Science
October 16, 2017
UW researchers mark first detection of gravitational waves from collision of two neutron stars
For the first time, scientists have detected gravitational waves from the merger of two neutron stars.
October 12, 2017
UW names second CSE building the Bill & Melinda Gates Center for Computer Science & Engineering
The University of Washington Board of Regents on Thursday approved the naming of the new computer science building under construction on the Seattle campus as the Bill & Melinda Gates Center for Computer Science & Engineering. The naming of the building was made possible by gifts from Microsoft Corp. and a group of local business and philanthropic leaders who are longtime friends and colleagues of the couple.
October 9, 2017
Paul Bodin named interim director of Pacific Northwest Seismic Network
Paul Bodin, a UW seismologist and manager of the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network, has been named interim director of the network that monitors earthquakes and volcanoes in Washington and Oregon.
October 6, 2017
3 UW researchers chosen for NIH High-Risk, High-Rewards program
Three University of Washington faculty members are among those honored with an NIH High-Risk, High-Reward Research grant, which fund exceptionally creative scientists proposing to use highly innovative approaches to tackle major challenges in biomedical research.
October 5, 2017
Northwest climate science community gathers Oct. 9-11 in Tacoma
The eighth annual Northwest Climate Conference will take place in Tacoma, and begins with a free public discussion featuring UW experts on Monday evening.
October 4, 2017
Study points to win-win for spotted owls and forest management
A new study has found that cover in tall trees is the key habitat requirement for the spotted owl, not total canopy cover. It indicated that spotted owls largely avoid cover created by stands of shorter trees.
New portable blood analyzer could improve anemia detection worldwide
To reduce the burden of anemia worldwide, health officials need a portable and affordable way to analyze blood. Mechanical engineering researchers at the University of Washington developed a device smaller than a toaster that can detect the level of hemoglobin in whole blood samples using optical absorbance.
October 2, 2017
UW alumnus Jeffrey C. Hall awarded the 2017 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
The Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institute has awarded the 2017 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine jointly to Jeffrey C. Hall — an alumnus of the University of Washington — along with Michael Rosbash and Michael W. Young “for their discoveries of molecular mechanisms controlling the circadian rhythm,” according to an announcement Monday morning.
September 28, 2017
Lisa M. Zurk named executive director of UW Applied Physics Laboratory
Lisa Zurk, a UW aluma in electrical engineering, professor at Portland State University and program manager at DARPA, will become the eighth director of the UW’s Applied Physics Laboratory.
September 25, 2017
UW to host $15.6M NSF-funded center for innovation, education in materials science
The University of Washington is home to a new national center of excellence for research, education and training in materials science. The Molecular Engineering Materials Center is funded by a $15.6 million, six-year grant from the National Science Foundation as part of its highly competitive Materials Research Science and Engineering Center (MRSEC) program.
Group project? Taking turns, working with friends may improve grades
It has become an almost essential element of academic life, from college lecture halls to elementary classrooms: the group assignment. Dreaded by some, loved by others, group projects typically aim to build teamwork and accountability while students learn about a topic. But depending on the assignment and the structure of the groups, a project…
September 21, 2017
Scott Montgomery makes case for nuclear power in new book ‘Seeing the Light’
Scott L. Montgomery of the UW Jackson School of International Studies discusses his new book, “Seeing the Light: The Case for Nuclear power in the 21st Century.”
Hacking a pressure sensor to track gradual motion along marine faults
University of Washington oceanographers are working with a local company to develop a simple new technique that could track seafloor movement in earthquake-prone coastal areas.
September 20, 2017
Wave Glider surfs across stormy Drake Passage in Antarctica
A hardy ocean drone made a first-ever attempt to surf across Antarctica’s stormy Drake Passage gathering data about ocean mixing.
September 18, 2017
Catching a diversity of fish species — instead of specializing — means more stable income for fishers
Researchers analyzed nearly 30 years of revenue and permitting records for individuals fishing in Alaskan waters and tracked how their fishing choices, in terms of permits purchased and species caught, influenced their year-to-year income volatility.
September 14, 2017
Old fish few and far between under fishing pressure
A new study by University of Washington scientists has found that, for dozens of fish populations around the globe, old fish are greatly depleted — mainly because of fishing pressure. The paper, published online Sept. 14 in Current Biology, is the first to report that old fish are missing in many populations around the world.
People of color exposed to more pollution from cars, trucks, power plants during 10-year period
A new nationwide study finds that the U.S. made little progress from 2000 to 2010 in reducing relative disparities between people of color and whites in exposure to harmful air pollution emitted by cars, trucks and other combustion sources.
September 13, 2017
Climate change challenges the survival of fish across the world
Climate change will force many amphibians, mammals and birds to move to cooler areas outside their normal ranges, provided they can find space and a clear trajectory among our urban developments and growing cities. But what are the chances for fish to survive as climate change continues to warm waters around the world? University…
UW team shatters long-range communication barrier for devices that consume almost no power
UW researchers have demonstrated for the first time that devices that run on almost zero power can transmit data across distances of up to 2.8 kilometers — breaking a long-held barrier and potentially enabling a vast array of interconnected devices.
September 7, 2017
Ship exhaust makes oceanic thunderstorms more intense
More than a decade of lightning strikes over the Indian Ocean shows for the first time that ship exhaust along major shipping routes alters thunderstorm intensity.
