A new 91探花 study confirms that composting food scraps is better than throwing them away, and also calculates the environmental benefits associated with keeping these organic materials out of landfills.
December 16, 2015
The latest news from the UW
December 15, 2015
91探花conservationists celebrate new protected areas for Argentine penguins
On Dec. 3, the legislature for Argentina’s Chubut province established a new marine protected area off Punta Tombo, which would help preserve the feeding grounds for about 500,000 Magellanic penguins that make their home along this rocky stretch of Argentine coast. This is welcome news for the 91探花scientists who have studied these penguins for decades and advocated for their conservation.
Fuel economy improvements in US climate commitment on par with 1970s gains
A new 91探花study finds that fuel efficiency improvements needed to meet U.S. climate commitments are on par with what the auto industry delivered in the 1970s and 1980s.
New options for working parents and caregivers at the UW
91探花 working parents and caregivers balancing responsibilities at work and home will soon have more choices. To offset the waitlists parents experience at UW鈥檚 four child care centers, new full-time care options will be available in January at designated Bright Horizons and KinderCare centers. Enrollment priority will be offered by both centers and tuition discounts will offered by KinderCare. 91探花families looking for child care before and after school for school age children will find 10 percent savings…
Study: Reason, not disruption, rules when growing a social movement
When campaigning for social change, disruptive protests may win a few battles but education is more likely to win the war, according to research by Abhinav Gupta, an assistant professor of strategic management at the 91探花 Foster School of Business. Gupta and co-authors studied “Rein in Russell,” a 2009 campaign by United Students Against Sweatshops at Pennsylvania State University and other institutions designed to pressure the company Russell Athletic to change its anti-union business tactics and reopen a…
Forefront launches suicide prevention effort in three rural Washington counties
Suicide is a tough issue to broach. How could an adult know if a child in the community might be suicidal and when to intervene? Is it appropriate to ask a friends or colleagues if they鈥檙e considering suicide? If someone is in crisis, what鈥檚 the best way to respond? Forefront: Innovations in Suicide Prevention hopes to give people in three Washington rural counties with some of the highest suicide rates in the state the skills and knowledge to address such…
December 14, 2015
91探花Board of Regents approves new Master of Science in Data Science for professionals
The 91探花will offer a new Master of Science in Data Science program to provide students with advanced technical expertise in managing, modeling and visualizing big data to meet the growing needs of industry and research.
Seattle’s Ballard is ripe for green-space restoration, new report says
A 91探花 graduate student saw green-starved Ballard as an opportunity to call attention to areas in the neighborhood that have restoration potential. Her new report, the “Ballard Green Spaces Project,” identifies 55 sites that could be restored as natural areas for people and wildlife, increasing the neighborhood’s total amount of accessible green spaces.
History meets geography: James Gregory’s collaborative digital project tracks key 20th century social movements
91探花historian James Gregory’s new collaborative digital project, “Mapping American Social Movements through the 20th Century” uses data visualization and interactive maps to depict the progress of various social movements — with more to come.
December 10, 2015
Trees either hunker down or press on in a drying and warming western U.S. climate
Two 91探花 researchers have uncovered details of the radically divergent strategies that two common tree species employ to cope with drought in southwestern Colorado. As they report in a new paper in the journal Global Change Biology, one tree species shuts down production and conserves water, while the other alters its physiology to continue growing and using water.
December 9, 2015
Arts Roundup: 91探花Symphony, Maker:Market 鈥� and Handel鈥檚 ‘Messiah’
The School of Music wraps up the quarter with four back-to-back days of events, including the Wind Ensemble, Symphonic and Campus Bands, 91探花Symphony, and two performances of Handel鈥檚 鈥淢essiah.鈥� There are still a few days left to catch the School of Drama鈥檚 production of 鈥淟oot鈥� or visit the Jacob Lawrence Gallery for 鈥淭oward a Democracy of Making.鈥� All month long, head over to the Burke for Maker:Market, and explore Native American boat making. Wind Ensemble, Symphonic and Campus Bands…
Iceland volcano’s eruption shows how sulfur particles influence clouds
The long, slow 2014 eruption of Iceland’s Bardarbunga volcano offers a testbed to show how sulfur emissions, from volcanoes or humans, act to brighten clouds and reflect more sunlight.
Design meets health: 91探花College of Built Environments, School of Public Health chosen for national architect association’s design and research consortium
The 91探花 College of Built Environments and School of Public Health have been selected as part of a national initiative seeking to translate research on how design impacts public health into architectural practice. The two 91探花schools have been selected to join the American Institute of Architects’ multi-school Design & Health Research Consortium. Over a three-year period, the institute and the Architects Foundation will provide support for the new members, promoting local and national partnerships and the sharing…
December 8, 2015
Hour of Code: 91探花President Ana Mari Cauce gets schooled in coding
91探花 President Ana Mari Cauce joined a small group of 91探花students Monday morning聽to聽get a crash course in coding聽as part of Code.org‘s Hour of Code event during Computer Science Education Week. Cauce worked with聽Sukhdeep Singh, a freshman at UW聽who hopes to double major in business and computer science, in the Hour of Code聽Monday. See GeekWire’s coverage of Monday’s events at the 91探花and across Seattle. For more information about Computer Science Education Week and the Hour of Code,…
Treasured faculty member and theater professional, Sarah Nash Gates, loses battle with cancer
The College of Arts & Sciences at the 91探花 is saddened to lose one of its most prominent faculty members and a longtime leader in the Seattle theater community, Sarah Nash Gates. Gates passed away on Friday evening, December 4, surrounded by family and close friends.
