Research
September 8, 2020
How birth control, girls’ education can slow population growth
Education and family planning have long been tied to lower fertility trends. But new research from the University of Washington analyzes those factors to determine, what accelerates a decline in otherwise high-fertility countries.
September 4, 2020
Mask mandates delayed by nearly a month in Republican-led states, UW study finds
Political science researchers at the University of Washington examined the factors associated with statewide mask mandates during the COVID-19 pandemic. When controlling for other factors, states with Republican governors delayed imposing broad indoor mask requirements by nearly a month.
September 2, 2020
UW Books: Climate change meets restoration science in ‘Anticipating Future Environments’; ‘Building Reuse’ in paperback — and Anu Taranath’s ‘Beyond Guilt Trips’ named a Washington State Book Award finalist
Recent news about UW-authored books includes a UW Press book on salmon habitat restoration amid climate change and a paperback edition of a book on building reuse. Also, Anu Taranath’s “Beyond Guilt Trips: Mindful Travel in an Unequal World” is a Washington State Book Award finalist.
August 31, 2020
UW receives NSF funds for investment in an interdisciplinary quantum future
The National Science Foundation has awarded $3 million to establish a NSF Research Traineeship at the University of Washington for graduate students in quantum information science and technology. The new traineeship — known as Accelerating Quantum-Enabled Technologies, or AQET — will make the UW one of just “a handful” of universities with a formal, interdisciplinary QIST curriculum.
August 27, 2020
Frequently asked questions: torpor in Antarctic Lystrosaurus
This FAQ discusses evidence for a hibernation-like condition in Lystrosaurus, a mammal relative that lived in the Antarctic portion of Pangea about 250 million years ago. This discovery was enabled by high-resolution of incremental growth marks preserved in the tusks of Lystrosaurus.
Weathering the tough times: Fossil evidence of ‘hibernation-like’ state in 250-million-year-old Antarctic animal
University of Washington scientists report evidence of a hibernation-like state in Lystrosaurus, an animal that lived in Antarctica during the Early Triassic, some 250 million years ago. The fossils are the oldest evidence of a hibernation-like state in a vertebrate, and indicate that torpor — a general term for hibernation and similar states in which animals temporarily lower their metabolic rate to get through a tough season — arose in vertebrates even before mammals and dinosaurs evolved.
August 26, 2020
Faculty from Allen School, Evans School tapped for NSF institutes on artificial intelligence
The National Science Foundation has announced five new institutes devoted to AI research and based at universities around the country. Six University of Washington faculty will be affiliated with the institutes.
Mount Everest summit success rates double, death rate stays the same over last 30 years
A new study led by researchers at the University of Washington and the University of California, Davis, finds that the success rate of summiting Mount Everest has doubled in the last three decades, even though the number of climbers has greatly increased, crowding the narrow route through the dangerous “death zone” near the summit. However, the death rate for climbers has hovered unchanged at around 1% since 1990.
August 25, 2020
Terms in Seattle-area rental ads reinforce neighborhood segregation, study says
A new University of Washington study of Seattle-area rental ads shows how certain words and phrases are common to different neighborhoods, helping to reinforce residential segregation.
August 21, 2020
Failure to ‘flatten the curve’ may kill more people than we thought
New research by the University of Minnesota and the University of Washington finds that every six additional ICU beds or seven additional non-ICU beds filled by COVID-19 patients leads to one additional COVID-19 death over the following week. “A spike in hospitalization naturally leads to more deaths, but these deaths may not only come from…
August 20, 2020
February lockdown in China caused a drop in some types of air pollution, but not others
Atmospheric nitrogen dioxide, which comes from transportation, was half of what would be expected over China in February 2020. Other emissions and cloud properties, however, showed no significant changes.
August 18, 2020
Data omission in key EPA insecticide study shows need for review of industry analysis
For nearly 50 years, a statistical omission tantamount to data falsification sat undiscovered in a critical study at the heart of regulating one of the most controversial and widely used pesticides in America. Chlorpyrifos, an insecticide created in the late 1960s by the Dow Chemical Co., has been linked to serious health problems, especially in children….
