Environment
November 28, 2012
Hungry salmon a problem for restoration efforts
Food webs needed by young salmon in the Columbia River basin are likely compromised in places, something that should be considered when prioritizing expensive restoration activities.
November 21, 2012
UW rates gold in sustainability assessment, strongest performer in Pac-12
The UW has the strongest sustainability performance in the Pac-12 according to a new rating system.
November 13, 2012
Roots of deadly 2010 India flood identified; findings could improve warnings
UW researchers find the flash flood was set off by a string of unusual weather events similar to those that caused catastrophic U.S. floods in the 1970s.
November 8, 2012
UW electronics-recycling pledge: Prevent harm to people, environment
The University of Washington has become the first university nationally to sign the e-Stewards Enterprise Commitment, a pledge to be globally responsible in recycling electronic equipment.
October 24, 2012
University of Washington launches research phase of smart grid project
The University of Washington marked the start of the data-gathering phase of the UW Smart Grid Project with an event featuring Washington’s two US Senators.
October 18, 2012
Energy a focus of third annual Sustainability Summit
Next week will be the University of Washington’s third Sustainability Summit, an annual event that celebrates leadership and accomplishments in environmental stewardship and sustainability.
October 17, 2012
Scientists building crowdsourced encyclopedia to further Puget Sound recovery
Representatives of the Encyclopedia of Earth and the Encyclopedia of Life will be on the University of Washington campus Wednesday, Oct. 24, for the public launch of an encyclopedia unique to Puget Sound.
October 12, 2012
U.S. fish and wildlife director, a UW alum, considers challenges posed by landscape changes
It’s time to think differently about how we interact with nature because we’re increasingly disconnected from the natural world, said Dan Ashe during visit to campus.
October 2, 2012
News Digest: Fish and Wildlife director speaks Oct. 3, Rideshare options in face of bus cuts
Fish and Wildlife director, a UW alum, speaks Oct. 3 || UW Rideshare options in face of Metro bus route cuts
UW scientists team with Coast Guard to explore ice-free Arctic Ocean
UW scientists are teaming with the U.S. Coast Guard to study the new frontier in the Arctic Ocean opened up with the melting ice.
October 1, 2012
UW composer fills arboretum byways with her ‘Music of Trees’
A UW doctoral student in musical composition uses sounds from the Washington Park Arboretum to create music that’s part natural, part imagined.
September 23, 2012
Large bacterial population colonized land 2.75 billion years ago
New University of Washington research suggests that early microbes might have been widespread on land, producing oxygen before the atmosphere was oxygen-rich.
September 20, 2012
The original Twitter? Tiny electronic tags monitor birds’ social networks
A tiny digital tag developed at the UW can for the first time see when birds meet in the wild, offering a window into animal social networks. A study in Current Biology used the tags to track the social habits of New Caledonian crows, and found a surprising amount of interaction among the tool-using birds.
September 17, 2012
Shrinking snow depth on Arctic sea ice threatens ringed seal habitat
Scientists found that the habitat required for ringed seals — animals under consideration for the threatened species list — to rear their young will drastically shrink this century.
September 12, 2012
UW celebrates opening of new Molecular Engineering & Sciences Building
The UW’s new Molecular Engineering and Sciences Building opens this fall with a series of kick-off events focused on this emerging area of research. The associated Institute will focus on research applications in medicine and clean energy.
September 10, 2012
Crows react to threats in human-like way
Crows and humans share the ability to recognize faces and associate them with negative and positive feelings. The way the brain activates during that process is something the two species also appear to share.
September 5, 2012
Dinosaur die out might have been second of two closely timed extinctions
New UW research indicates that shortly before an asteroid impact spelled doom for the dinosaurs, a separate extinction triggered by volcanic eruptions killed life on the ocean floor.
September 4, 2012
Gardener’s delight offers glimpse into the evolution of flowering plants
Double flowers – though beautiful – are mutants. UW biologists have found the class of genes responsible in a plant lineage more ancient than the one previously studied, offering a glimpse even further back into the evolutionary development of flowers.
August 21, 2012
66th field season underway in world’s longest-running effort to monitor salmon
The UW’s Alaska Salmon Program, now in its 66th field season, focuses not just on fisheries management, but on ecology and evolution as well, and has just won a top fisheries prize.
August 20, 2012
Experiment would test cloud geoengineering as way to slow warming
A University of Washington scientist has proposed an experiment to test cloud brightening, a geoengineering concept that alters clouds in an effort to counter global warming.
August 15, 2012
Detection dogs spot northern spotted owls, even those alarmed by barred owls
Forest searches using specially trained dogs improved the probability of finding spotted owls by nearly 30 percent over traditional vocalization surveys.
August 14, 2012
New book explores Noah’s Flood; says Bible and science can get along
David Montgomery, a University of Washington geologist, is the author of a new book that explores the long history of religious thinking on matters of geological discovery, particularly flood stories such as the biblical account of Noah’s ark.
