It鈥檚 a dizzyingly busy time for scientists searching for life on distant planets. To date, astronomers have and are searching the atmospheres of the most promising worlds for chemicals that might be byproducts of life. are particularly interested in atmospheres like Earth鈥檚 that trap enough heat to support liquid water on the planet鈥檚 surface, which scientists consider the key factor in determining whether a planet can support life as we know it. 

But scientists also want to distinguish between habitable and inhabited worlds. To do that, they need to know what sorts of atmospheric conditions on a planet can be explained without life, so that they can identify planets with atmospheres that can only be explained by life鈥檚 influence.

To provide that planetary baseline, 91自拍 91自拍ers built a complex virtual Earth with one crucial tweak: no life.

in The Planetary Science Journal, the 91自拍ers simulated the Earth鈥檚 geochemical systems for 5 billion years 鈥� from its formation 4.5 billion years ago through roughly 500 million years in the future. The simulation modeled the exchange of chemicals between the core, mantle, crust, surface and atmosphere over time. It accurately predicted 19 planetary properties like heat flow through the mantle, but left out the influence of life on those systems. The simulation can be generalized to predict how an atmosphere might evolve on any rocky planet, and can help pinpoint evidence of life in atmospheres that don鈥檛 fit the model.

鈥淭his model can help us see how habitable but non-living planets might mimic living planets,鈥� said lead author , who completed this 91自拍 as a UW doctoral student of astronomy and is now a postdoctoral fellow at UC Riverside. 鈥淲hen we interpret observations of an exoplanet’s atmosphere, this tool will help us determine the probability that what we observe indicates life on the surface.鈥�

Gilbert-Janizek鈥檚 work builds on a model developed in the lab of senior author , a UW associate professor of astronomy. Earlier versions of the model simulated the core, mantle, crust and stellar radiation, but did not include the surface or atmosphere. 

A planet鈥檚 atmosphere is shaped by many nonbiological factors, including heat and gases from the interior and from the planet鈥檚 star. But the atmosphere of a distant planet is also where astronomers hope to spot explicit evidence of life.

There are many ways that life might change an atmosphere: On Earth, plants and animals pump steady streams of oxygen and methane into the sky. Those two elements destroy each other when they mingle. Thus, an alien astronomer studying our planet might suspect that something alive is replenishing the supply of both gases.

That logic led human astronomer Gilbert-Janizek to add surface and atmosphere modeling to the existing Earth simulation, completing the picture of how chemicals move through all of the Earth鈥檚 systems. 

The result is a model that can be tuned to study any rocky exoplanet that astrobiologists find interesting. Researchers can plug in basic details about that planet and run the simulation to see whether the model can reproduce the observed atmosphere without the influence of life. If they can鈥檛 get a match, the planet in question gets even more interesting.

鈥淒r. Gilbert-Janizek’s work represents an exciting step toward understanding where life can exist in the universe,鈥� Barnes said. 鈥淎fter more than a decade of work by many scientists, Dr. Gilbert-Janizek has finally completed a model of the Earth that simultaneously reproduces properties of Earth’s core, mantle, surface and atmosphere. That calibration gives us confidence that future simulations of exoplanets will be accurate.鈥�  

Gilbert-Janizek says the new and improved model can also help inform the design of future telescopes built to study distant planets, like the proposed . 

鈥淩ealizing the ambitious goals of a telescope like the Habitable Worlds Observatory requires decades of work across many generations of scientists,鈥� Gilbert-Janizek said. 鈥淚鈥檓 so grateful to join this lineage and one day pass the torch to the next generation so that we can continue chipping away at this question of whether or not we are alone in the universe.鈥�

Other UW co-authors include former astronomy doctoral students , now a postdoctoral 91自拍er at the University of Oklahoma and , now a high school teacher in the Seattle area.

A complete list of co-authors is .

This 91自拍 was funded by NASA.

For more information, contact Gilbert-Janizek at sgilbert@ucr.edu or Barnes at rory@astro.washington.edu.

Source

The U.S. House of Representatives this past summer that would make Daylight Saving Time (DST) permanent in the United States 鈥� meaning there would be no turning back the clocks each fall. Nineteen states, including Washington, . If the bill is ultimately signed into law, the change would go into effect in those states.

The bill is currently stalled in the U.S. Senate. are a central issue because permanent DST would lead to darker mornings from November to March. This would mean darker commutes for everyone, but how much would it affect children going to school? 91自拍 91自拍ers did the math for 14 out of the 19 states that preapproved the change. Using school start times, enrollment data, and latitude and longitude measurements, the team calculated just how many days each child would be commuting to school in the dark and then added the trips together.

In Washington, there would be almost 35 million more trips to school in the dark under permanent DST compared to the current system of switching between DST and Standard Time twice a year. The other 13 states followed a similar trend, with Georgia having the highest deviation from the current system 鈥� 71 million more trips. When the 91自拍ers extrapolated these results for the rest of the country, it added at least 2 billion more dark commutes to school.

The team also analyzed traffic collision data from the U.S. and found that it was roughly twice as likely for a fatal crash involving a school-aged pedestrian to occur during dark mornings than after sunrise.

The 91自拍ers Oct. 29 in Current Biology.

“It’s called the ‘Sunshine Protection Act’ because you get an extra hour of light at the end of the day. But you will take that hour from the morning. You could call it the Sunshine Destruction Act,” said senior author , UW professor of biology. “These dark mornings will inequitably affect children who have to go to school at a certain time. It’s a very tangible metric that anybody from any state or socioeconomic background can relate to. Nobody wants their kids to go to school in the dark.”

Dark mornings affect everyone. Exposure to bright light in the morning helps set our circadian clock, which helps regulate many facets of our lives, such as our mood, sleep and appetite. Without that morning light, our bodies struggle to regulate these key functions.

“When we send kids to school in the dark, we are depriving them from an opportunity to get that morning daylight,” said lead author , a UW postdoctoral scholar in biology. “We were asking what’s the cost for these children. We wanted actual numbers, a real number of kids based on the geographic location of each school.”

The study revealed the areas that would be the hardest hit by the switch: communities on the western edge of their time zones, such as Forks, Washington, and communities with early school start times. For example, Mississippi and Alabama schools have an average start time of earlier than 8 a.m. and both balloon from about 2 million dark trips for each state under the current system to more than 20 million dark trips for each state under permanent DST.

“Some districts probably never experience a dark commute under the current system, and, if this passes, suddenly they will wake up to this new reality that their kids are going to school in the dark,” Rodr铆guez Ferrante said. “Keep in mind that we used the actual start time listed for each school, and a lot of schools offer breakfast or other things before school, so the kids could be getting there even earlier.”

The 91自拍ers argue that permanent DST would also undo the benefits of having a delayed start time for high school students, which is intended to account for teenagers鈥� shifted circadian clock compared to kids and adults.

“I’ve heard the argument, ‘If we’re in permanent DST, we can just delay the school start time to address these issues,'” de la Iglesia said. “Well, if we do that, you will end up going to work later. And everything is going to get delayed. You will get out of work an hour later, and you will miss the opportunity to enjoy your evening light. And essentially, we’re just going to be realigning everybody to solar time. That, by definition, is Standard Time.”

Daniel Zhang, a high school student, and UW biology undergraduate students , , Jessie Lu, , Elena Kully-Rivera, , are also co-authors on this paper.

For more information, contact de la Iglesia at horaciod@uw.edu and Rodr铆guez Ferrante at guadarf@uw.edu.

