A National Science Foundation-funded workshop recently brought more than 75 statistics researchers to Washington University in St. Louis. This was the third consecutive year that the event has been hosted on the Danforth Campus, and the first since the math department changed its formal name to the Department of Mathematics and Statistics in Arts & Sciences in the summer of 2018.

Post-selection inference is a research area driven by scientists’ need to analyze increasingly complex and large sets of data. It is one of the most active topics in statistical theory and methodology development.

“These workshops bring together mathematical statisticians with an emphasis on developing accurate and powerful procedures for inference after model selection,” said Todd Kuffner, assistant professor in mathematics, “that is, procedures with small error rates, and those that are capable of detecting weak evidence.” Kuffner organized the Workshop on Higher-Order Asymptotics and Post-Selection Inference (WHOA-PSI) with colleagues from Rutgers University and the University of California, Davis.

The workshop attracted a diverse set of researchers including not only four COPSS Presidents’ Award winners — statistics’ equivalent of a Fields Medal — as well as junior faculty, PhD candidates, and researchers from minority backgrounds that have been historically under-represented in STEM fields. Fifteen of the 35 invited speakers were female statistics researchers, Kuffner noted. Washington University graduate student Qiyiwen Zhang presented a poster at the event.

At Washington University, six of the 26 faculty members in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics are statisticians, according to John McCarthy, chair & the Spencer T. Olin Professor of Mathematics, and the growing group now offers both a PhD and master’s degree in statistics.

McCarthy said researchers have gotten very good at gathering large quantities of data in both science and business. “And what we want are meaningful answers, which require doing something intelligent with the data,” he said. “We can’t just have a million pieces of data and press a button to answer a question.”

“Data is changing our world, and there is a field of study, statistical science, that thinks hard about how we learn from data,” said Nancy Reid, professor of statistical sciences at University of Toronto, an accomplished statistician and COPSS Presidents’ Award winner who was one of the speakers featured at the WHOA-PSI.

“Data doesn’t speak for itself,” she said. “You have to know how to translate.”

Other distinguished speakers at the event included Xiao-Li Meng of Harvard University, president of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics; Robert Tibshirani of Stanford University, who invented the “Lasso,” the most popular variable selection method used in the sciences; and Emmanuel Candès, also of Stanford University, a 2017 MacArthur Fellow, who together with Terence Tao invented the field of compressed sensing, one of the most powerful approaches to recovering sparse signals.

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The Brooksfield family is determined to take a trip. Nothing will stop them — not the blizzard, not the mistress, not the drug dealers, not the claustrophobic RV, not even the gun.

With “Florida,” recent alumnus Lucas Marschke, who earned a bachelor’s degree from Arts & Sciences in May, recounts a dysfunctional vacation for the ages. This weekend, “Florida” will receive its world-premiere staged reading at Washington University in St. Louis as part of the annual A.E. Hotchner New Play Festival.

In this Q&A, Marschke discusses “Florida,” family and the playwriting process.

You earned your undergraduate degree in film and media studies last spring and are now studying at the Harold Ramis Film School in Chicago. How did you get involved with drama?

I’ve been involved in drama for about half of my life, which is pretty crazy to think about. I’ve tried my hand at various elements — mostly acting and improv, though I’ve also directed and played percussion in the pit.

But at WashU, I discovered writing. I was part of the short-form sketch-comedy group Kids On Campus and took classes in screenwriting and playwriting.

Film and theater are both collaborative arts, but they have different metabolisms.

The clearest difference is the aspect of live performance. There are so many moving parts and different roles for people to play! It’s challenging, but also rewarding, to make sure a production comes together.

Tell us about “Florida.”

“Florida”is a play with three interweaving storylines. A drug dealer is heading to Florida with his family. Two goons are kidnapping the dealer’s roommate. Meanwhile, the dealer’s father is involved with another woman. All three groups get stuck on a highway during a snowstorm. Drama ensues? Let’s hope.

What inspired the story?

Parts are borrowed from personal experience. When I was eight, my family got stuck in a snowstorm for 16 hours. Other things are modified, exaggerated or completely fabricated. Basically, “Florida” is about expectations versus reality. How do people meet or defy our expectations, and how do we react?

The Performing Arts Department (PAD) will give “Florida” a full production next spring. What have you learned so far from the workshopping process?

There’s a difference between what’s in your head and what’s actually on the page. After our first rehearsal, we had talk-backs with the cast and director, and everybody had questions about their characters and story points. It was a little overwhelming.

But you hear things differently when other people are reading it. You notice scenes that are dragging, or ideas that aren’t coming through strong enough.

It has helped me to make everything faster.

About the Hotchner Festival

The A.E. Hotchner New Play Festival begins at 7 p.m. Friday, Sept. 28, with Scott Greenberg’s “Tom and Grace,” directed by Andrea Urice, teaching professor of drama.

The festival continues at 2 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 29, with Ike Butler’s “Arriving At,” directed by Annamaria Pileggi, professor of the practice in drama. The festival will conclude at 7 p.m. that evening with Marschke’s “Florida,” directed by Jeffery Matthews, professor of the practice in drama.

Sponsored by the Performing Arts Department in Arts & Sciences, the festival is named for alumnus A.E. Hotchner, who famously bested Tennessee Williams in a campus playwriting competition. The festival is coordinated by Carter W. Lewis, playwright-in-residence. Guest dramaturg is Michele M. Volansky, chair and associate professor of drama at Washington College in Chestertown, Md.

All readings, which are free and open to the public, take place in the A.E. Hotchner Studio Theatre, located in Mallinckrodt Center, 6445 Forsyth Blvd. For more information, call 314-935-5858, visit pad.artsci.wustl.edu or follow the PAD on Facebook.

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Multiple-choice tests and quizzes are an effective tool for:

a) assessing a student’s mastery of facts and concepts;
b) helping students learn and retain facts and concepts.

While some educators might see this as a trick question, the correct answer appears to be:

c) all of the above, suggests new research from Washington University in St. Louis.

“Although people often think about multiple-choice tests as tools for assessment, they can also be used to facilitate learning,” said Andrew Butler, a cognitive psychologist in Arts & Sciences who studies the brain processes behind learning and recall. “The act of retrieving information strengthens memory for that information, leading to better long-term retention, and changes the representation of the information, creating deeper understanding.”

Butler’s study, published in the September issue of Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition, offers straightforward tips for constructing multiple-choice questions that are effective at both assessing current knowledge and strengthening ongoing learning.

