UW News

News releases


February 3, 2014

Greenland’s fastest glacier sets new speed record

floating iceberg

Observations of Jakobshavn Glacier from 2012 and 2013 show the fast-moving glacier has set new records for the speed of ice flowing toward the ocean.


Solving a physics mystery: Those ‘solitons’ are really vortex rings

An example of a vortex ring, also called a toroidal bubble, which dolphins create under water. The concept of vortex rings lies at the heart of new University of Washington physics research.

The same physics that gives stability to tornadoes lies at the heart of new UW research and could lead to a better understanding of nuclear dynamics in studying fission, superconductors and the workings of neutron stars.


January 29, 2014

Deaths attributed directly to climate change cast pall over penguins

Six penguin chicks stand under shrub

Climate change is killing penguin chicks from the world’s largest colony of Magellanic penguins, not just indirectly but directly because of drenching rainstorms and heat.


Neanderthal lineages excavated from modern human genomes

Neanderthal Child

A fossil-free method of sequencing archaic DNA may provide insight into human evolution.


January 27, 2014

Facelift complications eased with help of new 3-D imaging technique

This image shows a mouse ear after a successful cosmetic filler injection. The filler, in green, rests in the tissue without blocking the blood vessels and veins

New imaging technology from University of Washington engineers allows scientists to analyze what happens within the smallest blood vessels during a cosmetic facelift. This finding could be used to prevent accidents during procedures and help clinicians reverse the ill effects if an injection doesn’t go as planned.


January 24, 2014

How strong of a football fan are you? There’s a test for that

UW psychologist Anthony Greenwald has developed a scientific test to measure the strength of one’s support for a football team.


January 22, 2014

Gene therapy leads to robust improvements in animal model of fatal muscle disease

Childers and Bella

The experimental treatment restored muscle function and prolonged lives in animals with a condition similar to X-linked myotubular myopathy in children


January 20, 2014

Girls frequently play soccer through concussion, study finds

girl soccer player

Serious risks are associated with continuing game play immediately after incurring a concussion, yet University of Washington researchers found that many young female soccer players do just that.


January 17, 2014

UW seismologists expand stadium monitoring for NFC championship game

A Seattle Seahawks "12th man" flag, representing the fans, flies over the Space Needle.

UW scientists installed a third seismograph at CenturyLink Field this week after the trial by fire of a website and new monitoring tools during last weekend’s Seahawks game.


January 16, 2014

UW commits to White House plan to help more students afford college

A large 'W' is at the north entrance to the UW campus.

The University of Washington will participate in a federal initiative announced by President Obama to help more students afford and graduate from college.


Soil production breaks geologic speed record

person on mountain ridge

Samples from steep mountaintops in New Zealand shows that rock can transform into soil more than twice as fast as previously believed possible.


January 15, 2014

DNA detectives able to ‘count’ thousands of fish using as little as a glass of water

Visitors stand looking through glass as sea animals swim by

A mere glass full of water from a 1.2 million-gallon aquarium tank is all scientists really needed to identify most of the 13,000 fish swimming there.


Glaciers, streamflow changes are focus of new Columbia River study

aerial view of bonneville dam, 40 miles east of portland.

University of Washington environmental engineers are launching a new study to try to understand how climate change will affect streamflow patterns in the Columbia River Basin. The team will look at the impact of glaciers on the river system, the range of possible streamflow changes and how much water will flow in the river at hundreds of locations in future years.


January 13, 2014

Cognitive training shows some lasting effects in healthy older adults

elderly man teaches chess

The national, decade-long ACTIVE study showed that cognitive training can help the elderly maintain certain thinking and reasoning skills useful in everyday life.


January 10, 2014

Trial to test using ultrasound to move kidney stones

ultrasound image

A clinical trial in Seattle is testing a technique developed at the UW that uses low-power ultrasound to reposition kidney stones.


January 9, 2014

Scientists to observe seismic energy from Seahawks’ ’12th man’ quakes

University of Washington seismologists this week installed two strong-motion seismometers at CenturyLink Field in Seattle to augment an existing station in recording shaking from “earthquakes” expected on Saturday during the NFC divisional game between the Seattle Seahawks and New Orleans Saints. The Pacific Northwest Seismic Network is preparing a special website at www.pnsn.org/seahawks for the…


Big is not bad: Scientists call for preservation of large carnivores

Gray wolf in forest

Despite their scary reputation, carnivores deserve credit for all kinds of ecological services when they eat grazing animals that gobble down young trees and other vegetation that could be holding carbon and protecting streams.


January 8, 2014

Astronomers measure far-off galaxies to 1 percent precision

University of Washington astronomers and colleagues have measured the distance to galaxies six billion light-years away — about halfway back to the Big Bang — to an accuracy of just 1 percent.


Despite declines in smoking rates, number of smokers and cigarettes rises

smoking in flight

Population growth since 1980 drives increases in the number of smokers in countries including China and Russia, while Canada, Mexico, and the United States see strong declines


January 7, 2014

On-demand vaccines possible with engineered nanoparticles

Nanoparticles and engineered proteins.

University of Washington engineers hope a new type of vaccine they have shown to work in mice will one day make it cheaper and easy to manufacture on-demand vaccines for humans. Immunizations could be administered within minutes where and when a disease is breaking out.


