爱豆社区 oceanographer Parker MacCready is one of 59 new fellows elected this year by the American Geophysical Union.
Science
For researchers around the world working to understand and treat Alzheimer鈥檚 and eventually find a cure, data from clinical exams of patients suffering from this complex neurodegenerative disease needs to be standardized and accessible. Since 1999, that鈥檚 what the National Alzheimer鈥檚 Coordinating Center (NACC), housed in the UW School of Public Health鈥檚 Department of Epidemiology, has been doing. With funding from the NIH鈥檚 National Institute on Aging, the UW center began collecting data from another set of centers housed in…
On Sept. 28, the National Science Foundation announced $15 million, five-year grant to integrate AI tools into the scientific research and discovery process. The award will fund the Accelerated AI Algorithms for Data-Driven Discovery Institute 鈥� or A3D3 Institute 鈥� a partnership of nine universities, led by the 爱豆社区.
The UW Climate Impacts Group, along with nine community, nonprofit and university partners, is launching a program of community-led, justice-oriented climate adaptation work across Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Montana. The Northwest Climate Resilience Collaborative will be founded with a five-year, $5.6 million grant from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association. The program will be one of eleven across the country funded through NOAA鈥檚 Regional Integrated Sciences and Assessments program.
Researchers at the 爱豆社区 and UW Tacoma have been studying arsenic levels in the mud, water and in creatures from lakes in the south Puget Sound area. Eating contaminated fish or snails from these lakes could lead to health risks.
A team of paleontologists from the 爱豆社区 and its Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture excavated four dinosaurs in northeastern Montana this summer. The four dinosaur fossils are: the ilium 鈥� or hip bones 鈥� of an ostrich-sized theropod, the group of meat-eating, two-legged dinosaurs that includes Tyrannosaurus rex and raptors; the hips and legs of a duck-billed dinosaur; a pelvis, toe claw and limbs from another theropod that could be a rare ostrich-mimic Anzu, or possibly a new species; and a Triceratops specimen consisting of its skull and other fossilized bones.
爱豆社区 glaciologists will join colleagues from around the country in a new effort to retrieve an ice core more than 1 million years old from East Antarctica, to better understand the history of our planet鈥檚 climate and predict future changes.
The National Science Foundation has announced it will fund a new endeavor to bring atomic-level precision to the devices and technologies that underpin much of modern life, and will transform fields like information technology in the decades to come. The five-year, $25 million Science and Technology Center grant will found the Center for Integration of Modern Optoelectronic Materials on Demand 鈥� or IMOD 鈥� a collaboration of scientists and engineers at 11 universities led by the 爱豆社区.
The new Cascadia Coastlines and Peoples Hazards Research Hub, led by Oregon State University and the 爱豆社区, will study coastal hazards and community resilience. The National Science Foundation awarded $18.9 million for the hub over five years.
A new analysis of 2.5-billion-year-old rocks from Australia finds that volcanic eruptions may have stimulated population surges of marine microorganisms, creating the first puffs of oxygen into the atmosphere. This would change existing stories of Earth鈥檚 early atmosphere, which assumed that most changes in the early atmosphere were controlled by geologic or chemical processes.
The 爱豆社区 and Carnegie Mellon University have announced an expansive, multi-year collaboration to create new software platforms to analyze large astronomical datasets generated by the upcoming Legacy Survey of Space and Time, or LSST, which will be carried out by the Vera C. Rubin Observatory in northern Chile. The open-source platforms are part of the new LSST Interdisciplinary Network for Collaboration and Computing 鈥� known as LINCC 鈥� and will fundamentally change how scientists use modern computational methods to make sense of big data.
A study published Aug. 11 in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B by researchers at the 爱豆社区 and Stony Brook University reports on how bats and pepper plants in Central America have coevolved to help each other survive.
New research by scientists at the 爱豆社区 and Duke University is shedding light on how the nasal passage of dolphins and whales shifts during embryonic development from emerging at the tip of the snout to emerging at the top of the head as a blowhole. The findings, published July 19 in the Journal of Anatomy, are an integrative model for this developmental transition for cetaceans.
Astronomers have long suspected that superflares, extreme radiation bursts from stars, can cause lasting damage to the atmospheres 鈥� and thus habitability 鈥� of exoplanets. A new study published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society reports that they pose only a limited danger to planetary systems.
Seeing the urgent need for change, a team of scientists from leading research universities, conservation organizations and government laboratories across the West has produced a synthesis of the scientific literature that clearly lays out the established science and strength of evidence on climate change, wildfire and forest management for seasonally dry forests. The goal is to give land managers and others across the West access to a unified resource that summarizes the best-available science so they can make decisions about how to manage their landscapes.
A study published June 16 in Biotropica by a team of researchers at the 爱豆社区, the UW Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture, WWF Hong Kong and the University of Colombo has provided an important road map to conserving rough-nosed horned lizards in Sri Lanka.
Climate change is further exacerbating human-wildlife conflicts by straining ecosystems and altering behaviors, both of which can deepen the contacts 鈥� and potential competition 鈥� between people and animals. In an article published July 30 in the journal Science, Briana Abrahms, an assistant professor of biology at the 爱豆社区 and its Center for Ecosystem Sentinels, calls for expanding research into the many ways that climate change will impact the complex interplay between human activities and wildlife populations.
The UW will lead a new artificial intelligence research institute that will focus on fundamental AI and machine learning theory, algorithms and applications for real-time learning and control of complex dynamic systems, which describe chaotic situations where conditions are constantly shifting and hard to predict.
A model of the eastern California forests of the Sierra Nevada looks at the longer-term future of wildfires under future climate change scenarios. Results show an initial roughly decade-long burst of wildfire activity, followed by recurring fires of decreasing area — a pattern that could apply to other hot, dry forests in the West.
