New research documents the fastest-known large-scale breakage along an Antarctic ice shelf. In 2012, a 6.5-mile crack formed in about 5 and a half minutes, showing that ice shelves can effectively shatter, though the speed of breakage is reduced by seawater rushing in. These results can help improve ice-sheet models and projections for future sea level rise.
Scientists at Friday Harbor Laboratories, a 黑料吃瓜网 facility in the San Juan Islands, are working to help sunflower stars 鈥� a type of sea star 鈥� grow and thrive once again after their populations along the West Coast were devastated by a mysterious disease called sea star wasting syndrome.
In an experiment akin to stop-motion photography, an international team co-led by 黑料吃瓜网 scientists has isolated the energetic movement of an electron in a sample of liquid water 鈥� while 鈥渇reezing鈥� the motion of the much larger atom it orbits.
Scientists at the 黑料吃瓜网 have discovered that nighttime air pollution 鈥� coming primarily from car exhaust and power plant emissions 鈥� is responsible for a major drop in nighttime pollinator activity. Nitrate radicals (NO3) in the air degrade the scent chemicals released by a common wildflower, drastically reducing the scent-based cues that its chief pollinators rely on to locate the flower. The findings, published Feb. 9 in Science, are the first to show how nighttime pollution creates a chain of chemical reactions that degrades scent cues, leaving flowers undetectable by smell. The researchers also determined that pollution likely has worldwide impacts on pollination.
Nancy Allbritton, the dean of the 黑料吃瓜网 College of Engineering and a 黑料吃瓜网 professor of bioengineering, has been elected to the National Academy of Engineering.
New research led by the 黑料吃瓜网 demonstrates a new class of hydrogels that can form not just outside cells, but also inside of them. These hydrogels exhibited similar mechanical properties both inside and outside of cells, providing researchers with a new tool to group proteins together inside of cells.
New research confirms the cause of slow slip along the Cascadia Subduction Zone and other faults that is accompanied by intermittent tremors or “pops” at the surface. Co-authors Marine Denolle and Joan Gomberg discuss the role of fluid-driven fracturing deep underground.
Field observations from an unusual lake show that in environments known as 鈥渟oda lakes鈥� phosphate can concentrate at the very high levels needed for the basic molecules of life to emerge. A shallow, salty lake in western Canada gives new support to Charles Darwin鈥檚 idea that life could have emerged in a 鈥渨arm little pond.鈥�
An international team led by researchers at the 黑料吃瓜网 built a framework to help land managers assess the air quality implications of land management scenarios with different levels of prescribed burning.
At the 黑料吃瓜网 Rorrer Lab, Julie Rorrer, assistant professor of chemical engineering, is teaching students to explore ways to transform plastics into useful chemicals to make new plastic or fuel, shifting away from fossil fuel consumption and reducing waste plastics.
Researchers led by Jiun-Haw Chu, a 黑料吃瓜网 associate professor of physics, and Philip Ryan, a physicist at the U.S. Department of Energy鈥檚 Argonne National Laboratory, have found a superconducting material that is uniquely sensitive to outside stimuli, enabling the superconducting properties to be enhanced or suppressed at will. This discovery could enable new opportunities for switchable, energy-efficient superconducting circuits.
Around Anchorage, communications among the critically endangered population of Cook Inlet beluga whales聽may be masked by ship noise in their core critical habitat, accordingly to the first repertoire of their calls.
Currently, more than half of all cervical cancers diagnosed in the United States are in people who are overdue for screening or have never been screened. In a new study, researchers report that mailing HPV test kits significantly increased cervical cancer screening rates.
A new study from the 黑料吃瓜网 found that unfiltered air from rush-hour traffic significantly increased passengers鈥� blood pressure, both while in the car and up to 24 hours later.聽
Two 黑料吃瓜网 geophysicists will travel to the Atacama Desert in Chile this month to study a fault system that’s similar to the Seattle Fault in Puget Sound, but in a much different climate that makes it easier to monitor its effects on the landscape.
