Designing medical apps for your phone, treating alcohol-dependent homeless individuals, and enhancing wellness in older disabled adults are some of the developments at the UW Health Sciences and UW Medicine


Designing medical apps for your phone, treating alcohol-dependent homeless individuals, and enhancing wellness in older disabled adults are some of the developments at the UW Health Sciences and UW Medicine

Many have assumed that warmer winters as a result of climate change would increase the growth of trees and shrubs because the growing season would be longer. But shrubs achieve less yearly growth when cold winter temperatures are interrupted by temperatures warm enough to trigger growth.

The University of Washington is receiving a $31.2 million gift from Washington Research Foundation to boost entrepreneurship and support research that tackles some of society’s most crucial challenges. The award will fund four interdisciplinary initiatives that seek to advance global innovation in clean energy, protein design, big data science and neuroengineering.

The costly effects of cutbacks on maternal/child services, assuring a pure water supply, and what you need to know about Middle East respiratory syndrome.

A significantly greater number of students fail science, engineering and math courses that are taught lecture-style than fail with active learning according to the largest analysis ever of studies comparing lecturing to active learning in undergraduate education

The collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet has begun, according to computer models using detailed topographic maps. The fast-moving Thwaites Glacier will likely disappear in a matter of centuries, researchers say, raising sea level by nearly 2 feet.

University of Washington electrical engineers have developed telerobotics technology that could make disaster response faster and more efficient. They are working with a large team as part of the SmartAmerica Challenge, an initiative that encourages new technologies that help society in our increasingly connected world.

Up to half of the recent warming in Greenland and surrounding areas may be due to climate variations that originate in the tropical Pacific and are not connected with the overall warming of the planet. Still, at least half the warming remains attributable to global warming caused by rising carbon dioxide emissions.

At an event in Washington, D.C. a UW biology student presented her research into the global connections between consumers and goods that come from agriculture and forest production.

University of Washington climate scientist Amy Snover is one of two lead authors for the Northwest chapter of the newly published National Climate Assessment.

Amphibians in the West’s high-mountain areas find themselves caught between climate-induced habitat loss and predation from introduced fish. A novel combination of tools could help weigh where amphibians are in the most need of help.

Regenerative medicine researchers successfully attempted stem cell therapy to repair damaged heart muscle in non-human primates.

The Magnuson-Stevens Act is the subject of this year’s Bevan Series on Sustainable Fisheries.

Engineers and scientists at the University of Washington will display their most engaging research and projects Friday and Saturday, April 25-26, during the annual Engineering Discovery Days, which is free and open to the public.

What looked at first like a sort of upside-down planet has instead revealed a new method for studying binary star systems, discovered by a UW student astronomer.

A fluctuating tilt in a planet’s orbit does not preclude the possibility of life, according to new research by astronomers at the University of Washington, Utah’s Weber State University and NASA. In fact, sometimes it helps.

UW oceanographers found fast-flowing water and intense mixing in a submarine canyon just off the Washington coast.

Detailed ice core measurements show smog-related ratios leveling off in 1970, and suggests these deposits are sensitive to the same chemicals that cause acid rain.

Get on your 3-D glasses for one of the animations of tiny fruit flies employing banked turns to evade attacks just like fighter jets.

University of Washington engineers have developed software that automatically generates images of a young child’s face as it ages through a lifetime. The technique is the first fully automated approach for aging babies to adults that works with variable lighting, expressions and poses.

A team of University of Washington scientists and engineers working at the Applied Physics Laboratory is creating a control system for underwater remotely operated vehicles, or ROVs. Researchers will demonstrate the technology at the SmartAmerica Challenge in Washington, D.C. in June.

UW researchers made some of the first aerial surveys over the Oso mudslide, using radar technology to map the condition immediately after the slide.

Leah Ceccarelli, professor of communication, discusses her well-reviewed new book “On the Frontier of Science: An American Rhetoric of Exploration and Exploitation.”

A national team jointly led by a University of Washington geotechnical engineer and an engineering geologist will investigate what caused the March 22 mudslide in Snohomish County and what effects the disaster had on the nearby residential communities.

Four graduate students were part of a year-long legislative process in Olympia working to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions in Washington state.

Seventeen North American scientists outline the importance of natural science and call for a revitalization of the practice.

Increasing cell signals that put the brake on excitatory brain cells reduces repetitive behaviors and learning problems and improves social interactions in a mouse model of autism. This was achieved with a low dose of benzodiazipine, a common anti-anxiety, anti-seizure medication.

The UW this fall will complete installation of a huge high-tech ocean observatory. Dozens of instruments will connect to power and Internet cables on the seafloor, but the observatory also includes a new generation of ocean explorers: robots that will zoom up and down through almost two miles of ocean to monitor the water conditions and marine life above.

University of Washington scientists have built the thinnest-known LED that can be used as a source of light energy in electronics. The LED is based off of two-dimensional, flexible semiconductors, making it possible to stack or use in much smaller and more diverse applications than current technology allows.

The 9th annual Polar Science Weekend will bring polar research, art and an actual ice core to the Pacific Science Center.

UW astronomers have developed a new method of gauging the atmospheric pressure of exoplanets, or worlds beyond the solar system, by looking for a certain type of molecule. And if there is life out in space, it may one day be revealed by this method.

UW astronomer Eric Agol played a key role in the windfall of 715 new exoplanets recently announced by NASA. Agol was on a team that found seven of those worlds, all in orbit around the same star.

German, Finnish and U.S. scientists have discovered how gas wafting from coniferous trees creates particles that can reflect sunlight or promote formation of clouds.

A three-year survey of whales in the Bering Strait reveals that many species of whales are using the narrow waterway, while shipping and commercial traffic also increase.

Oceanographers have found that archaea, a type of marine microbe, can produce B-12 vitamins in the ocean.

UW’s Matthew Bush has been selected as one of 126 Sloan Research Fellows for 2014.

Carrying out geoengineering for several decades and then stopping would cause warming at a rate more than double that expected due to global warming.

A recently introduced homebuilding subsidy program in Japan put logs and lumber imported from the U.S. and other countries at a competitive disadvantage.

People who are genetically equipped to stop hepatitis C viruses from turning off a type of interferon generally have a robust antiviral response. Findings on the mechanisms governing this ability suggest new avenues for treatment research.

University of Washington scientists and engineers are developing a low-cost device that could help pathologists diagnose pancreatic cancer earlier and faster. The prototype can perform the basic steps for processing a biopsy, relying on fluid transport instead of human hands to process the tissue.