Land-sea experiment will track earthquakes, volcanoes along Alaska Peninsula
The National Science Foundation is funding the largest marine seismic-monitoring effort yet along the Alaska Peninsula, a region with frequent and diverse earthquake and volcanic activity. Involving aircraft and ships, the new Alaska Amphibious Community Seismic Experiment will be led by Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, with partners at the University of Washington and…
September 6, 2017
PupilScreen aims to allow parents, coaches, medics to detect concussion, brain injuries with a smartphone
University of Washington researchers are developing a smartphone app that is capable of objectively detecting concussion and other traumatic brain injuries in the field, which could provide a new level of screening for athletes and accident victims.
Earth as hybrid planet: New classification scheme places Anthropocene era in astrobiological context
A team of researchers including the UW’s Marina Alberti has devised a new classification scheme for the evolutionary stages of worlds based on “non-equilibrium thermodynamics” — a planet’s energy flow being out of synch, as the presence of life could cause.
August 31, 2017
Q&A: How Idaho, Montana, North Dakota and Yellowstone National Park are confronting climate change
A new book focuses on climate change risks in the Northern Rocky Mountains, and how managers of public lands can prepare.
Record-low 2016 Antarctic sea ice due to ‘perfect storm’ of tropical, polar conditions
This exceptional, sudden nosedive in Antarctic sea ice last year was due to a unique one-two punch from atmospheric conditions both in the tropical Pacific Ocean and around the South Pole.
August 28, 2017
New app could use smartphone selfies to screen for pancreatic cancer
A new app could lead to earlier detection of pancreatic cancer simply by snapping a smartphone selfie. The disease kills 90 percent of patients within five years, in part because there are no telltale symptoms or non-invasive screening tools to catch a tumor before it spreads.
August 25, 2017
As Tolstoy noted (sort of), all unhappy microbiomes are unhappy in their own way
The bacterial communities that live inside each of our guts are relatively similar when times are good, but when stress enters the equation, those communities can react very differently from person to person.
August 24, 2017
Scientists to create digital encyclopedia of 3-D vertebrate specimens
A $2.5 million National Science Foundation grant will daylight thousands of specimens from their museum shelves by CT scanning 20,000 vertebrates and making these data-rich, 3-D images available online to researchers, educators, students and the public. The University of Washington is a partner institution contributing most of the fish and bat scans.
August 23, 2017
Greetings from Earth: Documents that Changed the World podcast revisits Voyager’s ‘Golden Record,’ 1977
Forty years ago this month, Planet Earth said hello to the cosmos with the launch of the two Voyager probes that used gravity to swing from world to world on a grand tour of the solar system. Each bore a two-sided, 12-inch, gold-plated copper “Golden Record” of sights and sounds from Earth and its…
August 21, 2017
Native American youth launch high-altitude balloons for unique perspective on solar eclipse
While many people across the country donned viewing glasses and prepared to watch Monday’s solar eclipse, a group of 100 teenagers from tribes across the Pacific Northwest launched balloons thousands of feet into the air, gaining a novel perspective of the eclipse — and the chance to send meaningful artifacts to the edge of space during a memorable moment in history.
August 18, 2017
‘Be sure to look around you’: Tips on Seattle eclipse viewing
With many in Seattle are wondering what the Aug. 21 solar eclipse will be like in our city, Bruce Balick, UW professor emeritus of astronomy, shared a few thoughts.
August 16, 2017
Modern genetic sequencing tools give clearer picture of how corals are related
As corals face threats from warming oceans, a new study uses modern genetic-sequencing tools to help reveal the relationships between three similar-looking corals.
Computer scientists use music to covertly track body movements, activity
Researchers at the University of Washington have demonstrated how it is possible to transform a smart device into a surveillance tool that can collect information about the body position and movements of the user, as well as other people in the device’s immediate vicinity. Their approach involves remotely hijacking smart devices to play music embedded with repeating pulses that track a person’s position, body movements, and activities both in the vicinity of the device as well as through walls.
UW professor Franziska Roesner named one of world’s top innovators under 35
MIT Technology Review has named Franziska Roesner, University of Washington professor of computer science and engineering, one of 35 “Innovators Under 35” for 2017.
August 14, 2017
Probiotics help poplar trees clean up Superfund sites
Researchers from the University of Washington and several small companies have conducted the first large-scale experiment on a Superfund site using poplar trees fortified with a probiotic — or natural microbe — to clean up groundwater contaminated with trichloroethylene, or TCE.
Tidally locked exoplanets may be more common than previously thought
Many exoplanets to be found by coming high-powered telescopes will probably be tidally locked — with one side permanently facing their host star — according to new research by UW astronomer Rory Barnes.
August 10, 2017
Public has rare opportunity to view work on T. rex skull
Starting Aug. 12, the public can watch fossil preparation of the University of Washington Burke Museum’s Tyrannosaurus rex skull “live.”
Researchers, students on annual expedition to maintain internet-connected deep-sea observatory
The annual maintenance cruise for the Pacific Northwest’s deep-sea observatory continues through Aug. 29. Two dozen students will participate, and more than 120 ocean instruments will get their yearly checkup.
DNA sequencing tools lack robust protections against cybersecurity risks
A new UW study finds DNA sequencing tools lack robust cybersecurity protections. In a scientific first, the team also infected a computer with synthesized DNA molecules.
August 7, 2017
UW to host Interior Department’s Northwest Climate Science Center
The University of Washington is the new host for the federally funded Northwest Climate Science Center, a consortium that supports climate-adaptation research in the Northwest.
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