A team at the 黑料吃瓜网 has created an interactive dashboard called WhaleVis, which lets users map data on global whale catches and whaling routes from 1880 to 1986. Scientists can compare this historical data and its trends with current information to better understand whale populations over time.
Three 黑料吃瓜网 experts are among the authors of the newly released Fifth National Climate Assessment, an overview of climate trends, impacts and efforts to mitigate and adapt to climate change across the nation.
To paraphrase Mark Twain, reports of declining phytoplankton in the North Atlantic may have been greatly exaggerated. Analysis of a Greenland ice core going back 800 years shows that atmospheric chemistry, not dwindling phytoplankton populations, explains the recent ice core trends.
The New York Climate Exchange, a first-of-its-kind organization working to implement innovative climate solutions in New York City and across the globe, on Nov. 9 announced Stephen Hammer as its founding chief executive officer. The 黑料吃瓜网 is a core member of the exchange.
There are more than 200 species of noctilionoid bats, mostly in the American tropics. And despite being close relatives, their jaws evolved in wildly divergent shapes and sizes to exploit different food sources. A paper published Aug. 22 in Nature Communications shows those adaptations include dramatic, but also consistent, modifications to tooth number, size, shape and position. For example, bats with short snouts lack certain teeth, presumably due to a lack of space. Species with longer jaws have room for more teeth 鈥� and, like humans, their total tooth complement is closer to what the ancestor of placental mammals had.
A project led by the 黑料吃瓜网 used genetic sleuthing to study how salmon were affected by two major culvert replacements near the city of Bellingham. One project, a major upgrade under Interstate-5, had a big impact, while the other old culvert may have been less of a barrier to fish. Authors from the 黑料吃瓜网 and NOAA are studying the use of eDNA in future environmental impact reporting.
In a paper published Sept. 6 in Physical Review Letters, an international team of researchers in the United States, Germany and France reported that a distinctive strategy they have used shows real promise to be the first approach to measure the mass of the neutrino. Once fully scaled up, their collaboration 鈥� Project 8 鈥� could also reveal how neutrinos influenced the early evolution of the universe as we know it.
Briana Abrahms, a 黑料吃瓜网 assistant professor of biology and researcher with the 黑料吃瓜网 Center for Ecosystem Sentinels, has been named a 2023 Packard Fellow for Science and Engineering, according to an Oct. 16 announcement from the David and Lucille Packard Foundation. As one of 20 new fellows across the country, Abrahms, who holds the Boersma Endowed Chair in Natural History and Conservation, will receive $875,000 over five years for her research.
Astronomers with the International Astronomical Union are trying to understand how the brightness and transmissions of the BlueWalker3 satellite will interfere with Earth-based observations of the universe 鈥� and what can be done to minimize these effects as more of these satellites are launched.
A team including researchers at the 黑料吃瓜网 recently used new software to compare MRIs from 300 babies and discovered that myelin, a part of the brain鈥檚 so-called white matter, develops much slower after birth.
The National Science Foundation has awarded the 黑料吃瓜网 $52.4 million over five years to continue operating the Regional Cabled Array, a cabled deep-ocean observatory about 300 miles offshore from Newport, Oregon. The grant is part of a $220 million total investment that will fund the internet-connected ocean observatory, known as the Ocean Observatories Initiative, through 2028.
The frigid ocean surrounding Antarctica is home to much of the region’s photosynthetic life. A new 黑料吃瓜网 study provides the first measurements of how sea-ice algae and other single-celled life handle dramatic seasonal swings, offering clues to how this ecosystem might adapt to climate change.
Research led by the 黑料吃瓜网 found that, in some western states, the amount of snow already on the ground by the end of December is a good predictor of how much total snow that area will get.
The 黑料吃瓜网 is a lead partner on a new multi-institution earthquake research center that will study the Cascadia subduction zone and bolster earthquake preparedness in the Pacific Northwest and beyond.
