July 21, 2015
“Piers Plowman” is not only a 14th century alliterative narrative, it is also the reason a hundred scholars are coming to the UW this week. The Piers Plowman International Conference will be held July 23-25 in Alder Hall and the Simpson Center for the Humanities. “The poem is a work contemporary with Chaucer in the second half of the 14th century which offers a series of dream visions that instruct the wandering dreamer with regard to a range of contested…
July 20, 2015
In many areas of the world, women and girls walk an average of six kilometers to collect water for their families that often isn’t even safe to drink. Five Washington-based organizations — University of Washington, Washington Global Health Alliance (WGHA), PATH, Washington State University’s Paul G. Allen School for Global Animal Health and World Vision — are partnering to improve the health and livelihoods of thousands of women and girls and their families in rural Tanzania through the “Water, Wealth…
The University of Washington has been recognized as a “Great College to Work For” by the Chronicle of Higher Education in its 2015 survey.
Astronautics doctoral student Nao Murakami wants to invent the heir to Angus MacGyver — the 1980s television hero who inspired a generation of engineers by foiling criminals with household items like cooking oil, a shop vac or a tube sock. Only this time the engineering heroine will be a woman.
July 17, 2015
The study of animals meets up with postcolonial studies in The Postcolonial Animal, a cross-disciplinary research project hosted by the UW’s Simpson Center for the Humanities. The work, notes from the center state, “considers relations between human and nonhuman lives and with indigenous ways of knowing” and “follows a conviction that violence toward any life is violence toward all, and the flourishing of any life is tied to the flourishing of all.” “Thinking about nonhuman life seriously — or indigenous…
Two University of Washington faculty members have been appointed to the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Justice Programs Science Advisory Board. Sociology professor Robert Crutchfield was named chair of the board’s justice system transparency and accountability subcommittee, and Alexes Harris, an associate professor of sociology, was named a new board member. The 25-member board, which advises the Office of Justice Programs on research, statistics and grant programs, is made up of leading scholars and experts in sociology, criminology, statistics,…
New research led by the University of Washington and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory suggests tiny ocean life in vast stretches of the Southern Ocean plays a significant role in generating brighter clouds overhead.
July 16, 2015
University of Washington Facilities Services, Puget Sound Energy, McKinstry and the Washington State Department of Commerce celebrated the completion of a $2.3 million energy conservation project Wednesday that will improve teaching and research laboratories within the iconic Physics/Astronomy Building. The capital retrofit project has drastically reduced ventilation system waste by installing high-tech controls, drives and motors to “right fit” the quantity of conditioned air delivered to labs based on the actual occupancy, time of day, day of week and season….
UW professor Philip Howard discusses his new book, “Pax Technica: How the Internet of Things May Set us Free or Lock Us Up,” published this spring by Yale University Press.
University of Washington researchers who conducted the first academic review of nine mhealth iPhone apps on the market in March 2014 found none met all the criteria that would make them accessible to blind customers. Accessibility shortcomings ranged from improperly labeled buttons to layouts that confuse built-in screen readers that assist low-vision smartphone users.
A team of biologists from the University of Washington and the California Institute of Technology has cracked the cues mosquitoes use to find us.
July 15, 2015
A team of researchers, engineers and students is now at sea to check the equipment in a massive seafloor laboratory, where underwater stations off the Pacific Northwest coast collect data and provide a real-time, virtual eye on the deep sea for people on shore.
An international team of scientists — led by researchers from the University of Washington and two other institutions — has announced that a new compound to fight malaria is ready for human trials.
July 13, 2015
Twenty years in, the law is finally starting to get used to the Internet. Now it is imperative, says Ryan Calo, assistant professor in the UW School of Law, that the law figure out how to deal effectively with the rise of robotics and artificial intelligence.
July 10, 2015
When big volcanoes like Mount St. Helens or Mount Pinatubo really blow their tops, the skies darken and temperatures drop. But since such massive eruptions – luckily for us – are fairly uncommon, scientists have few examples to help them piece together the details of how much it cools, and how far and long the chill extends. A University of Washington glaciologist is the second author of a study published July 8 in Nature that shows that 15 of the…
July 9, 2015
The University of Washington Botanic Gardens is one of the best university gardens in the nation, according to a new ranking by Best Colleges Online. The UW tied for first place along with three other universities for the top honor. UW Botanic Gardens, which includes the gardens and programs at the Washington Park Arboretum and the Center for Urban Horticulture, has a collection of more than 11,000 plants, trees and shrubs. Best Colleges Online cited this large collection and, in…
July 8, 2015
The UW-based Conservation magazine has won a gold award in a national competition sponsored by the Council for Advancement and Support of Education, or CASE. Conservation shares this top honor with a magazine from Stanford Medicine. The award recognizes magazines produced by universities or colleges for special external constituencies, including publications affiliated with individual colleges or devoted exclusively to an institution’s scholarly research. CASE judges noted Conservation’s dedication to stories of the “highest caliber,” as well as an “outstanding” layout…
Puget Sound’s complex maritime landscape — with huge port operations, ferries, commercial fishing fleets, cruise ships, recreational boaters, U.S. Navy ships, and tribes — makes a good test bed for investigating and improving security practices. A new University of Washington research center that has uncovered “profound actionable implications” for improving maritime security nationwide is drawing a visit to the UW Department of Human Centered Design and Engineering on Thursday from Admiral Paul F. Zukunft, the U.S. Coast Guard’s commandant and…
A two-month voyage tracking a deep current flowing from one of the most active underwater volcanoes proves that iron released from hydrothermal vents travels thousands of miles, providing a significant source of iron to support life in the broader oceans.
