The ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø’s Livable City Year program has selected the City of Tacoma as the program’s community partner for the 2017-2018 academic year.
Research
“Growing a Revolution: Bringing Our Soil Back to Life,” is a good-news environment story about how shifts in farming practices can restore health and fertility to soils.
Timing is everything, they say. In the latest episode of his Documents that Changed the World podcast series, Joe Janes of the ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø Information School explores how an overload of critical information helped trigger the stock market crash of 1929, and thus the Great Depression. “This is a story about fortunes lost, lives ruined, a world plunged into a decade of depression, the end of an era,” Janes says in the podcast. “And, a story of infrastructure. And like any…
A new study finds that smartphone apps to track menstrual cycles often disappoint users with a lack of accuracy, assumptions about sexual identity or partners, and an emphasis on pink and flowery form over function and customization.
A ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø team has made new headway on a solution to remove beetle-killed trees from the forest and use them to make renewable transportation fuels or high-value chemicals. The researchers have refined this technique to process larger pieces of wood than ever before ― saving time and money in future commercial applications.
Girls start believing they aren’t good at math, science and even computers at a young age — but providing fun STEM activities at school and home may spark interest and inspire confidence. A study from the ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø’s Institute for Learning & Brain Sciences (I-LABS) finds that, when exposed to a computer-programming activity, 6-year-old girls expressed greater interest in technology and more positive attitudes about their own skills and abilities than girls who didn’t try the activity. The results…
A new study describes how some people turn to posting photos on Instagram to track food intake or to be held accountable by followers in meeting healthy eating or weight loss goals.
To new parents, a baby’s every gurgle and glance are fascinating, from a smile at mom or dad to a reach for a colorful toy. But when a baby doesn’t look at parents and caregivers, imitate gestures and sounds, or engage in play, parents have questions. And a growing number are bringing their babies to the ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø Autism Center for answers. The ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø Autism Center hosts its annual open house from 4:30 to 7 p.m. April 27 at…
Mozak, a new scientific discovery game from the ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø team that created Foldit, is allowing video gamers and citizen scientists to speed up a fundamental task in brain science: reconstructing the intricate architecture of brain neurons.
Conservation projects that protect forests and encourage a diversity of plants and animals can provide many benefits to humans. But improved human health is not among those benefits ― at least when health is measured through the lens of infectious disease. That’s the main finding of a paper published April 24 in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, which analyzed the relationship between infectious diseases and their environmental, demographic and economic drivers in dozens of countries over 20 years….
ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø sociologist Alexes Harris leads a team of researchers at nine universities who are exploring the role of monetary sanctions in the criminal justice system. They recently completed a review of financial punishments in the laws of each of their home states. Based on their preliminary findings, the impact to a person’s pocketbook depends largely on his or her location on a map.
A ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø-led research group has taken an important step toward measuring — and ultimately reducing — the global carbon footprint of building construction and long-term maintenance.
A favorite childhood pastime — swinging on the playground swing set — also may be teaching kids how to get along. The measured, synchronous movement of children on the swings can encourage preschoolers to cooperate on subsequent activities, ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø researchers have found. A study by the ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø’s Institute for Learning & Brain Sciences (I-LABS) shows the potential of synchronized movement in helping young children develop collaborative skills. The study is published online in the Journal of Experimental Child…
Scientists at the ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø, Texas A&M University and the Western Australian Museum have discovered and named a new genus and species of clingfish after stumbling upon a specimen preserved in a jar dating back to the 1970s. High-resolution scans and 3-D printing helped the researchers make their discovery.
New analysis debunks reports that recent observations are showing that Earth’s temperature responds less to greenhouse gases than predicted by climate models.
A new study provides a postmortem on the Yukon’s Slims River, whose flow was diverted in early 2016. It is the only documented case of “river piracy” in modern times.
The ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø and Japan’s Tohoku University have agreed to create an Academic Open Space to foster collaborations and academic exchanges between these two leading research institutions of the Pacific Rim. The agreement, signed April 14 by leaders of both institutions at the ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø campus in Seattle, is expected to build upon current collaborations in aerospace design and materials, as well as launch new science and engineering partnerships.
