UW News

College of Arts & Sciences


September 11, 2014

Questions of race, state violence explored in ‘The Rising Tide of Color’

"The Rising Tide of Color: Race, State Violence and Radical Movements Across the Pacific" was published in July by University of Washington Press.

Moon Ho Jung, associate professor of history, discusses the book he edited, “The Rising Tide of Color: Race, State Violence and Radical Movements across the Pacific,” published by University of Washington Press.


August 26, 2014

Scientists craft a semiconductor junction only three atoms thick

As seen under an optical microscope, the heterostructures have a triangular shape. The two different monolayer semiconductors can be recognized through their different colors.

Scientists have developed what they believe is the thinnest-possible semiconductor, a new class of nanoscale materials made in sheets only three atoms thick.


August 21, 2014

Cause of global warming hiatus found deep in the Atlantic Ocean

graph of global temperatures and ocean heat

Observations show that the heat absent from the Earth’s surface is plunging deep in the north and south Atlantic Ocean, and is part of a slow, naturally recurring cycle.


August 16, 2014

Virginity pledges for men can lead to sexual confusion — even after the wedding day

Hands of a man and woman wearing weddng rings on to pf open bible

Young men receiving support after they pledge to abstain from sex until marriage, can find themselves without advisors and help once they do marry.


August 6, 2014

Penguins at risk world over, scientists urge new strategies

Scientists writing in the current issue of Conservation Biology call for marine protected areas and partially protected areas to help penguins cope.


July 28, 2014

New protein structure could help treat Alzheimer’s, related diseases

An abnormal protein, left, is intercepted by the UW’s compound that can bind to the toxic protein and neutralize it, as shown at right.

University of Washington bioengineers have a designed a peptide structure that can stop the harmful changes of the body’s normal proteins into a state that’s linked to widespread diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, heart disease, Type 2 diabetes and Lou Gehrig’s disease.


July 15, 2014

Sustainable, sharing communities explored in Karen Litfin’s book ‘Ecovillages’

The forest provides firewood for the 40,000 Tamil villagers who live around Auroville. "Founded in 1968 upon a severely eroded plateau in south India, the first order of business for the pioneers was to revitalize the land. Three million trees later, Auroville is home to over 2,000 people from 43 different countries and is one of the few places on Earth where biodiversity is actually increasing," Litfin writes.

UW political scientist Karen Litfin spent a year traveling to 14 ecovillages worldwide in researching her book “Ecovillages: Lessons for Sustainable Community.”


Brain responses to emotional images predict PTSD symptoms after Boston Marathon bombing

brain scan showing activation of the amygdala in the left hemisphere

By using functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging scans from before the attack and survey data from after, the researchers found that heightened amygdala reaction to negative emotional stimuli was a risk factor for later developing symptoms of PTSD.


July 14, 2014

Months before their first words, babies’ brains rehearse speech mechanics

A year-old baby sits in a brain scanner, called magnetoencephalography -- a noninvasive approach to measuring brain activity. The baby listens to speech sounds like "da" and "ta" played over headphones while researchers record her brain responses.

Research from UW’s Institute for Learning & Brain Sciences shows that in 7- and 11-month-old infants speech sounds stimulate areas of the brain that coordinate and plan motor movements for speech.


July 10, 2014

Students calculate future sea-level rise in Olympia

Aerial view of Olympia

Students in a UW statistics course did a case study on sea-level rise in Olympia. All are co-authors on a new paper that looks at the uncertainties around estimates of rising seas.


June 30, 2014

Rebecca Thorpe studies military spending in new book ‘The American Warfare State’

UW political scientist Rebecca Thorpe discusses her new book, “The American Warfare State: The Domestic Politics of Military Spending.”


June 26, 2014

Foul fumes derail dinner for hungry moths

moth with flower and exhaust pipe

New research on how pollinators find flowers when background odors are strong shows that both natural plant odors and human sources of pollution can conceal the scent of sought-after flowers.