January 6, 2014

Babbling babies – responding to one-on-one ‘baby talk’ – master more words

Common advice to new parents is that the more words babies hear the faster their vocabulary grows. Now new findings show that what spurs early language development isn’t so much the quantity of words as the style of speech and social context in which speech occurs.


‘Future of Ice’ initiative marks new era for UW polar research

The UW’s new “Future of Ice” initiative includes several new research hires, a new minor in Arctic studies and a free winter lecture series.


Book explains astrobiology for a general audience

The cover of "Astrobiology: A very short introduction."

David Catling’s new book, part of an Oxford University Press series, aims to explain astrobiology to a general audience.


January 2, 2014

El Niño tied to melting of Antarctica’s Pine Island Glacier

ice and sky

A new study in Science, co-authored by the British Antarctic Survey and UW authors, shows that melting of the floating Pine Island ice shelf is tied to global atmospheric patterns associated with El Niño.


December 31, 2013

Genetically identical bacteria can behave in radically different ways

bacterial cells split

When a bacterial cell divides into two daughter cells there can be an uneven distribution of cellular organelles. The resulting cells can behave differently from each other, giving them an evolutionary advantage.


December 18, 2013

Single bacterial super-clone behind world epidemic of drug-resistant E. coli

E. coli

Virulent, drug-resistant forms of E. coli that recently have spread around the world emerged from a single strain of the bacteria, not many different strains, as has been widely supposed.


December 17, 2013

Hack the planet? Geoengineering research, ethics, governance explored

ship that sprays clouds

A special interdisciplinary issue of the journal Climatic Change includes the most detailed description yet of the proposed Oxford Principles to govern geoengineering research, and surveys the technical hurdles, ethics and regulatory issues related to deliberately manipulating the planet’s climate.


December 16, 2013

5 effective parenting programs to reduce problem behaviors in children

father holding daughter's hand

UW researchers evaluated about 20 parenting programs and found five that are especially effective at helping parents and children at all risk levels avoid adolescent behavior problems that affect not only individuals, but entire communities.


December 12, 2013

New state-funded Clean Energy Institute will focus on solar, battery technologies

Gov. Jay Inslee (center) shakes hands with Dan Schwartz, director of the new Clean Energy Institute, with UW President Michael Young (left).

A new University of Washington institute to develop efficient, cost-effective solar power and better energy storage systems launched Dec. 12 with an event attended by UW President Michael K. Young, Gov. Jay Inslee and researchers, industry experts and policy leaders in renewable energy.


Scientists discover double meaning in genetic code

Genome scientist Dr. John Stamatoyannopoulos.

Finding a second code hiding in the genome casts new light on how changes to DNA impact health and disease.


December 11, 2013

UW ranked 13th best value among public institutions by Kiplinger’s

Drumheller Fountain and Gerberding Hall on the UW campus.

The University of Washington has been ranked 13th best value among public colleges and universities for 2014 by Kiplinger’s Personal Finance.


December 10, 2013

What climate change means for federally protected marine species

salmon

As the Endangered Species Act nears its 40th birthday at the end of December, conservation biologists are coming to terms with a danger not foreseen in the 1970s: global climate change.


December 9, 2013

Communities across U.S. reduce teen smoking, drinking, violence and crime

Fewer high school students across the U.S. started drinking alcohol, smoking cigarettes, committing crimes and engaging in violence before graduation when their towns used a prevention system developed by UW’s Social Development Research Group.


Astronomers solve temperature mystery of planetary atmospheres

The sun is just below the horizon in this photo and creates an orange-red glow above the Earth's surface, which is the troposphere, or lowest layer of the atmosphere. The tropopause is the brown line along the upper edge of the troposphere. Above both are the stratosphere, higher atmospheric layers, and the blackness of space.

An atmospheric peculiarity the Earth shares with Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune is likely common to billions of planets, University of Washington astronomers have found, and knowing that may help in the search for potentially habitable worlds.


December 3, 2013

Signalers vs. strong silent types: Sparrows exude personalities during fights

Song sparrow on a tree branch..

Like humans, some song sparrows are more effusive than others, at least when it comes to defending their territories. New UW findings show that consistent individual differences exist not only for how aggressive individual song sparrows are but also for how much they use their signals to communicate their aggressive intentions.


New book ‘Going Viral’ explores nature, impact of Internet virality

Book cover for "Going Viral" by Karine Nahon and Jeff Hemsley of the UW Information School.

Will we of the early 21th century be remembered for Internet memes like Grumpy Cat? “Going Viral,” a new book by Karine Nahon and Jeff Hemsley of the UW Information School explores the nature of virality and impacts of virality.


Project to gauge effects of Affordable Care Act in Washington state

clinical hands

The overall purpose of the project, called UW-SHARE, is to obtain a benchmark, pre-ACA picture of health-care use, health, health-related attitudes, and access to health insurance.


‘Spooky action’ builds a wormhole between ‘entangled’ particles

An illustration depicting a wormhole between two black holes.

New research indicates that a phenomenon called “quantum entanglement” could be intrinsically linked with the creation of wormholes.


November 25, 2013

Study: Greenhouse gas might have warmed early Mars enough to allow liquid water

The mystery of how the surface of Mars, long dead and dry, could have flowed with water billions of years ago may have been solved by research that included a University of Washington astronomer.


November 24, 2013

How living cells solved a needle in a haystack problem to generate electrical signals

Advanced Light Source

Filtered from a vast sodium sea, more than 1 million calcium ions per second gush through our cells’ pores to generate charges



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