“Antigona,” a dance production by Soledad Barrio & Noche Flamenca that was born at the University of Washington, has been nominated for two Bessie awards — the highest tribute in the New York dance world.
July 28, 2015
The latest news from the UW
July 27, 2015
Babies’ brains show that social skills linked to second language learning
New findings by researchers at the Institute for Learning & Brain Sciences (I-LABS) at the University of Washington demonstrate for the first time that an early social behavior called gaze shifting is linked to infants’ ability to learn new language sounds.
July 24, 2015
UW historian Quintard Taylor’s BlackPast.org website honored by National Education Association
BlackPast.org, an extensive online reference center for African-American history and African ancestry created by UW history professor Quintard Taylor, has been honored by the National Education Association. The website has won the 2015 Carter G. Woodson Award, given annually by the education association and the Association for the Study of African American Life and History, which Woodson founded. Woodson (1875-1950) was a journalist, historian and author. In 1926 he announced celebration of “Negro History Week,” considered a precursor to the nationwide…
July 23, 2015
UW astronomer, students report irregularities in ‘rare, exotic’ binary system
UW astronomers were recently reminded that the diplomatic axiom to “trust, but verify” also applies to scientific inquiry when they analyzed fresh data from a distant galaxy. As they reported in July in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, a puzzling stellar phenomenon may not be what other astronomers had reported. They studied a binary star system called NGC 300 X-1, nestled within a far-flung galaxy in the constellation Sculptor. Starting in 2007, scientists reported that this system…
Free oil-spill prevention kits for Washington boaters
Recreational boaters and commercial fishing boats in Western Washington can get free oil-spill reporting and cleanup kits this summer as part of a new campaign to prevent spills in Puget Sound. Washington Sea Grant, based at the UW, along with U.S. Coast Guard Sector Puget Sound, the Washington Department of Ecology and the state’s Clean Marina Program have partnered to give out more than 1,000 free kits this summer. Each kit contains oil-absorbent pads, a 15-inch bilge sock, gloves, a…
July 22, 2015
Distinguished faculty to be inducted into Washington State Academy of Sciences
In recognition of their outstanding records of scientific achievement, 12 University of Washington professors will be inducted this fall into the Washington State Academy of Sciences. The professors will be honored for their “willingness to work on behalf of the academy” to bring top-quality scientific methods to research issues pertaining to Washington state. The induction ceremony will be held Sept. 17 at the organization’s eighth-annual meeting at the Seattle Museum of Flight. One UW professor joins as a member by virtue of his…
Two UW art professors honored with 2015 Seattle Mayor’s Arts Awards
Of the five recipients of 2015 Seattle Mayor’s Arts Awards, two — Robin K. Wright and Akio Takamori — are faculty members in the UW School of Art + Art History + Design. Seattle Mayor Ed Murray’s office announced the awards on Tuesday, July 21. The awards, notes say, “recognize the contributions of artists, creative industries and cultural organizations who contribute to Seattle’s reputation as a hub of creativity and innovation.” Wright, professor of art history, is the recipient of…
Computer security tools for journalists lacking in a post-Snowden world
Despite heightened awareness of surveillance tactics and privacy breaches, existing computer security tools aren’t meeting the needs of journalists working with sensitive material, a new UW study finds.
July 21, 2015
UW hosts conference on medieval text ‘Piers Plowman’
“Piers Plowman” is not only a 14th century alliterative narrative, it is also the reason a hundred scholars are coming to the UW this week. The Piers Plowman International Conference will be held July 23-25 in Alder Hall and the Simpson Center for the Humanities. “The poem is a work contemporary with Chaucer in the second half of the 14th century which offers a series of dream visions that instruct the wandering dreamer with regard to a range of contested…
July 20, 2015
UW joins Seattle Sounders FC, others to support clean water partnership
In many areas of the world, women and girls walk an average of six kilometers to collect water for their families that often isn’t even safe to drink. Five Washington-based organizations — University of Washington, Washington Global Health Alliance (WGHA), PATH, Washington State University’s Paul G. Allen School for Global Animal Health and World Vision — are partnering to improve the health and livelihoods of thousands of women and girls and their families in rural Tanzania through the “Water, Wealth…
University of Washington named ‘Great College to Work For’
The University of Washington has been recognized as a “Great College to Work For” by the Chronicle of Higher Education in its 2015 survey.
The Next MacGyver will be a woman — and a UW engineering student may invent her
Astronautics doctoral student Nao Murakami wants to invent the heir to Angus MacGyver — the 1980s television hero who inspired a generation of engineers by foiling criminals with household items like cooking oil, a shop vac or a tube sock. Only this time the engineering heroine will be a woman.
