Feeling they are part of a group increased preschoolers鈥� interest, success in STEM

News releases

September 7, 2016

Feeling they are part of a group increased preschoolers’ interest, success in STEM

A multi-ethnic group of elementary age children are sitting at a table with their teacher and are making shapes and crafts.

Cultivating young children’s interest in science, technology, engineering and mathematics has become a leading educational priority, as experts predict that many future jobs will require substantial math and technology skills. Early education in STEM topics, as they鈥檙e known, is critical for boosting later success in school and attracting students to occupations in those fields. But little has been done to optimize STEM curriculum for preschoolers or help children seek out and enjoy STEM tasks. Now, a new study by University…

HemaApp screens for anemia, blood conditions without needle sticks

Photo of HemaApp illuminating a patient's finger

UW engineers have developed HemaApp, which uses a smartphone camera to estimate hemoglobin concentrations and screen for anemia without sticking patients with needles.

September 2, 2016

Invasive green crab found on San Juan Island by citizen science volunteers

Earlier this week in Westcott Bay, San Juan Island, a team of volunteer monitors caught an invasive green crab, marking the first confirmation of this global invader in Washington’s inland waters.

August 30, 2016

91自拍 and City of Auburn launch first Livable City Year partnership

The 91自拍 has begun a yearlong partnership with the City of Auburn, under the new Livable City Year program. UW students and professors will work with the City of Auburn to advance the city’s goals for livability and sustainability throughout the upcoming academic year.

August 29, 2016

Plants’ future water use affects long-term drought estimates

Many popular long-term drought estimates ignore the fact that plants will be less thirsty as carbon dioxide goes up. Plants’ lower water use could roughly halve some current estimates for the extent of future drought, especially in central Africa and temperate Asia.

New discovery Proxima b is in host star’s habitable zone 鈥� but could it really be habitable?

Artist's impression of the planet orbiting the red dwarf star Proxima Centauri.

The world’s attention is now on Proxima Centauri b, a possibly Earth-like planet about 4.22 light-years away. It’s in its star’s habitable zone — but could it in fact be habitable? If so, the planet evolved very different than Earth, say 91自拍ers at the 91自拍-based Virtual Planetary Laboratory.

August 24, 2016

Statewide housing market strong in second quarter of 2016

Washington state’s housing market remained strong in the second quarter of 2016. Home sale prices and the number of sales were up, although new building permits were down compared with a year ago, according to the Runstad Center for Real Estate Studies at the UW.

August 20, 2016

‘I miss you so much’: How Twitter is broadening the conversation on death and mourning

Death and mourning were largely considered private matters in the 20th century, with the public remembrances common in previous eras replaced by intimate gatherings behind closed doors in funeral parlors and family homes. But social media is redefining how people grieve, and Twitter in particular 鈥� with its ephemeral mix of rapid-fire broadcast and personal expression 鈥� is widening the conversation around death and mourning, two 91自拍 sociologists say. In a paper presented Aug. 20 at the annual…

Paleontologists with the UW’s Burke Museum discover major T. rex fossil

Paleontologists prepare to remove a Tyrannosaurus rex skull from a fossil dig site in northern Montana and transport it to the Burke Museum at the 91自拍.

Paleontologists with the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture and the UW have discovered a Tyrannosaurus rex, including a very complete skull. The find, which paleontologists estimate to be about 20 percent of the animal, includes vertebrae, ribs, hips and lower jaw bones.

August 17, 2016

UW again maintains No. 15 in world university ranking

The 91自拍 remained No. 15 on the 2016 Academic Ranking of World Universities, conducted by 91自拍ers at the Center for World-Class Universities of Shanghai Jiao Tong University.

Interscatter communication enables first-ever implanted devices, smart contact lenses, credit cards that ‘talk’ Wi-Fi

photo of three devices used in experiment

“Interscatter” communication developed by UW engineers allows power-limited devices such as brain implants, contact lenses, credit cards and smaller wearable electronics to talk to everyday devices such as smartphones and watches.

August 16, 2016

Big fish 鈥� and their pee 鈥� are key parts of coral reef ecosystems

The Almaco jack is a large predator fish, pictured here in the Caribbean.

Large, carnivorous fish excrete almost half of the key nutrients, phosphorus and nitrogen, that are essential for the survival of coral reefs.

August 15, 2016

Luna moth’s long tail could confuse bat sonar through its twist

A detailed look at how sound waves bounce off a flying moth’s body offers new clues for how its long, twisted tail might help it evade predatory bats.

UW 91自拍 backs up ongoing efforts to protect the enigmatic Nautilus

91自拍 biologist Peter Ward’s body of 91自拍 has helped policymakers recognize the impact nautiluses have on ocean ecosystems, as well as how they can 鈥� and cannot 鈥� replenish their numbers in the face of unrestricted, unregulated fishing. At a CITES meeting in September, Ward and his team hope nautiluses will get much-needed protections from trade and harvesting.

