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.
Research
The Design Help Desk offers scientists a chance to meet with a student who can help them create more effective figures, tables and graphs. This visual equivalent of a Writing Help Desk is also a study on how to teach data visualization.
Higher education, a jewel of American society and an engine of its economy, is under threat, and if the nation is to remain competitive the financial model must be overhauled, says a new book. “Financing American Higher Education in the Era of Globalization” offers specific ways to make crucial changes.
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.
You could say that the economic field of benefit-cost analysis has been stuck in a kind figure-eight for 70 years — a logical loop leading not forward, but back upon itself. But Richard Zerbe, longtime UW professor in the Evans School of Public Affairs, may have solved this logical paradox — or at least clarified it.
Emerging cephalosporin resistance and treatment failures reported in other countries signal a need for urgent U.S. action to control the spread of gonorrhea.
A business incubator unveiled today is one element in a larger commercialization initiative announced by UW President Michael Young that will double the number of startups produced by the university – from an average of 10 a year to 20 – during the next three years.
A gene that influences the inflammatory response to infection also predicts drug treatment effectiveness for a deadly form of TB.
The psychology departments annual public lecture series will cover the relationships between brains and behavior, exploring hearing, vision and memory.
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.
Diabetes risk is increased in men and women who eat a diet high in processed meats, according to a study published online this week in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. Processed meats include hot dogs, lunch meat, sausages and canned meats.
National parks help preserve species native to a particular region, but it appears that some species preservation is more successful if a significant portion of land adjacent to a park also is left as natural habitat.
The walls of the aorta, the largest blood vessel carrying blood from the heart, exhibits a response to electric fields known to exist in inorganic and synthetic materials. The discovery could have implications for treating human heart disease.
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.
New UW research demonstrates that one suggested method of geoengineering the atmosphere to deal with climate change probably would have limited success.
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.
UW’s College of Education has been awarded an $8.1 million, five-year federal grant to study how best to teach writing and reading to both learning-disabled and typically achieving children.
A panel discussion Monday on “Broader Impacts: What do Funders Really Want?” is the first of six presentations on sharing University of Washington research with the general public.
New research demonstrates that fruit flies keep their bearings by using the polarization pattern of natural skylight, bolstering the belief that many, if not all, insects have that capability.
Seven identical robots created and built at the UW will be flown to campuses across the country, where they will provide the first common research platform to develop the future of surgical robotics. The robots will be display Friday at an open house.
A UW-led team has peered deep into the neighboring Andromeda galaxy to find unusual ultra-blue stars.
For the first time, researchers have analyzed the multitude of microorganisms residing in the human gut as a complex, integrated biological system, rather than a set of separate species. Their approach has revealed patterns that correspond with excess body weight.
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.”
Ethiopia is the only African country not defeated in the period of empire and Raymond Jonas new book “The Battle of Adwa: African Victory in the Age of Empire” describes the key battle.
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.
UW scientists report today, Dec. 27, the first evidence of structural changes in the brains of rodents and people with diet-induced obesity. The findings may lead to a better understanding of body weight control problems.
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.
New research shows that the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere work to transform elemental mercury into oxidized mercury, which can easily be deposited into aquatic ecosystems and ultimately enter the food chain.
A survey reported today gauged baseline interest among patients and doctors in sharing physicians after an office visit. The survey was conducted at Harborview and two other sites before the one-year OpenNotes trial.
Nitrogen derived from human activities has polluted lakes throughout the Northern Hemisphere for more than a century and the fingerprint of these changes is evident even in remote lakes thousands of miles from the nearest city, industrial area or farm.
A lamotrigine/valproate treatment regimen significantly reduced seizure frequency, according to a retrospective study of records at Fircrest and Rainier Habilitation Centers. UW Medicine neurologist Dr. Nicholas Poolos of the Regional Epilepsy Center led the project.
Sub-Saharan African countries that invest in training doctors lose billions of dollars when those clinicians leave to work in developed nations, finds research recently published on bmj.com with the help of seven universities, including UW.
Some 99 species of fishes glide and snake across a supersized 15-foot mural by Alaskan artist and confessed fish groupie Ray Troll, unveiled last month at the University of Washington.
A new study from the University of Washingtons Center on Reinventing Public Education (CRPE) finds that charter school collective bargaining agreements tend to be more streamlined and provide for greater flexibility than the typical district contract.
To swim or not to swim? The biological control that makes this choice for genetically identical Salmonella impacts the bacteria’s ability to cause infection.
Dr. Shiu-Lok Hu and his colleagues are looking to generate protective antibodies targeting a part of the HIV virus that binds to immune cells. This segment is widely considered to be the Achilles heel of the virus
A new plasma pencil promises to give nutrition status in minutes that used to take 24 hours, and could improve health in developing world.
New research shows accelerated melting of two fast-moving glaciers that drain Antarctic ice into the Amundsen Sea Embayment is likely in part the result of an increase in sea-surface temperatures in the tropical Pacific Ocean.
To accelerate genome sequencing applications for patient care, the National Human Genome Research Institute today, Tuesday, Dec. 6, announced the establishment of two major programs at the University of Washington.
The world is sailing into some killer storms and its leaders have done almost nothing to protect its boat. Thats the view of UW Philosophy Professor Steve Gardiner, who likens climate change to a perfect storm — a convergence of three difficult problems that so far weve found ourselves unable to face, much less solve.