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An international team including a UW scientist found that the water on one of Saturn’s moons harbors phosphates, a key building block of life. The team used data from NASA’s Cassini space mission to detect evidence of phosphates in particles ejected from the ice-covered global ocean of Saturn’s moon Enceladus.

The University of Washington joined Lincoln Property Company, Intercontinental Real Estate Corporation and Sound Transit on May 10 to celebrate the groundbreaking of the new University District Station Building, along with local officials, community leaders and neighbors. The 266,000-square-foot office building resting above the University District light rail station will feature ground-floor retail and amenities, office space and a rooftop terrace.

A pair of studies published April 14 in the journal Science paint a new picture about apes, ancient Africa and the origins of humans. Many scientists had once hypothesized that the first apes to evolve in Africa more than 20 million years ago ate primarily fruit and lived within the thick, closed canopy of a nearly continent-wide forest ecosystem. Instead, the new research indicates that early apes ate a leafy diet in a more arid ecosystem of varyingly open woodlands with abundant grasses.

Phil Levin, professor of practice in environmental and forest sciences at the University of Washington and lead scientist at The Nature Conservancy in Washington, has been appointed to direct the first-ever U.S. National Nature Assessment. The 3-year assessment will take an interdisciplinary approach to better understand the role of nature in the lives of people across the country, and how those benefits might be altered under climate change.

Project Name: UWMC-Northwest Major Institution Master Plan (MIMP) Proponent & Lead Agency: University of Washington Comment Period Closes: April 17, 2023 Description of Proposal: The UW Medical Center – Northwest Major Institution Master Plan will allow for space on the campus to accommodate projected population growth and corresponding increase in healthcare demands. It would also allow for replacing aging campus facilities with more energy efficient, lower maintenance, and appropriate systems for today’s medical center functional requirements. The Master Plan will…

An international team of scientists has for the first time detected neutrinos created by a particle collider. The discovery — announced March 19 by the Forward Search Experiment, or FASER collaboration — promises to deepen scientists’ understanding of the nature of neutrinos, which are the most abundant particle in the cosmos. FASER’s detector picked up neutrinos generated by the Large Hadron Collider, which is based at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland.

The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and the University of Washington are bringing together climate, sustainability and resilience leaders, and educators representing a cross section of colleges and universities from around the country, with federal agency leaders for a virtual forum on climate change.

Two University of Washington faculty members have been awarded early-career fellowships from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. The new Sloan Fellows, announced Feb. 15, are Leilani Battle, an assistant professor in the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering, and Jonathan J. Zhu, an assistant professor in the Department of Mathematics.

The University of Washington is proud to be included on the list of U.S. colleges and universities that produced the most 2022-2023 Fulbright U.S. students and scholars. This recognition is given to the U.S. colleges and universities that received the highest number of applicants selected for the 2022-23 Fulbright U.S. Student and Fulbright U.S. Scholar programs.

University of Washington Provost Mark Richards announced the appointment of Fredrick Muyia Nafukho as the new Vice Provost for the Office of Academic Personnel beginning Feb. 1, pending approval by the Board of Regents. Nafukho also will hold a tenured faculty position in the Department of Management and Organization in the Foster School of Business.

In a study published Dec. 8 in Nature Astronomy, an international research team, led by Orsola De Marco of Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia, analyzed 10 highly detailed exposures taken by the JWST of the Southern Ring Nebula. Their calculations show the central star that ejected the expanding nebula gas was originally three times the mass of the sun, and that unseen companions shaped the nebula’s intricate features.

University of Washington President Ana Mari Cauce delivered her annual address to the community on Oct. 20. Highlights of the speech are reflected in this video. The audience was invited to attend the event remotely via livestream. President Cauce talked about the power of public research universities to bring communities together across differences to address some of the world’s greatest challenges. Higher-education institutions, particularly the UW, are being called on to do great things, and “we will answer that call,”…

A 2018 expedition that drilled farther into the seafloor than ever before — almost 2 miles — sought to take measurements of stress as close as possible to a tectonic fault off the coast of Japan. Surprisingly, the researchers found little built-up tectonic stress. The findings could help to better understand earthquakes in subduction zones around the world.