July 17, 2015
‘Lives matter’: Simpson Center project marries animal, postcolonial studies
The study of animals meets up with postcolonial studies in The Postcolonial Animal, a cross-disciplinary research project hosted by the UW’s Simpson Center for the Humanities. The work, notes from the center state, “considers relations between human and nonhuman lives and with indigenous ways of knowing” and “follows a conviction that violence toward any life is violence toward all, and the flourishing of any life is tied to the flourishing of all.” “Thinking about nonhuman life seriously — or indigenous…
Two UW faculty members named to Justice Department Science Advisory Board
Two University of Washington faculty members have been appointed to the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Justice Programs Science Advisory Board. Sociology professor Robert Crutchfield was named chair of the board’s justice system transparency and accountability subcommittee, and Alexes Harris, an associate professor of sociology, was named a new board member. The 25-member board, which advises the Office of Justice Programs on research, statistics and grant programs, is made up of leading scholars and experts in sociology, criminology, statistics,…
Marine plankton brighten clouds over Southern Ocean
New research led by the University of Washington and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory suggests tiny ocean life in vast stretches of the Southern Ocean plays a significant role in generating brighter clouds overhead.
July 16, 2015
$2.3M energy conservation project in Physics/Astronomy Building complete
University of Washington Facilities Services, Puget Sound Energy, McKinstry and the Washington State Department of Commerce celebrated the completion of a $2.3 million energy conservation project Wednesday that will improve teaching and research laboratories within the iconic Physics/Astronomy Building. The capital retrofit project has drastically reduced ventilation system waste by installing high-tech controls, drives and motors to “right fit” the quantity of conditioned air delivered to labs based on the actual occupancy, time of day, day of week and season….
New book by UW’s Philip Howard urges democratic values for coming Internet of Things
UW professor Philip Howard discusses his new book, “Pax Technica: How the Internet of Things May Set us Free or Lock Us Up,” published this spring by Yale University Press.
Many mobile health apps neglect needs of blind users
University of Washington researchers who conducted the first academic review of nine mhealth iPhone apps on the market in March 2014 found none met all the criteria that would make them accessible to blind customers. Accessibility shortcomings ranged from improperly labeled buttons to layouts that confuse built-in screen readers that assist low-vision smartphone users.
UW researchers show that the mosquito smells, before it sees, a bloody feast
A team of biologists from the University of Washington and the California Institute of Technology has cracked the cues mosquitoes use to find us.
July 15, 2015
Students, researchers at sea working on recently erupted deep-sea volcano
A team of researchers, engineers and students is now at sea to check the equipment in a massive seafloor laboratory, where underwater stations off the Pacific Northwest coast collect data and provide a real-time, virtual eye on the deep sea for people on shore.
UW chemists help develop a novel drug to fight malaria
An international team of scientists — led by researchers from the University of Washington and two other institutions — has announced that a new compound to fight malaria is ready for human trials.
July 13, 2015
Robotics and the law: When software can harm you
Twenty years in, the law is finally starting to get used to the Internet. Now it is imperative, says Ryan Calo, assistant professor in the UW School of Law, that the law figure out how to deal effectively with the rise of robotics and artificial intelligence.
July 10, 2015
Ice core records show how huge volcanic eruptions cooled the planet
When big volcanoes like Mount St. Helens or Mount Pinatubo really blow their tops, the skies darken and temperatures drop. But since such massive eruptions – luckily for us – are fairly uncommon, scientists have few examples to help them piece together the details of how much it cools, and how far and long the chill extends. A University of Washington glaciologist is the second author of a study published July 8 in Nature that shows that 15 of the…
July 9, 2015
UW Botanic Gardens ranked top in nation
The University of Washington Botanic Gardens is one of the best university gardens in the nation, according to a new ranking by Best Colleges Online. The UW tied for first place along with three other universities for the top honor. UW Botanic Gardens, which includes the gardens and programs at the Washington Park Arboretum and the Center for Urban Horticulture, has a collection of more than 11,000 plants, trees and shrubs. Best Colleges Online cited this large collection and, in…
July 8, 2015
UW’s Conservation magazine snares top writing honors
The UW-based Conservation magazine has won a gold award in a national competition sponsored by the Council for Advancement and Support of Education, or CASE. Conservation shares this top honor with a magazine from Stanford Medicine. The award recognizes magazines produced by universities or colleges for special external constituencies, including publications affiliated with individual colleges or devoted exclusively to an institution’s scholarly research. CASE judges noted Conservation’s dedication to stories of the “highest caliber,” as well as an “outstanding” layout…
New maritime security project draws Coast Guard’s top admiral to visit UW
Puget Sound’s complex maritime landscape — with huge port operations, ferries, commercial fishing fleets, cruise ships, recreational boaters, U.S. Navy ships, and tribes — makes a good test bed for investigating and improving security practices. A new University of Washington research center that has uncovered “profound actionable implications” for improving maritime security nationwide is drawing a visit to the UW Department of Human Centered Design and Engineering on Thursday from Admiral Paul F. Zukunft, the U.S. Coast Guard’s commandant and…
Seafloor hot springs a significant source of iron in the oceans
A two-month voyage tracking a deep current flowing from one of the most active underwater volcanoes proves that iron released from hydrothermal vents travels thousands of miles, providing a significant source of iron to support life in the broader oceans.
