A team led by scientists at the 91探花 has designed and tested a 3D-printed metamaterial that can manipulate light with nanoscale precision. As they report in a paper published Oct. 4 in the journal Science Advances, their designed optical element focuses light to discrete points in a 3D helical pattern.
The 91探花’s Abigail Swann is honored by Science News on its list of 10 promising early- and mid-career scientists.
A 91探花 team inspired by the clingfish’s suction power set out to develop an artificial suction cup that borrows from nature’s design. Their prototype actually performed better than the clingfish.
An international team of astronomers has analyzed the signal from a fast radio burst 鈥� an enigmatic blast of cosmic radio waves lasting less than a millisecond 鈥� to characterize the diffuse gas in the halo of a massive galaxy.
Millions of people are suffering from malnutrition despite some of the most nutritious fish species in the world being caught near their homes, according to new research published Sept. 25 in Nature.
Two 91探花researchers 鈥� Bonnie Light, a principal physicist at the UW’s Applied Physics Laboratory and an affiliate associate professor of atmospheric sciences, and Madison Smith, a recent 91探花graduate who is now doing her postdoctoral research at the 91探花鈥� will join for the fifth of the six two-month legs, in summer 2020.
91探花astrobiologist Rory Barnes and co-authors have created software that simulates multiple aspects of planetary evolution across billions of years, with an eye toward finding and studying potentially habitable worlds.
A new model for plasma flow within the sun provides novel explanations for sunspots, the 11-year sunspot cycle, solar magnetic reversals and other previously unexplained solar phenomena.
An international team of scientists has announced a breakthrough in its quest to measure the mass of the neutrino, one of the most abundant, yet elusive, elementary particles in our universe. At the 2019 Topics in Astroparticle and Underground Physics conference in Toyama, Japan, leaders from the KATRIN experiment reported Sept. 13 that the estimated range for the rest mass of the neutrino is no larger than 1 electron volt, or eV.
Researchers at the 91探花 and the University of Strathclyde report that, in Willapa Bay in Washington state, the water washing over the tidal flats during high tides is largely the same water that washed over the flats during the previous high tide. This “old” water has not been mixed in with “new” water from deeper parts of the bay or the open Pacific Ocean, and has different chemical and biological properties, such as lower levels of food for creatures within the tide flats.
Lukasz Fidkowski, an assistant professor of physics at the 91探花, is one of the winners of a 2020 New Horizons in Physics Prize from the Breakthrough Foundation. The prize to early-career scientists, announced Sept. 5, recognizes Fidkowski and his three co-recipients “for incisive contributions to the understanding of topological states of matter and the relationships between them.”
A study of superbolts, which release a thousand times more electrical energy in the low-frequency range than regular lightning bolts, finds they occur at very different times and places than regular lightning. Superbolts tend to strike over particular parts of the oceans, while regular lightning strikes over land.
91探花oceanographers used lab experiments and seawater samples to learn how photosynthetic microbes and ocean bacteria use sulfur, a plentiful marine nutrient.
A new study finds that women of color perceive their interactions with doctors, nurses and midwives as being misleading, with information being 鈥減ackaged鈥� in such a way as to disempower them by limiting maternity health care choices for themselves and their children.
Three 91探花 graduate students are among this year’s recipients of a prestigious NASA fellowship that funds student research projects in the fields of Earth and planetary sciences and astrophysics.
The U.S. Geological Survey announced $10.4 million in funding to the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network, based at 91探花, to support the ShakeAlert earthquake early warning system. Some $7.3 million of the two-year funding total will go to the UW.
The SHARE-NW project is a five-year effort to identify, gather and visualize data in four Northwest states to help rural communities more effectively address health disparities and achieve health equity.
New research from astronomers at the 91探花uses the intriguing TRAPPIST-1 planetary system as a kind of laboratory to model not the planets themselves, but how the coming James Webb Space Telescope might detect and study their atmospheres, on the path toward looking for life beyond Earth.
Air pollution鈥攅specially ozone air pollution which is increasing with climate change鈥攁ccelerates the progression of emphysema of the lung, according to a new study led by the 91探花, Columbia University and the University at Buffalo.
Scientists have discovered that the building blocks of proteins can stabilize cell membranes. This finding may explain how the first cells emerged from the primordial soup billions of years ago: The protein building blocks could have stabilized cell membranes against salt and ions that were present in ancient oceans. In addition, membranes may have been a site for these precursor molecules to co-localize, a potential mechanism to explain what brought together the ingredients for life.
