New UW research indicates that even if Earth warmed enough to melt all polar sea ice, the ice could recover if the planet cooled again.
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 UW biologist is among scientists who for the first time have been able to study interactions between individual sperm and eggs of red abalone in conditions similar to its ocean surroundings, work that could have implications for improving fertilization in humans.
On July 1, the 30-year average temperatures used to determine “normal” changed, dropping the decade of the 1970s and adding the decade of 2001 through 2010. As a result, normal temperatures are now a bit warmer.
A University of Washington researcher has found that, at least by one measure, this spring was the coldest on record for the state and that Seattle’s last two springs have been the cloudiest since cloud-cover records started 50 years ago.
New research suggests that, in the Athabasca Oil Sands in northern Alberta, human activity related to oil production and the timber industry could be more important than wolves in the decline of the caribou population.
New research shows that in some structured communities, organisms increase their chances of survival if they evolve some level of restraint that allows competitors to survive as well, a sort of “survival of the weakest.”
New research lends support to recent studies that suggest abrupt climate change is the result of alterations in ocean circulation uniquely associated with ice ages, not from atmospheric carbon dioxide.
An international physics collaboration that includes the University of Washington has observed a previously unseen type of neutrino “oscillation,” or transformation, that could help explain the lack of antimatter in the universe.
A century after the discovery of superfluids, scientists using a powerful supercomputer have devised a theoretical framework that explains the real-time behavior of superfluids.
UW scientists find that in an unfelt, weeks-long seismic phenomenon called episodic tremor and slip, the tremor can suddenly reverse direction and travel back through areas of the fault that it had ruptured in preceding days.
A fossil of a creature that died about 247 million years ago, originally thought to be a distant relative of both birds and crocodiles, actually came from the crocodile family tree after it had already split from the bird family tree, a UW researcher has found.
In the last five years, the chicks of two penguin species on different continents have been afflicted with a disorder that causes them to lose their feathers, and scientists are trying to determine the reason.
New research shows that rising sea surface temperatures in the central Pacific Ocean drive atmospheric circulation that has caused some of the largest shifts in Antarctic climate in recent decades.
Scientists from Washington, Oregon and California are in talks about the feasibility of establishing an earthquake early warning system for the West Coast.
Hundreds of planets have been discovered outside the solar system in the last decade, but now a UW astrophysicist is suggesting that the best place to look for planets that could support life is around dying stars called white dwarfs.
UW physicists are detecting radioactivity arriving in Seattle from Japanese nuclear reactors damaged in a tsunami following a mammoth earthquake, but the levels are far below what would pose a threat to human health.
After 12 years, NASA’s Stardust spacecraft, the brainchild of a UW astronomer, has been officially decommissioned.
A University of Washington atmospheric scientist believes it is unlikely North America is in any danger from airborne radiation from Japanese nuclear reactors.
A UW astronomer is part of an international team that for the first time has captured detailed images that indicate how planets might have formed from the disks of material around two young stars more than 400 light years from Earth.
A marine microbiologist and faculty member since 1996, Armbrust will lead a school with 50 faculty and 100 staff.
A decade after the Nisqually earthquake shook Western Washington, scientific ideas about the region’s seismic danger have evolved and the ability to study and prepare for it has improved immensely.
As debate continues about potential policies to curb greenhouse gas emissions, new UW research shows the world is already committed to a warmer climate because of emissions that have occurred up to now.
It’s been 12 years since Stardust, the brainchild of a UW astronomer, was launched and seven years since it encountered a comet called Wild 2 out beyond Mars. Next Monday the probe will make history again when it meets its second comet, Tempel 1.
UW scientists are part of a project that has succeeded in extracting a core more than 2 miles in depth from Antarctic ice.
Last summers disastrous and deadly Pakistan floods were caused by a rogue weather system that wandered hundreds of miles farther west than is normal for such systems, new UW research shows.
The work of three UW researchers is highlighted in an art exhibit at the Washington State Convention Center featuring creations from collaborations between artists and scientists.
New research indicates that if humans reduce greenhouse gas emissions significantly in the next decade or two, enough Arctic ice is likely to remain intact during late summer and early autumn for polar bears to survive.
Summertime fog, a common feature along the West Coast, has declined since 1950 while coastal temperatures have increased slightly, new research shows.
New technology is letting UW researchers get a much better picture of how episodic tremor events relate to potentially catastrophic earthquakes every 300 to 500 years in the Cascadia subduction zone.
Every 15 months or so, an unfelt earthquake occurs in western Washington and travels northward to Canada’s Vancouver Island.
Summertime fog, a common feature along the West Coast, has decline since 1950 while coastal temperatures have increased slightly.
New research shows that notches carved by rivers at the bottom of glacial valleys in the Swiss Alps survive from one glacial episode to the next, protected in part by the glaciers themselves.
Research shows that notches carved by rivers at the bottom of glacial valleys in the Swiss Alps survive from one glacial episode to the next
University of Washington researchers are using tiny sea creatures called foraminifera to help diagnose the health of Puget Sound.
From low oxygen levels in areas of Hood Canal to pollution in Elliott and Commencement bays, scientists have documented some serious environmental issues in Puget Sound, whose shores are home to more than 3 million Western Washington residents.
Researchers are using tiny creatures called foraminifera to diagnose the health of Puget Sound.
Think of it as Habitat for Penguinity.
Penguin Report (PDF) A Tool for Increasing the Population of the Galapagos Penguin For more information, contact Boersma at 206-616-2185 or boersma@uw.edu. Think of it as Habitat for Penguinity. A University of Washington conservation biologist is behind the effort to build nests in the barren rocks of the Galápagos Islands in the hope of increasing the population of an endangered penguin species. Just as Habitat for Humanity crews help build houses for people who need shelter, Dee Boersma’s team in…
A UW conservation has built nests in the Galápagos Islands in the hope of increasing the population of an endangered penguin species.
Some tiny crustaceans living in clear-water alpine ponds high in Washington state’s Olympic Mountains have learned how to cope with the sun’s damaging ultraviolet rays without sunblock — and with very little natural pigmentation to protect them.