July 7, 2015
Harsh prison sentences swell ranks of lifers and raise questions about fairness, study finds
Stricter state sentencing laws in Washington have swelled the ranks of inmates serving life sentences to nearly one in five. And some lifers who opted to go to trial are serving much longer sentences than others who committed the same crimes and plea-bargained — raising questions about equitable treatment of prisoners. Those are among the findings in a new analysis by undergraduate honors students in the University of Washington’s Law, Societies & Justice program, who sought to determine the number…
July 6, 2015
In a cosmic ‘call to arms,’ UW astronomer proposes new deep-space telescope to scan the sky for signs of life
On July 6, a team of astronomers proposed a new type of mission to crack some of the universe’s most intriguing mysteries and search for life on distant worlds.
Risk of interbreeding due to climate change lower than expected
Despite worries about interbreeding due to climate change, a new study finds that only about 6 percent of closely related species in the Americas are likely to come into contact by the end of this century.
July 1, 2015
International meeting on the inner life of ocean diatoms
A meeting on campus the week of July 7, “Molecular Life of Diatoms 2015” will bring together leading experts on diatoms—the same type of drifting algae now causing a huge harmful algal bloom off the West Coast—to discuss the perils and promise of these microscopic algae that live throughout the world’s oceans. A dazzling variety of diatom species help to cycle oxygen, carbon and energy for life on Earth. Advances in genetics and new knowledge of the genetics of particular…
June 30, 2015
‘The Shape of the New’: Two UW profs, four ‘big ideas’ in new book
The concepts of freedom, equality, evolution and democracy lie at the heart of “The Shape of the New: Four Big Ideas and How they Changed the World,” by Scott L. Montgomery and Daniel Chirot of the UW’s Jackson School of International Studies.
Statement from UW interim President Ana Mari Cauce on the two-year state budget approved by the Washington Legislature
“On behalf of University of Washington students, faculty, staff and alumni, I want to express my thanks and appreciation to our elected officials for making investments in higher education a true budget priority during the 2015 legislative session…”
UW team programs solitary yeast cells to say ‘hello’ to one another
UW researchers have produced cell-to-cell communication in baker’s yeast — a first step in learning to build multicellular organisms or artificial organs from scratch.
June 29, 2015
Researchers discover how petunias know when to smell good
A team of UW biologists has identified a key mechanism plants use to decide when to release their floral scents to attract pollinators.
June 25, 2015
Harry Potter celebrated with ‘Muggles & Magic’ library exhibit
A new, staff-created exhibit brings a little bit of Hogwarts to Suzzallo and Allen libraries, with books, games, action figures and even scholarly articles about that famous, lightning-browed “boy who lived.” The exhibit is called “Muggles & Magic: Harry Potter @ the Libraries.” The main attraction sits just outside the Suzzallo Reading Room, which is fitting since the room’s Gothic splendor now has tour hosts calling it the “Harry Potter Room.” More Potteralia is on display on the Allen Library’s…
UW researcher helping pinpoint massive harmful algal bloom
A UW research analyst who monitors harmful algae in Washington state is aboard a federal research vessel surveying a massive bloom that stretches from California up to Canada.
June 24, 2015
UW Spokane Center opens to the public
A ribbon-cutting and celebration featuring the UW Husky Marching Band, Cheer Team and Harry the Husky marked the opening of the UW Spokane Center on Wednesday. UW interim Provost Jerry Baldasty, a native of Spokane, was joined by Spokane Mayor David Condon for a brief ceremony that kicked off an afternoon of activities for all ages with music, food and beverages and purple-and-gold prizes and apparel discounts. Located in the heart of Spokane’s University District, the UW Spokane Center is an information…
Group at UW shows how to account for nature’s benefits in decisions
The Natural Capital Project, with offices at UW, wants to integrate the socioeconomic, cultural and spiritual values of nature into all major decisions affecting the environment and human well-being.
June 23, 2015
Visualizing the cosmos: UW astronomer Andrew Connolly and the promise of big data
A conversation with UW astronomer Andrew Connolly on the coming Large Synoptic Survey Telescope and the promise of big data to the study of the universe.