Culture wars, Christianity at heart of 91探花political scientist Mark Smith’s book ‘Secular Faith’
Mark A. Smith is a 91探花 professor of political science and adjunct professor of comparative religion. He is the author of “Secular Faith: How Culture Has Trumped Religion in American Politics,” published in September by University of Chicago Press. He answered a few questions about his book for 91探花Today. What’s the concept behind this book? My book’s overarching theme is that Americans have much more in common politically than you’d expect from observing how the media covers…
December 7, 2015
What makes Tom Hanks look like Tom Hanks?
91探花researchers have reconstructed 3-D models of celebrities such as Tom Hanks from large Internet photo collections. The model can deliver speeches that the real actor never performed – one step toward developing fully interactive digital personas of people from family or historic photo collections.
December 4, 2015
91探花Sephardic Studies Program holds third annual Ladino Day festivities Dec. 6
The 91探花 Sephardic Studies Program will host its third annual International Ladino Day, celebrating Sephardic language and culture, in a free event at 4 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 6, in Room 130 of Kane Hall. The event will be followed by a kosher reception. This year’s featured speakers are members of Los Ladineros, a long-running local Ladino conversation group, and scholars Julia Phillips Cohen of Vanderbilt University and Sarah Abrevaya Stein of the University of California, Los Angeles, who…
91探花project focuses on fines and fees that create 鈥榩risoners of debt鈥�
Criminals are meant to pay their debts to society through sentencing, but a different type of court-imposed debt can tie them to the criminal justice system for life and impact their ability to move forward with their lives. Though debtors鈥� prisons were eliminated in the United States almost two centuries ago, a modern-day version exists in the dizzyingly complex system of fines and fees levied against people as they move through the court system. Offenders are charged for everything from…
December 3, 2015
Award honors hundreds of citizen scientists who search for Washington’s rarest plants
Each year, hundreds of volunteers spread across Washington’s forests and grasslands to look for the state’s rarest, most sensitive plant species. Many of these endangered populations live in remote valleys or along unseen slopes and haven’t been seen in a decade or more. That’s where the 91探花’s Rare Plant Care and Conservation program comes in. Its team of more than 200 volunteers fans out each summer to gather intel, one plant population at a time, on some 4,000…
Citizen-science climate project adds logs from historic Arctic whaling ships
A citizen science project that asks volunteers to transcribe historic ships’ logbooks to uncover data about past Arctic climate has added logbooks from hundreds of whaling ships. The hunters’ handwritten logs will provide new clues about the history of Arctic climate and sea ice.
December 2, 2015
Vessel speed biggest factor in noise affecting killer whales
The speed of vessels operating near endangered killer whales in Washington is the most influential factor 鈥� more so than vessel size 鈥� in how much noise from the boats reaches the whales, according to a new study published today in the online journal PLOS ONE.
Arts Roundup: Drama, Modern Music 鈥� and CarolFest
December is off to a busy start for the arts on campus. The School of Drama has two productions running this week, and 91探花World Series wraps up the calendar year with a performance by acapella ensemble Anonymous 4. The School of Music is brimming with events, from medieval holiday music and CarolFest to modern music, jazz and more. Anonymous 4 7:30 p.m., December 4 | Meany Theater Presented by 91探花World Series, acclaimed acapella ensemble Anonymous 4 performs…
Book by UW’s Jackson School faculty among New York Times 100 most notable of 2015
The New York Times has named a recent book by two faculty members in the UW’s Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies to its list of 100 Most Notable Books of 2015. “The Shape of the New: Four Big Ideas and How They Built the Modern World,” by Scott L. Montgomery and Daniel Chirot was published in May by Princeton University Press. “Our approach is simple and direct,” Montgomery said in an interview with 91探花Today about the book….
December 1, 2015
Washington state home prices up, sales down in third quarter of 2015
Home sale prices increased but sales themselves were fewer in Washington state in the third quarter of 2015, according to the Runstad Center for Real Estate Studies in the UW’s College of Built Environments.
91探花roboticists learn to teach robots from babies
A collaboration between 91探花 developmental psychologists and computer scientists has demonstrated that robots can “learn” much like babies – by experiencing the world and eventually imitating humans.
