Environment
August 21, 2012
66th field season underway in world’s longest-running effort to monitor salmon
The UW’s Alaska Salmon Program, now in its 66th field season, focuses not just on fisheries management, but on ecology and evolution as well, and has just won a top fisheries prize.
August 20, 2012
Experiment would test cloud geoengineering as way to slow warming
A University of Washington scientist has proposed an experiment to test cloud brightening, a geoengineering concept that alters clouds in an effort to counter global warming.
August 15, 2012
Detection dogs spot northern spotted owls, even those alarmed by barred owls
Forest searches using specially trained dogs improved the probability of finding spotted owls by nearly 30 percent over traditional vocalization surveys.
August 14, 2012
New book explores Noah’s Flood; says Bible and science can get along
David Montgomery, a University of Washington geologist, is the author of a new book that explores the long history of religious thinking on matters of geological discovery, particularly flood stories such as the biblical account of Noah’s ark.
UW named America’s fourth ‘coolest’ school by Sierra magazine
The University of Washington again has been ranked among the coolest schools in America, placing fourth this year, according to Sierra Magazine.
August 2, 2012
Bears, scavengers count on all-you-can-eat salmon buffet lasting for months
Salmon conservation shouldn’t narrowly focus on managing flows in streams and rivers or on preserving only places that currently have strong salmon runs. Instead, watersheds need a good mix of steep, cold-running streams and slower, meandering streams of warmer water to keep options open for salmon adapted to reproduce better in one setting than the…
July 31, 2012
Critically endangered whales sing like birds; new recordings hint at rebound — with audio
When a University of Washington researcher listened to the audio picked up by a recording device that spent a year in the icy waters off the east coast of Greenland, she was stunned at what she heard: whales singing a remarkable variety of songs nearly constantly for five wintertime months. Listen to the bowheads repeat…
July 13, 2012
Robert J. Naiman earns award for insights into freshwater ecosystems
Robert J. Naiman has received the highest award given by the Ecological Society of America, the world’s largest society of professional ecologists.
June 12, 2012
Novel scientific equipment will unlock ocean secrets for decades — with slide show
University of Washington engineers and scientists are one step closer to deploying sophisticated equipment that will collect important information about ocean properties like currents and temperature and send the information via the Internet in real time to scientists around the world.
June 6, 2012
Too few salmon is far worse than too many boats for killer whales – with slide show
Not having enough Chinook salmon to eat stresses out southern resident killer whales more than having boatloads of whale watchers nearby, according to hormone levels of whales summering in the Salish Sea. In lean times, however, the stress normally associated with boats becomes more pronounced, further underscoring the importance of having enough prey.
June 4, 2012
Nuclear and coal-fired electrical plants vulnerable to climate change
In a study published this week in Nature Climate Change, University of Washington and European scientists project that in the next 50 years global climate change will disrupt power generation in the U.S. and Europe. Warmer water and lower flows are predicted to interrupt the supply of cooling water.
May 25, 2012
It's in the genes: Research pinpoints how plants know when to flower
Scientists believe they’ve pinpointed the last crucial piece of the 80-year-old puzzle of how plants “know” when to flower. Understanding how flowering works in a simple plant should lead to a better understanding of how the same genes work in more complex plants such as rice and wheat.
May 21, 2012
Inaugural Conservation Remix aims to foster creative thinking about environment
Conservation Remix, a daylong event June 2 organized by UW staff with Conservation Magazine and biology, offers an eclectic mix of topics for discussion – from designing superefficient buildings that generate their own energy to controlling invasive species by eating them.
May 14, 2012
Nearly one-tenth of hemisphere’s mammals unlikely to outrun climate change
A safe haven could be out of reach for 9 percent of the Western Hemisphere’s mammals, and as much as 40 percent in certain regions, because the animals just won’t move swiftly enough to outpace climate change, according to new research from the UW School of Environmental and Forest Sciences.
May 7, 2012
New research brings satellite measurements and global climate models closer
UW researchers have discovered a problem with a climate record that is often cited by climate change skeptics.
May 3, 2012
Increasing speed of Greenland glaciers gives new insight for rising sea level
Changes in the speed that ice travels in more than 200 outlet glaciers indicates that Greenland’s contribution to rising sea level in the 21st century might be significantly less than the upper limits some scientists thought possible, a new study shows.
May 2, 2012
Handful of heavyweight trees per acre are forest champs
Big trees three or more feet in diameter accounted for nearly half the biomass measured at a Yosemite National Park site, yet represented only 1 percent of the trees growing there.
April 25, 2012
Wind pushes plastics deeper into oceans, driving trash estimates up (with video)
Decades of research into how much plastic litters the ocean, conducted by skimming only the surface, may in some cases vastly underestimate the true amount of plastic debris in the oceans, according to a University of Washington oceanographer publishing in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.
April 20, 2012
UW awards six Husky Green Awards for 2012
Winners of the third annual Husky Green Awards were announced Friday during Earth Day activities.
April 12, 2012
Annual campus Earth Day events April 20 during HuskyFest
The annual campus observation of Earth Day Friday, April 20, coincides this year with HuskyFest.
April 11, 2012
Space weather forecast: Sunspotty, with an increasing chance of solar storms
Electrical engineering professor John Sahr gives his read on the increase in solar activity, and how it relates to his research.
March 30, 2012
Bigger, bolder, greener: The 2012 UW Environmental Innovation Challenge (with video)
The fourth Environmental Innovation Challenge was the biggest yet. The winning team proposes to replace concrete lane dividers with ones made from recycled rubber tires. Other student teams presented their prototypes for emergency shelters, rooftop gardens, nonstick cookware and other green businesses.
