UW News


December 31, 2013

Genetically identical bacteria can behave in radically different ways

bacterial cells split

When a bacterial cell divides into two daughter cells there can be an uneven distribution of cellular organelles. The resulting cells can behave differently from each other, giving them an evolutionary advantage.


December 30, 2013

Recap of 2013: Top 10 most-viewed stories on UW Today

  For us writers in the UW News office, the year’s end gives us some time to think about the big research news stories of the year. Those that drove up page views, flooded our servers (thank you UW web team for keeping us afloat!), and generated interesting reader responses in the comments section. We…


David Shields acts, James Franco directs: A report from the set

An English professor turned actor? David Shields answers a few questions about “playing himself” in a film directed by James Franco based on Shields’ forthcoming book with colleague Caleb Powell, “I Think You’re Totally Wrong: A Quarrel.”


December 27, 2013

News digest: Fight hunger site, MyPlan extension, Energy Star rating, lecture nominations due

Letters UW and Farm with plants growing

Check out Huskies Fight Hunger site || UW online academic planner to be extended to community, technical college students || UW Tower data center now Energy Star certified || Nominations due Jan. 31 for graduate school public lectures


December 26, 2013

Psychiatry’s Jeremy J. Clark receives Presidential Early Career Award

Jeremy Clark

Clark was recognized for his work in the neurobiology of motivated behavior. His award will support investigations of how alcohol exposure during the teen years might lead to chronic alcoholism in adults.


December 23, 2013

UW Medicine Memory and Brain Wellness Center opens at Harborview

The new center at Harborview will link clinical evaluation and care of patients with research programs in Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, latent degenerative disease detection and treatment, and care delivery.


December 19, 2013

Sinuous skeletons, glowing blue and crimson, leap from lab to art world

Skeleton

Fish “stripped” to their skeletons and stained for UW research are now part of an art exhibit at the Seattle Aquarium.


TB bacteria mask their identity to intrude into deeper regions of lungs

TB in lower lungs

Cell surface lipids hide molecular patterns that infection-killing cells might recognize as dangerous.


December 18, 2013

Home dialysis gains momentum through UW research

home dialysis

Of the 400,000 kidney disease patients on dialysis in the United States only 6 percent to 7 percent are treated with home dialysis, largely because the choice is not often given to them as an option.


Single bacterial super-clone behind world epidemic of drug-resistant E. coli

E. coli

Virulent, drug-resistant forms of E. coli that recently have spread around the world emerged from a single strain of the bacteria, not many different strains, as has been widely supposed.


December 17, 2013

UWMC grants wish for seriously ill teen interested in NICU nursing

Samantha in NICU

Samantha’s dream career is Neonatal Intensive Care Unit nursing. One day last week the nurses in the UW Medical Center NICU warmly welcomed her to their world of caring for babies and their families.


The move’s on us: Students leave Terry, will return to new Lander Hall

Student Heather Huizenga gets ready to leave her Terry Hall room, having packed her belongings in boxes. When she comes back from holiday vacation to begin winter quarter, her stuff will await her in a room in the new Lander Hall.

Students living in the University of Washington’s Terry Hall will get a new home after the holidays without doing any moving – that part’s on the house, you might say.


Hack the planet? Geoengineering research, ethics, governance explored

ship that sprays clouds

A special interdisciplinary issue of the journal Climatic Change includes the most detailed description yet of the proposed Oxford Principles to govern geoengineering research, and surveys the technical hurdles, ethics and regulatory issues related to deliberately manipulating the planet’s climate.


December 16, 2013

5 effective parenting programs to reduce problem behaviors in children

father holding daughter's hand

UW researchers evaluated about 20 parenting programs and found five that are especially effective at helping parents and children at all risk levels avoid adolescent behavior problems that affect not only individuals, but entire communities.


December 12, 2013

New state-funded Clean Energy Institute will focus on solar, battery technologies

Gov. Jay Inslee (center) shakes hands with Dan Schwartz, director of the new Clean Energy Institute, with UW President Michael Young (left).

A new University of Washington institute to develop efficient, cost-effective solar power and better energy storage systems launched Dec. 12 with an event attended by UW President Michael K. Young, Gov. Jay Inslee and researchers, industry experts and policy leaders in renewable energy.


Scientists discover double meaning in genetic code

Genome scientist Dr. John Stamatoyannopoulos.

Finding a second code hiding in the genome casts new light on how changes to DNA impact health and disease.


December 11, 2013

Arts Roundup: Exhibits at the Henry and Burke Museum

This week we’re wrapping up the end of fall quarter — and the last arts roundup of 2013 — with a nice bow. During the roundup’s winter hiatus, we encourage you to check out some of the ongoing exhibits on campus before they also come to a close.


UW ranked 13th best value among public institutions by Kiplinger’s

Drumheller Fountain and Gerberding Hall on the UW campus.

The University of Washington has been ranked 13th best value among public colleges and universities for 2014 by Kiplinger’s Personal Finance.


December 10, 2013

What climate change means for federally protected marine species

salmon

As the Endangered Species Act nears its 40th birthday at the end of December, conservation biologists are coming to terms with a danger not foreseen in the 1970s: global climate change.


December 9, 2013

Communities across U.S. reduce teen smoking, drinking, violence and crime

Fewer high school students across the U.S. started drinking alcohol, smoking cigarettes, committing crimes and engaging in violence before graduation when their towns used a prevention system developed by UW’s Social Development Research Group.