June 18, 2014

Global issues at play in book of study-abroad student letters

“T.I.P.S. to Study Abroad” is available at the University Bookstore and through Amazon. Proceeds from the book will go to the organizations the students met and worked with in India.

Creative letters written by UW undergraduates who studied last summer in Bangalore, India, are gathered in a new book, “T.I.P.S. for Study Abroad.”


June 11, 2014

2014 UW graduates have interesting tales to tell

A large 'W' is at the north entrance to the UW campus.

UW Today profiles some of 2014’s highest-achieving graduates.


Nearly 1 in 8 American children are maltreated before age 18

black and white photo of a child

By the time they reach age 18, nearly one in eight of American children experience a confirmed case of maltreatment. Co-author Hedy Lee, a UW assistant professor of sociology, says the study shows that child maltreatment is much more common than previously thought.


June 4, 2014

Back home again: UW ethnomusicologists return heritage music to its roots

Participants in the Association for Cultural Equity's music October 2013 repatriation ceremony perform and parade. The event, called the "All Our Friends Hill Country Blues Celebration," was held in Tate and Panola counties in Mississippi.

The UW School of Music’s Ethnomusicology Program is helping to bring roots and hill music collected decades ago by folklorist Alan Lomax back to its place of origin, with teaching materials and local ceremonies.


It’s not giant asparagus: Nine-foot agave showing off at botany greenhouse

People gather around pot with plant that has tall flower spike

Stop outside the botany greenhouse to see an agave plant that’s grown a 9-foot-plus flower spike and is about to bloom for the first time in 25 years.


May 28, 2014

PTSD treatment cost-effective when patients given choice

A woman sits in a dim room

A cost-analysis of post-traumatic stress disorder treatments shows that letting patients choose their course of treatment – either psychotherapy or medication – is less expensive than assigning a treatment and provides a higher quality of life for patients.


May 27, 2014

Graduate student art, design projects exhibited at Henry Art Gallery

With autobiographical oil paintings, informational graphics, a wall-sized photomontage and sculptures resembling inside-out cameras, the annual spring exhibition of graduate student art at the Henry Art Gallery offers a lot for the visitor — as it does every year.


May 21, 2014

Marine apprenticeships give UW undergrads role in animal-ancestor breakthrough

Three people on beach with buckets

Comb jellies – and not sponges – may lay claim as the earliest ancestors of animals, according to new research in Nature.


May 20, 2014

Shrub growth decreases as winter temps warm up

Campbell Island, New Zealand, hillside covered with the shrub Dracophyllum.

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.


May 14, 2014

Arts Roundup: Dance, opera – and the University District Street Fair

Semele

Dance, opera, exhibition openings and the Roethke Reading fill this especially busy week in the arts. From the MFA Dance Concert to School of Music and Pacific MusicWorks’ production of G.F. Handel’s “Semele,” there’s plenty to see and do on the main stages.


May 12, 2014

Improve grades, reduce failure – undergrads should tell profs ‘Don’t lecture me’

Man talks with two rows of students in class auditorium

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


May 9, 2014

Memorial June 8 for historian Stephanie Camp

Stephanie Camp, UW associate professor of history, died on April 2. there will be a campus memorial for her on June 8.

Stephanie Camp, University of Washington associate professor of history, died on Wednesday, April 2. There will be a memorial service and reception in remembrance and celebration of Camp’s life at 3 p.m. Sunday, June 8, in Kane Hall room 210.


May 7, 2014

UW student briefs lawmakers on global land use, touts undergrad research

Mollie Holmberg stands next to her poster

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.


April 29, 2014

Benjamin Hall, Eric D’Asaro elected to National Academy of Sciences

Benjamin Hall and Eric D’Asaro are among the 84 new members elected fellows the National Academy of Sciences.