March 20, 2012
Web tool, phone app pinpoint tsunami dangers, quick getaway routes
A new online portal and smartphone app lets Washington and Oregon residents enter the addresses of their homes, schools, workplaces or kids’ day care centers to check if they’re in harm’s way should a tsunami hit. The tool, being publicized on the heels of the one-year anniversary of the Tohoku tsunami, was developed by researchers at the Applied Physics Laboratory.
March 19, 2012
D.C. cherry trees: Blooms won’t wait in warming world, UW research finds
Cherry trees in full bloom in our nation’s capital could be as much as four weeks earlier by 2080 depending on how much warming occurs. So says an analysis conducted at the University of Washington that relied on the UW’s own cherry trees as one test of a computer model used in the project.
March 12, 2012
Bellingham roadway with recycled toilets is world's first official 'Greenroad'
Greenroads, a rating system developed at the University of Washington to promote sustainable roadway construction, awarded its first official certification to a Bellingham project that incorporates porcelain from recycled toilets.
March 7, 2012
Facilities Services receives $1 million for energy conservation
Facilities Services is continuing a long-standing energy conservation partnership with Seattle City Light in an agreement for the utility to fund energy conservation initiatives on campus.
March 6, 2012
UW played major role in telling story of Japan quake
From Seattle to Japan, University of Washington faculty had an important role in providing information about the aftermath of the March 2011 Japan earthquake and tsunami.
March 1, 2012
UW students to design alternative-fuels vehicle for EcoCAR 2 competition
Over the next three years, a team of UW students will convert a 2013 Chevy Malibu into a fuel-efficient, low-emissions vehicle that still meets consumer demands for a driver-friendly car. The UW is one of 15 schools participating in the EcoCAR 2 contest, sponsored by General Motors and the U.S. Department of Energy.
February 24, 2012
Kids can explore icy worlds with scientists at Polar Science Weekend (with video)
Learn about polar bears and penguins. Center a two-foot tusk on your forehead and imagine youre a narwhal exploring your icy-ocean home. For these activities and more, grab the kids and head for Polar Science Weekend, March 1 to 4, sponsored by the UW’s Applied Physics Laboratory and Pacific Science Center.
February 23, 2012
Stop putting the squeeze on tiger territory, says UW alum, now chief scientist with World Wildlife Fund
The plight of the tiger – none of the worlds 350 protected areas in the tigers range is large enough to support a viable population – is the subject of the UWs “Sustaining our World” lecture March 1. Eric Dinerstein, the World Wildlife Funds chief scientist and a UW alum, will speak on “All Together Now: Linking Ecosystem Services, Endangered Species Conservation and Local Livelihoods” at 6 p.m., in Kane 220.
February 22, 2012
AAAS Notebook: Faculty views range across natural world, human health, more
Last weeks American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in Vancouver, BC, included 11 speakers from the University of Washington on topics including marine protected areas, the myth of black progress, womens reproductive health and how undergraduates learn best.
February 17, 2012
Models underestimate future temperature variability; food security at risk
Climate warming caused by greenhouse gases is very likely to increase summer temperature variability around the world by the end of this century, new UW research shows. The findings have major implications for food production.
February 2, 2012
Scientists coax shy microorganisms to stand out in a crowd
University of Washington scientists have advanced a method that allowed them to single out a marine microorganism and map its genome even though the organism made up less than 10 percent of a water sample teeming with many millions of individuals from dozens of identifiable groups of microbes.
January 26, 2012
Commentary in Nature: Can economy bear what oil prices have in store?
The economic pain of a flattening oil supply will trump the environment as a reason to curb the use of fossil fuels, say two scientists, one from the University of Washington and one from the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom, in the Jan. 26 issue of the journal Nature.
January 25, 2012
USDOT awards $3.5 million for UW-based regional transportation center
The U.S. Department of Transportation has awarded a grant of $3.5 million to a multi-university, regional transportation center led by the University of Washington. The newly established Pacific Northwest Transportation Consortium, or PacTrans, will focus on safe and sustainable transportation systems.
January 18, 2012
New oral history of William Ruckelshaus, key figure in environmental policy, now online
An oral history of the career of William D. Ruckelshaus, the first and fifth administrator of the federal Environmental Protection Agency, whose career parallels the growth of the environmental movement in the United States, is now available in three locations in the state of Washington.
January 9, 2012
Crab sagas yield insight into sustainable fisheries
Decades of wild swings in crab populations dramatize the myriad issues surrounding questions of sustainable fisheries, said David Armstrong, director of aquatic and fishery sciences, in his talk “Claws, causes, climate and corps: A cavalcade of true crab sagas.”
January 6, 2012
UW staffer zeros out daily commute costs, carbon footprint
Staff member Bob Edmistons quest was to cut both the time and cost of his daily commute.
January 4, 2012
Russian river water unexpected culprit behind Arctic freshening – with video
A powerful combination of data from NASA satellites and traditional sampling has led to the discovery of a new pathway of freshwater in the Arctic Ocean. Jamie Morison, Applied Physics Laboratory, is lead author of paper in this weeks Nature.
December 21, 2011
To turn up the heat in chilies, just add water
Hot chilies growing wild in dry environments produce substantially fewer seeds than non-pungent plants, but they are better protected against a seed-attacking fungus that is more prevalent in moist regions.
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