Astronomers solve temperature mystery of planetary atmospheres

The sun is just below the horizon in this photo and creates an orange-red glow above the Earth's surface, which is the troposphere, or lowest layer of the atmosphere. The tropopause is the brown line along the upper edge of the troposphere. Above both are the stratosphere, higher atmospheric layers, and the blackness of space.

An atmospheric peculiarity the Earth shares with Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune is likely common to billions of planets, University of Washington astronomers have found, and knowing that may help in the search for potentially habitable worlds.


December 6, 2013

Sounders star makes young UW dental patient’s day

Sounder visits pediatric dental

Samuel Knorr didn’t like the idea of missing school for an orthodontic retainer check at the UW’s The Center for Pediatric Dentistry. When he came face to face with Seattle Sounders star DeAndre Yedlin, however, he was happy he did.


December 4, 2013

Arts Roundup: Drama, Ladino Day — and the UW Opera Theater

As fall quarter comes to a close, there’s still plenty to see and do on campus. This coming week, attend the UW Opera Theater to brush up on your “Le Nozze di Figaro,” or enjoy the final weekend of the Undergraduate Theater Society’s performance of “Woyzeck.”


December 3, 2013

Signalers vs. strong silent types: Sparrows exude personalities during fights

Song sparrow on a tree branch..

Like humans, some song sparrows are more effusive than others, at least when it comes to defending their territories. New UW findings show that consistent individual differences exist not only for how aggressive individual song sparrows are but also for how much they use their signals to communicate their aggressive intentions.


New book ‘Going Viral’ explores nature, impact of Internet virality

Book cover for "Going Viral" by Karine Nahon and Jeff Hemsley of the UW Information School.

Will we of the early 21th century be remembered for Internet memes like Grumpy Cat? “Going Viral,” a new book by Karine Nahon and Jeff Hemsley of the UW Information School explores the nature of virality and impacts of virality.


Project to gauge effects of Affordable Care Act in Washington state

clinical hands

The overall purpose of the project, called UW-SHARE, is to obtain a benchmark, pre-ACA picture of health-care use, health, health-related attitudes, and access to health insurance.


‘Spooky action’ builds a wormhole between ‘entangled’ particles

An illustration depicting a wormhole between two black holes.

New research indicates that a phenomenon called “quantum entanglement” could be intrinsically linked with the creation of wormholes.


December 2, 2013

Last chance to donate: UW Combined Fund Drive ends Dec. 6

UW faculty and staff have until Dec. 6 to contribute to this year’s UW Combined Fund Drive, part of Washington state’s workplace giving campaign.


November 26, 2013

MyHeartMapSeattle scavenger hunters report over 2,000 defibrillators

Unpacked AED

A city-wide contest to locate as many of Seattle’s automatic external defibrillators, or AEDs, netted far more than expected. The challenge arose from the need to map and monitor these devices, which can save the lives of people suffering an out-of-hospital sudden cardiac arrest.


Arts Roundup: Drama, art — and the School of Music’s ‘Carolfest’

CarolFest

The holiday season kicks off in full force with a variety of arts events to enjoy, including the School of Music’s annual CarolFest is on Dec. 4.


Redesigned purple UW license plates now available

A purple UW license plate.

The newly designed University of Washington vehicle license plate is now available for sale from the state Department of Licensing.


AAAS names five UW researchers as fellows

Advancement of Science logo

Five University of Washington researchers are among new fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.


News digest: ‘StormReady’ status, Ryan Calo blogs, green seed proposals due, ease Net access

“StormReady” status ups UW’s ability to cope with weather extremes || Ryan Calo blogs for Forbes || First Green Seed Fund proposals due Dec. 3 || Ease Net access at 5,500 institutions with “eduroam”


November 25, 2013

Study: Greenhouse gas might have warmed early Mars enough to allow liquid water

The mystery of how the surface of Mars, long dead and dry, could have flowed with water billions of years ago may have been solved by research that included a University of Washington astronomer.


Dashboards to bring culture change in strategic decision-making

Drumheller Fountain and Gerberding Hall on the UW campus.

New dashboards for exploring trends are bringing about a culture change in strategic decision-making at the university


November 24, 2013

How living cells solved a needle in a haystack problem to generate electrical signals

Advanced Light Source

Filtered from a vast sodium sea, more than 1 million calcium ions per second gush through our cells’ pores to generate charges


November 21, 2013

Studies to probe confluence of human, animal and environmental health in Africa

Grand Challenges Exploration Grants from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation will allow two UW-led teams to study the health determinants people share with other living creatures.


David Barash explores science, religion and meaning of life in ‘Buddhist Biology’

book cover of Buddhist Biology

David Barash, a UW psychology professor, is an evolutionary biologist, unapologetic atheist, and self-described Jewbu. In his latest book, “Buddhist Biology: Ancient Eastern Wisdom Meets Modern Western Science,” Barash examines the overlap between Buddhism and biology.


November 20, 2013

Board of Regents — Nov. 29 Special Meeting, Dec. Regular Meeting canceled, 2014 schedule announced

The Dec. 12 Regular Meeting of the Board of Regents has been cancelled. The Regents will hold a Special Meeting with the WSU Board of Regents on Friday, Nov. 29, at 9:30 a.m. in the Jim Houston Stadium Boardroom at Husky Stadium.  The agenda is available online. The 2014 Board of Regents schedule has been…


Arts Roundup: Music, drama — and ‘Elwha: A River Reborn’

Woyzeck

This week slows down as the campus prepares for the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday. However, don’t miss your last chance to see School of Drama’s “Fifth of July” or venture to the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture to explore their new exhibit “Elwha: A River Reborn.”



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