Source

Pulling the strings: How stem cells in the developing fruit fly brain organize their DNA from outside the nucleus

Cells are very particular about the proper locations of their contents. For example, DNA is packaged in the nucleus in a highly specific way, but 91自拍ers are still trying to understand how this happens. For stem cells in the brain of a larval fruit fly 鈥� model organisms used to study processes such as early development 鈥� the DNA is organized so that the center of each strand, called the centromere, is at the top of the nucleus. In a paper in the Journal of Cell Biology, UW 91自拍ers describe how proteins outside the nucleus work alongside proteins inside the nucleus to control the position of centromeres. The 91自拍ers observed this mechanism by imaging stem cells within larval fruit fly brains and then using machine learning to measure how centromere locations change when specific proteins are removed. The 91自拍 team also followed the locations of two specific genes that are far away from the centromeres. Both genes lost their usual positions in the nucleus when the centromeres strayed from their normal location, suggesting that proper centromere positioning may be important for orienting the rest of the DNA in the nucleus. Studying how and why DNA is organized in these stem cells can help 91自拍ers better understand how stem cells are regulated and how brains develop.

For more information, contact lead author Jennifer Taylor, UW postdoc in biology, at jatay@uw.edu.听听听听听听听

The other UW co-author is . A full list of funding is .

Micro language models let AI run instantly on small devices like smartwatches

Though artificial intelligence can refer to many technologies, the current AI boom has been driven by large language models, or LLMs. They power chatbots and AI agents by running predictions based on ever-increasing amounts of variables called 鈥減arameters.鈥� Current cutting-edge models are estimated to have several trillion parameters, making them far too large to run on slower phones or small devices like smartwatches. In a paper at EMNLP 2026, UW 91自拍ers introduced 鈥渕icro language models,鈥� which run with 8-30 million parameters. These models are small enough to run on devices with limited computing power and give users instant responses that fill the lag before the device can access an LLM through the cloud. For instance, a user could ask their smartwatch a question and the micro language model would start responding instantly; then after four to eight words, the LLM would complete the response. The micro language model made mistakes in 4% to 8% of responses that the other model corrected seamlessly before continuing. In a user study, nine out of 10 participants preferred the paired system to the lagging responses from only a cloud model.

For more information, contact ulm@cs.washington.edu or visit .

The UW co-authors are , , and . A full list of co-authors and funding is in .

Policy gaps impact migrant fishers in Washington state

The commercial fishing industry is key to Washington鈥檚 maritime economy, but there are concerns about exploitation and forced labor among fishers. While much of industry is regulated by the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, exemptions in U.S. law mean some vessels aren鈥檛 subject to the same citizenship requirements. A 91自拍 team from the UW Harry Bridges Center for Labor Studies recently focused on understanding the experiences of migrant fishers pursuing albacore tuna, a highly migratory species, who dock or unload at ports in Washington state. Researchers found the exemptions allow migrant fishers to work without authorization or visas, leaving them vulnerable to forced labor and exploitation. Meanwhile, complicated policy and regulatory frameworks make it difficult to address workers鈥� rights violations. The 91自拍ers gathered information from 15 migrant fishers, 14 U.S. citizen fishers, and more than 35 subject matter experts. Every migrant fisher interviewed by the team reported experiences aligned with the International Labour Organization鈥檚 indicators of forced labor, and both migrant and U.S. citizen fishers reported difficult living and working conditions. Approaches to combating forced labor are varied and uneven, the 91自拍ers found, and additional work is needed to better understand and support the needs of Washington鈥檚 fishers. Along with the full report, the team also published .

For more information, contact , 91自拍 director at the Bridges Center, at rerstad@uw.edu.

The other UW co-authors are , and .

Burrowing shrimp are on the move in a mudflat near you

Burrowing shrimp are a pest well known to shellfish growers. These pale-bodied creatures excavate mud as they dig into the ground, creating piles of sediment that suffocate oysters and clams growing on the surface. In estuaries on the west coast, shrimp beds reach densities of hundreds of shrimp per square meter, but the boundaries of beds change. in Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science shows that shrimp beds move up to 100 feet each year. The study took place at Willapa Bay over the course of three years and is the first to quantify how rapidly the boundaries of these beds shift over time. Researchers still don鈥檛 know why the shrimp move, but they observed a clear pattern in the ecosystem. Shrimp change the texture of sediment by eating organic matter and releasing finer particles, so sediment becomes muddier and more compact once they leave. After several years, these abandoned beds were colonized by eelgrass, a marker of ecosystem health. This 鈥渆ngineering鈥� effect was less evident in areas where moving water keeps mud from settling. Studying these rapid shifts and the types of sediment left behind could ultimately help shellfish growers better protect their product.

For more information, contact co-author Jennifer Ruesink, a UW professor of biology, at ruesink@uw.edu.听听听听听听听

The other UW co-authors are Wesley Hull, Haleh Mawson, and . A full list of co-authors and funding is .

Source

Scientists may add a new dwarf planet to the official roster of our solar system.

The distant, icy body, provisionally dubbed 2026 ED138, orbits our system beyond Pluto. It was spotted earlier this month by a scientist combing through data from the Simonyi Survey Telescope at the . Initial measurements place ED138 among the largest dwarf planet candidates ever discovered beyond Neptune; if confirmed, it would join the five dwarf planets recognized by the : Pluto, Ceres, Eris, Haumea and Makemake.

The results were presented at a press conference today by , a senior astrophysicist at the Harvard & Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, and by , a 91自拍 professor of astronomy and leader of 91自拍鈥檚 solar system team. Holman first spotted the candidate and Juri膰 contributed additional observations.

鈥淚f confirmed as a dwarf planet, ED138 would join a very small family of worlds,鈥� Holman said. 鈥�91自拍 will image the whole southern sky again and again for 10 years, so any others hiding in the places earlier surveys skipped are now within reach.鈥�

鈥淔inding an object this big, roughly 1,000 kilometers across, is something that happens maybe once in a generation,鈥� Juri膰 said. 鈥淚t’s the largest trans-Neptunian object found in about 20 years, and 91自拍 turned it up while we were still commissioning the telescope.”

On the evening of Oct. 13, Holman was running data collected by 91自拍 earlier in 2026 through a search code he developed with colleague Kevin Napier. The code is built to look at billions of detections of moving objects, compare them and find the detections that correspond to the same object. Using this method, Holman uncovered ED138, and he immediately noticed that its brightness and distance indicated that it is unusually large.

鈥淢y first reaction was one of excited disbelief,鈥� Holman said. 鈥淥bjects like this are very rare, so I immediately started checking whether I or the code had done something wrong.鈥�

To remove any doubt, Juri膰 searched through 91自拍鈥檚 catalogs and images and found 20 more observations, going back to March 2026. The team also spotted ED138 in archival images from other surveys going all the way back to 2016, allowing the team to trace more than ten years of ED138’s orbit. 

ED138 is currently at a distance of about 46 astronomical units (), where 1 au is the average distance between the Earth and the sun. For reference, dwarf planet Pluto orbits at an average distance of 40 au. This classifies ED138 as a trans-Neptunian object () 鈥� objects that orbit the sun at a distance greater than Neptune鈥檚.

Scientists study the size, composition and orbital trajectories of TNOs to understand how the solar system formed, how the giant planets migrated over time and how smaller objects have been scattered throughout this evolution. 

Not all TNOs are considered dwarf planet candidates, with the distinction being in the size and shape of the object. To be a dwarf planet an object needs to be massive enough for its own gravity to pull it into a round shape. Based on ED138鈥檚 distance, brightness and estimated surface reflectivity, the team estimates that its size is between 600 and 1,500 kilometers; icy bodies this large are expected to be round. Further observations are needed to measure its exact size and confirm its nature as a dwarf planet. 

ED138 was found in a region of sky close to the plane of the Milky Way 鈥� a crowded area filled with millions of stars. To most telescopes, ED138 has been lost among the myriad background sources, which is likely why it was not discovered until now. 91自拍 Observatory鈥檚 regular and continuous monitoring of the entire Southern Hemisphere sky, combined with powerful algorithms that sift through millions to billions of points of light to identify those corresponding to small moving objects, enabled the team to spot ED138 within the crowded field.

