A University of Washington-led project spanning countries, years and institutions has attempted to reconstruct what the southern end of the world looked like during the Triassic period, 252 to 199 million years ago.


A University of Washington-led project spanning countries, years and institutions has attempted to reconstruct what the southern end of the world looked like during the Triassic period, 252 to 199 million years ago.

In a study published March 26 in Physical Review Letters, collaborators of the MAJORANA DEMONSTRATOR have shown they can shield a sensitive, scalable 44-kilogram germanium detector array from background radioactivity. This accomplishment is critical to developing a much larger future experiment to study the nature of neutrinos.

Nearly 50 different graduate and professional programs and specialties at the University of Washington are among the top 10 in the nation, according to U.S. News & World Report’s 2019 Best Graduate School rankings released March 20.

The University of Washington’s new minor in Oceania and Pacific Islander Studies debuts spring quarter. The 25-credit, interdisciplinary program is the result of a longtime effort to elevate the history and culture of an underrepresented, and often misrepresented, community.

Researchers at the University of Washington have developed a set of tools to make MRI studies of our central nervous system easier to share.

African-American voters who dislike and feel threatened by Donald Trump and his presidency are more likely to vote and to engage with politics, according to new research from the UW and California State University, Sacramento.

Former University of Washington Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs Irving Shain has died. He was 92.

UW music professor Huck Hodge talks about the Charles Ives Living Award, bestowed on him by the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Think about the last time you looked for a new apartment or house. Maybe you asked your friends or colleagues about where they lived. You thought about your route to work, or that neighborhood you always drive through on your way to your kid’s soccer practice. Many of these places were familiar to you, whether from an occasional visit or part of a daily routine. And if you’re like most people, you ultimately moved to a neighborhood you knew…

The UW Jackson School of International Studies presents “Trump in the World: International Implications of the Trump presidency,” a series of public lectures and discussions Tuesday afternoons through spring quarter.

Megan Ming Francis, UW associate professor of political science, has been named a fellow with the Thurgood Marshall Institute. The institute is a multidisciplinary research and advocacy policy center within the NAACP’s Legal Defense and Educational Fund.

A University of Washington study finds that women authors are significantly under-represented in high-profile academic journals.

Immigrant rights, environmental concerns and racial, class, gender and sexual justice will be the focus of a daylong conference hosted by the Harry Bridges Center for Labor Studies March 10 at the UW.

Charles Simic, one of America’s most celebrated poets, will give the 2018 Theodore Roethke Memorial Poetry Reading on April 12. Simic will be the 54th poet to appear in the series since its inception in 1964.

LaShawnDa Pittman, a UW assistant professor of American Ethnic Studies, is collecting stories of African-American grandmothers, past and present, on her Real Black Grandmothers website.

Quintard Taylor, UW professor emeritus of history and recipient of a lifetime achievement honor from Washington State Historical Society, discusses his work and this unusual moment in American history.

Engineers at the University of Washington have for the first time developed a method to safely charge a smartphone wirelessly using a laser.

Five faculty members at the University of Washington have been awarded early-career fellowships from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. The new Sloan Fellows, announced Feb. 15, include Maya Cakmak, assistant professor of computer science and engineering; Jiun-Haw Chu, assistant professor of clean energy and physics; Arka Majumdar, assistant professor of electrical engineering and physics; Jessica Werk, assistant professor of astronomy; and Chelsea Wood, assistant professor of aquatic and fishery sciences.

Pimone Triplett, UW associate professor of English and creative writing, has released “Supply Chain,” her fourth book of poems.

In a paper published Feb. 9 in Science Advances, scientists at the University of Washington announced that they have successfully combined two different imaging methods — a type of lens designed for nanoscale interaction with lightwaves, along with robust computational processing — to create full-color images.

This week in the arts, experience modern dance from a fresh and youthful perspective, hear UW’s modern music ensemble and top auditioned choirs, listen to a pre-show lecture by UW Germanics professor, see British pianist Imogen Cooper perform her classical repertoire, and aboard the S.S. American with the Musical Theater program’s performance of “Anything Goes!”

High-speed recordings of Egyptian fruit bats in flight show that instead of using a primitive form of echolocation, these animals actually use a technique recently developed by humans for surveillance and navigation.

After six months of repair and restoration — assisted by UW astronomer and sundial expert Woody Sullivan — Olympia’s iconic Territorial Sundial is back in place.

