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Washington University in St. Louis News & Information >
May Science & Technology Tip Sheet
May 4,
2009 --
Tip sheets highlight timely news and events at Washington
University in St. Louis. For more information on any of the
stories below or for assistance in arranging interviews,
please see the contact information listed with each story.
Living Building Challenge
What could be one of North America's greenest buildings set to open May 29
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| Tyson's own Eastern Red Cedar used for exterior siding |
May 28,
2009 -- An opening ceremony for what could be one of North America's greenest buildings — a flagship building on the cutting edge of sustainable design and energy efficiency — will take place at 4 p.m. May 29 at Washington University in St. Louis' new Living Learning Center at the university's Tyson Research Center. The Living Learning Center is a 2,900-square-foot facility built to meet the Living Building Challenge — designed to be the most stringent green building rating system in the world — of the Cascadia Region Green Building Council (CRGBC). No building has met its standard yet, but the Living Learning Center is in the running to be the first in North America.
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Ring-nesia
Cell phone ringtones can pose major distraction, impair recall
| May 28,
2009 -- A flurry of recent research has documented that talking on a cell phone poses a dangerous distraction for drivers and others whose attention should be focused elsewhere. Now, a new study in the Journal of Environmental Psychology finds that just the ring of a cell phone may be equally distracting, especially when it comes in a classroom setting or includes a familiar song as a ringtone.
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'Biodiversity beyond the habitat's borders'
Plant biodiversity enhanced thanks to spillover from landscape corridors
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| Landscape in pine plantation forest. |
May 22,
2009 -- Researchers at Washington University in St. Louis, along with collaborators at three other universities, have discovered that the biodiversity in a patch of habitat can extend outside the borders of a protected area; this effect is magnified when corridors — skinny strips of land — connect the habitats. Their findings, reported in this week's online issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, provide a strategy for managing nature preserves to maximize biodiversity in the small spaces that are already formally protected.
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Missing link
47-million-year-old fossil could shed light on primate family tree
| May 21,
2009 -- A 47-million-year-old primate fossil, a purported "missing link" between primates and humans, was unveiled this week in New York. The fossil, formally called Darwinius masillae but nicknamed Ida, could, due to it being an essentially whole skeleton, shed light on the construction of the primate family tree, says an expert on primate evolution at Washington University in St. Louis.
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Europium discovery
New element found to be a superconductor
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| Inside of the diamond cell |
May 18,
2009 -- Of the 92 naturally occurring elements, add another to the list of those that are superconductors. James S. Schilling, Ph.D., professor of physics in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, and Mathew Debessai, Ph.D., — Schilling's doctoral student at the time — discovered that europium becomes superconducting at 1.8 K (-456 °F) and 80 GPa (790,000 atmospheres) of pressure, making it the 53rd known elemental superconductor and the 23rd at high pressure.
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Going platinum
New catalyst could boost cleaner fuel use
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May 14,
2009 -- Material scientists at Washington University in St. Louis have developed a technique for a bimetallic fuel cell catalyst that is efficient, robust and two-to-five times more effective than commercial catalysts. The novel technique eventually will enable a cost effective fuel cell technology, which has been waiting in the wings for decades and should give a boost for cleaner use of fuels worldwide.
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Birds of a feather
Study finds particles, molecules prefer not to mix
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May 4,
2009 -- In the world of small things, shape, order and orientation are surprisingly important, according to findings from a new study by chemists at Washington University in St. Louis. Lev Gelb, WUSTL associate professor of chemistry, his graduate student Brian Barnes, and postdoctoral researcher Daniel Siderius, used computer simulations to study a very simple model of molecules on surfaces, which looks a lot like the computer game "Tetris." They have found that the shapes in this model (and in the game) do a number of surprising things.
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