August 14, 2020
UW team developing model to help lower COVID-19 infections in King County, guide eventual vaccine distribution
A UW team has received a grant to develop a model that uses local data to generate policy recommendations that could help lower COVID-19 infections in King County.
August 13, 2020
Systemic racism has consequences for all life in cities
Social inequalities, specifically racism and classism, are impacting the biodiversity, evolutionary shifts and ecological health of plants and animals in our cities. That’s the main finding of a review paper published Aug. 13 in Science led by the University of Washington, with co-authors at the University of California, Berkeley, and University of Michigan.
August 3, 2020
New studies show how to save parasites and why it’s important
An international group of scientists has laid out an ambitious global conservation plan for parasites. A related paper led by the University of Washington found that responses of parasites to environmental change are likely to be complex, and that a changing world probably will see both outbreaks of some parasites and a total loss of other parasite species.
July 30, 2020
Deep-sea anglerfishes have evolved a new type of immune system
Deep-sea anglerfishes employ an incredible reproductive strategy. Tiny dwarfed males become permanently attached to relatively gigantic females, fuse their tissues and then establish a common blood circulation. Now scientists have figured out why female anglerfishes so readily accept their male mates. Their findings are published July 30 in Science.
July 29, 2020
UW Libraries publishes new online research guides on racial justice, African American experience in Pacific Northwest
UW Libraries has published timely new online guides to help researchers studying the Black experience in the Pacific Northwest and the broader topic of racial justice.
July 27, 2020
Pristine air over Southern Ocean suggests early industrial era’s clouds not so different from today’s
A new study led by the University of Washington and the University of Leeds uses satellite data over the Southern Hemisphere to understand the makeup of global clouds since the Industrial Revolution. This research tackles one of the largest uncertainties in today’s climate models — the long-term effect of tiny atmospheric particles on climate change.
July 20, 2020
Legal marijuana may be slowing reductions in teen marijuana use, study says
A longitudinal study of more than 230 teens and young adults in Washington state finds that teens may be more likely to use marijuana following legalization – with the proliferation of stores and increasing adult use of the drug — than they otherwise would have been.
July 16, 2020
Faculty/staff honors: ‘Architect’ magazine award, national society president-elect, library research honor — and runner-up for a national award for young scientists
Recent honors to University of Washington faculty and staff have come from Architect magazine, the Center for Research Libraries, member states of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) and the American Society of Human Genetics.
July 15, 2020
A GoPro for beetles: Researchers create a robotic camera backpack for insects
Researchers at the University of Washington have developed a tiny wireless steerable camera that can ride aboard an insect or an insect-sized robot.
June 29, 2020
Trouble paying medical bills can lead to longer episodes of homelessness, new study shows
A new University of Washington study of people experiencing homelessness in King County finds that unpaid medical bills were their primary source of debt, and that debt extended their period of homelessness by an average of two years.
UW Tacoma’s Eric Madfis explores curbing school violence in new book
A talk with Eric Madfis of UW Tacoma about his new book “How to Stop School Rampage Killing: Lessons from Averted Mass Shootings and Bombings,” published this spring by Palgrave MacMillan.
June 25, 2020
Sleep improving for university students under stay-at-home orders
In a study published June 10 in Current Biology, a team from the University of Colorado Boulder and the University of Washington reports that a group of students at CU Boulder generally got more sleep after widespread stay-at-home orders and social distancing guidelines were put into place in mid-March.
June 24, 2020
Puget Sound eelgrass beds create a ‘halo’ with fewer harmful algae, new method shows
Genetic clues show that eelgrass growing underwater along Puget Sound shorelines is associated with fewer of the single-celled algae that produce harmful toxins in shellfish. The evidence shows this effect extends 45 feet beyond the edge of the eelgrass bed.
Study asks Washington state residents to describe food security and access during pandemic, economic downturn
A new online survey for Washington state residents has launched to gather data on how the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent economic downturn have affected food access and economic security. The Washington State Food Security Survey, which went live June 18 and runs through July 31, is open to all Washington state residents aged 18 or over.