ED138 joins the rapidly growing sample of solar system objects discovered by 91自拍 since it began collecting early data in preparation for the (LSST), which began in June 2026. In April, before LSST formally began, the 91自拍 solar system team announced observations of over , which included roughly 380 new TNOs. At the time, the team called this large submission 鈥渢he tip of the iceberg鈥� and expressed their excitement for the discoveries to come once LSST began. With the discovery of ED138, those hopes are coming to fruition.

鈥�91自拍 is giving us an unprecedented capacity to explore the sky through a combination of speed, depth, and precision,鈥� Juri膰 said. 鈥淎nd the discovery is just the beginning: Once we identify a new object, we can search back months, and sometimes even decades, finding it in images where nobody knew to look. This ability to both discover and 鈥榩recover鈥� objects is transforming how quickly and accurately we can determine their orbits and understand the distant solar system.鈥�

The public can interact with this discovery on , an interactive web-based app that provides an intuitive way to explore the structure of our cosmic backyard in three dimensions and in real time.

Operations of the Vera C. 91自拍 Observatory are funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Energy鈥檚 Office of Science.

For more information, contact Mario Juri膰 at mjuric@uw.edu.

This story was adapted from a press release by NOIRlab. More images and video clips are available on the .

Source

UPDATE October 28, 2026: This story has been updated to correct when Marie Gluesenkamp Perez flipped District 3.

Ballots have been mailed to Washington residents, and the will take place on Nov. 3.听

Between critical contests across the country, prominent gubernatorial races and divisive ballot initiatives, there will be plenty to watch on Election Day. All 435 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives and 35 Senate seats are up for a vote. Democrats need a net gain of four seats in the House and four seats in the Senate to overturn the Republican majorities in both.

UW News spoke with and , professors of political science at the 91自拍, about midterm election trends, what they鈥檙e watching statewide and nationally, and more.

What will you be watching most closely in Washington state and/or nationally?

James Long: On the state level, is very competitive. Incumbent Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, a Democrat, won the district by about 4 points in 2024, having flipped it from Republican to Democrat control in 2022. This year, she is running against a Republican candidate, state senator John Braun. While all congressional races have a certain degree of localism and variation in candidate quality with respect to what matters in close races, should Gluesenkamp Perez hold onto the seat 鈥� and by a healthy margin 鈥� that could be a bellwether for how Democrats expect to perform in close House races nationwide. Similarly, if Braun flips the district back to Republican control, it could suggest that Republican losses across the country may not be as bad as many expect.

There are in Washington, all of which are controversial and speak to some current “culture war” divisions between the left and the right. I don’t have a sense of which of these initiatives will succeed or fail 鈥� polling on them is notoriously difficult. Voters may change their minds due to exposure to a variety of ads. They may also decide by reverting to how they view national conversations around parents’ involvement in educational curriculum, trans athletes in K-12 schools, and greater taxation of the wealthy in terms of whether and how they vote on these measures.

Mark Smith: In Washington, I鈥檓 particularly interested in the three ballot initiatives, especially . The state legislature is counting on the revenue from this tax in 2028. If the tax is repealed, the legislature will need to make major changes in their projected budget, with downstream effects for the UW.听

Nationally, I鈥檓 closely watching the competitive , partly because that鈥檚 where I鈥檓 from, but also because Ohio tells the tale of the changing geography of American politics. Ohio used to be considered a bellwether state, and it was the tipping-point state as recently as 2004. If John Kerry won Ohio, which he lost by only 2.1%, he would have been elected president. Since then, Ohio has trended strongly red. If Democrats win the Senate and governor鈥檚 races there, and polls have them favored in both, that would be a noteworthy result. If Democrats can win Senate seats in other red states such as Kansas, Iowa, Alaska and Texas, that would also grab my attention.听

What are the factors likely to impact voter behavior in these midterms?

JL: For Congressional races nationwide, this election really seems to be a referendum on Donald Trump and Republican control of Congress. It’s been a period of single party control across the executive and legislative branches, so it’s not unusual for the incumbent president and party to be the main focal point in a midterm election. Moreover, Trump’s and the Republicans’ policies are deeply unpopular with the American people, including the war with Iran, tariffs and the inability to tackle affordability.

MS: At the risk of sounding pedantic, it鈥檚 highly variable from person to person. Who people vote for, and whether they vote at all, is driven by a complicated combination of factors. Still, we can parse out some systematic effects that apply more generally. One of them is the dropoff in voter turnout of about 20% between presidential and midterm years. Twenty years ago, the kinds of people who always vote in midterm years were disproportionately voting Republican. Now they are disproportionately voting Democratic. Another way of saying that 鈥� based on the off-year elections in 2025 and the polling we have this year 鈥� is there will be more people who voted for Donald Trump in 2024 and don鈥檛 vote in 2026. That鈥檚 opposed to people who voted for Kamala Harris in 2024 and will stay home in 2026.

What patterns tend to emerge historically in midterm elections, and do you predict those patterns will hold this year?

MS: Since the time of World War II, the president鈥檚 party has lost an average of about 26 seats in the House and four seats in the Senate. But now regional polarization and gerrymandering have reduced the number of competitive House races, so it鈥檚 unlikely that Democrats will reach that average of 26 seats. But they only need to gain four to take the majority of the House. In the Senate, curiously, they need the same net gain of four seats to reach a majority. Current polling and prediction markets indicate that Democrats are likely to get there for both the House and Senate 鈥� though it鈥檚 somewhat less likely with the Senate. The fact that Republican PACs and committees are redirecting money toward states and districts they would normally win handily suggests that they fear a blue wave.

JL: It’s not just about whether there is a 鈥渂lue wave鈥� in Congress, which many observers are predicting. The margin of that seat gain and the margins of victory within districts also helps measure the depth of pro-Democratic Party support, or anti-Republican sentiment, which I believe will inform candidates from both parties who are thinking of running in the 2028 presidential cycle.

What issues currently appear to be most important to voters?

JL: Affordability, affordability, affordability. Joe Biden, Kamala Harris and the Democrats were unpopular in 2024 because inflation had not declined enough according to voters. Two years later, inflation is now growing at a higher rate than it was when Trump took office. A host of other policies, such as oil prices resulting from the U.S. attack on Iran and Trump’s tariffs, have hit the pocketbooks of every American, including those in rural areas who supported Trump and Republicans in 2024.听

It’s not so much that the Democrats have provided an alternative set of policies that voters find popular as it is that Trump and the Republicans are the focal point and it’s a brand whose stock has been declining of late.听

Moreover, candidates like Jon Ossoff 鈥� who is running for Senate reelection in Georgia and is a 2028 presidential candidate contender 鈥� have gained popularity by tying the affordability crisis to Trump and those in his orbit. While everyday Americans have seen wages flatten and costs rise, Trump, his family and his allies have grown enormously wealthy at the same time.

MS: One good source of data is the Gallup organization, which regularly asks Americans, 鈥淲hat do you think is the most important problem facing this country today?鈥� , the answers in order were the government/poor leadership (30%), high cost of living/inflation (13%), economy in general (11%), immigration (10%) and war in the Middle East (7%). The first three of those and the fifth clearly favor Democrats, with the fourth 鈥� immigration 鈥� hard to discern without more information. You don鈥檛 want to be the party in power when the government is perceived to be performing poorly and high prices are making even the essentials unaffordable for many people.

There have been as President Donald Trump has expressed his desire to exert more control. How serious are these potential threats?

MS: He on his biggest chance to exert more control, through restricting voting by mail. Some version of that proposal could come back, because the Supreme Court did not foreclose it entirely, but not in 2026. Anyone who lived through Jan. 6, however, would be foolish to say, 鈥淚t can鈥檛 happen here.鈥澨�

There has been speculation about President Trump sending federal law enforcement agents to polling places, or asserting widespread fraud and confiscating ballots or polling equipment after the election is held. Such an outcome becomes more likely if the election overall, or in certain important places, is very close. However, I would not rule it out even for a wave election. He could also take other, harder-to-predict actions to affect the results.

