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The latest news from the UW

October 2, 2018

Former Interior Secretary Sally Jewell brings leadership to 91̽»¨community, new EarthLab initiative

Former Interior Secretary Sally Jewell brings a lifetime of experience in business, nonprofits, government and the outdoors to the 91̽»¨, where one of her tasks is to help shape the future of EarthLab, a new university-wide institute that seeks to connect scholars with community partners to solve our most difficult environmental problems.

High CO2 levels cause plants to thicken their leaves, which could worsen climate change effects, researchers say

When levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere rise, most plants do something unusual: They thicken their leaves. Now two 91̽»¨ scientists have shown that this reaction by plants will actually worsen climate change by making the global “carbon sink” contributed by plants was less productive.

September 28, 2018

Researchers release endangered crows into the forests of Pacific island

  For more than 2 million years, the native forests on the Pacific islands of Guam and Rota were home to several thousand crows, members of a species found nowhere else on Earth. But over the last 60 years, the Mariana crow — called the Aga in the Chamorro language — has completely disappeared from the island of Guam and rapidly declined on neighboring Rota. Today there are only about 175 Aga left in the wild. To ensure the survival…

Significant gift from Lynn and Howard Behar funds new 91̽»¨School of Social Work Center for Integrative Oncology and Palliative Care Social Work

A substantial gift from Lynn and Howard Behar will expand the 91̽»¨ School of Social Work’s support for the next generation of oncology social work scholars by providing funds to launch a new Center for Integrative Oncology and Palliative Care Social Work.

The Center will take a social justice approach to oncology and palliative care services, with a commitment to addressing documented health disparities in cancer and end-of-life care based on race and ethnicity, disability, gender and sexual identity, geographic location, income or education.

September 25, 2018

Arts 91̽»¨Roundup: Last Week of Muse, Classical Indian Dance Workshop, and more

This week in the arts, celebrate Dawg Daze with the Meany Center and ArtsUW, visit the Henry Art Gallery to see Muse, and more. LAST WEEK | Muse: Mickalene Thomas Photographs tête-à-tête Last day is September 30 | Henry Art Gallery “As the exhibition title suggests, MUSE is a visual love letter to the people who inspire her—both the women who appear as her subjects and the multigenerational roster of other artists who constitute her artistic community.” — Emily Pothast,…

Burst of morning gene activity tells plants when to flower

For angiosperms — or flowering plants — one of the most important decisions facing them each year is when to flower. It is no trivial undertaking. To flower, they must cease vegetative growth and commit to making those energetically expensive reproductive structures that will bring about the next generation. Knowledge of this process at the cellular level is critical for understanding how plants allocate resources and produce the components we care most about — including the grains, tubers, leaves, nuts…

September 19, 2018

DNA testing of illegal ivory seized by law enforcement links multiple ivory shipments to same dealers

The international trade in elephant ivory has been illegal since 1989, yet African elephant numbers continue to decline. In 2016, the International Union for Conservation of Nature cited ivory poaching as a primary reason for a staggering loss of about 111,000 elephants between 2005 and 2015 — leaving their total numbers at an estimated 415,000. For media Download soundbites, b-roll and images In a paper published Sept. 19 in the journal Science Advances, an international team led by scientists at…

September 18, 2018

91̽»¨historian Margaret O’Mara discusses famous 1968 computer mouse ‘demo’ — and the start of Silicon Valley — for new podcast by The Conversation

Margaret O’Mara, 91̽»¨professor of history, explores the impact of a December 1968 computer presentation that came to be called “the mother of all demos” in an essay and podcast from the news website The Conversation.

September 17, 2018

Shift in large-scale Atlantic circulation causes lower-oxygen water to invade Canada’s Gulf of St. Lawrence

Rapid deoxygenation in the Gulf of St. Lawrence is caused by shifts in two of the ocean’s most powerful currents: the Gulf Stream and the Labrador Current. A detailed model shows that large-scale climate change is causing oxygen to drop in the deeper parts of this biologically rich waterway.