July 7, 2015
Stricter state sentencing laws in Washington have swelled the ranks of inmates serving life sentences to nearly one in five. And some lifers who opted to go to trial are serving much longer sentences than others who committed the same crimes and plea-bargained — raising questions about equitable treatment of prisoners. Those are among the findings in a new analysis by undergraduate honors students in the University of Washington’s Law, Societies & Justice program, who sought to determine the number…
July 6, 2015
On July 6, a team of astronomers proposed a new type of mission to crack some of the universe’s most intriguing mysteries and search for life on distant worlds.
Despite worries about interbreeding due to climate change, a new study finds that only about 6 percent of closely related species in the Americas are likely to come into contact by the end of this century.
July 1, 2015
A meeting on campus the week of July 7, “Molecular Life of Diatoms 2015” will bring together leading experts on diatoms—the same type of drifting algae now causing a huge harmful algal bloom off the West Coast—to discuss the perils and promise of these microscopic algae that live throughout the world’s oceans. A dazzling variety of diatom species help to cycle oxygen, carbon and energy for life on Earth. Advances in genetics and new knowledge of the genetics of particular…
June 30, 2015
The concepts of freedom, equality, evolution and democracy lie at the heart of “The Shape of the New: Four Big Ideas and How they Changed the World,” by Scott L. Montgomery and Daniel Chirot of the UW’s Jackson School of International Studies.
“On behalf of University of Washington students, faculty, staff and alumni, I want to express my thanks and appreciation to our elected officials for making investments in higher education a true budget priority during the 2015 legislative session…”
UW researchers have produced cell-to-cell communication in baker’s yeast — a first step in learning to build multicellular organisms or artificial organs from scratch.
June 29, 2015
A team of UW biologists has identified a key mechanism plants use to decide when to release their floral scents to attract pollinators.
June 25, 2015
A new, staff-created exhibit brings a little bit of Hogwarts to Suzzallo and Allen libraries, with books, games, action figures and even scholarly articles about that famous, lightning-browed “boy who lived.” The exhibit is called “Muggles & Magic: Harry Potter @ the Libraries.” The main attraction sits just outside the Suzzallo Reading Room, which is fitting since the room’s Gothic splendor now has tour hosts calling it the “Harry Potter Room.” More Potteralia is on display on the Allen Library’s…
A UW research analyst who monitors harmful algae in Washington state is aboard a federal research vessel surveying a massive bloom that stretches from California up to Canada.
June 24, 2015
A ribbon-cutting and celebration featuring the UW Husky Marching Band, Cheer Team and Harry the Husky marked the opening of the UW Spokane Center on Wednesday. UW interim Provost Jerry Baldasty, a native of Spokane, was joined by Spokane Mayor David Condon for a brief ceremony that kicked off an afternoon of activities for all ages with music, food and beverages and purple-and-gold prizes and apparel discounts. Located in the heart of Spokane’s University District, the UW Spokane Center is an information…
The Natural Capital Project, with offices at UW, wants to integrate the socioeconomic, cultural and spiritual values of nature into all major decisions affecting the environment and human well-being.
June 23, 2015
A conversation with UW astronomer Andrew Connolly on the coming Large Synoptic Survey Telescope and the promise of big data to the study of the universe.
June 22, 2015
To find life in the universe, it helps to know what it might look like. If there are organisms on other planets that do not rely wholly on photosynthesis — as some on Earth do not — how might those worlds appear from light-years away?
From the old Charles Atlas ads showing a scrawny male having sand kicked in his face to sitcom clichés of henpecked husbands, men have long faced pressure to live up to ideals of masculinity. Societal norms dictating that men should be masculine are powerful. And new University of Washington research finds that men who believe they fall short of those ideals might be prompted to reassert their masculinity in small but significant ways. Published last week in Social Psychology, the…
June 19, 2015
New research comparing traditional hunter-gatherer living conditions to a more modern setting shows that access to artificial light and electricity has shortened the amount of sleep humans get each night.
June 18, 2015
In pursuit of solutions to some of the biggest global challenges, two of the world’s leading research universities, the University of Washington and Tsinghua University, are partnering to create the Global Innovation Exchange (GIX), an institute dedicated to educating the next generation of innovators. With $40 million in foundational support from Microsoft, GIX will bring together students, faculty, professionals and entrepreneurs from around the world to collaborate on real-world technology and design projects. Based in a new facility in the…
University of Washington biologist Samuel Wasser uses DNA evidence to trace the origin of illegal ivory and help police an international trade that is decimating African elephant populations. New results show that over the past decade, ivory has largely come from just two areas in Africa.
An international team of researchers that includes a University of Washington electrical engineer has discovered two key strategies that enable Saharan silver ants to survive in one of the hottest terrestrial environments on Earth.
June 17, 2015
A team of University of Washington researchers has identified a mechanism that some plant cells use to receive complex and contradictory messages from their neighbors.
Satellites orbiting our planet gather vast amounts of data that have the potential to be used for the greater good — to give residents in flood-prone areas early warning, predict where mosquito-borne disease outbreaks are likely or monitor soil to grow healthier crops. But unlocking that potential requires packaging NASA observations in a way that can help farmers in Tanzania or water managers in Pakistan or foresters in Belize make informed decisions, which doesn’t happen on its own. Scientists and…