Research
March 2, 2022
Counties that rely on the courts for revenue sentence more women to incarceration
Washington counties that rely more on revenue from court-imposed fines and fees also sentence more women to incarceration, a study by the University of Washington finds.
Multi-state study of monetary sanctions finds widespread inequities, far-reaching consequences
Alexes Harris, professor of sociology at the University of Washington, discusses her team’s five-year, eight-state study of legal financial obligations, and their findings that court-imposed fines and fees perpetuate inequality.
February 25, 2022
Antibiotic used on food crops affects bumblebee behavior
Scientists at the University of Washington and Emory University report that an antibiotic sprayed on orchard crops to combat bacterial diseases slows the cognition of bumblebees and reduces their foraging efficiency. The study, published Feb. 9 in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, focused on streptomycin, an antibiotic used increasingly in U.S. agriculture during the past decade.
February 24, 2022
Farms following soil-friendly practices grow healthier food, study suggests
An experiment conducted on 10 farms across the U.S. suggests that crops from farms following soil-friendly practices for at least five years have a healthier nutritional profile than the same crops grown on neighboring, conventional farms. Researchers believe soil microbes and fungi boost certain beneficial minerals, vitamins and phytochemicals in the crops.
February 23, 2022
A new upper limit on the mass of neutrinos
An international research team, including scientists from the University of Washington, has established a new upper limit on the mass of the neutrino, the lightest known subatomic particle. In a paper published Feb. 14 in Nature Physics, the collaboration — known as the Karlsruhe Tritium Neutrino Experiment or KATRIN — reports that the neutrino’s mass is below 0.8 electron volts, or 0.8 eV/c2. Honing in on the elusive value of the neutrino’s mass will solve a major outstanding mystery in particle physics and equip scientists with a more complete view of the fundamental forces and particles that shape ourselves, our planet and the cosmos.
February 16, 2022
Unexpected findings detailed in new portrait of HIV
Using powerful tools and techniques developed in the field of structural biology, researchers at the University of Washington and Scripps Research have discovered new details about the human immunodeficiency virus, HIV. The findings bring into focus the basic architecture of the virus just above and below its surface and may help in the design and…
Google’s ‘CEO’ image search gender bias hasn’t really been fixed
UW researchers showed that image search results for four major search engines from around the world, including Google, still reflect gender bias.
February 15, 2022
eDNA a useful tool for early detection of invasive green crab
As the green crab invasion in the state worsens, a new analysis method developed by University of Washington and Washington Sea Grant scientists could help contain future invasions and prevent new outbreaks using water testing and genetic analysis. The results show that the DNA-based technique works as well in detecting the presence of green crabs as setting traps to catch the live animals, which is a more laborious process. Results suggest these two methods could complement each other as approaches to learn where the species’ range is expanding.
February 14, 2022
DNA testing exposes tactics of international criminal networks trafficking elephant ivory
A team led by scientists at the University of Washington and special agents with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has used genetic testing of ivory shipments seized by law enforcement to uncover the international criminal networks behind ivory trafficking out of Africa. The genetic connections across shipments that they’ve uncovered exposes an even higher degree of organization among ivory smuggling networks than previously known. The paper, published Feb. 14 in the journal Nature Human Behaviour, incorporates results from DNA testing of more than 4,000 African elephant tusks from 49 different ivory seizures made in 12 African nations over a 17-year period.
February 11, 2022
Smartphone app can vibrate a single drop of blood to determine how well it clots
Researchers at the UW have developed a new blood-clotting test that uses a single drop of blood and a smartphone vibration motor and camera.
February 4, 2022
Planting trees in pastureland provides significant cooling in the tropics
Farmers struggling to adapt to rising temperatures in tropical regions can unleash the benefits of natural cooling, alongside a host of other wins, simply by dotting more trees across their pasturelands. For the first time, a study led by the University of Washington puts tangible numbers to the cooling effects of this practice.
Mosquitoes are seeing red: Why new findings about their vision could help you hide from these disease vectors
New research led by scientists at the University of Washington indicates that a common mosquito species — after detecting a telltale gas that we exhale — flies toward specific colors, including red, orange, black and cyan. The mosquitoes ignore other colors, such as green, purple, blue and white. The researchers believe these findings help explain how mosquitoes find hosts, since human skin, regardless of overall pigmentation, emits a strong red-orange “signal” to their eyes.
January 26, 2022
Glaciers are squishy, holding slightly more ice than thought
Though usually though of as a solid, glaciers are also slightly compressible, or squishy. This compression over the huge expanse of an ice sheet — like Antarctica or Greenland — makes the overall ice sheet more dense and lowers the surface by tens of feet compared to what would otherwise be expected.
