From geckos and iguanas to Gila monsters and Komodo dragons, lizards are among the most common reptiles on Earth.
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.
As the world marks the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin’s birth, there is much focus on evolution in animals and plants.
Imagine you live in the suburbs of Chicago and you must commute hundreds of miles to a job in Iowa just to put food on the table.
New research shows that the large-scale evolution of microbes was mostly complete 2.5 billion years ago, and that included the beginning of the modern aerobic nitrogen cycle.
Magellanic penguins, like most other species of the flightless birds, are having their survival challenged by wide variability in conditions and food availability, a University of Washington biologist has found.
Foreign visitors are nothing new for the UW campus, but during this school year three strange guests from a distant land have taken up residence in Kincaid Hall.
In the last decade, scientists have recorded regular episodes of tectonic plates slowly, quietly slipping past each other in western Washington and British Columbia over periods of two weeks or more, releasing as much energy as a magnitude 6 earthquake.
In the last decade, scientists have recorded regular episodes of tectonic plates slowly, quietly slipping past each other in western Washington and British Columbia over periods of two weeks or more, releasing as much energy as a magnitude 6 earthquake.
Scientists studying climate change have long believed that while most of the rest of the globe has been getting steadily warmer, a large part of Antarctica — the East Antarctic Ice Sheet — has actually been getting colder.
New research shows that, contrary popular belief, much of Antarctica has been warming like the rest of the world for the last 50 years.
Rapidly warming climate is likely to seriously alter crop yields in the tropics and subtropics by the end of this century and, without adaptation, will leave half the world’s population facing serious food shortages, new research shows.
From troubled beginnings nearly 18 years ago, the Hubble Space Telescope has revolutionized astronomy and its stunning images have stirred the imaginations of people around the globe.
New research shows that rapidly warming climate is likely to seriously alter crop yields in the tropics and subtropics by the end of this century and, without adaptation, will leave half the world’s population facing serious food shortages.
As the International Year of Astronomy dawns, a University of Washington professor recounts the achievements of the renowned Hubble Space Telescope as it prepares for its final chapter.
New research shows that the great Indian Ocean earthquake that struck off the Indonesian island of Sumatra on the day after Christmas in 2004 set off tremors nearly 9,000 miles away in the San Andreas fault at Parkfield, Calif.
If you’ve ever wondered what the heck a convergence zone is, what a rain shadow is or just where the Seattle area ranks in terms of annual rainfall, you’ll find answers in a new book from a UW expert on Pacific Northwest weather.
If you’ve ever wondered what the heck a convergence zone is, what a rain shadow is or just where the Seattle area ranks in terms of annual rainfall, you’ll find answers in a new book from a University of Washington expert on Pacific Northwest weather.
It sounds like a tale straight from CSI: The bully invades a home and does away with the victim, then is ultimately found out with the help of DNA evidence.
DNA evidence shows conclusively that males from a North American warbler species interbred with females from a related species and took over a large part of the other species’ range.
A quarter-million people were killed when a tsunami inundated Indian Ocean coastlines the day after Christmas in 2004.
A quarter-million people were killed when a tsunami inundated Indian Ocean coastlines the day after Christmas in 2004. Now scientists have found evidence that the event was not a first-time occurrence.
The Tsangpo River is the highest major river in the world, starting at 14,500 feet elevation and plunging to the Bay of Bengal, scouring huge amounts of rock and soil along the way.
New research suggests that the edge of the Tibetan plateau might have been preserved for thousands of years by ice and glacial debris at the mouth of many tributaries to the Tsangpo River. Those deposits appear to have acted as dams that prevented the rapidly traveling Tsangpo from carving upstream into the plateau.
A long-standing scientific belief holds that stars tend to hang out in the same general part of a galaxy where they originally formed.
When the world’s land was congealed in one supercontinent 240 million years ago, Antarctica wasn’t the forbiddingly icy place it is now.
David Montgomery, a University of Washington professor of Earth and space sciences noted for his study of how soil and rivers shape civilizations, has been named one of 25 new MacArthur Fellows.
A long-standing scientific belief holds that stars tend to hang out in the same general part of a galaxy where they originally formed.
When the world’s land was congealed in one supercontinent 240 million years ago, Antarctica wasn’t the forbiddingly icy place it is now.
Having studied the physiology of algae for more than 30 years, Rose Ann Cattolico is convinced the plant life found in oceans and ponds can be a major source of environmentally friendly fuels for everything from cars and lawn mowers to jet airplanes.
The newest space telescope is the payoff for years of work for a UW physicist.
In the last 60 years, brown tree snakes have become the embodiment of the bad things that can happen when invasive species are introduced in places where they have few predators.
If you’re a fan of habañero salsa or like to order Thai food spiced to five stars, you owe a lot to bugs, both the crawling kind and ones you can see only with a microscope.
New UW research shows that bugs — both the crawling kind and ones you can only see with a microscope — are responsible for the heat in chili peppers.
Paleontologists in 2005 hailed research that apparently showed that soft, pliable tissues had been recovered from dissolved dinosaur bones, a major finding that would substantially widen the known range of preserved biomolecules.
African elephants are being slaughtered for their ivory at a pace unseen since an international ban on the ivory trade took effect in 1989.
Brown tree snakes have come to embody the bad things that can happen when invasive species show up where they have few predators. But new research suggests that indirect impacts might be even farther reaching, possibly changing tree distributions and altering already damaged ecosystems.
African elephants are being slaughtered for their ivory at a pace unseen since an international ban on the ivory trade took effect in 1989, but a University of Washington conservation biologist believes there is little outcry because the public seems to be unaware of the giant mammals’ plight.
Paleontologists in 2005 hailed research apparently showing that soft tissues had been recovered from dissolved dinosaur bones, but new research suggests the supposed recovered tissue is really just biofilm – or slime.
Like the proverbial canary in the coal mine, penguins are sounding the alarm for potentially catastrophic changes in the world’s oceans, and the culprit isn’t only climate change, says a UW conservation biologist.
Like the proverbial canary in the coal mine, penguins are sounding the alarm for potentially catastrophic changes in the world’s oceans, and the culprit isn’t only climate change, says a University of Washington conservation biologist.