June 23, 2020
Laser allows solid-state refrigeration of a semiconductor material
A team from the University of Washington used an infrared laser to cool a solid semiconductor by at least 20 degrees C, or 36 F, below room temperature, as they report in a paper published June 23 in Nature Communications.
75% of US workers can’t work exclusively from home, face greater risks during pandemic
About three-quarters of U.S. workers, or 108 million people, are in jobs that cannot be done from home during a pandemic, putting these workers at increased risk of exposure to disease. This majority of workers are also at higher risk for other job disruptions such as layoffs, furloughs or hours reductions, a University of Washington…
June 17, 2020
UW book notes: Physician Morhaf Al Achkar publishes memoir ‘Being Authentic’; Lambda Literary award for UW Tacoma’s Emily Thuma
UW family physician Morhaf Al Achkar publishes memoir “Being Authentic,” and a Lambda Literary award goes to UW Tacoma’s Emily Thuma.
Is the air getting cleaner during the COVID-19 pandemic?
Using air quality data from U.S. Environmental Protection Agency monitors across the U.S., a UW-led team looked for changes in two common pollutants over the course of 2020.
June 16, 2020
UW reinvents summer research, internships during COVID-19
The COVID-19 Clearinghouse at UW Law is just one of the ways that faculty and staff across the university have revamped summer research internships and worked with outside partners and employers to involve students in a remote working environment, even for jobs that would normally be out in the field.
June 11, 2020
Scientists close in on 12 billion-year-old signal from the end of the universe’s ‘dark age’
When the universe was in its infancy, it contained no stars at all. And an international team of scientists is closer than ever to detecting, measuring and studying a signal from this era that has been traveling through the cosmos ever since that starless era ended some 13 billion years ago.
June 9, 2020
Volcanic activity and changes in Earth’s mantle were key to rise of atmospheric oxygen
Evidence from rocks billions of years old suggest that volcanoes played a key role in the rise of oxygen in the atmosphere of the early Earth.
June 8, 2020
Early childhood intervention programs may reap benefits across generations
New research from a decades-long study by the University of Washington and the University of Colorado shows long-term benefits from a program to prevent problem behaviors in children.
June 4, 2020
UW guidelines helping to ramp up research safely during COVID-19
Mary Lidstrom, vice provost for research at the University of Washington, talks about the evolving picture of research at the UW in light of the COVID-19 pandemic.
June 2, 2020
Faculty/staff honors: East Asia Resource Center grant; career awards in robotics, information processing
Recent honors to UW faculty and staff have come from the British Computer Society Information Retrieval Specialist Group, the Freeman Foundation and the IEEE.
May 29, 2020
Researchers use brain imaging to demonstrate weaker neural suppression in individuals with autism
In a paper published May 29 in Nature Communications, a team of scientists at the University of Washington, the University of Minnesota and the Johns Hopkins University reports that differences in visual motion perception in autism spectrum disorder are accompanied by weaker neural “suppression” in the visual cortex of the brain, which may help scientists understand sensory hypersensitivity in people with ASD.
May 28, 2020
The most common organism in the oceans harbors a virus in its DNA
A new study in Nature Microbiology shows that the most common organism in the world’s oceans — and possibly the whole planet — harbors a virus in its DNA. This virus may have helped it survive and outcompete other organisms. The study began as a UW School of Oceanography senior thesis.
May 27, 2020
Cosmic bursts unveil universe’s missing matter
An international team of astronomers has used mysterious fast radio bursts to solve a decades-old mystery of “missing matter,” material long predicted to exist in the universe but never detected — until now. The researchers have now found all of the missing “normal” matter in the vast space between stars and galaxies. The team, which includes scientists based in Australia, the United States and Chile, announced its findings in a paper published May 27 in the journal Nature.
May 21, 2020
Survey follow-up: UW research team seeks campus input on continuing COVID-19 mobility impacts
Three professors are teaming for a study of the mobility impacts of the coronavirus — and they are inviting UW faculty, staff and students to complete a short online survey to assist the research.
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