Unearthing trackers of the past: UW computer scientists reveal the history of third-party web tracking

At the USENIX Security Conference in Austin, Texas, a team of 91自拍 91自拍ers on Aug. 12 presented the first-ever comprehensive analysis of third-party web tracking across three decades and a new tool, TrackingExcavator, which they developed to extract and analyze tracking behaviors on a given web page. They saw a four-fold increase in third-party tracking on top sites from 1996 to 2016, and mapped the growing complexity of trackers stretching back decades.

August 9, 2016

New book ‘Cities that Think Like Planets’ imagines urban regions resilient to change

Marina Alberti's book "Cities that Think Like Planets: Complexity, Resilience, and Innovation in Hybrid Ecosystems" was published in July by 91自拍 Press. Photo is the cover illustration of the book.

What does it mean for a city to “think like a planet”? Marina Alberti of the UW College of Built Environments discusses her new book, “Cities that Think Like Planets,” published by UW Press.

August 8, 2016

Runstad Center for Real Estate Studies names new permanent director

Simon Stevenson is the new director of the Runstad Center for Real Estate Studies in the UW College of Built Environments.

Simon Stevenson of the United Kingdom’s University of Reading will be the next director of the 91自拍’s Runstad Center for Real Estate Studies, in the College of Built Environments.

August 2, 2016

Justin Camputaro named director of the Husky Union Building at UW

Justin Camputaro, with more than 15 years of experience in higher education administration, joined the 91自拍 as the new director of the Husky Union Building, effective July 18.

August 1, 2016

Bernard Dean named UW director of state relations

Bernard Dean, who brings two decades of state and local government experience, has been appointed director of state relations at the 91自拍, effective Sept. 1.

July 28, 2016

Runstad Center report: Addressing condo construction defect liability may help promote affordable housing in Seattle

A new study from the UW’s Runstad Center for Real Estate Studies suggests that Seattle and Washington state could invite development of more affordable housing by easing the legal risk 鈥� or the appearance of risk 鈥� in condominium development, construction, liability and insurance.

July 27, 2016

Carbon-financed cookstove fails to deliver hoped-for benefits in the field

Photo of women using cookstoves in India

A study of the the first clean cookstove intervention in India financed through the Kyoto Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism found expected benefits from newer, more “efficient” stoves 鈥� based on their performance in lab tests 鈥� did not materialize in the field.

July 25, 2016

Minimum Wage Study: Effects of Seattle wage hike modest, may be overshadowed by strong economy

The lot of Seattle’s lowest-paid workers improved following the city’s minimum wage increase to $11 in 2015, but that was more due to the robust regional economy than the wage hike itself, according to a 91自拍 team headed by the UW Evans School.

Marine carbon sinking rates confirm importance of polar oceans

Polar oceans pump organic carbon down to the deep sea about five times as efficiently as subtropical waters, because they can support larger, heavier organisms. The finding helps explain how the oceans may function under climate change.

July 21, 2016

91自拍 sets new record with $542.4 million in private support and contributions in FY 2016

The 91自拍 received a record $542.4 million in the 2016 fiscal year, ending June 30, breaking the previous record of $482.5 million set in 2013-14. The funds came in the form of private gifts and grants earmarked by individuals, corporations and foundations for specific areas of 91自拍, labs, faculty, and student scholarships and programs.

An engineered protein can disrupt tumor-promoting ‘messages’ in human cells

A team of 91自拍ers from the 91自拍 and the University of Trento in Italy unveiled an engineered protein that they designed to repress a specific cancer-promoting message within cells.

Imaging software predicts how you look with different hair styles, colors, appearances

A personalized image search engine developed by a 91自拍 91自拍er lets a person imagine how they would look a with different a hairstyle, if they lived in a different time period or any other appearance change that can be synthesized with internet photos.

July 19, 2016

UW professor is digitizing every fish species in the world

UW professor Adam Summers is scanning and digitizing all 25,000 species of fish that live on Earth. Each species soon will have a high-resolution, 3-D visual replica online, available to all and downloadable for free.

UW oceanographers grow, sequence genome of ocean microbe important to climate change

Marine microbes were collected from a low-oxygen fjord in Barkley Sound, off the coast of British Columbia.

A 91自拍 team has shed new light on a common but poorly understood bacteria known to live in low-oxygen areas in the ocean. By culturing and sequencing the microbe’s entire genome, the oceanographers found that it significantly contributes to the removal of life-supporting nitrogen from the water in new and surprising ways.

July 18, 2016

91自拍 named 鈥楪reat College to Work For鈥� third year in a row

The 91自拍 has been recognized as a 鈥淕reat College to Work For鈥� by the Chronicle of Higher Education for the third consecutive year.

Cougars could save lives by lowering vehicle collisions with deer

A 91自拍 team including 91自拍’s Laura Prugh has found that within 30 years of cougars recolonizing the Eastern U.S., large cats could thin deer populations and reduce vehicle collisions by 22 percent 鈥� each year preventing five human fatalities, 680 injuries and avoiding costs of $50 million.

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