Same-sex marriage has been the law of the land for nearly two years — and in some states for even longer — but researchers can already detect positive health outcomes among couples who have tied the knot, a ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø study finds. For years, studies have linked marriage with happiness among heterosexual couples. But a study from the ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø School of Social Work is among the first to explore the potential benefits of marriage among LGBT couples. It…
As the World Health Organization steps up its efforts to eradicate a once-rampant tropical disease, a ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø study suggests that monitoring, and potentially treating, the monkeys that co-exist with humans in affected parts of the world may be part of the global strategy. Yaws, an infectious disease that causes disfiguring skin lesions and bone destruction — stems from a bacterium, Treponema pallidum, that also has been found in certain primates in Africa and Asia. The disease, treatable…
ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø civil engineers have developed a new, automated technology to analyze the potential for rockfalls from cliffs onto roads and areas below.
Events Monday celebrated the launch of a West Coast-wide earthquake early warning prototype system, and initial test users in Washington and Oregon.
ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø psychology professor Geoffrey Boynton and corneal transplant recipient Michael May to speak April 5.
ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø security researchers have shown that Google’s new tool that uses machine learning to automatically analyze and label video content can be deceived by inserting a photograph periodically into videos. After they inserted an image of a car into a video about animals, for instance, the system thought the video was about an Audi.
The Disklavier is an electromagnetic piano that — like the ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø-created encephalophone recently reported on by the Seattle Times — is played by brain waves alone, via an electroencephalogram. ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø audiences can see and hear this new technology in “Music of Today: The DXARTS Spring Concert,” April 6, in Meany Hall.
A new paper by the ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø and NOAA’s Northwest Fisheries Science Center aims to provide clarity among scientists, resource managers and planners on what ecological resilience means and how it can be achieved.
The very name of the class, when proposed, seemed to fire imaginations nationwide and beyond. Now with the beginning of spring quarter, the ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø Information School’s new course “Calling Bullshit in the Age of Big Data” is getting started.
In the first study to survey and interview parents who play Pokémon GO with their children, families report a number of side benefits, including increased exercise, more time spent outdoors and opportunities for family bonding.
An algorithm for stock prices can be used with GPS data to automatically detect slow-slip earthquakes at a single station, offering a new way to monitor seismic activity.
Faculty with the ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø Jackson School of International Studies will explore the impact of the 2016 election on their respective areas of expertise in a new two-credit class titled “Trump in the World: International Implications of the Trump Presidency.”
The interdisciplinary 2017 Benjamin Rabinowitz Symposium in Medical Ethics on March 31, titled “Race, Health & Justice,” will explore inequities in health and health care and place them in political, economic and historical context.
A new analysis shows a properly-managed subsistence harvest of polar bears can continue under climate change.
A research team led by ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø biology professor Dee Boersma reports that fully grown Galapagos penguins who have fledged — or left the nest — continue to beg their parents for food. And sometimes, probably when the bounty of the sea is plentiful, parents oblige and feed their adult offspring.
Dramatic declines in Arctic sea ice during the past four decades are due to a mixture of global warming and a natural decades-long hot spot over Greenland.
Crowdfunding campaigns to pay for medical costs have become a booming industry, but the majority of such campaigns do not reach their financial goal, according to new research from the ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø, Bothell.
A new analysis by the ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø and Simon Fraser University is the first to document that black swan events also occur in animal populations and usually manifest as massive, unexpected die-offs.
A new technique pioneered by ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø engineers enables “singing” posters and “smart” clothing to send audio or data directly to your car’s radio or your smartphone by piggybacking on ambient FM radio signals.
ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø researchers have bypassed Google’s new machine learning system that aims to curb toxic comments in online discussion forums can by simply misspelling or adding unnecessary punctuation to abusive words.
Twenty-one ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø undergraduate and graduate students received a Fulbright award and six scholars from the ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø were awarded Fulbright grants for 2016-17.
ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø Computer Science & Engineering announced today the establishment of the Guestrin Endowed Professorship in Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning. This $1 million endowment will further enhance ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø CSE’s ability to recruit and retain the world’s most outstanding faculty members in these burgeoning areas.
ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø astronomy professor Eric Agol is part of the large team of researchers that has just announced confirmation of several Earth-sized, potentially habitable planets orbiting a star about 40 light-years away.