing the carbon emissions from coal combustion. Richard L. Axelbaum, PhD, discusses problems the facility is designed to address through oxy-coal combustion. Play >
2010/11/23
The Advanced Coal and Energy Research Facility An experimental oxy-coal combustion lab at Washington University in St. Louis, burns coal with pure oxygen raising the carbon dioxide concentration in exhaust gasses from 15 percent to 95 percent. The carbon dioxide is then easier to capture and sequester underground, or it can be fed into a photobioreactor to fuel algae growth. The algae could then be a possible source of biofuel. Richard L. Axelbaum, PhD, Director of the Consortium for Clean Coal Utilization, describes the process. Play >
2010/11/23
WUSTL's Living Learning Center named a "Living Building" The Living Learning Center, located at WUSTL's Tyson Research Center, achieved full certification as a living building, a ranking conferred by the International Living Building Institute. The center shares the honor of being the first living building with the Omega Center in Rhinebeck N.Y. A living building must be designed to produce no wastewater and use no more energy than it produces. It must then operate within those constraints for the period of at least one year. Play >
2010/10/11
Summer program provides research immersion The Biomedical Research Apprenticeship Program (BioMedRAP) at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis offers undergraduates a 10-week summer research internship to prepare them for biomedical research careers. The program targets students from rural or inner-city areas, first generation college students and those from groups traditionally underrepresented in biomedical research. Play >
2010/08/17
Summer Science Students from around the St. Louis area participate in the free two-week camp that emphasizes careers in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM). As a highlight, former NASA astronaut and camp namesake Bernard A. Harris Jr., MD, spent a morning with the middle schoolers, answering their questions and encouraging them to pursue a future in STEM. Play >
2010/07/06
Studying ion channels in frog eggs Scientists in Jianmin Cui's lab at Washington University in St. Louis study ion channels important in heart contraction and neural activity. Many experiments involve mutating the DNA that codes for the channel protein and then using frog eggs as miniature factories to produce mutated channels whose functioning is then examined by the voltage clamp technique. Research is showing that many medical disorders may be caused by malfunctioning ion channels. More than 300 mutations, for example, have been found in a cardiac channel, some of which are associated with arrhythmias. Play >
2010/06/21
BK Channel A simulation of part of the BK channel showed that the mutated channel (right) was less flexible than the wild type channel (left). The mutation is an alteration of a single amino acid (green ball on right), but it affects the dynamics of the entire structural unit of which it forms a part. This unit's greater rigidity makes the channel easier to toggle open and closed, which means the verve cell can fire at undesirably high frequencies. (Yang, Junqui; Krishnamoorthy, Gayathri; Saxena, Akansha; Zhang, Guohui; Shi, Jingyi; Yang, Huanghe; Delaloye, Kelli; Sept, David; Cui, Jianmin, "An Epielpsy/dyskinesia-associated mutation enhances BK channel activation by potentiating Ca2+ sensing," Neuron, June 23, 2010.) Play >
2010/06/21
The Glass Transition An octopus-like instrument that will be slotted into an intense neutron beam at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory will allow physicist Ken Kelton to study one of the toughest problems in solid-state physics: how a liquid turns into a glass. Play >
2010/03/19
Secrets of Drought Tolerance in Moss Research reveals the biological mechanisms that allow desiccated mosses to revive if they are remoistened; mechanisms they may have inherited from the earliest land plants. Play >
2010/02/03
The Lycurgus Cup Lycurgus, King of the Edoni in Thrace, is ensnared by the nymph Ambrosia in the form of a vine. The famous Roman cup looks green when lit from outsid, but glows pink when lit from the inside. Modern analysis shows the ancient glass contains nanoparticles of a silver-gold alloy that scatters light strongly at a wavelength in the green part of the spectrum. When the cup is lit from inside, however, the green light is absorbed, and we see the remaining light, which is predominantly red, the complementary color to green. Gold nanocages made at Washington University in St. Louis exploit the physical effect that underlies the cup's color change. For high resolution images of the cup, please go to the British Museum site: http://www.britishmuseum.org Play >
2009/11/03