Among key findings, educators should never include trick questions or offer “all of the above” or “none of the above” options among the list of possible answers.

Research on the format of multiple-choice questions is important, Butler noted, because the tests are widely used throughout the world, especially in the United States where they originated as part of early efforts to measure intelligence.

Fueled in the beginning by the need for an efficient way to measure characteristics of World War I soldiers and booming student enrollments, multiple-choice tests now influence important life decisions in areas such as college placement, workplace hiring, career advancement and even online dating.

As an associate professor in the Departments of Education and of Psychological & Brain Sciences, both in Arts & Sciences, Butler conducts research that explores the malleability of memory — the cognitive processes and mechanisms that cause memories to change or remain stable over time.

Taking any form of test has the potential to alter our understanding of a topic, he said, because the process of recalling information requires important details to be freshly reconstructed from related memories.

While multiple-choice testing, especially repeated testing, has the potential to strengthen our recall, a poorly formatted test question can have the opposite effect, Butler said. Such an ill-formed question can muddy our recollection of the correct answer and reinforcing memories for inaccurate “distractor” answers, he added.

Butler’s research review confirms that proper question formatting and presentation are critical to creating effective multiple-choice tests. It also suggests that many widely used multiple-choice tests still include lots of questions that fail to comply with research-based best practices.

“Fortunately, the best practices for creating multiple-choice tests that effectively assess understanding are much the same as those for supporting student learning,” Butler said.

Butler’s study explains the cognitive science behind five research-based recommendations for crafting more effective multiple choice questions:

• Create questions with simple formats. Complex question-and-answer formats have become popular as educators look for ways to test for deeper understanding and higher-level learning. Examples include offering answers such as “A and B, but not C,” or allowing repeated answers until correct choice is made. Such formats may be detrimental to assessment since guessing is encouraged and processing may focus more on parsing question context and less on recalling correct information. Some complex formats, such as confidence-rated answers, may offer benefits, but more research is needed.
• Create questions that engage “real world” cognitive processes. To truly test abilities, questions must be structured so correct answers require use of the specific cognitive processes necessary to address similar problems in the real world. Questions that require higher-order thinking will enhance learning and improve future performance. For example, a multiple-choice question could require a test-taker to contrast two concepts (Which of the following is a way in which hawks differ from eagles?) or analyze a set of conditions to make a decision (Given a patient symptoms, which of the following diagnoses is most likely?).
• Avoid using “none of the above” and “all of the above” as answer choices. When “none-of-the-above” is correct, students may not need to retrieve correct information to answer the question and they are exposed a lot of incorrect information. Using “all of the above” exposes students to a lot of correct information, but answers may be more obvious, robbing students of potential learning that comes from recall processing. Both question types can be detrimental to accurate assessment and potential benefits to learning are small.
• Use three plausible response options. Question difficulty increases with each answer option offered. Students who correctly answer more difficult questions may learn more from rising to the challenge, but questions that offer too many plausible answers can have a negative effect on both learning and assessment. Use the Goldilocks principle: not too many, or too few.
• Make the test challenging, but not too difficult. Create tests that are hard enough to reveal how well students know the material, but easy enough that a majority (80 percent) get a passing grade. Retrieving information and answering questions correctly reinforces student learning; failing to answer correctly may strengthen memories for misinformation. Challenge students, but allow them to succeed.

Finally, because multiple choice questions expose students to lots of plausibly presented false information, it’s important for students to review answers after grading is completed. Feedback enables test-takers to correct errors and avoid internalizing incorrect information. It also strengthens learning around correct answers that were low-confidence guesses at test time.

“One takeaway from these recommendations is that the most effective multiple-choice items get students to think in ways that are productive for learning and enable valid measurement of whether they have acquired the desired skills and knowledge,” Butler said. “To maximize both effectiveness and efficiency, it is also best to keep the process of answering multiple-choice items simple — added complexity often has a negative effect on both learning and assessment.”

The study was  supported by the James S. McDonnell Foundation 21st Century Science Initiative in Understanding Human Cognition – Collaborative Grant No. 220020483. 

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Christine Blasey Ford’s Sept. 27 testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, describing her recall of a sexual assault and attempted rape involving Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh in high school, has riveted the nation.

But the committee’s initial failure to properly investigate Blasey Ford’s claims demonstrates how little has changed since 1991, when Anita Hill presented similar testimony against Justice Clarence Thomas, argues Mary Ann Dzuback, chair of Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis.

“For those of us paying attention to gender and sexuality issues, the Senate hearing was deeply disturbing,” Dzuback said. “What became clear is how little the majority on the committee understands about sexual assault — how it occurs, its effects on survivors, and whether and how survivors choose to report their experiences. It’s as if their heads have been stuck in the sand.

“Over the past three decades we’ve come to better understand sexual harassment,” Dzuback said. “Anita Hill’s courageous testimony opened the doors to women becoming able to file sexual harassment charges and to see them through via courts of law or the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Today, women have recourse, and some settlements have resulted in significant workplace reform.”

In the year of #MeToo and reports of longtime sexual abuse by Pennsylvania priests,  “we’ve heard brave testimony from women — and men — stepping forward to tell their stories about sexual assault; about the enormous damage done to their lives and health; and about the sometimes dire consequences they’ve faced in reporting those assaults,” Dzuback said.

“Where has the Senate majority been over the past year? Do they not care about the survivors of sexual assault? Are they only able to see the damage assaulters have done to their own reputations and lives?

“If anyone needed visible, painful evidence of how little progress the United States has made in attaining gender parity, this senate hearing was it.”

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Gary Patti, the Michael and Tana Powell Associate Professor of Chemistry in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, has been awarded $4.8 million in two separate National Institutes of Health (NIH) grants focused on improving the accessibility of metabolomics — the study of the biochemical reactions that underlie metabolism.

Just as the genome is a complete set of the genes or genetic material present in a cell or organism, the metabolome represents a complete set of the metabolites — such as sugars, amino acids, fats and other more unfamiliar small molecules — in a cell or organism under a particular set of conditions.

Researchers such as Patti seek to create comprehensive metabolic profiles that can be compared between healthy and disease states.

“As it turns out, metabolic profiles are highly informative with respect to human health,” Patti said. Metabolites are already used in clinics around the world to diagnose many different diseases, such as cancer. But current tests used in hospitals look at a relatively small number of metabolites compared to the hundreds to thousands of signals observed in metabolomics. “There’s a big opportunity here not only to move to better diagnostics but also to better understand the fundamental biochemistry of disease,” he said.