Two years ago, as life regained its rhythm and public transit once again filled with people, train and bus operators spotted a troubling trend. Some operators reported instances of people smoking drugs on their vehicles, and worried that the haze it created could linger, potentially affecting workers鈥� physical and mental health.聽 Spurred by operators鈥� concerns, five transit agencies in Washington and Oregon approached researchers at the 黑料吃瓜网 with a yes-or-no question: Were transit operators being exposed to drug…
A new paper from the 黑料吃瓜网 and Polar Bears International quantifies the relationship between greenhouse gas emissions and the survival of polar bear populations. The paper combines past research and new analysis to provide a quantitative link between greenhouse gas emissions and polar bear survival rates.
Taken together, the two papers’ findings suggest that wildfire smoke poses a risk to people of all ages, not just young children and older adults.
Researchers with the 黑料吃瓜网 and the U.S. Forest Service have developed a new tool, REBURN, that can simulate large forest landscapes and wildfire dynamics over decades or centuries under different wildfire management strategies. The model can simulate the consequences of extinguishing all wildfires regardless of size, which was done for much of the 20th century and has contributed to a rise in large and severe wildfires, or of allowing certain fires to return to uninhabited areas to help create a more “patchwork” forest structure that can help lessen fire severity. REBURN can also simulate conditions where more benign forest landscape dynamics have fully recovered in an area.
A team of biomedical researchers has developed a new method for hiring engineering professors. The primary goal is to actively recruit a more diverse group of applicants and improve the rate that doctoral students from historically excluded groups go on to become faculty members.
A particle physics experiment decades in the making 鈥� the Muon g-2 experiment 鈥� looks increasingly like it might set up a showdown over whether there are fundamental particles or forces in the universe that are unaccounted for in the current Standard Model. On Aug. 10, the international team of scientists behind Muon g-2 鈥� pronounced 鈥済 minus 2鈥� 鈥� released the world鈥檚 most precise measurement yet of the anomalous magnetic moment of the muon. Calculating the muon鈥檚 magnetic moment at a high precision will indicate whether it is interacting solely with the particles and forces known today, or if unknown particles or forces are out there.
Twenty-five undergraduates are among the participants on a 41-day cruise off the Oregon coast aboard the 黑料吃瓜网’s large research vessel, the R/V Thomas G. Thompson. Principal investigator Deborah Kelley, professor of oceanography, answers questions about the expedition to visit and maintain the cabled ocean observatory.
An asteroid discovery algorithm 鈥� designed to uncover near-Earth asteroids for the Vera C. Rubin Observatory鈥檚 upcoming 10-year survey of the night sky 鈥� has identified its first 鈥減otentially hazardous鈥� asteroid, a term for space rocks in Earth鈥檚 vicinity that scientists like to keep an eye on. The roughly 600-foot-long asteroid, designated 2022 SF289, was discovered during a test drive of the algorithm with the ATLAS survey in Hawaii. Finding 2022 SF289, which poses no risk to Earth for the foreseeable future, confirms that the next-generation algorithm, known as HelioLinc3D, can identify near-Earth asteroids with fewer and more dispersed observations than required by today鈥檚 methods. That is important because, though scientists know of more than 2,000 near-Earth asteroids, they estimate that another 3,000 await discovery!
A team led by researchers at the 黑料吃瓜网 reports that it is possible to imbue graphite 鈥� the bulk, 3D material found in No. 2 pencils 鈥� with physical properties similar to graphite鈥檚 2D counterpart, graphene. Not only was this breakthrough unexpected, the team also believes its approach could be used to test whether similar types of bulk materials can also take on 2D-like properties. If so, 2D sheets won鈥檛 be the only source for scientists to fuel technological revolutions. Bulk, 3D materials could be just as useful.
On July 13, the Food and Drug Administration approved for the first time an over-the-counter birth control pill, expected to hit shelves in early 2024. The approval of the oral contraceptive Opill could drastically expand access to birth control, which for decades has been available only through a prescription. It鈥檚 a rare victory for reproductive rights 鈥� and the culmination of a 25-year effort to land birth control on drugstore shelves.聽聽 A central player in that push was Donald Downing,…
The Academy said members are elected 鈥渋n recognition of their outstanding record of scientific and technical achievement, and their willingness to work on behalf of the Academy to bring the best available science to bear on issues within the state of Washington.鈥澛