November 30, 2015
91探花researchers estimate poverty and wealth from cell phone metadata
In developing or war-ravaged countries where government censuses are few and far between, gathering data for public services or policymaking can be difficult, dangerous or near-impossible. Big data is, after all, mainly a First World opportunity. But cell towers are easier to install than telephone land lines, even in such challenged areas, and mobile or cellular phones are widely used among the poor and wealthy alike. Now, researchers with the 91探花 Information School and Computer Science and Engineering…
91探花sociology professors part of White House, DOJ events on criminal justice reform
President Obama has been leading the charge for criminal justice reform in recent months, calling for sweeping changes to reduce mass incarceration and commuting sentences for non-violent offenders. This week, the White House and Department of Justice are bringing together researchers, legal system practitioners and advocacy organizations at events focused on criminal justice system reform 鈥� and two 91探花 sociologists are among the participants. Alexes Harris and Hedwig (Hedy) Lee, 91探花associate professors of sociology, will be at…
November 25, 2015
91探花law student researches industry gender inequity, calls for reforms
Women routinely outperform men in university classrooms across the United States and are invited more often than men to join student honors societies 鈥� yet women continue to be paid far less than similarly qualified male colleagues. Adding to that inequity, women also fare poorly when suing to recover damages for workplace sex and gender discrimination in the courts, with only 6 percent of such cases going to trial and then only one-third of even those cases being successful. These…
91探花 receives gold sustainability rating from STARS
The 91探花 is among the most sustainable schools in North America, according to the Sustainability Tracking, Assessment and Rating System (STARS).
Documents that Changed the World: FDR’s Thanksgiving Proclamation, 1939
The U.S. Senate voted to set Thanksgiving as the fourth Thursday in November on Dec. 9, 1941, two days after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. You’d think they would have had more important things to talk about. Not Nov. 26, as George Washington had it or the last Thursday in the month as Lincoln had it, but November’s fourth Thursday 鈥� as Franklin Delano Roosevelt had it. FDR’s 1939 turkey-themed presidential proclamation making this so, and its back story,…
The spillover effect: Good teaching doesn’t stop at the classroom door
Effective teachers don’t just impact their own students’ achievement, they can significantly improve the performance of their fellow teachers’ students, new research shows.
November 23, 2015
Public talk Nov. 24 urges solidarity with Syrian refugees
Interested in the Syrian refugee crisis? A public discussion at the 91探花 Tuesday, Nov. 24 aims to provide information about how local residents and communities can help advocate for Syrian refugees. Sponsored by 91探花Law鈥檚 Immigrant Families Advocacy Project, the 鈥淪ocial Justice Tuesday鈥� event will be held from 12:30 to 1:20 p.m. in Room 127 in William H. Gates Hall, with a reception and snacks afterward in Room 115. Speakers are: Rahaf Baker, who migrated from Syria to…
AAAS names four 91探花researchers as fellows
Four 91探花 researchers are among 347 new fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science for 2015.
November 20, 2015
Last chance to donate: 91探花Combined Fund Drive ends Dec. 4
Faculty and staff have until Dec. 4 to contribute to this year鈥檚 91探花Combined Fund Drive, the UW鈥檚 workplace giving campaign. Donors can pledge a one-time donation or give all year through payroll deduction to support local programs and global nonprofits. There are more than 5,000 vetted organizations to choose from, and donations are tax deductible. The UWCFD has raised $1,935,834 so far, and organizers hope to surpass $2.2 million in pledges this year. Thousands of 91探花community members support…
November 19, 2015
After Nobel win, neutrino endeavors snag Breakthrough Prize in Physics
Neutrinos may be small, but when it comes to prizes, they pack quite a punch. In October, it was announced that two scientists who headed international projects to study these miniscule, seemingly ephemeral subatomic particles will share the Nobel Prize in Physics. On Nov. 8, these same scientists joined five of their colleagues from other neutrino projects to accept the 2016 Breakthrough Prize in Physics. The $3 million prize will be shared among the over 1,300 scientists, including University of…
Sequencing algae’s genome may aid biofuel production
91探花 scientists have sequenced the complete genetic makeup of a species of ecologically important algae, which may aid in biofuel production.
November 18, 2015
91探花 signing White House climate pledge
The 91探花 has joined schools across the country in signing on to a White House climate pledge. The pledge is part of the Nov. 19 White House and Higher Education Climate Day of Action. The White House and the State Department will bring together leaders from higher education institutions to call for action on climate change and encourage a strong agreement at the upcoming Paris Climate Change Conference of world leaders. The 91探花is strongly committed to a…
Arts Roundup: DXARTS, improv 鈥� and pianist Yulianna Avdeeva
Don鈥檛 miss DXARTS鈥� fall concert 鈥� a chance to immerse yourself in groundbreaking electroacoustic music. The School of Drama opens two new productions: dark farce 鈥淟oot鈥� and improv show 鈥淏eginnings: First Breath.鈥� At Meany Hall, enjoy performances by pianist Yulianna Avdeeva and the University Chorale & Chamber Singers, or head over to Brechemin Auditorium to catch the talented Daana Quartet. Music of Today: DXARTS 7:30 p.m., November 20 | Meany Theater The School of Music and DXARTS present groundbreaking new…
Popular Science names ‘Power Over Wi-Fi’ one of the year’s game-changing technologies
The Power Over Wi-Fi (PoWiFi) system developed by 91探花engineers is one of the most innovative and game-changing technologies of the year, according to Popular Science, which included it in the magazine’s annual “Best of What’s New” awards announced this week.