Finding what feeds cancer

There are trillions of cells in the human body. Patti is interested in how metabolism varies between them.

“In many ways, metabolic processes are a product of cellular environment,” Patti said. “A person living on the coast might be more likely to eat seafood; whereas, we are more likely to eat toasted ravioli here in St. Louis. Cells are the same way.”

Patti believes that tumors have their own unique “neighborhoods” and nutritional preferences. If he can determine which metabolites “feed” cancer cells, then perhaps there are ways to limit cancer’s access to key ingredients in the body that can stop or limit cancer cells’ growth.

That’s where modern metabolomics comes into play. The tools that form the backbone of metabolomics have been around for more than 15 years. But because of the complexity of data interpretation — which requires knowledge of mass spectrometry, statistics and multiple computer programming languages — only a small percentage of related studies that are published each year rely on the kind of cutting-edge metabolomics technologies that NIH has invested in with its six research centers, or Regional Comprehensive Metabolomics Resource Cores.

All that could change if there was a standard, accepted way to convert the large number of signals returned by metabolomics tests to a simple list corresponding to the actual metabolites present.

“When you do metabolomics, you often detect thousands of signals,” Patti said. “We and others have done work to show that there are many more signals than metabolites. The question is: How can we decipher metabolites from all of the other junk? Biologists and clinicians only want to know what metabolites are there and what their concentrations are. That’s the gap.”

The signals that matter

The process is arduous, but getting rid of noise signals is important. The majority of signals detected — up to 95 percent in some experiments, Patti said — correspond not to intact metabolites, but instead to contamination, artifacts, and other signals that are difficult to interpret. For example, a metabolite may break apart into multiple pieces, each producing its own signal.

A component of one of Patti’s new grants is focused on separating out the signals that matter and developing comprehensive lists that other researchers can reference. For this $1.8 million, four-year program, Patti’s group at Washington University is one of seven laboratory teams each supplying separate expertise to a collaborative effort led by the National Cancer Institute at the NIH. The program is supported by a U-grant mechanism, which represents a partnership between the research groups and the NIH.

The other new grant is a $3 million, four-year effort focused on the metabolism of C. elegans worms and zebrafish.

“Of course, improving human health is the ultimate goal. But we can get a lot of insight into the biochemistry of humans by studying model organisms such as worms and zebrafish,” Patti said. Whether a worm, fish or human, development from an embryo to an adult requires a lot of growth. Patti aims to figure out which metabolic processes are essential to each step of the process.

“We can then compare the metabolic profiles of growing healthy tissue to growing cancer tissue,” he said. “We are always looking for metabolic differences between healthy and disease states, because these differences represent potential therapeutic opportunities.”

Taming the output

Patti’s work in metabolomics takes a page from Washington University’s rich history in genomics.

“We’re applying very similar types of strategies to study metabolism with metabolomics that have proven to be successful in genomics,” he said. “Taming the output of genome sequencing experiments not only extended their reach, it also improved throughput.”

More throughput means more studies with the best modern tools — without the data burden.

“Your everyday biologist or clinician who is interested in metabolism may not have access to all of the computational areas of expertise needed for metabolomics,” Patti said. “We’re focused on trying to lower that barrier, and alleviate some of that data burden — so that a physician who isn’t trained extensively in this field can come and do the experiment, get a result, and say ‘I know what I can do with this.’”

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Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis recently recognized Elizabeth R. Fogt, Rachel C. Dunn and Melissa Evers with the Outstanding Staff Award. Presented annually, the award honors non-teaching personnel for outstanding creative contributions and exemplary performances that significantly add to the effectiveness of the teaching, advising, counseling and research efforts in Arts & Sciences.

Steven A. Rosenblum, executive director of development for Arts & Sciences in Alumni & Development Programs, received the Dean’s Award, which goes to a Washington University employee outside of Arts & Sciences who has had a significant impact on the school.

Barbara A. Schaal, dean of the faculty of Arts & Sciences, presented the awards during the Arts & Sciences staff reception, held Aug. 29 in Holmes Lounge.

To learn more about the winners, visit The Ampersand.

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Barbara A. Schaal, dean of the faculty of Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, presented the annual Arts & Sciences faculty awards at a Sept. 12 reception in Ridgley Hall’s Holmes Lounge.

Megan Daschbach, senior lecturer in chemistry and director of the Chemistry Peer-Led Team-Learning Program, and John Shareshian, professor of mathematics and statistics, received the Arts & Sciences Distinguished Teaching Award.

Lynne Tatlock, the Hortense and Tobias Lewin Distinguished Professor in the Humanities and director of comparative literature, received the Arts & Sciences Faculty Leadership Award.

Schaal established both the Distinguished Teaching Award and the Faculty Leadership Award in 2014 as a way to recognize exceptional commitment to Arts & Sciences and its students.

Janet Duchek, associate professor of psychological and brain sciences, received the David Hadas Teaching Award, which recognizes excellence in teaching first-year undergraduates.

To learn more about the winners, visit The Ampersand.

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Rebecca Wanzo, associate professor of women, gender and sexuality studies in Arts & Sciences, will examine the work of artist Sanford Biggers as part of a panel discussion titled “Re: Black Visual Mourning” at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 10, at the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis (CAM).

The free event, which Wanzo organized, will explore the way black visual artists use visual culture to memorialize black bodies. Other participants will include Nichole Bridges of the Saint Louis Art Museum and Michael Gillespie of the City College of New York.

Biggers’ work, which remains on view at CAM through Dec. 30, frequently references African-American history, ethnography and culture, in media ranging from painting and sculpture to film, performance and antique quilts. The discussion is presented as part of the RE: program series—short for ‘regarding’—which brings together local and national speakers to explore social issues relating to CAM exhibitions.

For more information, or to RSVP for the talk, visit camstl.org.

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Armed with peat borers and insect traps, a team of researchers led by Rachel Reid, a postdoctoral scholar in the Department of Anthropology in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, will travel to Central America this winter to explore a cave long inhabited by bats. The scientists plan to use biochemical signatures preserved in bat guano to understand how vegetation coverage has changed over the past several thousand years.

“One of the issues with forest restoration is this question of what do you restore to,” Reid said. “The tropics are tough in terms of finding longer-term records of climate and environment, largely because of preservation issues.”