January 25, 2022
Hungry yeast are tiny, living thermometers
University of Washington researchers report that yeast cells can actively regulate a process called phase separation in one of their membranes. During phase separation, the membrane remains intact but partitions into multiple, distinct zones or domains that segregate lipids and proteins. The new findings show for the first time that, in response to environmental conditions, yeast cells precisely regulate the temperature at which their membrane undergoes phase separation.
January 24, 2022
Fast, cheap test can detect COVID-19 virus’ genome without need for PCR
Researchers at the University of Washington have developed a new test for COVID-19 that combines the speed of over-the-counter antigen tests with the accuracy of PCR tests that are processed in medical labs and hospitals. The Harmony COVID-19 test is a diagnostic test that, like PCR tests for COVID-19, detects genetic material from the SARS-CoV-2 virus. But whereas conventional PCR tests can take several hours, the Harmony kit can provide results in less than 20 minutes for some samples and with similar accuracy.
January 20, 2022
Shift work helps marine microbes share scarce ocean resources
With a low supply of and high competition for key nutrients, scientists have puzzled over the vast diversity of microbial species found in the open ocean. A new study shows that time of day is key, with species of marine microbes specializing in different shifts throughout the day and night.
January 19, 2022
Bubbles of methane rising from seafloor in Puget Sound
The release of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas responsible for almost a quarter of global warming, is being studied around the world, from Arctic wetlands to livestock feedlots. A University of Washington team has discovered a source much closer to home: 349 plumes of methane gas bubbling up from the seafloor in Puget Sound, which holds more water than any other U.S. estuary.
January 17, 2022
Shifting ocean closures best way to protect animals from accidental catch
Many nations are calling for protection of 30% of the world’s oceans by 2030 from some or all types of exploitation, including fishing. Building off this proposal, a new analysis led by the University of Washington looks at how effective fishing closures are at reducing accidental catch. Researchers found that permanent marine protected areas are a relatively inefficient way to protect marine biodiversity that is accidentally caught in fisheries. Dynamic ocean management — changing the pattern of closures as accidental catch hotspots shift — is much more effective.
January 13, 2022
UW Pharmacy’s Drug Interaction Database, built to promote medication safety, wins national innovation award
The UW School of Pharmacy’s Drug Interaction Database — the core research tool from the school’s nonprofit Drug Interaction Solutions team — is celebrating both a national award for innovation and two decades of independent funding through licensing agreements with companies, research institutes and regulatory agencies around the globe.
January 11, 2022
Researchers find concerns for animals tied to same habitats
Like humans, wild animals often return to the same places to eat, walk on the same paths to travel and use the same places to raise their young. A team led by researchers at the University of Washington and the University of Wyoming has reviewed the scientific literature and found that, while “consistent” behavior may be beneficial when environmental conditions don’t change very fast, those benefits may not be realized in the ever-changing world dominated by humans.
Q&A: Bringing a justice lens to wildlife management
A team of researchers led by the University of Washington drew upon the field of environmental justice — which primarily has focused on harms to people and public health — and applied its concepts to wildlife management, considering forms of injustice that people, communities and animal groups might experience. Lead author and UW assistant professor Alex McInturff talks with UW News about this work and why it’s significant.
January 4, 2022
Mass die-off of Magellanic penguins seen during 2019 heat wave
In 2019, University of Washington researchers witnessed the consequences of an extreme heat event in Argentina at one of the world’s largest breeding colonies for Magellanic penguins. On Jan. 19, temperatures at the site in Punta Tombo, on Argentina’s southern coast, spiked in the shade to 44 C, or 111.2 F. As the team reports in a paper published Jan. 4 in the journal Ornithological Applications, the extreme heat wave killed at least 354 penguins, based on a search for bodies by UW researchers in the days following the record high temperature. Nearly three-quarters of the penguins that died — 264 — were adults, many of which likely died of dehydration, based on postmortem analyses.
December 17, 2021
Deforestation-fueled heat already affecting millions of outdoor workers in the tropics
New research from an interdisciplinary team at the University of Washington, Duke University and The Nature Conservancy shows how local temperature increases in the tropics – compounded by accelerating deforestation – may already be jeopardizing the well-being and productivity of outdoor workers.
December 15, 2021
Despite cleaner air, pollution disparities for people of color remain across the US
UW researchers investigated disparities in exposure to six major air pollutants in 1990, 2000 and 2010 by comparing models of air pollution levels to census data. While overall pollutant concentrations have decreased since 1990, people of color are still more likely to be exposed to all six pollutants than white people, regardless of income level, across the continental United States.
December 14, 2021
Nonprofits show resilience and initiative during second year of pandemic
A new study from the Evans School of Public Policy & Governance at the University of Washington explores not only how the pandemic economy impacted donations to, and the operations of, charitable organizations, but also how nonprofits responded to the simultaneous call for racial justice.
