Research
January 14, 2013
Salmon runs boom, go bust over centuries
Salmon runs are notoriously variable: strong one year, and weak the next. New research shows that the same may be true from one century to the next.
Potential harvest of most fish stocks largely unrelated to abundance
Fisheries managers should sharpen their ability to spot environmental conditions that hamper or help fish stocks, and not assume that abundance translates to sustainable harvest.
New book by James Wellman explores the rise, effect of Pastor Rob Bell
James Wellman, UW associate professor of American religion, talks about his book, “Rob Bell and a New American Christianity.”
January 10, 2013
Multiple sclerosis study reveals how killer T cells learn to recognize nerve fiber insulators
Misguided killer T cells may be the missing link in sustained tissue damage in the brains and spines of people with multiple sclerosis, research in immunologist Joan Goverman’s lab suggests.
Life possible on extrasolar moons
Exomoons, or moons orbiting planets outside the solar system, might be as good candidates for life as exoplanets, research shows.
January 9, 2013
UW, Pacific NW National Lab join forces on computing research
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.
January 8, 2013
‘The Philosophical Child’: A book for when your child asks, ‘Why are we here?’
Children are natural philosophers, says Jana Mohr Lone of the UW Department of Philosophy and author of a new book titled “The Philosophical Child.”
January 2, 2013
While in womb, babies begin learning language from their mothers
Babies only hours old are able to differentiate between sounds from their native language and a foreign language, scientists have discovered. The study indicates that babies begin absorbing language while still in the womb, earlier than previously thought.
December 31, 2012
News Digest: Honor: Daniela Witten
Daniela Witten named one of Forbes’ rising stars
Study shows naloxone kits cost-effective in preventing overdose deaths
Giving heroin users kits with the overdose antidote naloxone can help save lives. Efforts are under way to make similar kits available for prescription opioid users.
December 27, 2012
Academic medicine has major economic impact on the state and the nation
The Association of American Medical Colleges reports that its member medical schools and teaching hospitals had a combined economic impact of more than $587 billion in the United States in 2011
December 26, 2012
Piranha kin wielded dental weaponry even T. rex would have admired — with video
Taking into consideration size, an ancient relative of piranhas weighing about 20 pounds delivered a bite with more force than prehistoric whale-eating sharks or – even – Tyrannosaurus rex.
December 21, 2012
Training Xchange puts UW research advances into practitioners’ hands
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.
December 20, 2012
Mild brain cooling after head injury prevents epileptic seizures in lab study
Traumatic head injury is the leading cause of acquired epilepsy in young adults, and at present there is no treatment to prevent or cure it.
December 19, 2012
American Academy of Pediatrics issues policy statement on pesticide exposure in children
Chronic low levels of pesticides are detrimental to children’s health: evidence suggests they may induce neurodevelopmental and behavioral problems, birth defects, asthma and cancer.
Composting confusion rampant in UW waste bins, study finds
A study of waste bins at the University of Washington’s Seattle campus revealed that 88 percent of the contents in trash bins could have been recycled or composted. Most – 72 percent – of what didn’t belong in trash bins turned out to be compostable items, such as food, carry-out containers and paper coffee cups.
December 17, 2012
Plumes across the Pacific deliver thousands of microbial species to West Coast
Microorganisms – 99 percent more kinds than had been reported in findings published just four months ago – are hitching rides in the upper troposphere from Asia.
December 13, 2012
Energy Dept. funds UW project to turn wasted natural gas into diesel
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.
Dark Ages scourge enlightens modern struggle between man and microbes
Discoveries reported today help explain how the stealthy agent of Black Death avoids tripping a self-destruct mechanism inside germ-destroying cells.
December 12, 2012
Intracranial pressure monitoring for traumatic brain injury questioned
Researchers in United States and Latin America re-examine standard of care for severe head injury.
December 11, 2012
Documents that Changed the World: ‘Robert’s Rules of Order’
Joe Janes of the UW Information School visits the arcane world of parliamentary procedure in the latest entry to his Documents that Changed the World podcast series.