Heat and humidity take their toll on any type of signature that life might leave behind, Reid explained, making it difficult for researchers to reconstruct ancient landscapes using the types of rock deposits and preserved biomass often found in drier climates.

Instead, Reid’s team will look at biochemical signatures preserved in caves, which naturally shield their contents from much of the rainforest’s heat and humidity. The project is supported by a grant from the Living Earth Collaborative.

Their field site, Bajo los Indios Cave in Costa Rica, has housed a type of insect-eating bat known as Parnell’s mustached bat (Pteronotus parnellii) for millennia — which means the cave also has a cache of bat guano, the remains of insects digested by the bats, dating back thousands of years.

Reid’s team will use the peat borers  — “They were designed to cut into peat bogs, and guano is similarly kind of soft,” she explained —  to take vertical cores of the cave’s guano piles, essentially traveling thousands of years back in time through biochemical signatures preserved in the guano.

Read more in The Ampersand.

The Living Earth Collaborative is a center for biodiversity that brings together three world-class organizations — Washington University, the Missouri Botanical Garden and the Saint Louis Zoo. The collaborative transcends geographic and political boundaries to conserve biodiversity and sustain life on Earth.

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Fueled by political rhetoric evoking dangerous criminal immigrants, many white Americans assume low-status immigrants from Mexico, El Salvador, Syria, Somalia and other countries President Donald Trump labeled “shithole” nations have no legal right to be in the United States, new research in the journal American Sociological Review suggests.

In the eyes of many white Americans, just knowing an immigrant’s national origin is enough to believe they are probably undocumented, said Ariela Schachter, study co-author and assistant professor of sociology in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis.

“Our study demonstrates that the white American public has these shared, often factually incorrect, stereotypes about who undocumented immigrants are,” Schachter said. “And this is dangerous because individuals who fit this ‘profile’ likely face additional poor treatment and discrimination because of suspicions of their illegality, regardless of their actual documentation.”

Findings suggest that the mere perception of illegal status may be enough to place legal immigrants, and even U.S. citizens, at greater risk for discrimination in housing and hiring, for criminal profiling and arrest by law enforcement, and for public harassment and hate crimes in the communities they now call home.

“When people form impressions about who they think is ‘illegal,’ they often do not have access to individuals’ actual documents. There have actually been a number of recent incidents in which legal immigrants and even U.S. born Americans are confronted by immigration authorities about their status. So these judgments seem to be based on social stereotypes. Our goal was to systematically uncover them,” said study co-author René D. Flores, the Neubauer Family Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Chicago.

From a broader sociological perspective, Schachter and Flores argue that an immigrant’s real standing in American society is shaped not just by legal documentation, but also by social perceptions.

“These findings reveal a new source of ethnic-based inequalities — ‘social illegality’ — that may potentially increase law enforcement scrutiny and influence the decisions of hiring managers, landlords, teachers and other members of the public,” they conclude in the research.

Conducted in November 2017, the experimental survey asked a representative sample of 1,500 non-Hispanic white Americans to guess whether a hypothetical immigrant was in the country illegally — and perhaps a threat worth reporting to authorities — based on the reading of a brief biographical sketch.

By systematically varying the immigrant’s nation of origin, education level, language skills, police record, gender, age, race and other variables, researchers created a pool of nearly 7 million unique immigrant sketches that touched on a range of stereotypes. Each respondent was randomly assigned to view 10 of these unique sketches during the survey.

Using complex statistical analysis, researchers estimated how much each of these individual immigrant traits and stereotypes influenced the assumptions of white Americans from various demographic backgrounds, geographic regions and self-identified political affiliations.

Surprisingly, the study found that white Republicans and white Democrats jump to many of the same conclusions about the legal status of hypothetical immigrants — except when it comes to the receipt of government benefits.

Democrats rightfully recognize that in order to receive government benefits, immigrants must have legal documentation, whereas Republicans are more likely to suspect that receiving benefits marks an immigrant as illegal, even though by law undocumented immigrants are blocked from receiving federal benefits such as welfare.

Most tellingly, even the slightest hint of an immigrant with a criminal background has a huge effect on whether a white American suspects that the immigrant is in the country illegally.

“Saying an immigrant committed a crime had a larger impact on suspicions of illegality than saying they were, say, Mexican,” Schachter said. “This is true for both white Democrats and white Republicans. There’s a clear implication that the Trump administration’s rhetoric on immigrant criminality is driving these beliefs, which, again, are not based in reality. In fact, other research finds that undocumented immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than native-born Americans.”

The study also demonstrates significant differences in how immigrants from various countries and differing social statuses are likely to be treated in the United States.

It found that white Americans seldom suspect European and Asian immigrants of being in the country illegally, even though undocumented immigrants from these regions now constitute almost 20 percent of the nation’s undocumented immigrant population of about 11 million.

The study categorizes these immigrants as experiencing “invisible illegality” because their status is so rarely questioned.

Immigrants from Syria, Somalia and other nations denigrated by the Trump Administration during the “Muslim Ban” controversy also face higher suspicions of illegality, even though most have a documented legal right to be in the country based on refugee status.

Likewise, the study found immigrants from violence-torn El Salvador, many of whom have been granted the right to remain in the United States on a temporary basis, are significantly more likely to be suspected of illegality and reported to authorities, as compared to immigrants from Canada or Italy.

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Alumni and longtime Washington University supporters Nick and Barrie Somers have made a significant commitment to the university for long-range capital needs. In recognition, the Psychology Building — which houses the Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences in Arts & Sciences — will be named Somers Family Hall.

“We are exceptionally grateful to Nick and Barrie for this incredible gift,” Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton said. “The Somers family legacy is one of great friendship and generosity to the university, and we could not be more pleased to honor the Somers name by placing it on a prominent and appropriate campus landmark.”

“This is a tremendous contribution that will benefit one of our finest academic departments,” said Barbara Schaal, dean of the faculty of Arts & Sciences and the Mary-Dell Chilton Distinguished Professor. “Somers Family Hall provides space to our faculty for their groundbreaking research, as well as the exceptional teaching and mentoring they provide to our students at all levels. Nick and Barrie have always been wonderful supporters of the university and Arts & Sciences, and I am so grateful to them for this gift to support important facilities on our campus.”

Nick and Barrie Somers met while students in Arts & Sciences and graduated together from Washington University in St. Louis in 1984. Nick, who currently is managing partner and founder of SV Investment Partners and serves as principal owner and executive chairman of Minneapolis-based International Decisions Systems Inc., earned his undergraduate degree in economics, followed by a master’s in business administration from the University of Chicago. He serves as a member of Washington University’s Board of Trustees.