December 13, 2021
Artificial intelligence can create better lightning forecasts
New research shows that machine learning — computer algorithms that improve themselves without direct programming by humans — can be used to improve forecasts for lightning, one of the most destructive forces of nature.
December 8, 2021
‘Would you like a little ice with your exoplanet?’ For Earth-like worlds, that may be a tall order
A team at the University of Washington and the University of Bern has computationally simulated more than 200,000 hypothetical Earth-like worlds all in orbit of stars like our sun. As they report in a paper accepted to the Planetary Science Journal and submitted Dec. 6 to the preprint site arXiv, on these simulated exoplanets, one common feature of present-day Earth was often lacking: partial ice coverage. About 90% of these potentially habitable hypothetical worlds lacked partial surface ice like polar caps.
Simulations show how earthquake early warning might be improved for magnitude-9 earthquakes
Seismologists used 30 detailed simulations of magnitude-9 slips on the Cascadia Subduction Zone to evaluate how the ShakeAlert earthquake early warning system would perform in these events. Results show the alerts generally work well, but suggest that lower alert thresholds provide more timely warnings over the full area that will feel the shaking.
December 3, 2021
Killer whales lingering in increasingly ice-free Arctic Ocean
Underwater microphones show that killer whales, or orcas, have spent more time in the Arctic Ocean in recent years. The increasingly ice-free Arctic Ocean may give orcas more opportunity to hunt for prey off the west and north coasts of Alaska.
November 22, 2021
Kids, teens believe girls aren’t interested in computer science, study shows
Children as young as age 6 develop stereotypes that girls aren’t interested in computer science and engineering, according to new research from the University of Washington and the University of Houston.
November 10, 2021
New method shows today’s warming ‘unprecedented’ over past 24,000 years
A new effort to reconstruct Earth’s climate since the last ice age, about 24,000 years ago, highlights the main drivers of climate change, and how far out of bounds human activity has pushed the climate system.
November 8, 2021
Political ads during the 2020 presidential election cycle collected personal information and spread misleading information
University of Washington researchers looked at almost 56,000 political ads from almost 750 news sites between September 2020 and January 2021.
October 29, 2021
UW oceanographer will study how glacial particles remove CO2 from atmosphere
An oceanographer at the University of Washington is part of a new project to study how glacial dust, created as glaciers grind the rock beneath them into a powder, reacts with seawater to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
October 28, 2021
How Dungeness crabs’ complex lifecycle will be affected by climate change
Results show that by the end of this century, lower-oxygen water on the Pacific Northwest coast will pose the biggest threat to Dungeness crabs. And while these crabs start as tiny, free-floating larvae, it’s the sharp-clawed adults that will be most vulnerable.
After California’s 3rd-largest wildfire, deer returned home while trees were ‘still smoldering’
In a rare stroke of luck, researchers from the University of Washington, the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of California, Santa Barbara, were able to track a group of black-tailed deer during and after California’s third-largest wildfire, the 2018 Mendocino Complex Fire. The megafire, which torched more than 450,000 acres in northern California, burned across half of an established study site, making it possible to record the movements and feeding patterns of deer before, during and after the fire.
October 27, 2021
Fossil dental exams reveal how tusks first evolved
Many animals have tusks, from elephants to walruses to hyraxes. But one thing tusked animals have in common is that they’re all mammals — no known fish, reptiles or birds have them. But that was not always the case. In a study published Oct. 27 in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, a team of paleontologists at Harvard University, the Field Museum, the University of Washington and Idaho State University traced the first tusks back to dicynodonts — ancient mammal relatives that lived before the dinosaurs.
October 20, 2021
UW students designed a rover to inspect culvert conditions to help fish
UW students created a rover that can inspect sewer pipes or culverts for any damage that could prevent fish from using them during migration.
October 6, 2021
How ‘ice needles’ weave patterns of stones in frozen landscapes
A University of Washington researcher is part of an international team that has used modern tools to explain repeating patterns of stones that form in frost-prone landscapes.
October 5, 2021
Education should focus on ‘heads and hearts,’ UW researcher says
In a Policy Forum piece published Oct. 1 in Science, a group led by Nesra Yannier at Carnegie Mellon University is advocating for a fresh look at active learning and its potential as classrooms and lecture halls again fill with students. Two co-authors from the University of Washington’s Department of Biology — assistant teaching professor Elli Theobald and lecturer emeritus Scott Freeman — highlight the role that active learning methods have in promoting equity STEM education.
UW joins USAID’s $125M project to detect emerging viruses with pandemic potential
To better identify and prevent future pandemics, the University of Washington has become a partner in a five-year global, collaborative agreement with the U.S. Agency for International Development. The newly launched Discovery & Exploration of Emerging Pathogens – Viral Zoonoses, or DEEP VZN project, has approximately $125 million in anticipated funding and will be led…
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