December 10, 2012
Armbrust shares $35 million to investigate tiniest ocean regulators
Oceanographer Ginger Armbrust has received a multi-million dollar award to spend as she wishes on her research into ocean microbes and their role in regulating ocean environments and our atmosphere.
Do we live in a computer simulation? UW researchers say idea can be tested
A British philosopher once suggested the possibility that our universe might be a computer simulation run by our descendants. A team of physicists at UW has devised a potential test to see if the idea has merit.
December 7, 2012
Crowdsourcing site compiles new sign language for math and science
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.
December 6, 2012
Moths wired two ways to take advantage of floral potluck
Moths are able to enjoy a pollinator’s buffet of flowers because of two distinct “channels” in their brains, scientists have discovered.
December 4, 2012
Crowdsourcing the cosmos: Astronomers welcome all to identify star clusters in Andromeda galaxy
Astronomers are inviting the public to search Hubble Space Telescope images of the Andromeda galaxy to help identify star clusters and increase understanding of how galaxies evolve. The new Andromeda Project, set to study thousands of high-resolution Hubble images, is a collaboration among scientists at the University of Washington, the University of Utah and several…
Scientists find oldest dinosaur – or closest relative yet
Researchers have discovered what may be the earliest dinosaur, a creature the size of a Labrador retriever, but with a five foot-long tail, that walked the Earth about 10 million years before more familiar dinosaurs.
‘Fiscal cliff’ challenge explored in ‘Congress and the Politics of Problem Solving’
UW political scientist John Wilkerson and coauthor explore the challenges of the “fiscal cliff” in their book, “Congress and the Politics of Problem Solving.”
December 3, 2012
Russian Far East holds seismic hazards that could threaten Pacific Basin
The Kamchatka Peninsula and Kuril Islands, long shrouded in secrecy by the Soviet government, are a seismic and volcanic hotbed with a potential to trigger tsunamis that pose a risk to the rest of the Pacific Basin.
November 30, 2012
Electrically spun fabric offers dual defense against pregnancy, HIV
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.
November 29, 2012
Rules devised for building ideal protein molecules from scratch
These principles could allow scientists to custom-make, rather than re-purpose, protein molecules for vaccines, drugs, and industrial and environmental uses.
AAAS names 11 UW researchers as fellows
Eleven University of Washington researchers are among 702 new fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
International study provides more solid measure of shrinking in polar ice sheets
Climatologists have reconciled their measurements of ice loss in Antarctica and Greenland during the past two decades. A second article looks at how to monitor and understand accelerating losses from the planet’s two largest continental ice sheets.
November 28, 2012
Harmful protein-coding mutations in people arose largely in the past 5,000 to 10,000 years
The spectrum of human genetic diversity today is vastly different than what it was only 200 to 400 generations ago.
Hungry salmon a problem for restoration efforts
Food webs needed by young salmon in the Columbia River basin are likely compromised in places, something that should be considered when prioritizing expensive restoration activities.
News Digest: Honor: International Green Award bronze, research-collaboration website launches
UW receives International Green Award bronze || UW launches website to help foster research collaboration
November 20, 2012
New study suggests charter schools may not systematically under-enroll students with special needs
Charter schools may be doing better at enrolling students with special needs than many believe, according to a new report by UW’s Center on Reinventing Public Education.
November 19, 2012
Mutations in genes that modify DNA packaging result in form of muscular dystrophy
Studying the molecular basis of progressive muscle weakness may lead to therapies to prevent or reduce symptoms.
Can life emerge on planets around cooling stars?
UW astronomers find that planets orbiting white and brown dwarfs are unlikely to be good candidates for sustaining life.
November 16, 2012
Documents that Changed the World: Gutenberg indulgence, 1454
Joe Janes goes back to the fifteenth century and the work of Johannes Gutenberg for this installment in his series of podcasts, Documents that Changed the World.
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