JL: I think explicit threats, and Trump has historically and in this cycle made them, should always be taken seriously. Whether or not they are successful is another matter. Trump and some Republican allies have attempted measures to restrict voting, suppress turnout, control mail-in ballots, and more, but have mostly been stopped so far by the courts, and the strategies don’t seem to be working. It mostly seems half-baked, but so did the “fake elector” scheme in 2020 that led to the riot, so protecting electoral integrity always requires eternal vigilance.

No doubt should Trump and the Republicans receive a “” 鈥� as President Barack Obama famously admitted when the Democrats suffered heavy losses in Congress in 2010 鈥� he will call the result “rigged” and likely spread misinformation about the election’s integrity. He appears ready to contest results, as . He has learned this is a costless way to avoid admitting defeat and it remains popular among his MAGA base. That said, evidence of any vote tampering should be investigated and, if it comes to it, adjudicated by the relevant judicial authority.

For more information, contact Lauren Kirschman at lkirsc@uw.edu.

Source

Come curious. Leave inspired.

The UW offers an exciting lineup of in-person and online events. From thought-provoking art and music to conversations on culture, history, and science, the UW community invites you to explore, learn, and connect across disciplines throughout the University. And you don’t have to wait until November: Take a look at everything still happening in October.

Go directly to the week you’d like to view:

• Week 1: November 2 – 8
• Week 2: November 9 – 15
• Week 3: November 16 – 22
• Week 4: November 23 – 29
• Week 5: November 30 – December 6

to receive a monthly notice when the ArtSci Roundup has been published.

ArtSci On Your Own Time:

Closing November 7 | (School of Art + Art History + Design)
The annual fall MFA show mediates on accumulation, the underground, labor & capacity, and the movement of systems and objects toward loss, disrepair, and failure. Spanning performance, installation, sound art, and found object sculpture, see the works of Jayden Dukes, Gaeun Kim, Cameron McGaff, and Skye Amber O鈥橞rien. Free.

Opening November 7 | (Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture)
This exhibition focuses on the biodiversity and global importance of Earth鈥檚 largest terrestrial ecosystem and the last intact forest on Earth. See, hear, and feel the forest through stunning photography, interactive displays, commissioned artworks, first-person stories, and Burke Museum collections. Learn about stories of resilience, strength, and hope in a changing world. Presented in English and Spanish, the exhibition gives voice to the boreal through the words of Indigenous community members, scientists, conservationists, artists, and writers. It shares how knowing nature can offer a vision for a sustainable future.

(Biology)
Wednesdays, noon to 4 pm / 2nd and 4th Saturdays, 10 am – 2 pm
For nearly 70 years, the Biology Greenhouse at the 91自拍 has played a vital role in 91自拍 and teaching. Whether focusing on plant-pollinator interactions, paleoclimatology, or other biological questions, the teaching collection has enhanced and inspired UW biological 91自拍. Visit the 4 Collection rooms and browse through an amazing diversity of plant species from around the world. Free.

Book Club | A Long Petal of the Sea by Isabel Allende (UW Alumni Association)
Readers鈥� Choice! In the late 1930s, civil war grips Spain. Hundreds of thousands flee to France, including a wounded army doctor and his brother鈥檚 widow. The two team up to seek refuge in Chile as Europe erupts in war 鈥� but life in exile comes with its own dangerous challenges. UW Alumni Book Club invites all curious readers to dig into personal stories, timely topics, and transformative fiction.听 Free.

Week 1: November 2 – 8

November 2 | (Chemistry)
Ram Seshadri is the Fred and Linda R. Wudl Professor of Materials Science and has served as the Director of the Materials Research Laboratory: A National Science Foundation Materials Research Science and Engineering Center (NSF-MRSEC) since 2015. He recently took on the additional role of associate dean for 91自拍 in the College of Engineering. His 91自拍 contributions are embodied in 450+ journal publications, and broadly address the topic of structure鈥揷omposition鈥損roperty relations in functional, crystalline inorganic, and hybrid materials. Ram is the editor of Annual Reviews of Materials Research and is a lead editor of Physical Review Materials. Free.

Virtual option – November 2 | (Jackson School of International Studies)
What do negotiations to end the war in Iran look like to those at the table? What role might the United Nations or Gulf States play in ending the violence in Gaza or Lebanon? Is there hope for diplomacy with Russia? Join us for a moderated conversation and Q&A with UW graduate and diplomat Dr. Mohamed Al-Hassan. With extensive experience navigating the US / Iran relationship; representing Oman at the United Nations and serving as the UN representative in Iraq; and leading Oman鈥檚 diplomatic mission to Russia, Dr. Al-Hassan brings an insider鈥檚 perspective on some of the most difficult diplomatic challenges of the day. Free.

Virtual – November 3 | 听(Jackson School of International Studies)
Helen Hardacre is Reischauer Institute Research Professor of Japanese Religions and Society, Harvard University. Her publications include The Religion of Japan’s Korean Minority (1984), Lay Buddhism in Contemporary Japan: Reiyukai Kyodan (1984), Kurozumikyo and the New Religions of Japan (1986), Shinto and the State, 1868-1988 (1989), Marketing the Menacing Fetus in Japan (1997), Religion and Society in Nineteenth-Century Japan (2002), Shinto, A History (2016), Constitutional Revision and Civic Activism in Japan (lead editor and contributor, 2021), and Shinto Shrines in Prewar and Wartime Japan (2025). Her current 91自拍 concerns Shinto shrines in prewar and wartime Japan. She earned her Ph.D. from the Divinity School at the University of Chicago in History of Religions in 1980. Among her academic awards since 2000 are the following: John Simon Guggenheim Foundation Fellow (2003-04), Walter Channing Cabot Fellow (Harvard University, 2017), and Order of the Rising Sun (2018). Free.

November 4 | (School of Music)
A free lunchtime performance featuring UW School of Music students in the North Allen Library lobby. Presented in partnership with UW Libraries. Free.

November 5 | (Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture)
Admission to the Burke Museum is FREE and the museum is open until 8 p.m. on the first Thursday of every month. Get closer to the daily work happening in the Burke Museum鈥檚 visible collections storage, labs and workrooms during Free First Thursday. Free.

November 5 – 7 | 听(Digital Arts & Experimental Media)
DXFEST, a three-day festival showcasing artworks and music by artists in the DXARTS program, opens at Gallery 4Culture with a lecture-performance by Afroditi Psarra as part of her exhibition Pythia Embodied. The festival moves to Meany Center for the Performing Arts, where there will be a digital art exhibition and electronic music performances. The music works will be presented using the DXARTS Ambisonics Audio System, a state-of-the-art multi-channel system designed to provide immersive spatial audio experiences. Artworks by DXARTS artists will be on display in the theater鈥檚 lobby prior to the concerts and during intermissions. Free.

November 5 – 15 | 听(School of Drama)
Ph猫dre is a queen and a mother who has been cursed by the Gods. She receives news that the king, Theseus, is dead. Encouraged by her lady-in-waiting, Oenone, and fueled by her own feelings Ph猫dre confesses to the King鈥檚 son and heir, Hippolytus that she is in love with him. Soon after, King Theseus returns, alive and well, setting off a series of unforeseen consequences.

November 6 | (Cinema & Media Studies)
Join the Henry Art Gallery for a special screening of short films made by students in the Department of Cinema & Media Studies. Spanning a wide range of genres, including documentaries, comedies, dramas, and music videos, get an exclusive glimpse into the work of this emerging cohort of filmmakers. After the screening, stick around to meet the filmmakers and faculty guiding Cinema & Media Studies students鈥� creative projects and 91自拍. Free.

November 6 | 听(Classics)
Presented by Verity Platt (Cornell). Free.

