Research

September 24, 2018

Burst of morning gene activity tells plants when to flower

Arabidopsis thaliana plants flowering outside under natural light.

For angiosperms — or flowering plants — one of the most important decisions facing them each year is when to flower. It is no trivial undertaking. To flower, they must cease vegetative growth and commit to making those energetically expensive reproductive structures that will bring about the next generation. Knowledge of this process at the cellular level is critical for understanding how plants allocate resources and produce the components we care most about — including the grains, tubers, leaves, nuts…

September 20, 2018

Even toddlers weigh risks, rewards when making choices

A University of Washington study finds that young toddlers conduct a form of cost-benefit analysis in deciding whether to help someone. Photo of blocks at an infant's feet.

A University of Washington study finds that 18-month-old toddlers conduct a form of cost-benefit analysis, making choices based on how much effort they want to expend, or on whether they like the people involved.

September 19, 2018

DNA testing of illegal ivory seized by law enforcement links multiple ivory shipments to same dealers

African elephants examining a bone from another elephant

The international trade in elephant ivory has been illegal since 1989, yet African elephant numbers continue to decline. In 2016, the International Union for Conservation of Nature cited ivory poaching as a primary reason for a staggering loss of about 111,000 elephants between 2005 and 2015 — leaving their total numbers at an estimated 415,000. For media Download soundbites, b-roll and images In a paper published Sept. 19 in the journal Science Advances, an international team led by scientists at…

NSF awards contract to carry OOI into the next decade and beyond

The National Science Foundation will support a state-of-the-art marine facility that continues delivering data and new insight to the ocean science community, policymakers and the public worldwide.

September 17, 2018

Shift in large-scale Atlantic circulation causes lower-oxygen water to invade Canada’s Gulf of St. Lawrence

Rapid deoxygenation in the Gulf of St. Lawrence is caused by shifts in two of the ocean’s most powerful currents: the Gulf Stream and the Labrador Current. A detailed model shows that large-scale climate change is causing oxygen to drop in the deeper parts of this biologically rich waterway.

September 15, 2018

Video: Dry and warm — summer 2018 conditions in Washington state

The assistant state climatologist, Karin Bumbaco, looks back on an unusually hot and dry summer — the third-hottest summer that Washington state has experienced since 1895.

September 12, 2018

Three UW teams receive TRIPODS+X grants for research in data science

The National Science Foundation announced on Sept. 11 that it is awarding grants totaling $8.5 million to 19 collaborative projects at 23 universities for the study of complex and entrenched problems in data science. Three of these projects will be based at the University of Washington and led by researchers in the College of Engineering and the College of Arts & Sciences.

September 10, 2018

Evans School professor Justin Marlowe appointed to Washington Governor’s Council of Economic Advisors

Justin Marlowe, a professor in the UW’s Evans School of Public Policy & Governance, has been named a member of Washington Governor Jay Inslee’s Council of Economic Advisors. He will be among those advising the governor on local and state economic conditions and national developments that affect state policies.

UW polar scientists advised NASA on upcoming ICESat-2 satellite

Two UW polar scientists were among a dozen experts who advised NASA on its upcoming ICESat-2 mission to monitor the 3D surface of the Earth. The mission is scheduled to launch Sept. 15 from California.

September 6, 2018

Volcano under ice sheet suggests thickening of West Antarctic ice is short-term

animation of straight blue line over bumpy base

Evidence left by a volcano under the ice sheet suggests that the observed bulging of ice in West Antarctica is a short-term feature that may not affect the glacier’s motion over the long term.

September 4, 2018

NSF to fund new $25M software institute to enable discoveries in high-energy physics

A simulation of a particle physics experiment.

On Sept. 4 the National Science Foundation announced the creation of the Institute for Research and Innovation in Software for High Energy Physics, or IRIS-HEP. The institute is a coalition of 17 research institutions, including the University of Washington, and will receive $25 million from the NSF over five years.

