The latest news from the UW

Two UW faculty members — Ryan Calo, assistant professor of law, and Daniel Weld, professor of computer science and engineering — have joined hundreds of other researchers in an open letter calling for research to make artificial intelligence more robust and beneficial to humankind. Others signing the letter include physicist Stephen Hawking and Elon Musk of Space X. The letter was published by the Future of Life Institute, a volunteer organization seeking to lessen existential risks facing society and currently…

How long are the tentacles of the largest jellyfish and how big are the ocean’s famed whales? It turns out it’s difficult to get exact measurements of many of the world’s largest marine megafauna, for the reasons one might expect: many of these animals are few in number, tricky to find and logistically hard to measure or weigh. We know surprisingly little about the maximum sizes these species can reach, though popular culture might say otherwise. Now, a team of…

The Washington state Legislature will pause to honor Daniel J. Evans on Jan. 14, marking 50 years, plus a day, since he was sworn in for the first of three terms as Washington state governor, on Jan. 13, 1965. Evans also will address the Senate. Evans began his office-holding career as a member of the Washington state House of Representatives from 1956 to 1965. He served as governor until 1977, then became president of The Evergreen State College. When Sen….

Half a century ago, UW graduate Bill Holm published what would become a seminal work on the distinctive art of the people who first inhabited the Pacific Northwest. “Northwest Coast Indian Art” was the result of Holm’s 15-year analysis of hundreds of artworks while studying at UW under Erna Gunther, former director of the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture. The book introduced new terminology that soon became part of the accepted vocabulary to describe works that conveyed Indian…

A survey of pollution and other impurities in North American snow required researchers to find sites with undisturbed snow far from any city or major road – in other words, a recipe for getting stranded by the side of a cold, lonely road. During the campaign that went from late January to late March 2013, the group traveled some 9,600 miles. They sampled snow in 13 American states and three Canadian provinces, and got stuck only twice. Before leaving Seattle…

Three University of Washington engineers were selected by Forbes magazine as part of its top 30 people in the world under age 30 in energy. This year’s list largely focuses on people who have produced inventions and founded companies with the goal of saving or conserving energy, instead of creating it. Shyam Gollakota, an assistant professor in computer science and engineering, was selected for his work in powering devices without using batteries. He develops sensors that get power by absorbing small…

When deciding where to live, single people should choose cities with affordable housing, interesting job opportunities, vibrant neighborhoods and abundant sports activities. That was the advice of Pepper Schwartz, a UW sociology professor who was among experts consulted for personal finance website WalletHub’s recent ranking of 2014’s Best & Worst Cities for Singles. The site ranked the 150 most populated U.S. cities on 25 metrics including the percentage of singles, costs for restaurant meals and movies, rental housing costs and…

Cancel all screenings of that insulting movie you made, then burn all the prints, and formally apologize — and don’t do it again. Demands from North Korea, perhaps, about Sony Pictures’ controversial James Franco-Seth Rogen film “The Interview”? No, that’s off by about 85 years. It was the Chinese Nationalist government’s reaction to a film called “Welcome Danger” featuring the famously bespectacled silent screen star Harold Lloyd, released in 1929. The scene is from “Silent Cinema and the Politics of…

High-tech companies are seeking to capitalize on the power of handwriting, but there are other reasons to value the practice, says UW educational psychology professor Virginia Berninger. “Writing is the way we learn what we’re thinking,” said Berninger, who studies the effect of handwriting on the human brain. “The handwriting, the sequencing of the strokes, engages the thinking part of the mind.” Berninger was recently interviewed for a CBS This Morning story about how tech companies are reviving the art…

For those who love the silent film antics of Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd, Charlie Chaplin and others, UW Libraries has something new that’s as good as a Christmas present: the Silent Film Online database. It’s a streaming service administered by Alexander Street Press that includes more than 500 silent films, serials and shorts produced from the 1890s to the 1930s. Fritz Lang’s famous “Metropolis” is there as well as works by Mack Sennett, D.W. Griffiths (including his odd version of…

Twenty-four UW oceanography students are aboard the UW’s large research vessel, the Thomas G. Thompson, taking measurements off Canada’s west coast for their senior-level research projects. They left Thursday, Dec. 11 and will get back Sunday, Dec. 21. The trip takes them to Nootka Sound, a complex inlet off the west coast of Vancouver Island. UW oceanography professor Charles Eriksen is leading the 10-day expedition. Also aboard are oceanography faculty members Julie Keister, Miles Logsdon and Julian Sachs. They will…

The University of Washington moved up to the 11th spot in the latest ranking of best value for in-state students among public universities by Kiplinger’s Personal Finance. The ranking includes measures of economic value and educational quality. The UW placed 13th in the same ranking a year ago and was 17th two years ago. Kiplinger data showed the total cost per year for in-state UW students, after adding need-based aid, is $10,433, and average debt at graduation is $21,263. UW…

A celebration of life for Naomi Brenner Pascal, the longtime editor-in-chief of the University of Washington Press, is being planned for February. She died Dec. 5 at the age of 88. Colleagues at UW Press remember Pascal as a model of grace, good humor and high standards. Her wide-ranging knowledge, integrity and commitment to diplomacy were critical to the success of the press, and many recall her generosity of spirit and promotion of collegiality locally and in the publishing community….

