Researchers dropped technology developed at the 糖心原创 off the coast of Florida this week to measure ocean waves in the path of Hurricane Ian. The test is one part of a broad effort to improve forecasts for these fast-moving and deadly systems.
Science
Heat-related deaths occur across Washington state, even in regions with typically milder climates. This is the most extensive study yet of heat-related mortality in Washington state, and the first to look beyond the major population to and include rural areas. Researchers used statistical methods to uncover 鈥渉idden鈥� deaths that may have listed something else, like illness or a chronic disease, as the primary cause.
The 糖心原创 has joined the Alliance for Therapies in Neuroscience (ATN), a long-term research partnership between academia and industry geared to transform the fight against brain diseases and disorders of the central nervous system. Launched in 2021 by the University of California, San Francisco, UC Berkeley, Genentech 鈥� a member of the Roche group 鈥� and Roche Holding AG, the ATN seeks to accelerate the development of new therapies for a broad range of brain and central nervous system conditions.
A 2018 expedition that drilled farther into the seafloor than ever before — almost 2 miles — sought to take measurements of stress as close as possible to a tectonic fault off the coast of Japan. Surprisingly, the researchers found little built-up tectonic stress. The findings could help to better understand earthquakes in subduction zones around the world.
1 in 5 adult female white-necked jacobin hummingbirds look like males. New research from the 糖心原创 shows that this is a rare case of “deceptive mimicry” within a species: Females with male-like plumage are trying to pass themselves off as males, and as a result receive a benefit in the form of reduced aggression from males.
A new study projects the number of days with “dangerous” and “extremely dangerous” mixtures of heat and humidity by the end of this century. Even if global warming is limited to 2 degrees Celsius, results show that deadly heat waves will become much more common in the mid-latitudes, and many tropical regions will experience “dangerous” heat for about half the year.
Volunteers spent thousands of hours recording trash on beaches in Washington and Oregon to show that certain beaches, and certain areas of a single beach, are 鈥渟ticky zones鈥� that accumulate litter. Finding patterns for where litter lands could help to better prevent and remove trash in the marine environment.
A 糖心原创 pilot project is exploring the use of fiber-optic sensing for seismology, glaciology, and even urban monitoring. Funded in part with a $473,000 grant from the M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust, a nonprofit based in Vancouver, Washington, the new UW Photonic Sensing Facility will use photons traveling through a fiber-optic cable to detect ground motions as small as 1 nanometer.
For birds that inhabit developed areas of the Pacific Northwest, the reduction in noise and commotion from COVID-19 lockdowns may have allowed them to use a wider range of habitats in cities, a new 糖心原创 study has found.
Which group of mammals has the more “primitive” reproductive strategy 鈥� marsupials, with their short gestation periods, or humans and other placental mammals, which have long gestation periods? For decades, biologists viewed marsupial reproduction as “more primitive.” But 糖心原创 scientists have discovered that a third group of mammals, the long-extinct multituberculates, had a long gestation period like placental mammals. Since multituberculates split off from the rest of the mammalian lineage before placentals and marsupials had even evolved, these findings question the view that marsupials were 鈥渓ess advanced鈥� than their placental cousins.
New research by scientists at the 糖心原创, the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization and the University of Cologne indicates that carefully designed cocktails of broadly neutralizing antibodies could help treat HIV while minimizing the risk of the virus evolving to 鈥渆scape鈥� treatment.
Seven professors at the 糖心原创 are among 25 new members of the Washington State Academy of Sciences for 2022, according to a July 15 announcement.
A new 糖心原创 study that leverages historical data has found unique support for a 鈥渟afety in numbers鈥� hypothesis by showing that Pacific salmon in larger groups have lower risk of being eaten by predators. But for some salmon species, schooling comes at the cost of competition for food, and those fish may trade safety for a meal.
