Two processes that turn woody biomass into transportation fuels have the potential to exceed current Environmental Protection Agency requirements for renewable fuels.
Engineering
Just a week after the Interstate 5 Skagit River Bridge collapse north of Seattle, the University of Washington will host a national steel bridge competition for undergraduate civil engineering students. Forty-nine finalist teams will converge on campus for the 2013 National Student Steel Bridge Competition.
University of Washington structural engineers, architects and freight transportation experts are available to speak with reporters about the I-5 Skagit Bridge collapse on Thursday, May 23. Charles Roeder Professor, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering Office: 206-543-6199 E-mail: croeder@uw.edu Web: http://www.ce.washington.edu/people/faculty/faculty.php?id=36 Expertise: Gusset plates and steel bracing frames; seismic behavior of steel and composite structures; fatigue of steel structures; temperature effects in structures; movements in bridges; bridge bearings and expansion joints Jeffrey Berman Associate Professor, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering…
UW Seaglider technology is licensed commercially; Richard Whitney, emeritus professor of fisheries, will deliver a talk about the Boldt decision; U. of Minnesota president and former UW faculty member Eric Kaler will deliver a talk about challenges facing research institutions.
The recently updated K-12 science education learning goals outline a vision for what all U.S. citizens should know about science. Philip Bell, director of UW’s Institute for Science and Math Education, talks about what’s new about the goals.
University of Washington engineers have created a synthetic substance that fully resists the body’s natural attack response to foreign objects. Medical devices such as artificial heart valves, prostheses and breast implants could be coated with this polymer to prevent the body from rejecting an implanted object.
The University of Washington in collaboration with Washington State University is developing an “academic redshirt” program that will bring dozens of low-income, Washington state high school graduates to the two universities to study engineering in a five-year bachelor’s program.
A new device will give hospitals and research labs a much easier way to separate DNA from human fluid samples to help with genome sequencing, disease diagnosis and forensic investigations.
New University of Washington research shows it’s much more environmentally friendly to leave the car parked at home and opt for groceries delivered to your doorstep.
Engineering Discovery Days is April 26-27 at the UW campus and will feature exhibits and demonstrations from engineering departments and student groups.
David Notkin, University of Washington professor of computer science and engineering, died April 22. He was 58.
Engineers at the UW’s Applied Physics Laboratory are under pressure to build and test parts for installation this summer in the world’s largest deep-ocean observatory off the Washington and Oregon coasts.
Researchers found that a protein in organs that repeatedly stretch and retract can lose their functionality when exposed to sugar.
A new procedure that thickens and thins fluid at the micron level could save consumers and manufacturers money, particularly for some soap products.
Astronauts could be a step closer to a fast journey to Mars using a unique manipulation of nuclear fusion devised by UW scientists and those at a Redmond company.
Scientists come closer to boosting heart muscle by powering its contractile machinery.
New research offers a more comprehensive way to analyze a cell’s unique behavior, revealing patterns that could indicate why a cell will or won’t become cancerous.
Michael B. Bragg, professor and interim engineering dean at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, has been selected as dean of the UW College of Engineering.
A paper in Science describes an organic crystal that shows promise as a cheap, flexible, nontoxic material for the working parts of memory chips, sensors and energy-harvesting devices.
The University of Washington and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory have formed the Northwest Institute for Advanced Computing, a joint institute based at the UW that will foster collaborative computing research.
Judith Ramey, professor and former chair in the UW’s Department of Human Centered Design and Engineering, is named interim dean of the University of Washington’s College of Engineering.
The UW is expanding its Training Xchange initiative to help researchers transmit innovations in healthcare and other fields to professionals locally and beyond the Northwest.
The U.S. Department of Energy this month awarded $4 million to a team, led by UW chemical engineers, that aims to develop bacteria to turn the methane in natural gas into diesel fuel for transportation.
The ASL-STEM Forum is a crowdsourcing project, similar to Wikipedia or the Urban Dictionary, that creates a new sign language for the latest scientific and technical terms.
Electrically spun cloth with nanometer-sized fibers show promise as a cheap, versatile platform to simultaneously offer contraception and prevent HIV. New funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation will further test the system’s versatility and feasibility.
These principles could allow scientists to custom-make, rather than re-purpose, protein molecules for vaccines, drugs, and industrial and environmental uses.
The UW Board of Regents yesterday approved a name change to the William E. Boeing Department of Aeronautics & Astronautics, recognizing the shared history of UW aeronautics and The Boeing Company, and honoring the man who launched them both.
Three undergraduates won $100,000 to form a company that will work with partners in Oaxaca, Mexico, to build machines that can transform waste plastic into composting toilets and pieces for rainwater harvesting systems.
The Living Voters Guide, created by the UW and presented with Seattle’s CityClub, just won a regional award and has been updated for the 2012 election. This year the guide has expanded to include a California edition, and the Washington guide will include fact-checking of selected points by Seattle Public Library staff.
Maria Klawe, professor of computer science and president of Harvey Mudd College, will speak Tuesday at the UW about how her institution over three years quadrupled its female representation in undergraduate computer science majors, to 40 percent.
New hardware lets engineers maintain the plasma used in fusion reactors in an energy-efficient, stable manner, making the system potentially attractive for use in fusion power plants.
Three public lectures by UW engineering professors will give an overview of molecular engineering and applications in biotech and alternative energy.
Global health researchers are working on cheap systems like a home-based pregnancy test that might work for malaria, diabetes or other diseases. A new chemical technique makes medically interesting molecules stick to regular paper — a possible route to building such paper-based diagnostics from paper you could buy at an office-supply store.
As the U.S. presidential election approaches, many voters become voracious consumers of online political news. A new tool tracks whether all those articles really provide a balanced view of the debate – and, if not, suggests some sites that offer opinions from the other side of the political spectrum.
A tiny digital tag developed at the UW can for the first time see when birds meet in the wild, offering a window into animal social networks. A study in Current Biology used the tags to track the social habits of New Caledonian crows, and found a surprising amount of interaction among the tool-using birds.
The scientists were selected for their inventive ideas to transform their field of research and improve the health of the public.
Feeling wheezy? You could call the doctor. Or soon you could use your smartphone to diagnose your lung health, with a new app that uses the frequencies in the breath to determine how much and how fast you can exhale.
The UW’s new Molecular Engineering and Sciences Building opens this fall with a series of kick-off events focused on this emerging area of research. The associated Institute will focus on research applications in medicine and clean energy.
An international team of researchers has made headway toward a comprehensive listing of all the working parts of the human genome. More than 30 scientific papers appear today, include major work by UW researchers. The London Museum of Science celebrates with ceiling banners and aerial dancers.
This summer the UW hosted the first World Lab Summer Institute, which brings together computing and design students from the UW and Beijing’s Tsinghua University. The students spent seven weeks devising ways that technology could be used to address global issues in health, environment and education.