Barrie Somers earned her bachelor’s degree in psychology, and she said her studies have enriched her life. “I have always loved learning about what people are thinking and what motivates them,” she said. “I used my education in psychology when I worked in advertising, and I continue to use it to this day.”

The couple’s deep roots at the university extend to their two daughters, who also graduated from the university, one in 2013 and one in 2016.  Additionally, Barrie’s father, B.A. “Dolph” Bridgewater Jr., has been associated with the Board of Trustees since 1983, and her mother, Barbara, has served on the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts National Council for three decades.

“We’re a WashU family. We’re locked in,” Nick Somers said. “Barrie and I started dating when we were at the university, and our daughters cemented our loyalty to the institution. Since our daughters’ graduations, we have intensified our engagement, and we contribute however we can.”

Nick and Barrie Somers have strong connections to the psychology department. Their daughter Payton earned her degree in psychology, like her mother, and she works as a mental health therapist in San Francisco. Their daughter Caroline “Kiki” resides in Los Angeles, where she is studying to be a counselor in the health and wellness field. William, the youngest of the Somers children, attends Williams College in Williamstown, Mass., where he is majoring in economics and statistics.

In addition to their recent commitment for Somers Family Hall, Nick and Barrie Somers made a gift in 2013 to name the Somers Family Economics Suite in Seigle Hall. They also have supported annual scholarships in Arts & Sciences for two decades and endowed the Bridgewater Family Scholarship in Arts & Sciences. They have served on the Greater New York Executive Committee for Leading Together: The Campaign for Washington University and the Parents Council. In addition to his duties as a trustee, Nick Somers is a member of the Arts & Sciences National Council and the New York Regional Cabinet. Barrie serves as a member of the Sam Fox School National Council.

Opened in 1996, the Psychology Building was designed by the architectural firm of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill of Chicago, the same firm that designed Chicago’s famed Willis (formerly Sears) Tower. Its original construction cost was $28 million, and a $5 million addition in 2006 increased its size by 16,500 square feet. Within its current 120,000 square feet, the building contains four levels of laboratory space, seminar rooms, classrooms, faculty offices and lounges.

A formal dedication of Somers Family Hall will be held May 3, 2019.

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In the 1980s, a group of Peters’ Angolan colobus monkeys (Colobus angolensis palliatus) were brought to the United States from East Africa. This “founding population” became the first generation of their species to inhabit zoos in the United States.

Little is known about these founders, and questions remain about their wild relatives. “Currently, we are unable to answer simple questions about the colobus we are protecting,” said Pamela Cunneyworth, director of Colobus Conservation, an organization dedicated to promoting the conservation, preservation and protection of the Angolan colobus monkey and its associated habitat. “Without that basic information it is impossible to do conservation using a landscape approach.”

In order to better understand the needs of captive populations, and to protect wild monkeys threatened by hunting, habitat loss, and climate change, scientists needed to resolve two questions: How genetically different were populations of Peters’ Angolan  colobus monkeys across their range, and where exactly did the captive founders come from?

Thanks to a seed grant from the Living Earth Collaborative —  a center for biodiversity supporting a collaboration among Washington University in St. Louis, the Saint Louis Zoo, and Colobus Conservation — these monkey mysteries may soon be resolved.

The range of Peter’s Angolan colobus monkeys stretches mainly from the southernmost corner of Kenya, south into Tanzania. It’s not exactly clear, however, where along this stretch of habitat the founder monkeys called home. “When animals were taken from the wild, that long ago, their origins were not always documented in detail,” said Emily Wroblewski, assistant professor of biological anthropology in Arts & Sciences.

Wroblewski is working with Monica McDonald, program coordinator for the Association of Zoos and Aquarium’s Reproductive Management Center at the Saint Louis Zoo, to analyze DNA from fecal samples from the colobus monkeys in zoos and in the wild to determine their relationship. “We’re trying to understand the patterns of genetic diversity,” Wroblewski said.

McDonald has coordinated the effort with the zoos, requesting and collecting fecal samples from their monkeys. Determining how the founder monkeys fit into the larger family tree requires more than samples from zoos, however; they need to be compared to the animals in the wild.

Between 2007 and 2010, McDonald carried out a study to investigate genetic differences among populations of Peters’ Angolan colobus monkeys by analyzing fecal DNA of wild individuals across their range. She found a good deal of genetic diversity between the Kenyan and Tanzanian monkeys, suggesting they might actually be two separate subspecies, but she was unable to gather samples near the countries’ border, leaving this question unresolved.

More recently, Cunneyworth approached McDonald to collaborate and revisit these questions, as this study would help conservationists understand and more precisely identify areas of greater extinction risk. And — if there are in fact several distinct subspecies — zoo management programs could be tailored according to their different requirements.

Cunneyworth was able to acquire the necessary permits and head out into the field, far from the areas that McDonald sampled. “I traveled to the remote areas of Tanzania collecting colobus fecal samples for the study and sent them to Monica and Emily,” she said.

The samples Cunneyworth collected will help fill this gap in knowledge, leading to a better understanding of how many subspecies exist, and should help clarify whether the genetic differences seen in McDonald’s earlier study represent the extreme ends of a continuous range of diversity, or if there are two subspecies.

“Are these animals in captivity all Tanzanian? Kenyan? A mix of the two? We’re trying to use wild population genetics to inform our understanding of the captive population,” Wroblewski said.

“The results should help zoos determine how representative their monkeys are of the wild population,” said McDonald, who holds her doctorate in anthropology from Washington University. “The studbooks say the founders are from Tanzania,” she said, “but preliminary genetics from a few individuals found they pooled with Kenyan colobus.” Studbooks are a record of births, deaths and lineage that help inform zoo management.

The results of this study will provide essential data to best protect animals in the wild.  “We know the Kenyan population is more threatened than the Tanzanian population,” Wroblewski said. “If they are a distinct subspecies and we understand their range, we can target efforts for conserving those particular habitats that the animals live within.

“But if different subspecies are lumped together in conservation planning, we could lose important genetic diversity that is under threat.”

The Living Earth Collaborative is a center for biodiversity that brings together three world-class organizations–Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri Botanical Gardens and the Saint Louis Zoo. The collaborative transcends geographic and political boundaries to conserve biodiversity and sustain life on Earth

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Before the umbrellas and the flying toast, before the fan rituals and midnight screenings, before “picture” elbowed its way into the title, “Rocky Horror” was simply a show.