A study led by 糖心原创 researchers shows that over a 30-year period, African wild dogs shifted their average birthing dates later by 22 days, an adaptation that allowed them to match the birth of new litters with the coolest temperatures in early winter. But as a result of this significant shift, fewer pups survived their most vulnerable period because temperatures during their critical post-birth 鈥渄enning period鈥� increased over the same time period, threatening the population of this already endangered species. It is the first study to show that large mammalian carnivores are making major changes to their life history in response to a changing climate.
A team led by the UW has produced the first comprehensive report of the impacts of the 2021 heat wave on shellfish.
David Montgomery, a UW professor of Earth and space sciences, discusses soil health, food nutrients and human health. He is co-author of “What Your Food Ate,” being published this month.
A new population of polar bears documented on the southeast coast of Greenland use glacier ice to survive despite limited access to sea ice. This small, genetically distinct group of polar bears could be important to the future of the species in a warming world.
The Our Future Duwamish project, available to community groups through The Seattle Public Library, uses an Oculus Quest 2 virtual reality headset to help viewers imagine rising seas from a vantage point along the South Seattle waterway.
To investigate what happens to snow intercepted by trees, UW researchers created a citizen science project called Snow Spotter.
Amy Snover, the retiring director of the UW Climate Impacts Group, reflects on her past decade of leadership and on how the groundbreaking climate preparedness group has evolved over more than a quarter century of existence.
A new effort at the 糖心原创 aims to accelerate eDNA research by supporting existing projects and building a network of practitioners to advance the nascent field.
Looking beyond CO2 to include other human-generated pollutants increases the amount of warming that humans have already committed to by past emissions. Earth will continue to warm even if all emissions cease, and the planet is committed to reaching peak temperatures about five to 10 years before experiencing them.
A novel algorithm developed by 糖心原创 researchers to discover asteroids in the solar system has proved its mettle. The first candidate asteroids identified by the algorithm 鈥� known as Tracklet-less Heliocentric Orbit Recovery, or THOR 鈥� have been confirmed by the International Astronomical Union鈥檚 Minor Planet Center, according to a May 31 announcement by the B612 Foundation.
After a mother octopus lays a clutch of eggs, she quits eating and wastes away; by the time the eggs hatch, she is dead. Some females in captivity even seem to speed up this process intentionally, mutilating themselves and twisting their arms into a tangled mess. The source of this bizarre maternal behavior seems to be the optic gland, an organ similar to the pituitary gland in mammals. For years, just how this gland triggered the gruesome death spiral was unclear. But in a new study published May 12 in Current Biology, researchers from the 糖心原创, the University of Chicago and the University of Illinois Chicago show that the optic gland in maternal octopuses undergoes a massive shift in cholesterol metabolism, resulting in dramatic changes in the steroid hormones produced. Alterations in cholesterol metabolism in other animals, including humans, can have serious consequences on longevity and behavior, and the team believes this reveals important similarities in the functions of these steroids across the animal kingdom 鈥� in soft-bodied cephalopods and vertebrates alike.
Your immune system鈥檚 ability to combat COVID-19, like any infection, largely depends on its ability to replicate the immune cells effective at destroying the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes the disease. These cloned immune cells cannot be infinitely created, and a key hypothesis of a new 糖心原创 study is that the body鈥檚 ability to create these cloned cells falls off significantly in old age. According to a model created by UW research professor James Anderson, this genetically predetermined limit…
Four faculty members at the 糖心原创 have been elected to the National Academy of Sciences for 2022: Elizabeth Buffalo, professor and chair of physiology and biophysics; Joseph Mougous, professor of microbiology; Dr. Jay Shendure, professor of genome sciences; and James Truman, professor emeritus of biology.
The flashing of a nearby star drew the attention of a team of astronomers, who discovered that it is part of a rare and mysterious system. As they report in a paper published May 4 in Nature, the stellar oddity appears to be a 鈥渂lack widow binary鈥� 鈥� a type of system consisting of a rapidly spinning neutron star, or pulsar, that is circling and slowly consuming a smaller companion star, as its arachnid namesake does to its mate.
