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Microbiologists have uncovered a sneaky trick by the bacterium Pseudomonas aeruginosa to oust rivals. It deploys a toxin delivery machine to breach cell walls of competitors without hurting itself. Its means of attack helps it survive in the outside environment and may even help it cause infection.

A one-dose method for delivering gene therapy into an arterial wall in rabbits effectively protects the artery from developing atherosclerosis despite ongoing high blood cholesterol. In the future, researchers hope to test whether this gene-delivery method works in heart bypass grafts.

An award for outstanding contributions to legal writing education for Law Professor Emerita Marjorie Rombauer; honors for a new health care management app created by a team headed by Michael Watt, Mark Haselkorn and Keith Butler; and UW Todays Peter Kelley does a radio mystery.

Marsha Linehan on anonymity in recovery; Leslie Walker-Harding on adolescents and drugs; James Leverenz on medications for elderly Parkinsons patients; 1983 research by Arthur Rangno is cited, and Paul Hill cites Monty Python.

Trees absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to grow, so forests have long been proposed as a way to offset climate change. But rather than just letting the forest sit there for a hundred or more years, the amount of carbon dioxide taken out of the atmosphere could be quadrupled in 100 years by harvesting regularly and using the wood in place of fossil-fuel intensive steel and concrete.

Sodium channels are pores in the membranes of excitable cells – such as brain nerve cells or beating heart cells – that emit electrical signals. Researchers have obtained a high-resolution crystal structure showing all the atoms of this complex protein molecule and how they relate in three-dimensions.

Historical artifacts found by crews on Seattle-area highway projects tell much about the region’s long-buried past, and are sent to the Burke Museum for storage and later study. Now, a grant from the Washington State Department of Transportation is helping the Burke greatly expand its storage capacity for such items.

Anderson, a lecturer, course director and mainstay of the Restorative Dentistry faculty since 1966, received the Rothwell Lifetime Achievement Award. Roberts, associate professor of periodontics since 2004 and dental director of the Regional Initiatives in Dental Education program, received the Rothwell Distinguished Teacher Award.