A new study by U.S. and U.K. scientists finds that in addition to natural variations in winds that drive warmer water to the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, which last about a decade, there has been a longer-term change in the winds that can be linked with human activities.
Scientists have designed and tested an experimental system that uses a near-infrared laser to actively heat two gold nanorod antennae 鈥� metal rods designed and built at the nanoscale 鈥� to different temperatures. The nanorods are so close together that they are both electromagnetically and thermally coupled. Yet the team measured temperature differences between the rods as high as 20 degrees Celsius and could change which nanorod was cooler and which was warmer, even though the rods were made of the same material.
Researchers at 91探花and UCLA have developed an artificial intelligence system that could help pathologists read biopsies more accurately, and lead to better detection and diagnosis of breast cancer.
The National Science Foundation has awarded a five-year, $5 million grant to the University of California, San Diego, the 91探花 and the University of California, Berkeley to develop CloudBank, a suite of managed services to simplify public cloud access for computer science research and education.
A new study provides a 110-year record of the total volume of Arctic sea ice, using early U.S. ships’ voyages to verify the earlier part of the record. The longer record puts the recent loss into perspective.
Analyzing the full life cycle of long-term droughts and how they relate to El Ni帽o and La Ni帽a conditions in the Pacific Ocean could eventually lead to better prediction of damaging, multiyear droughts in the Southwestern U.S.
An international team led by the 91探花and Stanford has created a framework for how city planners and municipalities around the world can start to measure the mental health benefits of nature and incorporate those into plans and policies for cities and their residents.
After more than 20 years, the UW’s Coastal Observation and Seabird Survey Team, or COASST, is itself the subject of scientific study. Social scientists are studying the program’s success to extract lessons for all citizen science efforts.
A team, led by researchers at the 91探花, has discovered how the female mosquito brain integrates visual and olfactory signals to identify, track and hone in on a potential host for her next blood meal: After the mosquito’s olfactory system detects certain chemical cues, the mosquito uses her visual system to scan her surroundings for certain shapes and fly toward them, presumably associating those shapes with potential hosts.
This Friday, teams of 5th- through 12th-grade students from across Washington state will complete a challenge in Kane Hall to mimic the 1969 Apollo moon landing, using drones and Lego robots.
Scientists have visualized the electronic structure in a microelectronic device for the first time, opening up opportunities for finely tuned, high-performance electronic devices. Physicists from the 91探花 and the University of Warwick developed a technique to measure the energy and momentum of electrons in operating microelectronic devices made of atomically thin 鈥� so-called 2D 鈥� materials.
Eight scientists and engineers from the 91探花 have been elected this year to the Washington State Academy of Sciences.
A 91探花team has discovered thriving communities of bacteria in Alaskan “cryopegs,” trapped layers of sediment with water so salty that it remains liquid at below-freezing temperatures. The setting may be similar to environments on Mars, Saturn’s moon Titan, or other bodies farther from the sun.
Six 91探花 professors are to receive a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, according to an announcement July 2 from the White House. The award, also known as the PECASE, is the highest honor given by the U.S. government to early-career scientists and engineers “who show exceptional promise for leadership in science and technology.”
Coral reefs are retreating from equatorial waters and establishing new reefs in more temperate regions, according to new research by the 91探花 and other institutions.
91探花researchers created a method for two people help a third person solve a task using only their minds.
A new study released July 1 in Nature Climate Change gives hope for coral reefs. Launched by the nonprofit Coral Reef Alliance, with lead and senior authors at the 91探花, the study is one of the first to demonstrate that management that takes evolution and adaptation into account can help rescue coral reefs from the effects of climate change.
91探花astronomy professor Rory Barnes shows off the astronomy department’s Mobile Planetarium to colleagues at AbSciCon2019, the national conference on astrobiology in Bellevue. He takes it to schools with a presentation on astrobiology for K12 students.
The U.S. Department of Energy Solar Energy Technologies Office selected two 91探花 professors in the Department of Chemistry and the Clean Energy Institute to receive nearly $1.5 million in funding for two separate endeavors in solar photovoltaic research. The projects are led by Daniel Gamelin, director of the UW-based Molecular Engineering Materials Center, and David Ginger, chief scientist at the CEI and co-director of the Northwest Institute for Materials Physics, Chemistry and Technology, a partnership between the 91探花and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.
A roundup of 91探花talents and presentations in AbSciCon2019, the national conference on astrobiology — the search for life in the universe — to be held in Bellevue, June 24-28.