The latest news from the UW

While the number of fatalities resulting from crashes between passenger vehicles decreased steadily between 1980 and 1998, there has been an increase in fatalities resulting from collisions between passenger vehicles and light trucks, a category that includes sport utility vehicles, pickup trucks and vans.

For many years scientists have believed they understood how closely related species that occupy the same regions of the ocean were kept from interbreeding.

With hacking, spam and computer viruses disrupting more businesses and even threatening national security, three area colleges will launch a new program to train experts in countering such cyber-threats.

Students from many disciplines will be reporting for a week of duty beginning Monday.

One of the most comprehensive studies of the forces that have shaped patterns of human genetic variation has found strong evidence for the action of natural selection, which may help explain why certain people are at risk for a variety of conditions and others are not.

Bone marrow produces cells that not only help fight infection but also permanently heal wounds, according to research at the University of Washington.

Nonpartisan, grassroots effort started at the UW encourages citizens to gather at public libraries for discussions of democracy, citizenship and patriotism — and much more — on Sept. 11, 2004.

The National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), one of the National Institutes of Health, is awarding $4.7 million to the University of Washington to address the ethical, legal and social implications (ELSI) of genomic research in minority communities.

As office workers pause for Labor Day and students prepare for school, a new study sheds harsh light on an item that gives both groups headaches — paper.

A University of Washington program that brings together students from all three campuses to restore damaged landscapes has just received the Society for Ecological Restoration’s highest service award.

A new national research center is being established at the University of Washington with the aim of finding easier, more powerful and more environmentally friendly ways of manipulating the strong chemical bonds found in most materials, from petroleum products to pharmaceuticals and biological molecules.

Harborview Medical Center physicians and staff will do their part to improve the cardiovascular health of the community by offering free Peripheral Vascular Disease (PVD) screenings 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 18 at Harborview’s Patient and Family Resource Center (325 9th Avenue, ground floor of East Hospital near the Gift Shop).

The area burned by wildfires in 11 Western states could double by the end of the century if summer climate warms by slightly more than a degree and a half, say researchers with the U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service and Pacific Northwest Climate Impacts Group at the University of Washington.

Ever since Benjamin Franklin urged citizens to “Remember that time is money,” economists have concurred that both are equally valuable commodities.

A former dean with Oxford University – who oversaw refurbishment of gardens in the heart of Oxford that are visited by many thousands every year and managed one of the most historically significant herbarium collections in the United Kingdom – has been named director of the University of Washington’s Center for Urban Horticulture and Seattle’s Washington Park Arboretum.

University of Washington Business School leaders say a new partnership with the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation will serve as a multi-integrated, educational stepping stone toward achieving tribal economic self-sufficiency.

A songbird species known as the Townsend’s warbler has been steadily displacing its more timid sister species, the hermit warbler, from Western forests for thousands of years. New research suggests substantially higher androgen levels is the reason.

Most of the energy that goes into building U.S. homes is consumed – not by the power tools, welding and trucking during construction – but during the manufacture of the building materials, according to a comprehensive life-cycle assessment comparing typical wood-, steel- and concrete-frame homes.

Over the last two decades, thousands of American women have donated eggs to help themselves or other women bear children. But little is known about what motivated them to become egg donors and what, if any, physical and psychological effects resulted from their experience. To answers these and other question, UW researchers have begun a national study and are looking for volunteers to participate in an on-line survey.

Falls are the most frequent cause of fatal injury to older Americans, and non-fatal falls, which are also common, can curtail mobility and quality of life for older adults. The choice of footwear for adults aged 65 and older may be an important factor in preventing these falls, according to new research by investigators at the Harborview Injury Prevention & Research Center and Group Health Cooperative of Puget Sound.

“The Overhauling of Graduate Medical Education: The Time Has Come” is the title for the Department of Surgery’s 55th annual Alfred A.

In just a little over a decade, researchers have been able to identify mutations causing several hereditary neurodegenerative diseases, those that damage motor neurons, and in the process have shed considerable light on the mechanisms at work in more common conditions such as Parkinson’s disease and Lou Gehrig’s disease.

International students struggling to make sense of our language and culture; returning students, rich in personal history, but perhaps slightly under-prepared to negotiate cryptic academic conventions; freshmen or community college transfers getting a head start in their studies, curious, but also apprehensive.

Mark Tuttle, a UW professor of mechanical engineering whose work includes studying the design and durability of the kinds of composite materials scientists say will make up the next generation of air and spacecraft, has been named new chair of the Department of Mechanical Engineering.

In days past, it was unlikely that UW students Justin Gale from public affairs and Kate Hulpke from the College of Engineering would cross paths during their graduate studies, yet recently they drove together through the upland savanna of northern Mozambique.

Unico Properties, the private, Seattle-based firm that manages the UW’s downtown holdings, wants to erect a six-story building with office, retail and residential space and parking where a parking lot now stands, at the corner of NE 42nd Street and 15th Avenue NE.

With a circle of friends, Karin Olefsky was able to create a small circle in an otherwise linear system.

A few of Wes Wehr’s works of art hang in a special place in the Henry Art Gallery these days — compact pieces with meticulously layered colors that hint at vast spaces where the earth meets the sky.

Hospital patients increasingly face tenacious bacterial infections because microbes found in hospitals acquire resistance to commonly prescribed antibiotics.

The task might sound simple enough — at first, that is.

Sometime before fall quarter begins a new sculpture will sprout on the Parrington Lawn just south of the new law school.

When the Olympics we’ve all been watching on TV wrap up on Aug.

The UW has embarked on a program to seek funding from the state for renewing 16 critical buildings over the next 10 to 15 years.

Heart Walk

UW Medicine’s Regional Heart Center is a primary sponsor of the Heart Walk, organized by the American Heart Association and set for Saturday, Oct.

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ACADEMIC OPPORTUNITIES

Seed Grant Call for proposals
The Center for Statistics and the Social Sciences (CSSS) Seed Grants Program announces a new round of seed grants for the year 2004-5.

NO RUST ON HER: Rusty Barcelo, UW vice president for minority affairs, recently took a break from administrative work to ride her bicycle all the way to the San Francisco area with a friend.

Starting this fall, a centrally-funded program will provide free “English in the Workplace” (EWP) courses to UW employees.

Sailors, kayakers, power boaters and fishermen are needed to help staff at the Applied Physics Laboratory design a system to benefit them.

The September Project has grown exponentially since it started as a UW communication professor’s idea for a day of discussion and deliberation at public and academic libraries on Sept.