UW named America’s fourth ‘coolest’ school by Sierra magazine
The University of Washington again has been ranked among the coolest schools in America, placing fourth this year, according to Sierra Magazine.
August 2, 2012
Bears, scavengers count on all-you-can-eat salmon buffet lasting for months
Salmon conservation shouldn’t narrowly focus on managing flows in streams and rivers or on preserving only places that currently have strong salmon runs. Instead, watersheds need a good mix of steep, cold-running streams and slower, meandering streams of warmer water to keep options open for salmon adapted to reproduce better in one setting than the…
July 31, 2012
Critically endangered whales sing like birds; new recordings hint at rebound — with audio
When a University of Washington researcher listened to the audio picked up by a recording device that spent a year in the icy waters off the east coast of Greenland, she was stunned at what she heard: whales singing a remarkable variety of songs nearly constantly for five wintertime months. Listen to the bowheads repeat…
July 13, 2012
Robert J. Naiman earns award for insights into freshwater ecosystems
Robert J. Naiman has received the highest award given by the Ecological Society of America, the world’s largest society of professional ecologists.
June 12, 2012
Novel scientific equipment will unlock ocean secrets for decades — with slide show
University of Washington engineers and scientists are one step closer to deploying sophisticated equipment that will collect important information about ocean properties like currents and temperature and send the information via the Internet in real time to scientists around the world.
June 6, 2012
Too few salmon is far worse than too many boats for killer whales – with slide show
Not having enough Chinook salmon to eat stresses out southern resident killer whales more than having boatloads of whale watchers nearby, according to hormone levels of whales summering in the Salish Sea. In lean times, however, the stress normally associated with boats becomes more pronounced, further underscoring the importance of having enough prey.
June 4, 2012
Nuclear and coal-fired electrical plants vulnerable to climate change
In a study published this week in Nature Climate Change, University of Washington and European scientists project that in the next 50 years global climate change will disrupt power generation in the U.S. and Europe. Warmer water and lower flows are predicted to interrupt the supply of cooling water.
May 25, 2012
It's in the genes: Research pinpoints how plants know when to flower
Scientists believe they’ve pinpointed the last crucial piece of the 80-year-old puzzle of how plants “know” when to flower. Understanding how flowering works in a simple plant should lead to a better understanding of how the same genes work in more complex plants such as rice and wheat.
May 21, 2012
Inaugural Conservation Remix aims to foster creative thinking about environment
Conservation Remix, a daylong event June 2 organized by UW staff with Conservation Magazine and biology, offers an eclectic mix of topics for discussion – from designing superefficient buildings that generate their own energy to controlling invasive species by eating them.
May 14, 2012
Nearly one-tenth of hemisphere’s mammals unlikely to outrun climate change
A safe haven could be out of reach for 9 percent of the Western Hemisphere’s mammals, and as much as 40 percent in certain regions, because the animals just won’t move swiftly enough to outpace climate change, according to new research from the UW School of Environmental and Forest Sciences.
May 7, 2012
New research brings satellite measurements and global climate models closer
UW researchers have discovered a problem with a climate record that is often cited by climate change skeptics.
May 3, 2012
Increasing speed of Greenland glaciers gives new insight for rising sea level
Changes in the speed that ice travels in more than 200 outlet glaciers indicates that Greenland’s contribution to rising sea level in the 21st century might be significantly less than the upper limits some scientists thought possible, a new study shows.
May 2, 2012
Handful of heavyweight trees per acre are forest champs
Big trees three or more feet in diameter accounted for nearly half the biomass measured at a Yosemite National Park site, yet represented only 1 percent of the trees growing there.
April 25, 2012
Wind pushes plastics deeper into oceans, driving trash estimates up (with video)
Decades of research into how much plastic litters the ocean, conducted by skimming only the surface, may in some cases vastly underestimate the true amount of plastic debris in the oceans, according to a University of Washington oceanographer publishing in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.
April 20, 2012
UW awards six Husky Green Awards for 2012
Winners of the third annual Husky Green Awards were announced Friday during Earth Day activities.
April 12, 2012
Annual campus Earth Day events April 20 during HuskyFest
The annual campus observation of Earth Day Friday, April 20, coincides this year with HuskyFest.
April 11, 2012
Space weather forecast: Sunspotty, with an increasing chance of solar storms
Electrical engineering professor John Sahr gives his read on the increase in solar activity, and how it relates to his research.
March 30, 2012
Bigger, bolder, greener: The 2012 UW Environmental Innovation Challenge (with video)
The fourth Environmental Innovation Challenge was the biggest yet. The winning team proposes to replace concrete lane dividers with ones made from recycled rubber tires. Other student teams presented their prototypes for emergency shelters, rooftop gardens, nonstick cookware and other green businesses.
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