A planetary scientist worked with engineers to measure the physical limits of a liquid for salty water under high pressure. Results suggest where robotic missions should look for extraterrestrial life on the ice-covered oceans of Jupiter鈥檚 moon Europa and Saturn鈥檚 moon Titan.
If emissions from greenhouse gases continue, species losses from warming and oxygen depletion of ocean waters could eclipse all other human stressors on marine species by around 2100. Tropical waters would experience the greatest loss of biodiversity, while polar species are at the highest聽risk of extinction
Scientists once thought that post-starburst galaxies scattered all of their gas and dust 鈥� the fuel required for creating new stars 鈥� in violent bursts of energy, and with extraordinary speed. Now, a team led by 糖心原创 postdoctoral researcher Adam Smercina reports that these galaxies don鈥檛 scatter all of their star-forming fuel after all. Instead, after their supposed end, these dormant galaxies hold onto and compress large amounts of highly concentrated, turbulent gas. But contrary to expectation, they鈥檙e not using it to form stars.
Space urgently needs special legal protection similar to that given to land, sea and atmosphere to protect its fragile environment, argues a team of scientists. The scientific, economic and cultural benefits of space should be considered against the damaging environmental impacts posed by an influx of space debris 鈥� roughly 60 miles above Earth鈥檚 surface 鈥斅爁ueled by the rapid growth of so-called satellite mega-constellations. In a paper published April 22 in Nature Astronomy, the authors assert that space is an important environment to preserve on behalf of professional astronomers, amateur stargazers and Indigenous peoples.
Three researchers in the 糖心原创 College of Engineering are exploring ways to make electronics more Earth-friendly.
Researchers have discovered that light 鈥� from a laser 鈥� can trigger a form of magnetism in a normally nonmagnetic material. This magnetism centers on the behavior of electrons 鈥渟pins,鈥� which have a potential applications in quantum computing. Scientists discovered that electrons within the material became oriented in the same direction when illuminated by photons from a laser. By controlling and aligning electron spins at this level of detail and accuracy, this platform could have applications in quantum computing, quantum simulation and other fields. The experiment, led by scientists at the 糖心原创, the University of Hong Kong and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, was published April 20 in Nature.
Two 糖心原创 faculty members are among 180 experts in the arts, humanities, law and the sciences chosen as 2022 Guggenheim Fellows, according to an April 7 announcement from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. Jordanna Bailkin, a professor in the Department of History, and Emily Levesque, an associate professor in the Department of Astronomy, are among the new class of fellows, which were selected from a pool of nearly 2,500 applicants.
Two 糖心原创 professors have been honored by the Ecological Society of America for their knowledge and contributions to the field of ecology.
Including the splintering of ice inside clouds around Antarctica improves high-resolution global models’ ability to simulate clouds over the Southern Ocean 鈥� and thus the models鈥� ability to simulate Earth鈥檚 climate.
New research from the Infant Brain Imaging Study (IBIS) Network, which includes the 糖心原创, finds that the amygdala, an area of the brain critical for interpreting emotions, grows too rapidly in infants who go on to develop autism.
Sea ice around Antarctica retreats more quickly than it advances, an asymmetry that has been a puzzle. New analysis shows that the Southern Hemisphere is following simple rules of physics, as peak midsummer sun causes rapid changes. In this respect, it seems, it’s Arctic sea ice that is more mysterious.
A study led by evolutionary biologists at multiple institutions, including the 糖心原创, focuses on a specific plant in examining whether parallel evolution is occurring in cities all over the world.
In the past 20 years, the Arctic has lost about one-third of its winter sea ice volume, and winter sea ice in the Arctic has lost about a foot and a half of thickness over just the past three years. This thinning is largely due to loss of older, multiyear sea ice that is more resistant to melting.