Washington University neuroscience doctoral students explain the brain Neuroscience doctoral students from Washington University in St. Louis teamed up with the St. Louis Science Center recently to help St. Louis children and their parents explore the wonders of brain science. The students, all pursuing their P-H-Ds in areas such as neuroscience, psychology or biomedical engineering at Washington University, are part of a specialized neuroscience research training program funded in part by the National Science Foundation. The Cognitive, Computational and Systems Neuroscience Pathway (CCSN) brings together doctoral students from the University's schools of medicine, engineering and arts and sciences for a specialized two-year course of study that combines the latest in neuroscience knowledge from each of the three disciplines, including a heavy emphasis the quantitative analysis necessary to bring brain research to the next level. The CCSN program grant includes a community outreach component that's designed to help graduates become more comfortable communicating the basics of neuroscience research to non-scientific audiences, such as those attending the recent SciFest at the St. Louis Science Center, which took place Oct. 7-11. Play >
2009/10/21
Washington University opens Living Learning Center at Tyson Washington University in St. Louis has opened what could be the first "living building" in North America. The Living Learning Center at Tyson Research Center is designed to be a net zero energy and net zero wastewater facility. Certification could come after the building is fully operational for 12 months and has met the Living Building Challenge requirements. Play >
2009/06/05
DBBS marks 35th anniversary, 1,000th graduate Established in 1973, the Division of Biology and Biomedical Sciences (DBBS) has become the national model for graduate education in biology and biomedical sciences because of its collaborative, interdisciplinary approach. Play >
2008/05/07
Microbial fuel cells turn on the juice The combination of beer, wastewater, microbes, fuel cells, high school students and teachers are the components that comprise the heart and soul of a new high school science curriculum based on treating waste water with microbial fuel cells. Play >
2007/12/04
Doug Wiens describing field trip to install seismographs A team of seismologists went 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. The location of their field camp, called AGAP-South, has never been visited by humans before. Play >
2007/11/05
Summer of opportunity for minority science majors Students describe their experience in the Opportunities in Genomics Research summer outreach program. Play >
2007/10/18
Dire devastation of snake species follows floods Owen Sexton discusses his research on snakes at conservation areas and what needs to be done to preserve the population in these areas. Play >
2007/09/12
Science outreach program helps students and mentors The Young Scientist Program (YSP) started in 1991 to focus, educate and inspire St. Louis City public high school students gain interest in science and scientific careers. Play >
2007/08/21
Researchers track snakes to study populations, behaviors Wayne Drda, Washington University researcher, explains how he and a team of researchers from the St. Louis Zoo and Saint Louis University are tracking the populations and observing the behaviors of timber rattlesnakes and copperheads in eastern Missouri. Play >
2007/06/14
Undergraduate paves way for NASA Mars mission A Washington University undergraduate student in Earth and Planetary Sciences in Arts & Sciences is playing a key role in finding a safe, non-rocky environment on Mars for the Phoenix lander. NASA veteran Raymond Arvidson and undergraduate Tabatha Heet describe how they've found their spot. Play >
2007/05/16
Photocatalytic cell provides low-cost option to produce hydrogen Pratim Biswas has developed a unique photocatlytic cell that splits water to produce hydrogen and oxygen using sunlight and the power of a nanostructured catalyst. The discovery provides a new, low cost and efficient option for hydrogen production and can be used for a variety of distributed energy applications. Play >
2007/05/01
Caves of St. Louis County: a tale of loss Washington University geologists have documented and archived data on 127 known caves in St. Louis County and provide a warning in a current paper that development over the past two centuries has eliminated or destroyed many caves in a state that could rightly call itself The Cave State. Play >
2007/03/05
Planetary scientist says: Focus on Europa There are four large, moons of Jupiter that in their character and behavior are more like planets than Earth's moon: Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto. Europa is the one that has the best chance to reveal the most about the origin of life, which is the biggest unanswered scientific question we have. Bill McKinnon discusses. Play >
2007/02/07
Wash. U. lab first to find 'real' stardust from Stardust mission researchers at Washington University in St. Louis are the first to report that a sample they received from the mission actually does contain stardust — particles that are older than the sun. Play >
2006/12/14
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