Opening November 7 | (Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture)
This exhibition focuses on the biodiversity and global importance of Earth鈥檚 largest terrestrial ecosystem and the last intact forest on Earth. See, hear, and feel the forest through stunning photography, interactive displays, commissioned artworks, first-person stories, and Burke Museum collections. Learn about stories of resilience, strength, and hope in a changing world. Presented in English and Spanish, the exhibition gives voice to the boreal through the words of Indigenous community members, scientists, conservationists, artists, and writers. It shares how knowing nature can offer a vision for a sustainable future.

Week 2: November 9 – 15

November 9 | 听(School of Music)
Seattle Modern Orchestra鈥檚 (SMO’s) 91自拍 residency celebrates the legacies of longtime former School of Music professors and West Coast luminaries Stuart Dempster (b. 1936) and William O. Smith (1926-2020) with “90/100, Celebrating Stuart Dempster, William O. Smith, and West Coast Experimentalism.” Curated by longtime SMO clarinetist Rachel Yoder, the evening integrates elements of improvisation, deep listening, and playfully creative movement while rebooting elements of the composer/performer duo鈥檚 historic antics.

November 10 | (Clean Energy Institute)
A symposium on innovative technologies, strategies, and partnerships to accelerate a scalable and equitable clean energy future in Washington and beyond, featuring UW President Jones, former WA Gov. Jay Inslee, former U.S. Cabinet members Ernest Moniz and Sally Jewell, David Baker, and world-leading clean energy/materials 91自拍ers.

November 10 | (Meany Center for the Performing Arts)
Indonesian pianist Janice Carissa, a Gilmore Young Artist and Salon de Virtuosi recipient, is celebrated for crafting vivid musical narratives that transcend mere virtuosity. Her program spans centuries and styles, opening with Bach鈥檚 elegant French Suite No. 5 in G Major, moving to Granados鈥� passionate Goyescas, 鈥淓l Amor y la muerte,鈥� and Ravel鈥檚 darkly glittering La valse. The evening also features works by Olivier Messiaen and Indonesian composer Eunike Tanzil, showcasing Carissa鈥檚 expressive nuance, lyrical sensitivity and command of both classical and contemporary repertoire.

Virtual – November 12 | 听(Simpson Center for the Humanities)
Safia Aidid is an interdisciplinary historian of modern Africa and Assistant Professor in the Department of History and the African Studies Centre at University of Toronto. She holds a PhD from Harvard University. Her 91自拍 addresses anticolonial nationalism, territorial imaginations, borders, and state formation in the Horn of Africa, with a particular focus on modern Somalia and Ethiopia. She is currently working on a book manuscript entitled “Pan-Somali Dreams: Ethiopia, Greater Somalia, and the Somali Nationalist Imagination.” Free.

November 13 | (Meany Center for the Performing Arts)
Isata Kanneh-Mason joins artistic forces with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, celebrated for its trademark conductor-less precision and collective spirit. The award-winning pianist from the renowned Kanneh-Mason family and the Grammy Award-winning orchestra present a program of favorites by Mozart and Haydn with Suites No. 1 and No. 3 from Handel鈥檚 Water Music and a newly commissioned work by Katie Jenkins, performed with the mindset of a collaborative chamber ensemble.

November 14 | 听(Henry Art Gallery)
James Turrell’s Light Reign is glowing again鈥攁nd you’re invited to celebrate! After an extensive restoration, the Henry’s beloved Skyspace has been transformed with a new lighting system that brings renewed brilliance to this extraordinary work by one of the world’s most celebrated artists. Watch as the Skyspace’s exterior comes alive with light at dusk, illuminating the Henry in a spectacular display. Then step inside to experience the atmospheric interior as light and color create an environment unlike any other.听Free.

November 15 | 听(Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture)
Engage with professional archaeologists and 91自拍ers as they share their work. Learn about ancient technologies and local cultural heritage, try your hand at sorting artifacts, watch a flintknapping demonstration (that鈥檚 stone tool making!), and more.

Through November 15 | 听(School of Drama)
Ph猫dre is a queen and a mother who has been cursed by the Gods. She receives news that the king, Theseus, is dead. Encouraged by her lady-in-waiting, Oenone, and fueled by her own feelings Ph猫dre confesses to the King鈥檚 son and heir, Hippolytus that she is in love with him. Soon after, King Theseus returns, alive and well, setting off a series of unforeseen consequences.

Week 3: November 16 – 22

November 17 | 听(Honors)
Growing concerns about the health of America鈥檚 250-year experiment in representative democracy should prompt us to think deeply about how civic belonging has been defined in U.S. society since the nation鈥檚 founding and what current efforts to restrict access and opportunities for civic participation mean for our collective futures. Civic Belonging in an Anti-Democratic Age brings together UW faculty whose teaching and 91自拍 straddle law, politics, human rights, urban studies, and digital technologies for a lively interdisciplinary conversation about the stakes of belonging in U.S. society. Join us as we examine the current moment and ask how we can work towards a more inclusive democratic future. Free.

November 17 | (Simpson Center for the Humanities)
We humanists are hoping for, and many of us are fighting for, a new day in the United States when the production and circulation of knowledge are understood as keystones of democracy and of human thriving 鈥� and thus as deserving of substantial public investment. Having worked so long in the spirit of doing a lot with a little, how do we envision the humanities in conditions of abundance? What shifts in traditional academic culture and policy will help us meet those conditions? In the spirit of Octavia Butler鈥檚 future-oriented thinking, this talk draws together many threads of contemporary thinking to sketch a future where American universities center the values and practices of liberal arts-grounded humanistic inquiry. Free.

November 17 | (History)
The Pre-Modern World History Lecture: Dr. Nore帽a sketches the contours of the 鈥渘ew鈥� global antiquity and argues that this rapidly emerging field can and should be fully global in its coverage and institutional organization. In this lecture, he explores how we might bring both Africa and the Americas into an agenda for a global antiquity that has been limited, for the most part, to Eurasia, and considers some of the main challenges for this field, both epistemological and practical. Free.

November 17 | (School of Art + Art History + Design)
This year-long program series honors the gallery鈥檚 commitment to social justice and to gather the community to think about the work of liberation through shared texts, art, film, music, conversation, and workshops. Each month, the club will approach the topic of liberation from several perspectives. Unlike your traditional book club, all the reading and study happens together, and preparation is not required. Come ready to attend a workshop, engage with a piece of art, or chat over a shared meal. Free.

November 18 | (Jackson School of International Studies)
Details coming. Free.

Virtual – November 18 | (Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture)
In this presentation, Jennfier Angaiak Wood will discuss her Yup’ik ancestry, give an overview of Yup’ik artistic tradition, and share examples of how she incorporates historic design elements into her contemporary artworks. Free.

November 18 – 19 | Jazz Infusions – / 听(School of Music)
UW Jazz Studies students perform in small combos over two consecutive nights of original tunes, homage to the greats of jazz, and experiments in composing and arranging. Free.

Virtual option – November 18 |听 听 (Jackson School of International Studies)
In this talk, Joanne Leow traces the process of writing and publishing her hybrid memoir Exhumations: In the Body of a Petrostate. By following the trajectory that her writing took from online writing to print journal to bound book, she considers what it means to publish work about Singapore while in the diaspora. Exhumations oscillates between socio-political and cultural analysis and a memoir of grief and illness. Seeing our porous bodies as part of a contaminated and compromised system based on extraction, violence, and political repression, her work asks what must be made visible in our current moment. In doing so, she draws from her time as a journalist for state media, her positionality as a 鈥渜uitter,鈥� and her current work as a scholar based in Canada. These intersecting experiences have allowed her to explore histories of activism, censorship, weapons manufacturing, terraforming, and petroleum refining in Singapore. Free.