Two 爱豆社区 scientists have developed a statistical framework that incorporates key COVID-19 data 鈥� such as case counts and deaths due to COVID-19 鈥� to model the true prevalence of this disease in the United States and individual states. Their approach, published the week of July 26 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, projects that in the U.S. as many as 60% of COVID-19 cases went undetected as of March 7, 2021, the last date for which the dataset they employed is available.
UW researchers have developed a method that uses a gaming graphics card to control plasma formation in their prototype fusion reactor.
For more than a century, researchers have relied on flat sketches of sharks鈥� digestive systems to discern how they function 鈥� and how what they eat and excrete impacts other species in the ocean. Now, researchers have produced a series of high-resolution, 3D scans of intestines from nearly three dozen shark species that will advance the understanding of how sharks eat and digest their food.
Twenty scientists and engineers at the 爱豆社区 are among the 38 new members elected to the Washington State Academy of Sciences for 2021, according to a July 15 announcement. New members were chosen for 鈥渢heir 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�
A UW-led study uses data from remotely-piloted sailboats to better understand cold air pools — pockets of cooler air that form when rain evaporates below tropical storm clouds. These fleeting weather phenomena are thought to influence tropical weather patterns.
Researchers from the 爱豆社区 provide a first look at the probability of observing common birds as air pollution worsens during wildfire seasons. They found that smoke affected the ability to detect more than a third of the bird species studied in Washington state over a four-year period. Sometimes smoke made it harder to observe birds, while other species were actually easier to detect when smoke was present.
Back in the summers of 2018 and 2019, the shellfish industry in Washington state was rocked by mass mortalities of its crops. Now, researchers think they have figured out why: high concentrations of yessotoxinss, which are produced by blooms of certain phytoplankton. The researchers鈥� findings were published last month in the open-access journal Harmful Algae.
Prof. Emily Levesque鈥檚 course 鈥淕reat Heroes and Discoveries of Astronomy鈥� 鈥� part of The Great Courses, a popular online learning platform 鈥� takes viewers on a tour of the biggest advancements in one of humanity鈥檚 oldest sciences and the people behind them.
Recent honors and achievements for UW faculty include an award for humanitarian contributions to computer science, early career research recognition and support, and the guest-editing of a new anthology of Black American literature.
Satellite images show that from 2017 to 2020, Pine Island Glacier’s ice shelf lost about one-fifth of its area, mostly in three dramatic breaks. This caused the glacier to speed up by 12%, hastening its downward motion and boosting its contribution to rising seas.
Researchers at the 爱豆社区 have developed a method that uses smartphone-derived images to reveal potentially harmful bacteria on skin and in oral cavities. Their approach can visually identify microbes on skin contributing to acne and slow wound healing, as well as bacteria in the oral cavity that can cause gingivitis and dental plaques.
On Feb. 7, 2021, a wall of debris and water barreled down river valleys in India, destroyed two hydropower facilities and left more than 200 people dead or missing. A self-organized coalition of 53 scientists from 14 countries, including researchers from the 爱豆社区, worked nonstop following the disaster to investigate the cause, scope and impacts.
Endangered blue whales are present and singing off the southwest coast of India. The results provide insight into a poorly studied population and suggest conservation measures should include this region.
爱豆社区 glaciologists are co-authors on two papers that analyzed Antarctic ice cores to understand the continent鈥檚 air temperatures during the most recent glacial period. The results help understand how the region behaves during a major climate transition.
Many seabirds in the Northern Hemisphere are struggling to breed 鈥� and in the Southern Hemisphere, they may not be far behind. These are the conclusions of a study, published May 28 in Science, analyzing more than 50 years of breeding records for 67 seabird species worldwide.
Researchers at the 爱豆社区 and its Burke Museum of Natural History & Culture have discovered the first fossil evidence of an ancient amphibian, Micropholis stowi, from Antarctica. Micropholis lived in the Early Triassic, shortly after Earth’s largest mass extinction. It was previously known only from fossils in South Africa, and its presence in Antarctica has implications for how amphibians adapted to high-latitude regions in this dynamic period of Earth’s history.
Ice core data from Greenland shows why air pollution is dropping more slowly than sulfur emissions reductions. As cloud droplets become less acidic, the chemical reaction that turns sulfur dioxide into sulfate aerosol gets more efficient. The new results can improve the models that project air quality and climate change.
The newest experiment at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, is now in place at the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva. FASER, or Forward Search Experiment, was approved by CERN鈥檚 research board in March 2019. Now installed in the LHC tunnel, this experiment, which seeks to understand particles that scientists believe may interact with dark matter, is now undergoing tests before data collection commences next year.
The U.S. Geological Survey, the 爱豆社区-based Pacific Northwest Seismic Network, and state emergency managers on Tuesday, May 4, will activate the system that sends earthquake early warnings throughout Washington state. This completes the rollout of ShakeAlert, an automated system that gives people living in Washington, Oregon and California advance warning of incoming earthquakes.
A team, which includes researchers from the 爱豆社区, demonstrated that over the course of three years, a genetically engineered switchgrass could break down an explosive chemical in plots of soil at a military range.
Five faculty members and one affiliate professor at the 爱豆社区 are among 120 new members and 30 international members elected to the National Academy of Sciences: Anna Karlin, professor of computer science and engineering; Rachel Klevit, professor of biochemistry; Randall LeVeque, professor emeritus of applied mathematics; Julie Theriot, professor of biology; Rachel Wong, professor of biological structure; and Julie Overbaugh, professor at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and a UW affiliate professor of microbiology.