“It started as a musical,” said  William Whitaker, professor of the practice in drama in the Performing Arts Department in Arts & Sciences, who will direct “The Rocky Horror Show” Oct. 19-28 at Washington University in St. Louis’ Edison Theatre.

“And in the 1970s, for a young person who might be questioning their gender or sexual identity, a show like ‘Rocky Horror’ was a welcoming place,” Whitaker said. “It was a place to feel at home, to be who you really are, where nobody was going to judge you. It was playful and fun and over-the-top.

“And it was kind of dangerous.”

‘A clarion call’

Written by the British-born actor Richard O’Brien, “The Rocky Horror Show” debuted June 19, 1973, at London’s storied Royal Court Theatre. Tim Curry originated the role of Dr. Frank-N-Furter, the fishnet-clad scientist who attempts to build the perfect, sun-kissed monster — a role Curry reprised for the film adaptation two years later.

Whitaker, like many people, first encountered “Rocky Horror” at the movies. “It was weird and wonderful and amazingly liberating — but I didn’t know what in the world was going on,” Whitaker recalled with a laugh. “Aliens? Spaceship? Eddie’s brain? In the play, the story is simpler, clearer and easier to follow.”

Ironically, screenings of the film quickly grew famous (or infamous) for their raucous yet highly choreographed audience participation — an eventuality for which Whitaker has tried to prepare the cast. “During rehearsals, I’ve had crew members yelling some of the call outs, so that the actors know how to deal with them,” he said. “But it’s definitely an X-factor.”

Whitaker also points out that, in the years since “Rocky Horror” debuted, public conversations around gender identity have undergone a seismic shift. “Words like ‘transvestite’ and ‘transsexual’ get thrown around less thoughtfully than we’d do today,” he said. “Some of the humor can seem quaint or dated.

“But I think ‘Rocky Horror’ remains a cultural touchstone and, for all its camp hyperbole, an experience to be shared.

“It’s a clarion call to be yourself.”

Cast & Crew

The cast of 18 stars Brandon Krisko as Frank, and Sarah James and Nathan Wetter as Janet and Brad, the heroine and hero who stumble upon his castle. (The structure bears a striking resemblance to Brookings Hall.) Kelley Abell and Madelyne Quiroz are Riff-Raff and Magenta, Frank’s handyman and domestic.

Sabrina Odigie is the Usherette. Eurora Anyagafu is Narrator. Emma Thorp is the groupie Columbia. Cameron Bryant is the ex-delivery boy Eddie. Stephen Reaugh is Frank’s rival, Dr. Scott. Max Shteiman is Frank’s creation, Rocky Horror.

Rounding out the cast, as phantoms, are Katherine Dawson, Alisha Duvall, Catherine Herlihy, Nathaniel Holmes, Sofia McGrath, Gracie Parker and Peter Woods.

Sets and costumes are by Stephanie Nelson Pondrom and Nikki Glaros. Lighting, sound and projections are by Benjamin Gaffney, Casey Hunter and Sean Savoie. Nathan Lamp is dramaturg and assistant director. Music director is Henry Palkes. Choreography is by Christine Knoblauch-O’Neal. Stage manager is Josh Sarris.

Tickets

“The Rocky Horror Show” begins at 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, Oct. 19 and 20; and at 2 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 21. Performances continue the following weekend, at 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, Oct. 26 and 27; and at 2 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 28.

Performances take place in Edison Theatre, located in Mallinckrodt Center, 6465 Forsyth Blvd. Tickets are $20, or $15 for students, seniors and Washington University faculty and staff, and free for WashU students. Tickets are available through the Edison Theatre Box Office.

In addition, prop bags will be available for $3 each to the first 100 patrons at each performance. For more information, call 314-935-6543.

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The Agri-Food Workshop fall lecture series resumes this week as two Washington University in St. Louis history faculty members deliver a presentation on “Food and Fascism in Germany and France” at 2 p.m. Friday, Oct. 19, in Seigle Hall, Room 204.

Corinna Treitel, associate professor of history in Arts & Sciences, is the author of “Eating Nature in Modern Germany: Food, Agriculture and Environment, c.1870 to 2000” (Cambridge University Press, 2017).

Venus Bivar, assistant professor of history, is the author of the book “Organic Resistance: The Struggle over Industrial Farming in Postwar France” (University of North Carolina Press, 2018).

The Agri-Food Workshop, an interdisciplinary group of Washington University faculty and students with an interest in global agriculture and food issues, plans two more lectures this fall.

Glenn Stone, professor of anthropology and of environmental studies in Arts & Sciences, will discuss “Cornmeal and Eugenics in the Blue Ridge” at 2 p.m. Friday, Oct. 26, in Seigle Hall, Room 204.

Cassie Adcock, associate professor of history, will present “Engineering the Sacred Cow: Cattle, Food and Politics in North India” at 2 p.m. Friday, Nov 30. The location for that lecture is to be determined.

For more information, visit the Food Studies website or contact Glenn Stone at stone@wustl.edu.

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A lot has changed for international student Astrella Sjarfi of Jakarta, Indonesia, and football player Tim Tague of Orinda, Calif., since they each shot a second of video during their first 40 days at Washington University in St. Louis in 2017. Here, they share their new goals and reflections on their first year.

What’s up with Astrella Sjarfi

Sjarfi was well into her first year before she felt at home in St. Louis. Every weekend, she goes out to dinner and loves exploring St. Louis’ Asian restaurants.

“It was weird for me to say that I Iived here,” Sjarfi said. “I felt like I was in this trial period for a long time. But now I say St. Louis is my home.”

Sjarfi, who never played Ultimate Frisbee before she arrived at Washington University, is now the club’s fundraising chair. She also has joined Sigma Iota Rho, the honor society for international studies.

Additionally, Sjarfi has changed course academically. She still plans to major in economics in Arts & Sciences but now longer plans to pursue a second major in art history.  But she has picked up a minor in writing.

“I really enjoyed writing my college essay, so I took creative nonfiction last spring and loved it,” Sjarfi said. “Now I’m taking fiction. It has been fun to discover how much I love writing.”