November 19 | (Henry Art Gallery)
Artist Trenton Doyle Hancock discusses his varied career and current projects. Inspired by the world-building of comics, Hancock鈥檚 work iterates over time through the investigation of character, story, and symbols. Co-presented with the UW School of Art + Art History + Design, Hancock will address his use of popular culture, narrative, and autobiography to subvert cultural tropes and national mythologies. A Q&A with the audience will follow the talk. Free.

November 19 | 听(Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture)
Each month, hear from Burke staff about a book they recommend. Read the book ahead of time, or join to learn more about the selection. Free.

November 19 | 听(American Indian Studies)
Readings by Simon Ortiz and Sara Marie Ortiz, followed by audience Q&A. Storytelling offers a spiritual connection, a sharing of sacred breath. Literature, similarly, preserves human experience and ideals. Both forms are durable and transmit power that teaches us how to live. Both storytelling and reading aloud can impact audiences through the power of presence, allowing for the experience of the transfer of sacred breath as audiences are immersed in the experience of being inside stories and works of literature. Free.

November 19 | 听(Geography)
Alums share how their degrees in geography have shaped careers in climate risk, procurement, and user experience design. Featuring Derek Huling (Program Analyst, FEMA), Krystle Jumarawan (Geospatial Specialist II, Woven by Toyota), and Helen Elizabeth Olsen (Deputy Director, The Gates Foundation). Moderated by Professor Sarah Elwood. Free.

November 19 | (Jackson School of International Studies)
This talk examines the historical political divergence between China and Europe. While both regions experienced repeated shifts in territorial unification, political stability, and institutional development in earlier periods, from the medieval period onward, their trajectories increasingly diverged. Europe gradually evolved toward a polycentric political order, while China consolidated into a centralized and authoritarian state. This talk proposes the development of China鈥檚 imperial civil service examination system as a key driver of this divergence. Drawing on a synthesis of several recent works, it approaches the question from three complementary perspectives: macro-level patterns of political development, micro-level quantitative evidence on bureaucratic recruitment, and formal theories of political equilibrium and institutional change. Free.

November 19 | (School of Music)
Celebrated Russian pianist Mikhail Voskresensky leads a master class with UW piano students. Free.

November 20 | (Classics)
Eight years after demonstrators in Charlottesville, Virginia, chanted 鈥淛ews will not replace us!鈥� at a rally whose promotional poster featured the acronym SPQR and where one group of activists carried shields emblazoned with images of the Roman fasces, most Classical scholars are aware that white nationalists and other hateful actors take inspiration from Greco-Roman antiquity. There is less consensus, however, about what this phenomenon means for those of us who 91自拍 and teach about the ancient Greco-Roman world. In this lecture, Curtis Dozier, author of The White Pedestal: How White Nationalists Use Ancient Greece and Rome to Justify Hate (Yale University Press, 2026), draws on his ten years鈥� experience documenting appropriations of Greco-Roman antiquity by hate groups to bring into focus what white nationalist classicism reveals about the material we study, our discipline, our nation, and ourselves. Free.

November 19 – 21 | (Meany Center for the Performing Arts)
Taiwan’s Hung Dance makes its Seattle debut with BIRDY, a powerful and poetic work choreographed by the company鈥檚 founder and artistic director Lai Hung-Chung. Performed by eight dancers, the piece blends contemporary dance with elements of Chinese opera, Tai Chi and myth. Using striking props like rattan poles and flowing pheasant feathers (Ling Zi), BIRDY explores the tension between freedom and constraint, personal feeling and social pressure. The movement is bold, fluid and deeply human. BIRDY invites audiences to reflect on the desire to break free, and the quiet strength it takes to keep moving within the world around us.

November 22 | (School of Music)
UW music students perform music from the Baroque era under the direction of Tekla Cunningham. Free.

Week 4: November 23 – 29

November 24 | (School of Music)
UW voice students of Thomas Harper and Carrie Shaw perform works from the vocal repertoire. Free.

Week 5: November 30 – December 6

December 1 | (School of Music)
The UW Percussion Ensemble (Bonnie Whiting, director) performs contemporary music arranged for percussion ensembles.

December 2 | 听(Meany Center for the Performing Arts)
Celebrate the season with the legendary Michael Feinstein in a festive evening of song and storytelling. A champion of the Great American Songbook, Feinstein brings signature warmth, wit and impeccable style to beloved holiday classics and timeless standards. Backed by lush arrangements, he delivers an elegant, nostalgic journey filled with heart and swing. This joyful concert promises an unforgettable night celebrating the magic, romance, and spirit of the holidays.

December 2 | 听(School of Music)
The Studio Jazz Ensemble (Jacob Zimmerman, director) performs big band arrangements and repertory selections. The Modern Band (Cuong Vu, director) performs innovative arrangements of jazz standards, selections from the outer limits of the genre, and new original compositions.

December 2 | (School of Music)
A free lunchtime performance featuring UW School of Music students in the North Allen Library lobby. Presented in partnership with UW Libraries. Free.

December 3 | (Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture)
Admission to the Burke Museum is FREE and the museum is open until 8 p.m. on the first Thursday of every month. Get closer to the daily work happening in the Burke Museum鈥檚 visible collections storage, labs and workrooms during Free First Thursday. Free.

December 3 | (School of Music)
The Campus Band (Joshua Michael Smith, conductor) and Concert Band (Yuman Wu, conductor) present “Song and Dance,” performing music by Leonard Bernstein, James Barnes, Frank Ticheli and others.

December 3 | (School of Music)
UW keyboard students perform from the piano repertoire in the quarterly Brechemin Piano Series concerts. Free.

December 4 | (School of Music)
The UW鈥檚 top auditioned choirs present modern vocal works, music from around the globe, and great works from the sacred repertoire in shared quarterly concerts showcasing each group鈥檚 most recent work.

December 5 | (School of Music)
The Modern Music Ensemble (Cristina Vald茅s, director) presents works of our time in several concerts each year. Including repertoire from the early to mid-20th century and beyond, the group focuses on small ensemble and chamber orchestra works, performed by both undergraduate and graduate students. Free.

The ArtSci Roundup

The ArtSci Roundup is your guide to connecting with the UW鈥攚hether in person, on campus, or on your couch.

Those who receive monthly emails, with timely updates and engaging content wherever you are. Check the roundup regularly, as events are added throughout the month. Check out the ArtSci On Your Own Time section for everything from podcasts to videos to exhibitions that can be enjoyed when it works for you!

Do you have an event that you would like to see featured in the ArtSci Roundup? Connect with Lauren Zondag (zondagld@uw.edu).

Source

It all started with Halley’s Comet.

was a toddler in 1986, the last time the was visible to the naked eye. One night, her family kept her up late to try and spot it above their home in East Taunton, Massachusetts.

鈥淚 was fussy and tired until they pointed up,鈥� Levesque recalled, 鈥渁nd then all of a sudden I just went, 鈥榃丑辞补鈥�.鈥�

Levesque鈥檚 career interests followed a trend after that.

鈥淧eople would ask me what I wanted to be when I grew up, and I would say, 鈥榃ell, I’m going to be a ballerina or an astronomer,鈥� or 鈥業’m going to be a firefighter or an astronomer,鈥� or 鈥榓 violinist or an astronomer鈥�,鈥� she said.

Levesque鈥檚 childhood infatuation stuck. Today she is a professor of astronomy at the 91自拍 who studies 鈥渂ig and weird stars.鈥� She鈥檚 authored two textbooks on and , as well as general-interest on astronomy. And in 2027, she will become the next editor-in-chief of the American Astronomical Society鈥檚 portfolio of academic journals, making her the first woman to serve at the helm of six of astronomy鈥檚 busiest and most prestigious 91自拍 outlets.