David Shields, UW professor and New York Times best-selling author, was at the center of a Dec. 2 article by Adelle Waldman in The New Yorker titled “An Answer to the Novel’s Detractors.” Waldman places Shields among those detractors, but does not entirely disagree with him. “It’s no coincidence that many of the most exciting novels to have appeared in recent years … have been distinctly un-novelistic,” Waldman wrote, “featuring protagonists who share many biographical details (and sometimes names) with…

Kathleen Fearn-Banks, UW associate professor of communication, drew upon her 21 years of experience as a publicist in network television to write her 2005 “Historical Dictionary of African American Television.” This fall, an expanded second edition of the book was published. Banks was NBC’s first African-American publicist and second-ever female publicist when hired there in 1969 after working in journalism. She spent two years researching the book, ranging from the 1939 broadcast of the “Ethel Waters Show” to current television…

University of Washington computer scientists have partnered with members of the Carbon Washington grassroots campaign to create an online tool that lets residents calculate how a state carbon tax swap proposed by the organization would impact them financially. The calculator offers information users can’t find elsewhere and is meant to be a neutral, unbiased tool. “The tool should be very useful to voters trying to decide their position on the carbon tax policy. Many people will have broader societal motivations…

Marine mammal expert Kristin Laidre, a polar scientist at the UW Applied Physics Laboratory and in the School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences, studies Arctic mammals in their native habitat. She focuses on polar bears and narwhals, an Arctic whale with a distinctive spiral tusk. In spring 2013 she invited Seattle watercolor artist Maria Coryell-Martin to join an expedition to West Greenland and share an artist’s perspective on what it’s like to do research in the far north. (Coryell-Martin is…

The co-director of the UW’s Institute for Learning & Brain Sciences is among officials from around the country participating in today’s White House Summit on Early Education. Patricia Kuhl, a world-renowned scientist in early language and brain development, joins state and local policymakers, school district superintendents, community leaders and others for the summit. Participants are expected to share their ideas about best practices and effective strategies, with the goal of expanding access to high-quality early education for children nationwide. Kuhl…

Superheroes are generally assumed to be healthy and virtually immortal, tending their superpowers as they save the planet time and again. But a new book by José Alaniz, UW associate professor of Slavic languages and literatures, seeks to redefine the contemporary image of the superhero. “Death, Disability, and the Superhero: The Silver Age and Beyond,” published this fall by University of Mississippi Press, draws on DC and Marvel comics from the 1960s to the 1990s to investigate how death and…

Jane Heinrichs is a doctoral student in piano performance at the UW School of Music and will perform in two of the three concerts that comprise the three-part series “Music from the War to End All Wars.” The series begins Sunday, Dec. 7, in Brechemin Auditorium, and continues on March 3 and May 8, 2015. So, does knowing the historical context of a piece of music affect how she approaches and performs it? Not exactly, Heinrichs said, “but it is…

Andrew J. Boydston, a UW associate professor of chemistry, has received a Faculty Early Career Development Award from the National Science Foundation. The award is intended to support junior faculty who “exemplify the role of teacher-scholars through outstanding research, excellent education and the integration of education and research,” according to the NSF. Boydston received the award for his proposal to develop materials that apply mechanical force to drive chemical reactions that release small organic molecules. Those small molecules could be…

Join some of the world’s leading experts on the Southern Ocean for a webinar on Thursday, Dec. 4, from 11 a.m. to noon Seattle time. Viewers can log on here with a Google account, or watch on YouTube. “UW-built sensors to probe Antarctica’s Southern Ocean” UW Today | Sept. 11, 2014 The Southern Ocean Carbon and Climate Observations and Modeling project, based at Princeton University, is a six-year collaborative effort to improve understanding of the Southern Ocean’s role in climate….

Four University of Washington researchers have received the Allen Distinguished Investigator award for their work in artificial intelligence research. The awards, totaling about $2.7 million to the UW from the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation, will fund early stage research in several areas of artificial intelligence. The recipients from the UW are Jeffrey Heer, an associate professor of computer science and engineering; Ali Farhadi, an assistant professor of computer science and engineering; Hannaneh Hajishirzi, a research scientist in electrical engineering;…