August 24, 2016
Washington state’s housing market remained strong in the second quarter of 2016. Home sale prices and the number of sales were up, although new building permits were down compared with a year ago, according to the Runstad Center for Real Estate Studies at the UW.
August 21, 2016
To everything there is a season — even divorce, new research from University of Washington sociologists concludes. Associate sociology professor Julie Brines and doctoral candidate Brian Serafini found what is believed to be the first quantitative evidence of a seasonal, biannual pattern of filings for divorce. The researchers analyzed filings in Washington state between 2001 and 2015 and found that they consistently peaked in March and August, the periods following winter and summer holidays. Their research, presented Aug. 21 at…
August 20, 2016
Death and mourning were largely considered private matters in the 20th century, with the public remembrances common in previous eras replaced by intimate gatherings behind closed doors in funeral parlors and family homes. But social media is redefining how people grieve, and Twitter in particular — with its ephemeral mix of rapid-fire broadcast and personal expression — is widening the conversation around death and mourning, two University of Washington sociologists say. In a paper presented Aug. 20 at the annual…
August 19, 2016
Faculty members from the UW College of Built Environments, Jackson School of International Studies and departments of French and Italian studies and history will team up in 2017 to give a new, three-week course for university and college instructors on urban environmental humanities.
August 18, 2016
UW professor Sally Brown and collaborators have published the most extensive compilation to date explaining how to grow urban agriculture, and how doing so could save American cities.
Analysis of almost 3,000 pairs of Danish twins shows that they live longer than the general population, especially if they are identical.
Visitors to Seattle’s Volunteer Park Conservatory are in for a stinking treat, courtesy of the Department of Biology at the University of Washington. The conservatory has taken in a young corpse lily, affectionately known as Dougsley, which is set to blossom this week or next.
Paleontologists with the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture and the UW have discovered a Tyrannosaurus rex, including a very complete skull. The find, which paleontologists estimate to be about 20 percent of the animal, includes vertebrae, ribs, hips and lower jaw bones.
August 17, 2016
The University of Washington remained No. 15 on the 2016 Academic Ranking of World Universities, conducted by researchers at the Center for World-Class Universities of Shanghai Jiao Tong University.
Reasons why rules on this subject may be needed and what they might accomplish: To update WAC 478-160-163, Waivers of tuition and fees, with waivers recently enacted through state legislation, and to make other amendments that update obsolete information sources or otherwise streamline administrative procedures.
Interracial marriage has grown in the United States over the past few decades, and polls show that most Americans are accepting of mixed-race relationships. A 2012 study by the Pew Research Center found that interracial marriages in the U.S. had doubled between 1980 and 2010 to about 15 percent, and just 11 percent of respondents disapproved of interracial marriage. But new research from the University of Washington suggests that reported acceptance of interracial marriage masks deeper feelings of discomfort —…
“Interscatter” communication developed by UW engineers allows power-limited devices such as brain implants, contact lenses, credit cards and smaller wearable electronics to talk to everyday devices such as smartphones and watches.
August 16, 2016
Large, carnivorous fish excrete almost half of the key nutrients, phosphorus and nitrogen, that are essential for the survival of coral reefs.
August 15, 2016
A detailed look at how sound waves bounce off a flying moth’s body offers new clues for how its long, twisted tail might help it evade predatory bats.
University of Washington biologist Peter Ward’s body of research has helped policymakers recognize the impact nautiluses have on ocean ecosystems, as well as how they can — and cannot — replenish their numbers in the face of unrestricted, unregulated fishing. At a CITES meeting in September, Ward and his team hope nautiluses will get much-needed protections from trade and harvesting.
At the USENIX Security Conference in Austin, Texas, a team of University of Washington researchers on Aug. 12 presented the first-ever comprehensive analysis of third-party web tracking across three decades and a new tool, TrackingExcavator, which they developed to extract and analyze tracking behaviors on a given web page. They saw a four-fold increase in third-party tracking on top sites from 1996 to 2016, and mapped the growing complexity of trackers stretching back decades.
August 12, 2016
The editorial cartoons filling a ground floor exhibit in Suzzallo Library through November are hard-hitting, but they fairly depict the wild campaign of 2016, and the serious issues the year has brought as well.
Phil Levin, a former senior scientist at NOAA Fisheries, recently began a joint role at the University of Washington and The Nature Conservancy. UW Today sat down with Levin to find out why he took this job and what he hopes to accomplish.
August 9, 2016
Charles Eriksen, Deborah Kelley and Stephen Warren are among 60 newly elected fellows from U.S. and international institutions.
What does it mean for a city to “think like a planet”? Marina Alberti of the UW College of Built Environments discusses her new book, “Cities that Think Like Planets,” published by UW Press.