What’s up with Tim Tague

Since we last met Tague, he has changed majors from mechanical engineering to systems engineering in the School of Engineering & Applied Science and now plans to minor in the business of sports at Olin Business School. Tague is a member of both the football and baseball teams and hopes to work for a sports team or a technology company that works in the sports arena after graduation.

“I had never heard of systems engineering, but then I took a freshman seminar and learned how systems engineering uses applied math and computer science to model and maximize various systems,” Tague explained. “In sports, that can mean anything from how to maximize ticket sales to where to place outfielders. A lot of people think data analytics in sports is excessive, but I find it fascinating.”

Tague said his first year at Washington University reaffirmed his decision to play Division III ball. He is a quarterback for the football team and a pitcher for the baseball team.

“Being able to play both sports that I love and attend a school with the academics of WashU was really the right choice for me,” Tague said. “And our athletic director, Anthony Azama, is a huge positive. He was new when I started, but I don’t think there is a better AD at any school or in any division.”

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What’s it like to be a member of the Washington University in St. Louis Class of 2022?

First-year students Ella Holman, who is a dancer and member of the Deneb STARS, and Marissa Kalkar, a soccer player, have chronicled the first weeks of life on campus by shooting one second of video every day.

ELLA HOLMAN

Have you joined any clubs?

I’m a cheerleader, and I’ve joined WashU Dance Collective and WashU Dance Theatre. It’s funny because I was supposed to “retire” from dance after high school. I loved dance but I wanted to explore new things. But my body missed dance. And my heart missed dance. Dean Diallo (Wilmetta Toliver-Diallo, assistant dean in Arts & Sciences) was the first to reel me back in. She said, “Oh, I hear you dance. So you’re doing Black Anthology?” And I said, “I guess I am now.” Then I went to my adviser and said, “Help me. I really need to get in a dance class.” So I got into Cecil Slaughter’s dance course. I guess I’m not retired after all.

You also are a member of Deneb STARS. Tell us more about the program.

It’s a program that builds community for low-income, first-generation students and it has been great. We meet and have mentors and learn about resources and opportunities. It would be easy to get lost in such a big place, but being a Deneb gives me a family.

Have you explored any subjects that are new to you?

I took a philosophy course and, if I can be totally honest, I didn’t like it. In the end, I decided to withdraw, which was unusual for me. Once I try something, I stick with it. But it was gratifying to say, “Oh, OK. I’ve tried this new thing and I’ve discovered it’s not for me.” It has all been part of me learning about myself. In high school I was very focused on getting into college — go to class, get the As, do the extracurriculars. Now that I’m in college, I get to ask myself, “What’s next? What do you want to do? What do you like?”

MARISSA KALKAR

Why did you pick Washington University?

I applied because WashU has such a good soccer team and such strong academics. It has been a great experience so far. On Wednesdays we have 6:30 a.m. practices, which can be tough. But when we practice at night, it’s so much fun to get out and play and leave everything on the field.

What has been the biggest challenge about college?

This school is hard. I didn’t have to try that hard in high school, but after the first exams I was like, “Wow. I’m going to need to step up my game a little.” I’m thinking about time management for the first time. It can be hard to do everything and still have time to do things like laundry and call home. But one of the great things about being part of a team is that we can rely on upperclassmen who have been there. They know what it’s like and have been so supportive.

How is college different from what you expected and how is it like you expected?

I don’t know why, but I thought college would be really cliquey like in high school, but everyone here is so welcoming. I’ll just sit down next to a random person and have a conversation and find out about what’s happening in their life. I love being around so many people with different backgrounds and from different cultures. In terms of my expectations, I chose WashU because of the academics, and I like how everyone is here to learn and to work hard. It’s exactly the sort of environment I wanted.

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Richard Yang, professor emeritus of East Asian languages and cultures in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, died Friday, Oct. 12, 2018, in Kaohsiung, Taiwan. He was 93.

Born in Shensi, China, in 1924, Yang earned a bachelor’s degree from the National Central University in Nanking in 1946; a master’s degree from the University of Oregon in Eugene in 1954; and a doctorate from the New School for Social Research in New York in 1964, all in political science.  He became an American citizen the following year.

Yang taught at Yale University and the University of Colorado before joining the Washington University faculty in 1964. He was appointed full professor in 1977 and emeritus professor in 1988. From 1977-79, he served as president of the American Association for Chinese Studies. The university recently established The Stanley Spector and Richard Yang Undergraduate Student Awards, which support travel for undergraduates interested in deepening their understanding of East Asian languages and cultures.

Yang was author and editor of several books, including “Arthur H. Vandenberg and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (1966), “The Chinese World” (1978), “The World of Asia” (1979), “Chinese Regionalism: The Security Dimension” (1994) and “China’s Military in Transition” (with David L. Shambaugh, 1997).

Yang is survived by his four children, Nigel, Wei-Li, Hwai-Li and Nien-Li; and by five grandchildren: Jeffrey Cameron, Jennifer, Madison and Sofie.

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Barbara A. Schaal, dean of the faculty of Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, presented the annual Arts & Sciences faculty awards at a Sept. 12 reception in Ridgley Hall’s Holmes Lounge.

Megan Daschbach, senior lecturer in chemistry and director of the Chemistry Peer-Led Team-Learning Program, and John Shareshian, professor of mathematics and statistics, received the Arts & Sciences Distinguished Teaching Award.

Lynne Tatlock, the Hortense and Tobias Lewin Distinguished Professor in the Humanities and director of comparative literature, received the Arts & Sciences Faculty Leadership Award.

Schaal established both the Distinguished Teaching Award and the Faculty Leadership Award in 2014 as a way to recognize exceptional commitment to Arts & Sciences and its students.

Janet Duchek, associate professor of psychological and brain sciences, received the David Hadas Teaching Award, which recognizes excellence in teaching first-year undergraduates.

To learn more about the winners, visit The Ampersand.

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The wind in the willows might be the sound of the wetlands breathing.

Respiring bacteria at the water’s edge create greenhouse gasses like methane and nitrous oxide. Scientists from cross disciplines at Washington University in St. Louis are investigating how the abundance of heavy metals in natural wetlands affects how much of these gasses are produced in aquatic systems.

“Many complex factors control how wetlands affect the atmosphere,” said Jeffrey G. Catalano, professor of earth & planetary Sciences in Arts & Sciences, who is directing the study of geochemistry and mineralogy of aquatic systems. “And in natural wetland and streambed soils at least, these biogeochemical processes are not well understood.”