UW-based center updates name to highlight role of ‘neurotechnologies’ in healing the brain and spinal cord

The Center for Sensorimotor Neural Engineering is updating its name to the Center for Neurotechnology (CNT) to highlight the key role that neurotechnologies play in its mission.

August 30, 2018

Climate change projected to boost insect activity and crop loss, researchers say

In a paper published Aug. 31 in the journal Science, a team led by scientists at the University of Washington reports that insect activity in today’s temperate, crop-growing regions will rise along with temperatures. Researchers project that this activity, in turn, will boost worldwide losses of rice, corn and wheat by 10-25 percent for each degree Celsius that global mean surface temperatures rise.

Working class heroes: A look inside the Labor Archives of Washington

An exploration of UW Libraries’ Labor Archives of Washington with labor archivist Conor Casey.

August 23, 2018

Hack week: Study supports collaborative, participant-driven approach for researchers to learn data science from their peers

Scientists working together on computer projects.

A team from the University of Washington, New York University and the University of California, Berkeley has developed an interactive workshop in data science for researchers at multiple stages of their careers. The course format, called “hack week,” blends elements from both traditional lecture-style pedagogy with participant-driven projects.

August 21, 2018

Bus battle: Do private shuttles affect the reliability of public transit?

a bus on the street stopped at a bus stop

Last year, King County Metro and the Seattle Department of Transportation started a pilot program that allowed Microsoft’s and Seattle Children’s Hospital’s private shuttles to pick up employees at a few public bus stops throughout Seattle. Now a recent study from researchers at the University of Washington suggests that public buses are unaffected by private shuttles most of the time.

Do persistent babies make for successful adults?

University of Washington researchers argue that greater study of infant persistence can shed light on the factors that instill this trait, and the outcomes that may emerge from it later in life. Photo of baby playing in sandbox.

University of Washington researchers argue that further study of why infants persist, and to what end, may shed new light on how they learn and what the future yields.

Policy pivot: A new emphasis on restoration to protect Puget Sound

University of Washington researchers have found policies are shifting toward restoration projects that include input from more groups and offer a range of benefits to Puget Sound, including flood control, salmon recovery, recreation and habitat protection.

August 20, 2018

California plain shows surprising winners and losers from prolonged drought

Meticulously tracking of 423 species before, during and after the worst droughts to hit California in more than a thousand years shows surprising patterns. Key prey species plummeted in the third year of the drought, and carnivores were hardest hit in later years.

August 16, 2018

Men and women show surprising differences in seeing motion

A University of Washington-led study finds differences in the ways men and women see motion.

A new UW-led study shows that males and female process visual motion differently, a variation that may be attributable to a neural regulatory process that is different in the male brain.

August 15, 2018

Flying blind: How a drone can soar without using GPS

Researchers at the University of Washington have developed a new method that gives aircraft a backup system in case GPS fails: An antenna on the ground that can tell a drone where it is. The team successfully tested their system in June.

August 14, 2018

Diving robots find Antarctic winter seas exhale surprising amounts of carbon dioxide

A new study led by the University of Washington uses data gathered by floating drones in the Southern Ocean over past winters to learn how much carbon dioxide is transferred by the surrounding seas. Results show that in winter the open water nearest the sea ice surrounding Antarctica releases significantly more carbon dioxide than previously believed.

August 13, 2018

Information School’s Hans Scholl on promises, cautions of ‘digital government’

Hans Scholl, professor in the UW Information School, discusses the challenges and opportunities of digital government. The website Apolitical has named him among the “Top 100 Most Influential People in digital government.”

August 9, 2018

For UW physicists, the 2-D form of tungsten ditelluride is full of surprises

In a paper published online July 23 in the journal Nature, a UW-led research team reports that the 2-D form of tungsten ditelluride can undergo “ferroelectric switching.” Materials with ferroelectric properties can have applications in memory storage, capacitors, RFID card technologies and even medical sensors — and tungsten ditelluride is the first exfoliated 2-D material known to undergo ferroelectric switching.