April 25, 2014

Online ‘Legislative Explorer’ uses big data to track decades of lawmaking

John Wilkerson, creator of the Legislative Explorer

University of Washington political scientist John Wilkerson has matched data visualization with the study of lawmaking to create a new online tool for researchers and students called the Legislative Explorer. Think of it as big data meeting up with How a Bill Becomes a Law. “The goal was to get beyond the ‘Schoolhouse Rock’ narrative…


April 23, 2014

Academy of arts and sciences inducting Franklin, Fine

Drumheller Fountain and Gerberding Hall on the UW campus.

Jerry Franklin and Arthur Fine have been elected fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences


April 14, 2014

Babies prefer fairness – but only if it benefits them – in choosing a playmate

During the "choice trial" of a research experiment, a baby chooses one experimenter to play with.

Babies as young as 15 months preferred people with the same ethnicity as themselves — a phenomenon known as in-group bias, or favoring people who have the same characteristics as oneself.


When job security becomes insecurity: Inequality the topic of April 25 conference

Economic inequality will be the topic when activists, academics and policymakers meet the public for a conference presented by the Harry Bridges Center for Labor Studies titled “Working Democracy: Labor and Politics in an Era of Inequality.”


April 10, 2014

Fruit flies, fighter jets use similar nimble tactics when under attack

Close up of fruit fly

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.


March 31, 2014

School of Music’s Tom Collier celebrates ’60 Years Behind Bars’ with concert

Tom Collier, age 5, April 2, 1954.

Longtime School of Music Professor Tom Collier celebrates 60 years of performing with a concert on April 2 in the Meany Studio Theater.


UW launches online bachelor’s degree completion program in social sciences

A large 'W' is at the north entrance to the UW campus.

A new UW online bachelor’s degree completion program in social sciences is intended to provide a flexible, lower-cost option for individuals who want to finish their college education without coming to campus.


March 28, 2014

“Simming” a mile in others’ shoes

Role players in a simulated Iraqi village

A waiter in a logging camp, Mexican migrant trying to cross into the U.S, and observer during an attack on an Iraqi village are examples of roles played by Scott Magelssen, a UW associate professor of drama, and described in his new book about simulated experiences.


March 26, 2014

Decline of natural history troubling for science, society

Two people kneel by tide pool

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


March 24, 2014

Stellar names in classical music part of collector’s gift to UW Music Library

Judy Tsou, head of the UW Music Library, with a copy of Benjamin Britten's opera "Peter Grimes." The score is part of a large donation to the UW by the estate music collector William Crawford III.

Beethoven, Brahms, Handel, Tchaikovsky, Wagner, Gershwin — the names alone are enough to quicken the pulse of any classical music lover. Those greats and many more are represented in a gift of rare classical music scores to the University of Washington Music Library.


March 17, 2014

Hold that RT: Much misinformation tweeted after 2013 Boston Marathon bombing

A graph shows hashtags on Twitter and how they are related to each other.

University of Washington researchers have found that misinformation spread widely on Twitter after the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing despite efforts by users to correct rumors that were inaccurate.


March 10, 2014

Scientists build thinnest-possible LEDs to be stronger, more energy efficient

This graphical representation shows the layers of the 2-D LED and how it emits light.

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.


March 7, 2014

UW composers discuss collaboration with visiting JACK Quartet

The JACK Quartet -- violinists Christopher Otto and Ari Streisfeld, violist John Pickford Richards, and cellist Kevin McFarland -- will perform two shows in the Meany Hall Studio Theater March 15.

UW music faculty and composers Richard Karpen and Juan Pampin discuss their collaboration with the visiting JACK Quartet.


February 25, 2014

Joel Migdal book ‘Shifting Sands’ considers American role in Middle East

Book cover for Joel Migdal's book "Shifting Sands"

Migdal, UW professor of international studies, discusses his latest book, “Shifting Sands: The United States in the Middle East.”



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