A public symposium on the Global Burden of Diseases study will be held on campus Monday, March 11.


A public symposium on the Global Burden of Diseases study will be held on campus Monday, March 11.

New work in Argentina where scientists had previously thought Earth’s first grasslands emerged 38 million years ago, shows the area at the time covered with tropical forests rich with palms, bamboos and gingers. Grit and volcanic ash in those forests could have caused the evolution of teeth in horse-like animals that scientists mistakenly thought were adaptations in response to emerging grasslands.

Regional cloud changes may be as important for climate change as the overall amount of cloud cover.

People are exposed to these endocrine-disrupting chemicals even if they eat an organic diet and do not store, prepare or cook in plastic containers.

Evidence suggests it will someday be possible to slow down aging and delay the onset of diseases common in the elderly.

Do changes in the amount of fish caught necessarily reflect the number of fish in the sea? “No,” say UW researchers in a “Counterpoint” commentary in Nature.

Species facing widespread and rapid environmental changes can sometimes evolve quickly enough to dodge the extinction bullet. UW scientists consider the genetic underpinnings of such evolutionary rescue.

The fibrous threads helping mussels stay anchored are more prone to snap when ocean temperatures climb higher than normal.

The review generated public debate on publishing legitimate biological science findings that could pose a threat to public health or national security,

UW’s Field Research and Consultation Group in Environmental and Occupational Health assess ventilation systems and airborne lead levels in firing ranges, and offer advice on lowering exposure.

The eighth annual Allen L. Edwards Psychology Lecture Series will spotlight “The Science of Psychology in the Real World,” exploring psychological aspects of the natural world, adolescence and the law.

New satellite observations confirm a University of Washington analysis that for the past three years found accelerated declines in the volume of Arctic sea ice.

UW researchers have discovered a hierarchical warning scheme in which territorial song sparrows use increasingly threatening signals to ward off trespassing rivals.

A new report by a UW researcher showed about a 50 percent increase in speech comprehension in background noise when children with hearing impairments followed a three-week auditory training regimen.

Atmospheric scientists are using pressure readings from some new smartphones and tablet computers to improve short-term thunderstorm forecasts. A weather station in every pocket would offer an unprecedented wealth of data.

A huge Arctic cyclone in August was not responsible for the historic minimum seen soon after in Arctic sea-ice extent.

A UW researcher has determined the precise configuration of substances derived from hops that give beer its distinctive flavor, a finding that could lead to important new pharmaceuticals.

The University of Washington astronomy department is readying a traveling planetarium to take to schools for outreach — and collaboration — in Seattle and beyond. It may look like a carnival bouncy house or an inflatable igloo, but the portable planetarium is in fact an innovative tool for teaching and spreading interest in astronomy. The circular fabric dome, made by GoDome, is about 10 feet tall and 20 feet across — big enough to hold a classroom of young astronomers…

A paper in Science describes an organic crystal that shows promise as a cheap, flexible, nontoxic material for the working parts of memory chips, sensors and energy-harvesting devices.

A UW scientist’s work aided a Greenland ice study that could indicate where Earth is headed with climate change.

Researchers at UW’s Institute for Learning & Brain Sciences have found that the anatomy of certain brain areas – the hippocampus and cerebellum – can predict children’s language abilities at 1 year of age.

Researchers found little correlation between loss of consciousness and duration of concussion symptoms.

A new international assessment found that soot, or black carbon, is a major contributor to global warming — second only to carbon dioxide.

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.

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.

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.

Exomoons, or moons orbiting planets outside the solar system, might be as good candidates for life as exoplanets, research shows.

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.

Daniela Witten named one of Forbes’ rising stars

The Seahawks win four times as many home games as they lose when the weather is inclement, compared to less than two to one when it’s not.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Discoveries reported today help explain how the stealthy agent of Black Death avoids tripping a self-destruct mechanism inside germ-destroying cells.

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.

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.

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.