鈥淚 published my very first 91自拍 paper in The Astrophysical Journal more than 20 years ago as an undergrad,鈥� Levesque said. 鈥淭he AAS Journals have played such an enormous role in the history of astronomy and in so many of our careers, and my predecessors have established an incredibly high standard of care and commitment in how the journals are run. I鈥檓 excited and honored to become the next steward of that legacy.鈥�

Levesque became interested in stars as a child, and she carried her enthusiasm through to a degree in physics from MIT. Her first 91自拍 project there brought her to the in Flagstaff, Arizona, where she studied 鈥� a star so large that one would engulf Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars and Jupiter if it were placed where our sun is.

鈥淚 got really interested in these huge, unstable stars 鈥� they die explosive, spectacular deaths as supernovae, and leave behind mysterious things like black holes,鈥� Levesque said. 鈥淲e tend to think of stars as just big round balls of gas. But when you look closer, they turn into these brain-bending objects that stretch our ability to comprehend the universe.鈥�

From MIT, Levesque hopscotched to a doctoral program at the University of Hawaii, a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Colorado, Boulder and then, in 2015, an appointment at the UW. Along the way, her taste in stars has only gotten stranger: At the UW she studies hypothesized oddities called (TZOs), which are red supergiants with for cores. While in Colorado, Levesque and collaborators . Today, much of her work at the UW is dedicated to finding more possible TZOs and understanding how they might form 鈥� though their existence still isn鈥檛 a sure thing.

鈥淲e could absolutely be wrong,鈥� Levesque said. 鈥淥ther 91自拍ers have published papers since our initial discovery arguing that TZOs couldn鈥檛 possibly be stable, or that the star we found wasn鈥檛 actually a TZO. Still others have published papers saying, 鈥榃e looked closer at your candidate and we think it really is a TZO.鈥� So it’s a subject of debate, which I think is great. If we made a mistake, I desperately want someone to find it.鈥�

Levesque has been involved with the American Astronomical Society Journals for 10 years. She鈥檚 currently serving as a science editor, which entails running the journals鈥� peer review process, matching submissions with reviewers and shepherding drafts through to publication.

鈥淕etting involved with the journals has been a great way to support the astronomy community on a large scale,鈥� Levesque said. 鈥淭he AAS Journals are such a great resource in our field, so working with them is really impactful. Plus, it helps me keep tabs on the latest science.鈥�

The editor-in-chief role, though, is a much larger proposition.

鈥淚t鈥檚 a big job,鈥� Levesque said. 鈥淚t is essentially a full-time position. But I like the idea of getting to devote so much of my time and attention to this.鈥�

When she officially steps into the role next fall, Levesque will navigate a critical and chaotic moment for academic 91自拍 and publishing. She sees twin challenges ahead for the journals: remaining solvent in the dicey landscape of federal funding, and managing a firehose of paper submissions unleashed with the help of artificial intelligence.

鈥淲e鈥檙e certainly seeing lots of papers that are auto-generated junk,鈥� Levesque said. 鈥淏ut there鈥檚 also a huge uptick in people simply being able to do 91自拍 faster or to write down their 91自拍 faster. We鈥檙e figuring out how to manage the influx of papers and deciding what constitutes appropriate use of AI.鈥�

Levesque betrays no intimidation about juggling her faculty position with the new leadership role at the journal. She鈥檚 letting friends and family be overwhelmed on her behalf.

鈥淲hen I tell people that I’m moving into this role, there’s sort of this look of like, 鈥極h my gosh, you鈥檙e going to be dealing with funding disasters and AI is going to upend everything, isn鈥檛 this terrifying?鈥欌�� Levesque laughed. 鈥淚n this landscape, the AAS Journals are more important than ever. It鈥檚 never been easier to generate and share information, but it’s also never been harder to trust information. Publishing is a crucial part of how our field shares trustworthy science, so for me it鈥檚 worth the effort.鈥�

For more information, contact Levesque at emsque@uw.edu.

Source

A scans the sea for fish from 100 feet in the air. Upon seeing a school, it pitches its body into a nosedive, somehow breaking the surface at 70 miles per hour without breaking its neck. This daring maneuver seems to defy the laws of nature, but it’s standard hunting behavior for plunge-diving seabirds.

A 91自拍 study in the Anatomical Record shows that gannets and boobies have unique morphological adaptations that allow them to survive impact. Several of their neck vertebrae are joined by an additional contact surface that helps stabilize the cervical column. The overall shape of the vertebrae is also stockier than other birds.

鈥淲e wanted to figure out what makes gannets so special, so good at diving and looking at their biology helped us understand how they can survive these impacts,鈥� said senior author , a postdoctoral scholar at the UW鈥檚 Friday Harbor Labs.

The ecological record shows repeated instances in which birds develop physical traits in response to their environment. Charles Darwin was among the first to record this in in the 1830s 鈥� in finches on the Gal谩pagos Islands 鈥� and 91自拍ers are still discovering new examples today. The connection between beak shape and foraging behavior is well documented, but the link between neck structure and feeding has received less attention.

The UW 91自拍ers began years ago. Gannets are built to withstand immense pressure on the head and neck that compresses the cervical column. Engineers typically favor short and fat structures for things built to tolerate compressive force, but these birds have long, slender necks with segmented vertebrae.

Gannet necks have 15 stacked vertebrae that bend slightly in an s-curve. that the muscles surrounding their vertebrae help lock them in place to prepare for impact, but few studies have looked at the actual morphology of听diving birds鈥� necks.

To do so, the 91自拍ers collected specimens of diving birds and non-diving birds from . The team performed CT scans to create detailed three-dimensional models of the cervical vertebrae and then analyzed the images with geometric , a statistical method for studying biological samples that establishes landmarks for comparison. They considered the forces associated with various feeding styles and chose birds that represented a spectrum, pulling in additional morphological data from .

鈥淏irds that rotate their heads side to side, or move them front to back, separate out from birds that use their heads in compression,鈥� said lead author , a graduate student of biology at UW鈥檚 Friday Harbor Labs. 鈥淲e see that the birds that plunge-dive have more robust vertebrae. They’re thicker, wider, and also shorter, shaped more like a square.鈥�

The stocky shape of the vertebrae provides added support, as does the additional contact surface, called an articular facet, in second through the sixth vertebrae. In this case, 91自拍ers think the extra facet keeps the birds鈥� necks from bending backward when they hit the water at an angle. Instead, the load gets transferred down the cervical column.

The 91自拍ers also observed more blocklike vertebrae in other diving birds, such as the kingfisher, but did not detect the extra facet. Kingfishers belong to a different avian family and are much smaller than gannets and boobies, but their necks seem to have evolved in a similar way. The structural relationship is also proportional: the larger the neck, the larger the vertebrae.

Kingfishers and the bigger plunge-divers also experience the same amount of force per neck area during a dive. Although total force scales with neck size, the amount of stress on the tissue is the same. Both groups experienced peak force nearly five milliseconds after impact despite the size difference.

Moving forward, the 91自拍ers hope to explore how force transfers down the neck in more detail. They also think this link between structure and function could help paleontologists identify plunge-diving birds from fossils.

鈥淚t feels like something I didn’t previously think about and probably overlooked before,鈥� Vanderberg said. 鈥淚’m curious to start looking more closely at vertebrae in general, not just in birds.鈥�

Co-authors include , professor of biology and of aquatic and fishery sciences at UW; , assistant professor of aeronautics and astronautics at UW; , graduate student of mechanical engineering at the UW; and of the University of California, Riverside.

This 91自拍 was funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation, Beatrice and Samuel A. Seaver Foundation, Friday Harbor Laboratories Research Endowment Fellowship, 91自拍 Friday Harbor Laboratories Award, and Jim and Camille Uhlir.

For more information, contact Vandenberg at megvdb4@uw.edu.

Source

A 91自拍-led center for optoelectronics 鈥� technologies that combine light and electronics 鈥� brings 91自拍ers from 14 universities across the U.S. together with the mission to develop new materials to transform information technology with light. This 91自拍 has broad ranging applications, from enabling photorealistic virtual reality displays for telehealth calls, to secure, optical quantum communication links to ensure that data remains private on the internet.

