The latest news from the UW

Learning self-defense skills benefits women in ways that extend beyond discovering how to protect themselves. It also boosts their self- esteem and positively affects their personality, according to a new University of Washington study.

The return of sockeye salmon to Alaska’s Bristol Bay fell 15 to 20 million fish short of expectations, leading to significant economic and social hardship for fishermen, processors and local communities.

A one-week intensive workshop, designed to help teachers interpret and implement new state and national standards in science education, will be held at the Olympic Natural Resources Center in Forks Aug. 18-22.

When engineers at the University of Washington set out to create a vehicle that is cleaner and safer to operate than gas or electric cars, they jokingly named it the smogmobile after a L’il Abner cartoon depicting a car fueled by air pollution. But the vehicle developed by the UW team almost lives up to its name. Running on liquid nitrogen, the smogmobile generates no harmful emissions and actually creates an opportunity for pollutants to be removed from the air as its fuel is produced.

What’s it like to practice family medicine on a small, rural island in Puget Sound,where the nearest hospital, on the mainland, can be reached only by sea or sky? Some University of Washington (UW) third-year medical students now have the opportunity to find out.

Parentese, the exaggerated, drawn-out form of speech that people use to communicate with babies, apparently is universal and plays a vital role in helping infants to analyze and absorb the phonetic elements of their parents’ language.

Medical News from the University of Washington

Bringing together the most advanced medical, surgical and research resources available to fight the most virulent form of skin cancer, University of Washington Medical Center has established a multidisciplinary Melanoma Center.

University of Washington Medical Center is again ranked among the top 10 hospitals in the country, according to U.S. News & World Report’s 1997 annual guide to “America’s Best Hospitals,” available on newsstands July 21.

Seven physicians at University of Washington Medical Center were named among The Best Doctors For Women in a new poll commissioned by Good Housekeeping magazine and published in the August 1997 issue, currently on newsstands.

International programs offer UW nursing students health care experience around the world

Montana will open its first training site for teaching University of Washington medical students about women’s health care.

and recyclable.

Materials science and engineering, a fundamental but often low-profile part of manufacturing, is the subject of a new summer institute at the University of Washington that aims to give high school and community college teachers new tools for designing laboratory projects that turn their students on to science and engineering.

A promising new drug called Hu23F2G that may save the lives of severely injured patients is now being tested by University of Washington (UW) physicians based at Harborview Medical Center.

Although the actual sites and test protocols for the “From Bench to Bedside and Beyond” project have not yet been chosen, two rural physicians participating in a separate but related University of Washington project, the WWAMI Rural Telemedicine Network, explained the importance of systematically evaluating the Internet as a clinical tool.

Joel Kingsolver thought he had lost his butterflies: 10,000 carefully preserved wings, representing nearly two decades of work, all apparently destroyed in a disastrous fire at the University of Washington’s zoology department last March. But within weeks his butterflies had “returned” — the heartfelt gift of a host of young children who had set about replacing the lost wings with colorful, imaginative and sometimes poignant butterfly pictures.

Knowledge of how the brain responds to weight loss and weight gain is advancing research toward the development of effective treatments for obesity, anorexia and other weight disorders

Interpretive walks to look at the 22-story Wind River canopy crane will be conducted most Saturdays this summer at 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. The tours, which are free and open to everyone, start from the Whistlepunk Trailhead in the Wind River Ranger District, a part of the Gifford Pinchot National Forest.

Dr. Fredric M. Wolf has been named chair of the Department of Medical Education at the University of Washington School of Medicine.

New method of tracing metastatic breast cancer to the lymph nodes decreases the need for extensive surgery

Do you have a child aged 4 to 7 who is overly aggressive and non-compliant? You and your child may qualify for a program at the University of Washington School of Nursing’s Parenting Clinic.

In the first such instance in the Seattle area, a Puyallup man is being kept alive at University of Washington Medical Center with the help of a new type of implanted heart pump, until a donor heart becomes available for transplant.

In a major effort to discover the genetic causes of autism and develop intervention programs to assist children with the severe developmental disorder, an interdisciplinary team of University of Washington researchers has begun a nationwide effort to recruit at least 200 families with two or more autistic children for a new $5.6 million study.

Marc Lindenberg, a senior vice president with CARE USA, has been selected as the new dean of the University of Washington Graduate School of Public Affairs.

Father’s Day just may be the loneliest day of the year for that much-maligned group of males — divorced dads

Frustrated Internet shoppers who are unable or unwilling to wade through a flood of World Wide Web sites to find what they’re looking for soon can call on a computer software robot named Jango to help with their on-line shopping.

From the Wind River canopy crane’s gondola, scientists can gather samples, install instruments and conduct experiments in the canopies of trees as tall as 220 feet.

Canopy research could lead to better forest management

Dr. Paul G. Ramsey, chair of the Department of Medicine at the University of Washington medical school, has been named vice president for medical affairs and dean of the School of Medicine.

A scientific evaluation of an anti-violence curriculum developed in Seattle and used in over 10,000 schools throughout the US and Canada reveals that the curriculum is successful in reducing aggressive behaviors in elementary school-aged children.

Medical News from the University of Washington

Prevention of drug interactions, say researchers at the University of Washington School of Pharmacy, lies in learning how the human body processes each drug. The school has recently established a formal Program in Drug Interactions, tapping the expertise of 22 faculty members believed to be the largest group of experts in the world on drug interactions.

The concept is known as the “sulfate paradigm.” Or to put it simply, the idea that industrial pollution in the atmosphere may actually keep the global temperature from soaring.

The 1997 graduating medical school class at the University of Washington School of Medicine has selected four faculty members to honor. Dr. Mindy Cooper, Dr. Douglas Paauw and Dr. Nicholas Ward were named distinguished teachers.

The state Department of Health has granted a certificate of need to University of Washington Medical Center and Northwest Hospital, approving an application filed last summer to develop a collaborative cardiac care program

More than 500,000 Americans each year may suddenly experience numbness or muscular weakness, lose the ability to speak, and have difficulty seeing. These frightening symptoms are common to stroke, the number-one cause of adult disability in the United States and at least 150,000 deaths each year.

Vitamin supplements may help asthmatics cope with air pollution

A system for running Java programs that is more secure than those found in commercial World Wide Web browsers has been developed by computer scientists at the University of Washington.

When it comes to talking to their teenagers about sex, health and condoms, mum’s the word for most American parents.

The University of Washington will receive a new resource in health care management and organization research with relocation of the Center for Health Management Research — a cooperative industry / university research center.