A team of astronomers including Eric Agol of the University of Washington has found that the seven Earth-sized planets orbiting the star TRAPPIST-1 are all made mostly of rock, and some could even have more water — which can give life a chance — than Earth itself. The research was led by Simon Grimm of the University of Bern in Switzerland, and published Feb. 5 in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics. Agol is among about two dozen co-authors. The scientists…

The Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and the University of Washington announced the creation of the Northwest Institute for Materials Physics, Chemistry and Technology — or NW IMPACT — a joint research endeavor to power discoveries and advancements in materials that transform energy, telecommunications, medicine, information technology and other fields.

Archaeologists are a little like forensic investigators: They scour the remains of past societies, looking for clues in pottery, tools and bones about how people lived, and how they died. And just as detectives might re-create the scene of a crime, University of Washington archaeologists have re-created the weapons used by hunter-gatherers in the post-Ice Age Arctic some 14,000 years ago. Looking for clues as to how those early people advanced their own technology, researchers also considered what…

A biography of world-renowned oboe performer and teacher Marcel Tabuteau by the UW School of Music’s Laila Storch has been republished in paperback by Indiana University Press.

In a published Jan. 25 in Current Biology, University of Washington researchers report that mosquitoes can learn to associate a particular odor with an unpleasant mechanical shock akin to being swatted. As a result, they’ll avoid that scent the next time.

By developing a synthetic version of the plant hormone auxin and an engineered receptor to recognize it, University of Washington biology professor Keiko Torii and her colleagues are poised to uncover plants’ inner workings, raising the possibility of a new way to ripen fruits such as strawberries and tomatoes.

For this year’s University Faculty Lecture, University of Washington chemistry professor Michael Gelb will discuss the science behind screening newborns for treatable — but rare — genetic diseases.

A small group of fishes — possibly the world’s cleverest carnivorous grazers — feeds on the scales of other fish in the tropics. A team led by biologists at the University of Washington’s Friday Harbor Laboratories is trying to understand these scale-feeding fish and how this odd diet influences their body evolution and behavior.

Touch is the first of the five senses to develop, yet scientists know far less about the baby’s brain response to touch than to, say, the sight of mom’s face, or the sound of her voice. Now, through the use of safe, new brain imaging techniques, University of Washington researchers provide one of the first looks inside the infant’s brain to show where the sense of touch is processed — not just when a baby feels a touch to…

This week in the arts, experience a modern portrayal of a classic Greek Tragedy, see the annual Faculty Dance Concert featuring new collaborations with students and guest artists, hear an internationally renowned classical vocalist showcase her work with UW students, and watch dancers tell a story of resilience in the first performance of an exciting trilogy.

UW astronomers Brett Morris and James Davenport assisted in new research on “Tabby’s Star,” named for Louisiana State University astronomer Tabetha Boyajian.

This week in the arts, listen to a duo performance of piano professors, hear the internationally acclaimed Takács String Quartet, promising young pianist Scott Cuellar, immerse yourself in the post-apocalyptic world of Trojan Women: A Love Story, and attend a performance by Grammy and Emmy Award Winning violinist Itzhak Perlman.

When “American Sabor” opened at what was then the Experience Music Project a decade ago, its University of Washington creators saw it as a chance to celebrate the extensive Latino contribution to popular music. It was a product of years of interviews and research, and an often challenging exercise in collaboration and presentation. But that was just the beginning for Marisol Berríos-Miranda and Shannon Dudley, both ethnomusicologists in the UW School of Music, and Michelle Habell-Pallán, a professor in…

An essay by Laurie Marhoefer, UW assistant professor of history, has been named the most memorable of the year 2017 by the editors and readers of The Conversation US.

The Anthropocene epoch — the proposed name for this time of significant human effect on the planet and its systems — represents a new context in which to study literature. A new book of essays co-edited by Jesse Oak Taylor, UW associate professor of English, argues that literary studies, in turn, also can help us better understand the Anthropocene.

Alongside the political polarization that has permeated seemingly every issue in American life, there is a similar dichotomy in religion.On one side are those who suggest religion is dying, that’s it’s irrelevant, a force for ill and oppression, explains University of Washington sociology professor Steve Pfaff. On the other are those who say religion is under attack, that the quest for freedom and diversity has sullied the culture and undermined the integrity of faith. And into this debate Pfaff decided…

Scientists at the University of Washington show for the first time that the complex distribution of molecules within a membrane of a living yeast cell arises through demixing.