September 13, 2018

Poverty rates hold steady, average incomes continue to increase in Seattle area and Washington state

The share of Washingtonians living below the federal poverty threshold declined slightly from 11.3 percent to 11 percent between 2016 and 2017, according to new Census data released Thursday. While this change was not statistically significant, the 2017 poverty rate remains below the post-recession high of 14.1 percent in 2013. Washington was one of 28 states and the District of Columbia where poverty rates remained statistically unchanged from the prior year. During that period, poverty rates declined in 20 states…

91̽»¨psychology professor honored for founding research on implicit bias

When Tony Greenwald and his colleagues developed the online Implicit Association Test two decades ago, it enjoyed quick success in the pre-laptop, pre-smartphone, nascent Internet world, with some 45,000 participants in the first month. The test, which requires classifying words and images rapidly according to their meanings, captures unconscious biases toward — depending on the test version — race, gender, age and dozens of other traits and preferences. Since its debut in 1998, the test has been taken online more…

September 12, 2018

Three 91̽»¨teams receive TRIPODS+X grants for research in data science

The National Science Foundation announced on Sept. 11 that it is awarding grants totaling $8.5 million to 19 collaborative projects at 23 universities for the study of complex and entrenched problems in data science. Three of these projects will be based at the 91̽»¨ and led by researchers in the College of Engineering and the College of Arts & Sciences.

September 10, 2018

Evans School professor Justin Marlowe appointed to Washington Governor’s Council of Economic Advisors

Justin Marlowe, a professor in the UW’s Evans School of Public Policy & Governance, has been named a member of Washington Governor Jay Inslee’s Council of Economic Advisors. He will be among those advising the governor on local and state economic conditions and national developments that affect state policies.

Visionary gift from Hawaii businessman and philanthropist transforming education at 91̽»¨ and University of Hawaii

An innovative gift from Honolulu-based real estate investor Jay H. Shilder to the Universities of Washington and Hawaii is being celebrated this week in Seattle. The gift includes cash, potential future leasing income and a transformational real estate gift to be realized a century from now.

September 7, 2018

New Life Sciences Building is a nexus for modern-age teaching and research at the 91̽»¨

The 91̽»¨ today opened the doors to a new Life Sciences Building that will transform learning, teaching and research for generations.

The $171 million Life Sciences complex includes seven floors and 207,000 square feet that encourages and makes possible team-oriented science. Designed by Perkins+Will and built by Skanska, the building encompasses a 187,000-square-foot research and teaching facility and a 20,000-square-foot research greenhouse with 91̽»¨plant collections.

September 4, 2018

NSF to fund new $25M software institute to enable discoveries in high-energy physics

On Sept. 4 the National Science Foundation announced the creation of the Institute for Research and Innovation in Software for High Energy Physics, or IRIS-HEP. The institute is a coalition of 17 research institutions, including the 91̽»¨, and will receive $25 million from the NSF over five years.

August 30, 2018

Climate change projected to boost insect activity and crop loss, researchers say

In a paper published Aug. 31 in the journal Science, a team led by scientists at the 91̽»¨ reports that insect activity in today’s temperate, crop-growing regions will rise along with temperatures. Researchers project that this activity, in turn, will boost worldwide losses of rice, corn and wheat by 10-25 percent for each degree Celsius that global mean surface temperatures rise.

August 27, 2018

Rankings: 91̽»¨is No. 14 in the world, third among U.S. public universities, plus on Money and Washington Monthly best-of lists

The 91̽»¨ is ranked No. 14 in the world — No. 3 among public universities — on the 2018 Academic Ranking of World Universities, released this month.

August 23, 2018

Hack week: Study supports collaborative, participant-driven approach for researchers to learn data science from their peers

A team from the 91̽»¨, New York University and the University of California, Berkeley has developed an interactive workshop in data science for researchers at multiple stages of their careers. The course format, called “hack week,” blends elements from both traditional lecture-style pedagogy with participant-driven projects.

August 21, 2018

Bus battle: Do private shuttles affect the reliability of public transit?

Last year, King County Metro and the Seattle Department of Transportation started a pilot program that allowed Microsoft’s and Seattle Children’s Hospital’s private shuttles to pick up employees at a few public bus stops throughout Seattle. Now a recent study from researchers at the 91̽»¨ suggests that public buses are unaffected by private shuttles most of the time.