August 8, 2016
Simon Stevenson of the United Kingdom’s University of Reading will be the next director of the University of Washington’s Runstad Center for Real Estate Studies, in the College of Built Environments.
August 5, 2016
University of Washington employees are invited to attend an open forum either Monday, Aug. 15, 1:30-2:30 p.m. in Odegaard 220 or Wednesday, Aug. 17, 1:30-2:30 p.m. in the HUB, Room 250, to learn more about the design of the HR/Payroll Integrated Service Center. The goal of the center is to provide a single point of contact to effectively support faculty, staff and student employees with their human resources, academic human resources and payroll-related questions and service needs. Data input sessions last winter garnered more…
August 4, 2016
A Science commentary written by UW professor of Earth and space sciences David Montgomery discusses how recent geological findings support the historical basis for traditional tales about China’s Great Flood.
A wild-eyed television preacher, uncensored public access nuttiness, even a young Ellen DeGeneres featured on a local comedy show segment — when Stephen Groening had students explore the history of local television for a class, they sure found a lot of good stuff.
August 2, 2016
Justin Camputaro, with more than 15 years of experience in higher education administration, joined the University of Washington as the new director of the Husky Union Building, effective July 18.
August 1, 2016
A dozen scientists and engineers from the University of Washington have been elected to the Washington State Academy of Sciences. According to a statement released by the organization, the new members were selected for “their outstanding record of scientific achievement and willingness to work on behalf of the academy in bringing the best available science to bear on issues within the state of Washington.” Three of the new members from UW were chosen because they had been elected recently to…
Bernard Dean, who brings two decades of state and local government experience, has been appointed director of state relations at the University of Washington, effective Sept. 1.
July 31, 2016
The following is a statement from University of Washington President Ana Mari Cauce on the shooting of four individuals in Mukilteo this weekend, three of whom – Anna Bui, Jordan Ebner, and Jake Long – were killed, and one of whom – Will Kramer – was wounded and is at Harborview Medical Center. Bui was a student at UW Bothell, while Kramer is a student on the UW’s Seattle campus. “Words are inadequate to address the bloodshed that occurred this…
July 28, 2016
A new study from the UW’s Runstad Center for Real Estate Studies suggests that Seattle and Washington state could invite development of more affordable housing by easing the legal risk — or the appearance of risk — in condominium development, construction, liability and insurance.
July 27, 2016
A study of the the first clean cookstove intervention in India financed through the Kyoto Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism found expected benefits from newer, more “efficient” stoves — based on their performance in lab tests — did not materialize in the field.
Middle school students tried their hands at designing and building underwater robots this week during a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration science summer camp in Seattle. The ROV workshop was a joint project by UW-based Washington Sea Grant, NOAA and Atlantis STEAM.
July 25, 2016
The lot of Seattle’s lowest-paid workers improved following the city’s minimum wage increase to $11 in 2015, but that was more due to the robust regional economy than the wage hike itself, according to a research team headed by the UW Evans School.
Polar oceans pump organic carbon down to the deep sea about five times as efficiently as subtropical waters, because they can support larger, heavier organisms. The finding helps explain how the oceans may function under climate change.
July 21, 2016
The University of Washington received a record $542.4 million in the 2016 fiscal year, ending June 30, breaking the previous record of $482.5 million set in 2013-14. The funds came in the form of private gifts and grants earmarked by individuals, corporations and foundations for specific areas of research, labs, faculty, and student scholarships and programs.
A team of researchers from the University of Washington and the University of Trento in Italy unveiled an engineered protein that they designed to repress a specific cancer-promoting message within cells.
A chance meeting with a fellow scientist 27 years ago forever changed Randy Kyes’ life — catapulting him from North Carolina to Indonesia and beyond. As the founding director of the University of Washington’s Center for Global Field Study and head of the Division of Global Programs at the Washington National Primate Research Center, Kyes has spent almost three decades leading field courses on environmental and global health in a dozen countries. Often accompanied by students from the UW and…
A personalized image search engine developed by a University of Washington researcher lets a person imagine how they would look a with different a hairstyle, if they lived in a different time period or any other appearance change that can be synthesized with internet photos.
July 19, 2016
UW professor Adam Summers is scanning and digitizing all 25,000 species of fish that live on Earth. Each species soon will have a high-resolution, 3-D visual replica online, available to all and downloadable for free.
A University of Washington team has shed new light on a common but poorly understood bacteria known to live in low-oxygen areas in the ocean. By culturing and sequencing the microbe’s entire genome, the oceanographers found that it significantly contributes to the removal of life-supporting nitrogen from the water in new and surprising ways.
July 18, 2016
The University of Washington has been recognized as a “Great College to Work For” by the Chronicle of Higher Education for the third consecutive year.