Catalano and collaborator Daniel E. Giammar, the Walter E. Browne Professor of Environmental Engineering in the School of Engineering & Applied Science, have recently been awarded a $540,000 grant from the Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Biological & Environmental Research for their wetlands research.

Wetlands are biologically productive places, but they are sometimes fragile and can be disturbed by human activity. In the warming Arctic, for example, recent studies have drawn attention to how melting permafrost causes microbes to generate additional greenhouse gasses — potentially opening up a feedback loop that leads to greater warming.

In St. Louis — a region that owes much of its history to its location at a confluence of the Missouri and the Mississippi rivers — the local area is laced with waterways large and small.

Catalano and Giammar will conduct some of their field work at a nearby Missouri conservation area as well as at wetlands and streams near Argonne National Laboratory in  Illinois; the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in  Tennessee; and the Savannah River National Laboratory in South Carolina.

Studies with isolated microorganisms in laboratories have demonstrated that when heavy metal abundance is low, key biological pathways associated with microbial carbon and nitrogen cycling are inhibited.

But there have been few studies of such metal limitations in nature.

“We’ve seen the effects in laboratory studies, but what we want to know now is how does it happen in real aquatic systems?” Catalano said.

Previously, under an exploratory project also funded by the DOE, Catalano and his research team showed that adding the heavy metal nickel to sulfur-rich freshwater wetland soil increased methane production by a factor of 10.

Under the new project, the researchers will determine the natural seasonal and spatial dynamics of heavy metal micronutrient abundance in river and marsh wetland soils. They also will evaluate how adding metals to the soils alters methanogenesis (biological methane formation) and other key nutrient cycling activities.

What they learn may shine new light on how humans can accidentally alter how wetlands function.

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The zip of electricity in Martian dust storms helps to form the huge amounts of perchlorate found in the planet’s soils, according to new research from Washington University in St. Louis.

It’s not lightning but another form of electrostatic discharge that packs the key punch in the planet-wide distribution of the reactive chemical, said Alian Wang, research professor in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences in Arts & Sciences.

“We found a new mechanism that can be stimulated by a type of atmospheric event that’s unique to Mars and that occurs frequently, lasts a very long time and covers large areas of the planet — that is, dust storms and dust devils,” Wang said. “It explains the unique, high concentration of an important chemical in Martian soils and that is highly significant in the search for life on Mars.”

The new work is an experimental study that simulates Martian conditions in a laboratory chamber on Earth.

Surprising amount of a reactive chemical

When NASA’s Phoenix Mars Lander arrived on the planet in search for environments suitable for microbial life, researchers were surprised to find high concentrations of perchlorates in the soil — ranging from 0.5 to 1.0 percent.

A popular misconception at the time led some people to believe that perchlorates would kill all Martian microbes. In reality, some microbes are able to use perchlorates as an energy source, although perchlorates are toxic to humans.

The perchlorate ion — made of one chlorine atom and four oxygen atoms — is stable, but chlorate, a related chemical with only three oxygen atoms, is a strong oxidizer as demonstrated by Kaushik Mitra, a Washington University graduate student in earth and planetary sciences.

Wang’s new research shows that chlorate is the first and major product in the pathway of phase transitions from chloride to perchlorate during multiphase redox plasma chemistry — the new mechanism first described Oct. 15 in the journal Earth and Planetary Science Letters.

A source of energy in the storm

On Earth, naturally occurring perchlorates are formed by photochemical reactions powered by sunlight. They’re rare, but they do exist: Perchlorates sourced this way have been found in the soils of hyper arid regions on Earth, such as the Atacama Desert of Chile, Antarctica’s dry valleys or the Qaidam Basin on Tibet Plateau, for example. But Mars has about 10 million times more perchlorates in its soil than would be predicted through this type of photochemistry alone.

Modelers suggested that lightning could provide the energy for these chemical reactions on Mars. But Wang and her Washington University team — which includes Kun Wang (no relation), assistant professor in earth and planetary sciences; Jennifer Houghton, research scientist; and Chuck Yan, engineering technician — were the first to create an actual experimental simulation that demonstrated a yield of chlorate/perchlorate that was 1,000 times the yield generated by photochemistry in the laboratory.

This work was completed in collaboration with Z. C. Wu at the Institute of Space Science, Shandong University in China; William Farrell at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center; and Andrew Jackson at Texas Tech University.

The researchers designed two sets of experiments using a simulator dubbed the Planetary Environment and Analysis Chamber (PEACh), creating a Mars-like atmosphere with similar pressure and temperature conditions.

In the low-density Mars-like atmosphere, which has less than one percent of the atmospheric pressure of the Earth, charged particles are less likely to accumulate at a distance to form the dramatic spiking arc of lightning. Instead, wind events carrying sand and dust are more likely to develop near-surface electric fields that result in either Townsend Dark Discharge, an effect which is not visible, or normal glow discharge — which appears, just as it sounds, as a dim glow.

“If a photo was taken in the evening without sunlight, the normal glow discharge should be seen in the form of a weak light and may last longer than lightning,” Alian Wang said. “Actually, I have suggested to an atmospheric scientist who is working on the Curiosity rover that they should design an evening photo sequence to catch dust devils!”

In the Mars chamber in the laboratory, the research team observed the instantaneous generation of free radicals — molecules with highly reactive unpaired electrons — in normal glow discharge, detected by in situ plasma emission spectroscopy. They also measured the transition of chloride to chlorate, and then to perchlorate through interaction with the free radicals, using laser Raman spectroscopy.

Masking the signs of life

On average, global dust storms on Mars occur once every two Martian years, while regional and local dust storms occur every year.

Wang and her team are confident that their results can be scaled up to general Mars conditions and can help researchers understand the large concentrations of these chemicals in Martian soils.

What’s more, Wang suggests, chlorates produced in large quantities during dust events could be acting as scavengers, reacting with other surface chemicals in such a way that they “clean up” the biosignatures of active microbes — masking or erasing the evidence of life on Mars.

“This study opens a door. It demonstrates the strong oxidation power of electrons in electrostatic discharge process generated by dust events,” she said. “It suggests that electrostatic discharge in Martian dust events can affect many other redox processes in the Mars atmosphere and Mars surface and subsurface, such as iron and sulphur systems as well.”

Read more in the journal Earth and Planetary Science Letters: “Forming perchlorates on Mars through plasma chemistry during dust events.” Available online Oct. 15, 2018.

Funding for this study was provided by NASA and the McDonnell Center for the Space Sciences at Washington University.

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