August 7, 2018

NIH awards University of Washington, partner institutions $6.5M for reusable, reproducible biomedical modeling

The NIH has awarded a $6.5 million, five-year grant to the University of Washington and partner institutions to establish the Center for Reproducible Biomedical Modeling. The center’s primary goal is to develop more effective predictive models of biological systems, which are used in research and medicine.

Evans School to study effects of Seattle’s sick leave ordinance

Hilary Wething, a doctoral student in the University of Washington’s Evans School of Public Policy & Governance, has received a grant to study the effects of Seattle’s law requiring paid sick leave.

August 6, 2018

Alexa, be my friend: Children talk to technology, but how does it respond?

When young children talk to voice-activated technologies, the devices don’t always respond in a helpful way. A new University of Washington study suggests that these interfaces could be designed to be more responsive – repeating or prompting the user, for example – and be more useful to more people.

August 3, 2018

UW, PNNL to host energy research center focusing on bio-inspired design and assembly

The U.S. Department of Energy has awarded an expected $10.75 million, four-year grant to the University of Washington, the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and other partner institutions for a new interdisciplinary research center to define the enigmatic rules that govern how molecular-scale building blocks assemble into ordered structures and give rise to complex hierarchical materials.

August 2, 2018

UW books in brief: Urban diaries, battling Jim Crow on campus and more

Recent notable books by University of Washington authors tell of the struggle to break free of racism in higher education, taking an “urban diary” approach to documenting city life and more.

August 1, 2018

Harmful dyes in lakes, rivers can become colorless with new, sponge-like material

A team led by the University of Washington has created an environmentally friendly way to remove color from dyes in water in a matter of seconds.

July 30, 2018

Sea-level rise report contains best projections yet for Washington’s coasts

A University of Washington report provides the best projections yet for sea-level rise due to climate change at 171 sites along Washington’s coasts.

July 25, 2018

And then there was (more) light: Researchers boost performance quality of perovskites

In a paper published online this spring in the journal Nature Photonics, scientists at the University of Washington report that a prototype semiconductor thin-film has performed even better than today’s best solar cell materials at emitting light.

July 23, 2018

Study shows why eastern U.S. air pollution levels are more stagnant in winter

Observations over the eastern U.S. show why emissions reductions haven’t achieved the same results in winter as they have in summer.

July 18, 2018

Atlantic Ocean circulation is not collapsing – but as it shifts gears, global warming will reaccelerate

Depiction of Atlantic circulation with red arrows pointing north and blue arrows pointing south.

New research suggests the Atlantic Ocean is transitioning back to its slower phase, which means average global air temperatures will go back to rising more quickly.

July 9, 2018

Oxygen levels on early Earth rose and fell several times before the successful Great Oxidation Event

The Jeerinah Formation in Western Australia, where a UW-led team found a nitrogen isotope "excursion." “Nitrogen isotopes tell a story about oxygenation of the surface ocean, and this oxygenation spans hundreds of kilometers across a marine basin and lasts for somewhere less than 50 million years," said lead author Matt Koehler.

Earth’s oxygen levels rose and fell more than once hundreds of millions of years before the planetwide success of the Great Oxidation Event about 2.4 billion years ago, new research from the University of Washington shows.

July 2, 2018

Study identifies which marine mammals are most at risk from increased Arctic ship traffic

Regions of Arctic water are becoming ice-free in late summer and early fall. A new study is the first to consider potential impacts on the marine mammals that use this region and identify which populations will be the most vulnerable to ships.

Q&A: What can we learn from the hidden history of technology design?

Close up of the Arduino microcontroller on the quilt

University of Washington assistant professor of human centered design and engineering Daniela Rosner explores some hidden histories in technology design in her new book “Critical Fabulations.” The book highlights the idea that design stories from the past can show today’s designers how to create more inclusive technology.

June 27, 2018

To tell the sex of a Galápagos penguin, measure its beak, researchers say

In a paper published April 5 in the journal Endangered Species Research, scientists at the University of Washington announced that, for a Galápagos penguin, beak size is nearly a perfect indicator of whether a bird is male or female.