Frank Drake, author of “The Drake Equation,” will speak in June about the current status of the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI).
Author: Vince Stricherz
I spent more than 20 years as a reporter and editor in broadcast, print and wire service news, and have been covering physical sciences at UW for more than a decade. I currently cover Earth and space sciences, chemistry and physics, and also handle some editing duties for UW Today and the Faculty & Staff Insider Web pages.
A preliminary plan for a national science and engineering laboratory deep underground in the Cascade Mountains near Leavenworth is being unveiled this week as a starting point for a formal proposal.
A slow earthquake has apparently begun under western Washington, and UW scientists believe it will provide insight into stresses that eventually will lead to the region’s next major earthquake.
When jet lag or oft-changing work shifts make you feel out of synch, it’s probably not your imagination.
It is virtually impossible for a prospective Magellanic penguin mother to find or build a soft spot to lay her eggs.
New research led by a University of Washington biologist shows there are at least two circadian clocks in the mammal brain, one that sticks strictly to an internal schedule and another that can be altered by external influences such as light and dark.
New UW research shows Magellanic penguin eggs come with extra-thick shells to withstand being laid on hard surfaces and survive being kicked around during penguin fights.
For years the debate about climate change has had a contentious sticking point — satellite measurements of temperatures in the troposphere, the layer of atmosphere where most weather occurs, were inconsistent with fast-warming surface temperatures.
University of Washington researchers using satellite data in a new and more accurate way show that for more than two decades the troposphere has been warming faster than the Earth’s surface.
An earthquake of unparalleled enormity causes mayhem and destruction up and down the West Coast, toppling Seattle’s Space Needle, ripping apart San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge and severing the western edge of the country from the mainland.
A miniseries featuring a mammoth earthquake and a fictional University of Washington seismologist is to air May 2 and 3. Real UW earthquake experts say the production appears to have very little in common with reality.
Parasite-caused diseases such as malaria kill millions of people each year, and eradication efforts have been largely futile.
Two UW physicists, responding to a new National Science Foundation plan, are preparing a proposal to place a Deep Underground Science and Engineering Laboratory beneath the Cascade Mountains in Eastern Washington.
When Janet Kavandi was pursuing her doctoral degree at the UW, she harbored the same career dream she had when she was growing up in rural Missouri.
Join a dozen “EarthDialers” starting today at http://planetary.org/mars/earthdial as the modern marvel of the webcam merges with the ancient technology for marking time, the sundial.
Increasing evidence clearly documents that air pollution from Asia can get caught up in an express transport system and cross the Pacific Ocean to the West Coast of North America in a matter of days.
As the world’s population surges, pollution generated in one country more and more frequently invades the air of another country, most often a nation in the same part of the globe but occasionally one that lies thousands of miles away.
For years, organic electro-optic polymers have held the promise of vastly improving technologies such as communications, data processing and image displays.
Neutrinos are about the tiniest things in existence, but developing a greater understanding of what they are and how they function is likely to have a huge impact in the next few years.
Pollution generated in one country frequently invades the air of another. An international relations specialist at the University of Washington, Bothell, suggests that effective answers might require efforts on the regional and local levels
Increasing evidence clearly documents that air pollution from Asia can get caught up in an express transport system and cross the Pacific Ocean to the West Coast of North America in a matter of days.
Kavandi was awarded a doctorate in chemistry in 1990 for her work with pressure-sensitive coatings to aid in studying air pressure on surfaces such as airplane wings. She subsequently joined the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, logging 33 days in space and 13.1 million miles traveled in 535 Earth orbits.
As the publication of scientific research papers shifts more and more from print to electronic distribution, universities often buy site licenses that provide campuswide online access to a variety of journals, which cuts publishers’ production costs and is more convenient for readers.
As the publication of scientific research papers shifts more and more from print to electronic distribution, universities often buy site licenses that provide campus-wide online access to a variety of journals, which cuts publishers’ production costs and is more convenient for readers.
New Jacobsen Observatory links two staples of astronomy at UW
It took 109 years, but the second-oldest building on campus finally has a name of its own.
After five long years, the Stardust spacecraft is on its way home with a trove of microscopic particles gleaned from comet Wild 2 in a spectacular encounter the day after New Year’s.
After a nearly five-year chase, the Stardust spacecraft will finally meet comet Wild 2 on the day after New Year’s. It’s a moment Donald Brownlee has anticipated for nearly 25 years.
After a nearly five-year chase, the Stardust spacecraft will finally meet comet Wild 2 on the day after New Year’s. It’s a moment Donald Brownlee has anticipated for nearly 25 years.
Astrobiologists disagree about whether advanced life is common or rare in our universe.
Astrobiologists disagree about whether advanced life is common or rare in our universe. But new research suggests that one thing is pretty certain — if an Earthlike world with significant water is needed for advanced life to evolve, there could be many candidates.
Woodruff Sullivan, a University of Washington astronomy professor, is teaming up with television personality Bill Nye, “the science guy,” and The Planetary Society on EarthDial, a project to get schools, community organizations and individuals around the world to build their own sundials and display them on the Internet using 24-hour webcams.
Large, deep earthquakes have shaken the central Puget Sound region several times during the last century, and nerves have been rattled even more often by less-powerful deep quakes.
Scientists have known for many years that auditory cues such as song can influence hormone release and the growth of gonads in songbirds, but how the brain picks out specific sounds, interprets them correctly and translates them into hormonal and behavioral signals has remained a mystery.
Herbert Hoover reputedly wanted a car in every garage and a chicken in every pot.
It’s a long-held tenet of avian biology that songbirds have just two types of a key reproduction hormone, gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH), and only one actually triggers a seasonal “puberty” each spring in preparation for reproduction. But the new research shows a third form of the hormone, called lamprey GnRH-III-like hormone because it was first identified in lampreys, is also present in songbird brains.
Large, deep earthquakes have shaken the central Puget Sound region several times during the last century, and nerves have been rattled even more often by less-powerful deep quakes.
Recent evidence suggests that oxygen levels were suppressed worldwide 175 million to 275 million years ago and fell to precipitously low levels compared with today’s atmosphere, low enough to make breathing the air at sea level feel like respiration at high altitude.
Evidence has mounted for nearly 20 years that a great earthquake ripped the seafloor off the Washington coast in 1700, long before there were any written records in the region.
A University of Washington paleontologist theorizes that low oxygen and repeated short but substantial temperature increases because of greenhouse warming sparked two major mass-extinction events, one of which eradicated 90 percent of all species on Earth.