Founded in 2021 as a , the , or NSF IMOD, has received a second round of funding from the NSF to continue its work for the next five years.

The 91自拍 tackled by NSF IMOD is so interdisciplinary that it requires 91自拍ers from backgrounds such as chemistry, physics, engineering and materials science to work together.

“There’s still this idea that scientists go in their labs, put on their safety goggles and lab coats, and then work alone for hours at a time. The point of this center is to tackle problems that are too big for one scientist or even two or three to tackle by themselves,” said NSF IMOD director , UW professor of chemistry. “We have all these people from different disciplines working together to advance optoelectronics and semiconductor technology that we couldn’t do just as individual scientists.”

“Until our center came along, quantum dots were thought of as something you made in a beaker in a chemistry lab. And if you could paint them on a TV or phone display, that was great,” said Ginger, who is also the B. Seymour Rabinovitch Endowed Chair in Chemistry and the chief scientist at the UW . “But they weren’t something that you could put as a discrete component in an optoelectronic circuit. That’s something that we’ve proven you can do.”

With chemists, material scientists, mechanical engineers, chemical engineers, physicists and electrical engineers on the team, 91自拍ers at NSF IMOD created something unprecedented: a way to print quantum dots, . The team showed that they could strategically place quantum dots into specific cavities, which could one day be the building blocks for quantum communication, and possibly even quantum computing.

The team hopes to continue this 91自拍 direction over the next five years, further refining quantum dots as well as the cavities the dots get placed into.

NSF IMOD’s interdisciplinary nature gets passed down to its students as well. One of the center鈥檚 main goals is to develop 91自拍ers into leaders in the fields of semiconductor and optoelectronic technology. Every summer, NSF IMOD trainees from different disciplines come together at the UW for in multiple disciplines. The students synthesize quantum dots, study single photons of light in UW鈥檚 , make quantum dots, and learn to calculate the electronic structures of advanced materials. The collaborations established during this course and throughout the NSF IMOD training program helps students graduate with the ability to work in complex, interdisciplinary teams.

Trainees also gain real-world experience in the form of internships at a variety of companies, including some of NSF IMOD’s industry and national lab partners. A partial list of NSF IMOD鈥檚 partners includes ; ; ; ; ; and More partner information can be found on .

“We’re already seeing our students get hired at everything from startup companies to large semiconductor firms for the exact skills they’re being trained for in the center,” Ginger said. “We’re really excited to see our students start taking important roles, and then eventually we hope they move into leadership roles in this space of commercializing new semiconductor materials.”

And it’s not just graduate students who benefit from NSF IMOD. The center hosts a program, and has programming for younger students as well. As part of their science communication training, NSF IMOD trainees become who can facilitate outreach events, such as at the Pacific Science Center. The team has also developed a for K-12 teachers to find lesson plans to use in their own classrooms.

“Just as the atomic structure of a quantum dot produces unique and exciting properties, the exceptionally interdisciplinary structure of NSF IMOD is enabling foundational science and technological innovations that would not otherwise be possible,” said , a program director in the NSF Directorate for Mathematical and Physical Sciences, which manages NSF IMOD.

Over the past five years, NSF IMOD has published 140 papers, hosted 36 undergraduate students through its REU program and hosted more than 85 outreach events.

“One day I hope that we’ll have photonic computing where we’re massively reducing the energy cost for computation by using a computing paradigm that’s based on the 91自拍 we’re doing now,” Ginger said. “That’s the kind of thing that’s probably still a decade or more away. But that’s why the government invests in basic science now, because the basic science 91自拍 of the materials today leads to technology that exists 15 years from now.”

NSF is expected to provide NSF IMOD $22 million over the five-year term of the award. The 14 academic institutions that make up NSF IMOD are the 91自拍; University of California, Berkeley; Columbia University; University of Chicago; Northwestern University; University of Pennsylvania; University of Maryland; Georgia Institute of Technology; University of Colorado Boulder; Arizona State University; Rice University; Lehigh University; City College of New York; and University of Maryland, Baltimore County.

In addition to Ginger, other UW faculty involved with NSF IMOD include , associate professor of physics and of electrical and computer engineering at the UW; , a UW professor of chemistry; , professor of electrical and computer engineering; , associate professor of mechanical engineering and of materials science and engineering, and technical director of the Washington Clean Energy Testbeds; and , professor of physics and of electrical and computer engineering. Fu chairs UW . Fu, Lin and Majumdar are faculty members with the UW . Cossairt, Fu, Lin, Majumdar and MacKenzie are member faculty at the Clean Energy Institute. Ginger, Fu, Lin, Majumdar and MacKenzie are faculty 91自拍ers with the UW .听

For more information, contact Ginger at dginger@uw.edu.

Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the U.S. National Science Foundation.

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The 91自拍 today broke ground on a $231.1-million Chemical Sciences Building. Once completed, the state-of-the-art facility will be a nexus for collaborative 91自拍 and teaching that will help the UW define the next 100 years of science education and breakthroughs.

Recognized worldwide, the UW鈥檚 Department of Chemistry is one of the largest in the country, and faculty are leaders in the field. The new Chemical Science Building will provide 91自拍 synergies and dynamic, active learning spaces.

鈥淭he Chemical Sciences Building will be more than a new facility. It is an investment in the students, faculty and 91自拍ers whose curiosity and collaboration drive discovery. We are deeply grateful to the donors, state leaders and supporters who are making this investment possible,鈥� said UW President Robert J. Jones. 鈥淭he work that happens here will help advance science, strengthen our state and improve lives for generations to come.鈥�

The Chemical Sciences Building opens additional pathways for workforce development, industry collaboration and academic excellence in Washington. Updating facilities also helps the UW attract and retain top-notch students and scientists, further fueling the state鈥檚 economy and renown.

鈥淲ashington鈥檚 economy is built on innovation,鈥� Gov. Bob Ferguson said. 鈥淢aintaining our leadership requires a reliable pipeline of skilled, highly educated workers. We鈥檙e proud to be an investor in this state-of-the-art new building. It鈥檚 an investment in our students, and Washington鈥檚 economic vitality.鈥�

Funding for the project is led by the State of Washington, the College of Arts & Sciences and private support. The 104,500-square foot, five-story building will be constructed on the former site of the Chemistry Library Building behind the Molecular Engineering and Nanoengineering buildings on West Stevens Way NE. New classrooms and laboratories in the Chemistry Sciences Building will allow the UW to complete a renovation and update of Bagley Hall, the 1937 structure that鈥檚 long housed the Department of Chemistry.

鈥淭his new building will be a catalyst for both the Department of Chemistry鈥檚 and the College鈥檚 collaborative work that addresses some of the most pressing and complex challenges of our time,” said Daryl Maeda, the Katherine and John Simpson Endowed Dean of the College of Arts & Sciences. 鈥淩esearchers will push the boundaries of chemistry further than ever before, partnering with students in spaces designed for creativity and connection. Our students will benefit from a world-class education and 91自拍 opportunities that set them up for success and impact after graduation.鈥�

The Chemical Sciences Building will:

• Expand student opportunity by providing hands-on 91自拍 labs and connecting classroom learning with scientific discovery. Students will work alongside faculty, gain experience with modern tools and prepare for high-demand careers across Washington and beyond.
• Enhance collaboration by bringing 91自拍 groups together and giving them the newest and best tools to do their jobs, spark new ideas and accelerate solutions.
• Create paths to discovery. Flexible, state-of-the-art laboratories will remove barriers posed by aging facilities and support work in sustainable chemistry, human health, advanced materials, quantum science and more.

The design-build team is Skanska and Payette+EHDD. Completion is scheduled for 2029.

For more information, contact Lance Kissler at lkissler@uw.edu.

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