September 20, 2018
The University of Washington in Seattle is welcoming its largest-ever incoming class — about 7,050 freshmen —in ceremonies this Sunday. The university’s 35th annual New Student Convocation, which begins at 10:30 a.m. Sunday, Sept. 23, in the Alaska Airlines Arena at Hec Edmundson Pavilion.
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
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…
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.
Nurses and nurse-scientists interested in advanced multi-disciplinary training for population and global health practice can now apply for a new University of Washington degree program.
September 18, 2018
Margaret O’Mara, UW professor of history, explores the impact of a December 1968 computer presentation that came to be called “the mother of all demos” in an essay and podcast from the news website The Conversation.
Patrick Dobel, professor emeritus of the UW Evans School of Public Policy & Governance, discusses his new book, “Public Leadership Ethics: A Management Approach.”
September 17, 2018
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
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 13, 2018
The share of Washingtonians living below the federal poverty threshold declined slightly from 11.3 percent to 11 percent between 2016 and 2017, according to new Census data released Thursday. While this change was not statistically significant, the 2017 poverty rate remains below the post-recession high of 14.1 percent in 2013. Washington was one of 28 states and the District of Columbia where poverty rates remained statistically unchanged from the prior year. During that period, poverty rates declined in 20 states…
When Tony Greenwald and his colleagues developed the online Implicit Association Test two decades ago, it enjoyed quick success in the pre-laptop, pre-smartphone, nascent Internet world, with some 45,000 participants in the first month. The test, which requires classifying words and images rapidly according to their meanings, captures unconscious biases toward — depending on the test version — race, gender, age and dozens of other traits and preferences. Since its debut in 1998, the test has been taken online more…
September 12, 2018
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
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.
An innovative gift from Honolulu-based real estate investor Jay H. Shilder to the Universities of Washington and Hawaii is being celebrated this week in Seattle. The gift includes cash, potential future leasing income and a transformational real estate gift to be realized a century from now.
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 7, 2018
The University of Washington today opened the doors to a new Life Sciences Building that will transform learning, teaching and research for generations.
The $171 million Life Sciences complex includes seven floors and 207,000 square feet that encourages and makes possible team-oriented science. Designed by Perkins+Will and built by Skanska, the building encompasses a 187,000-square-foot research and teaching facility and a 20,000-square-foot research greenhouse with UW plant collections.
September 6, 2018
The University of Washington is among the top schools on The Wall Street Journal’s newest college ranking: value for the money. The UW was ranked third in the nation by the newspaper.
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
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.
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
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.
August 28, 2018
A study by the University of Washington and Cornell University shows that the risk of being killed by police, relative to white men, is 3.2 to 3.5 times higher for black men, and between 1.4 and 1.7 times higher for Latino men.
An exploration of UW Libraries’ Labor Archives of Washington with labor archivist Conor Casey.
August 27, 2018
The University of Washington is ranked No. 14 in the world — No. 3 among public universities — on the 2018 Academic Ranking of World Universities, released this month.
August 23, 2018
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
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.
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.
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
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.
The University of Washington’s Doorway Project has offered a cafe for homeless young adults each quarter, while students have helped add services, from preventive health care, to establishing a fundraising organization to designing a permanent café home. Its summer pop-up cafe event is Aug. 24.
August 16, 2018
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
Cecilia M. Bitz, a University of Washington atmospheric scientist, has been elected as a fellow of the American Geophysical Union.
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
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
Forest biologist and University of Washington professor David Peterson explains which natural materials burn hotter and faster during a wildfire, what homeowners can do to protect their properties and how climate change is impacting the fire season.
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 10, 2018
Now, a new $250,000 fellowship at the UW Harry Bridges Center for Labor Studies has been established in his name. The Jenkins Fellowship in Labor Studies will honor and preserve Jenkins’ lifelong commitment to the causes of social and economic justice through financial support for students at the UW.
The University of Washington placed fourth among U.S. higher education institutions, according to the NTU Rankings released Thursday.
August 9, 2018
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
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.