• share
• favorite_border

Using the Hubble telescope, three University of Washington astronomers have made some surprising discoveries about Hubble's research.

• share
• favorite_border

Climate phenomenon called the Arctic Oscillation has wide-ranging effects in the Northern Hemisphere and operates differently from other known climate cycles, say scientists from the University of Washington and Northwest Research Associates.

• share
• favorite_border

A new technique using ice-penetrating radar is allowing scientists to reveal long-ago changes in West Antarctic ice streams, rivers of ice believed to be linked to the stability of the massive West Antarctic Ice Sheet. A University of Washington geophysics researcher discussed radar measurements at the fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union.

• share
• favorite_border

A plume of pollution that crossed the Pacific Ocean from Asia contained ozone at levels high enough to violate a new federal ozone standard, a researcher from the University of Washington has found.

• share
• favorite_border

Microwaves similar to those emitted by cell phones have been linked to diminished long-term memory and navigating skills in rats, according to a new University of Washington study.

• share
• favorite_border

Individuals with certain personality styles -- those who are aggressive and those who have low dependency on other people -- are at higher risk for recurrent bouts of major depression.

• share
• favorite_border

Climate models show the three-state Columbia River Basin is likely to have significantly higher temperatures and greater precipitation 50 years from now. But scientists warn that public institutions charged with preparing for that future are ill equipped to do so.

• share
• favorite_border

The West Antarctic Ice Sheet -- about the size of Texas and Colorado combined -- has been receding steadily for 10,000 years and poses the most immediate threat of a large sea level rise because of its potential instability, a new study indicates. Its complete collapse would raise global sea level 15 to 20 feet.

• share
• favorite_border

The next time you glance at a baby in a crib, apprciate the fact that you are looking at more than just another cute face. You are peering at what scientists are starting to believe is the greatest learning machine in the universe. In fact, the authors of a new book propose that the way babies acquire knowleage is much the same as adults use the scientific method to conduct research.

• share
• favorite_border

Dyslexic children use nearly five times the brain areas as normal children while performing a simple language task, according to a new University of Washington study that also show for the first time that there are chemical differences in the brain function of dyslexic and non-dyslexic children.

• share
• favorite_border

Two University of Washington zoology professors are proposing a novel hypothesis for how metamorphosis evolved among four groups of higher insects. They believe a change in hormonal function during embryonic development led to the evolution of a unique larval stage.

• share
• favorite_border

It is possible to predict which newlywed couples will divorce from the way partners interact in just the first three minutes of a discussion about an area of marital conflict, according to University of Washington researchers.

• share
• favorite_border

Organic properties of some pollution particles can increase the number of cloud droplets, allowing more sunlight than normal to be reflected into space. The phenomenon affects climate locally, and probably regionally, say researchers from the Consilio Nazionale delle Ricerche in Bologna, Italy, and the University of Washington in Seattle.

• share
• favorite_border

The highest-achieving children who were exposed to the Head Start program before entering elementary school are thriving academically and socially at the end of the third grade, but data from a new national study creates worries that their future success may be tempered by their luke-warm attitude toward school.

• share
• favorite_border

For children with learning disabilities success at reading and mathematics isn't always as easy as learning their ABCs or that two plus two equals four. Their inability to automatically retrieve such basic building blocks as letters and numbers leads to impiared ability in reading, writing and arithmetic, a new study shows.

• share
• favorite_border

A new propulsion system dubbed M2P2 could greatly boost spacecraft speeds, perhaps to 10 times the velocity of the space shuttle, and might power the first craft to leave the Solar System, University of Washington scientists believe.

• share
• favorite_border

For millions of business travelers, flying is no picnic. Instead it is a stressful ordeal that has become an integral part of their working lives. But it doesn't necessarilly have to be according to University of Washington researchers who have developed a scale to measrue air-travel stress and have detected differences in the stress experienced by male and female frequently fliers.

• share
• favorite_border

For nearly a decade, a University of Washington atmospheric chemist has advanced the notion that, in some regions, submicron-sized particles from industrial pollution are actually countering the atmospheric warming effects of greenhouse gases. Now NASA is planning the PICASSO-CENA mission to gather crucial data to better understand the role of those particles in human-caused climate change.

• share
• favorite_border

University of Washington researchers say a Northern Hemisphere climate cycle they call the Arctic oscillation has far-reaching impact in North America. Significant changes in the cycle in the last 30 years have influenced temperature and precipitation patterns throughout the Northern Hemisphere.

• share
• favorite_border

Unconscious prejudice towards blacks and the elderly can be significantly decreased by exposing people to images of admired members of those groups, University of Washington psychologists will report at the American Psychological Association's annual meeting.

• share
• favorite_border

Like a collage of photographs showing a human being from infancy to old age, a striking new picture unveiled today by a University of Washington astronomer shows various stages in the life cycle of stars, all occurring at one time.

• share
• favorite_border

Despite this year's record snowfall in the Pacific Northwest, the amount of water stored as mountain snowpack is projected to drop significantly in the long run, a change that could repaint the face of the region and drastically alter how water is used and allocated, according to University of Washington researchers.

• share
• favorite_border

Just being exposed to a story about a fictitious childhood experience can alter people's memories to the point that half of them believe the incident probably occurred even though they previously said it did not, University of Washington researchers will report at the American Psychological Society annual meeting.

• share
• favorite_border

Secretin, a hormone that some parents claim possesses almost magical properties as a treatment for autism, will be scientifically tested in large-scale trials starting later this month in Seattle and Denver.

• share
• favorite_border

In 25 years, the Endangered Species Act has spawned numerous recovery plans, but there still the question of how well the listed species are recovering. Now a University of Washington zoologist is spearheading a comprehensive scientific review of 200 recovery plans, which could lead to an appraisal of how well the plans work.

• share
• favorite_border

Julian Bond, chair of the board of the NAACP, will speak at the University of Washington commencement June 12.

• share
• favorite_border

Martian Standard Time takes effect in January 2002 when a sundial designed and assembled at the University of Washington lands on the red planet aboard NASA's 2001 Mars Surveyor. The project is part of a package of experiments being produced by Cornell University.

• share
• favorite_border

University of Washintion bioengineers, reporting in the April 15 issue of Nature, describe a process for coating medical implants with tiny imprints that bind specific proteins. This coating may trigger natural healing rather than the body's typical, and often disruptive, reaction to medical implants.

• share
• favorite_border

Alcohol consumption and alcohol-related problems were significantly slashed among a group of high-risk college-age drinkers using a brief, non-confrontational intervention treatment developed by University of Washington researchers.

• share
• favorite_border

Like teenage boys hanging out on a street corner, animals behave differently when they're in a large group than when they're by themselves. The mechanics and patterns of nature's aggregations - schooling fish, flocking birds or swarming insects - help understand how such groups behave in, and survive, trying conditions, says a University of Washington zoologist.

• share
• favorite_border

It happens every spring. Tens of millions of American children turn out for organized youth sports. Tagging along behind them are their parents, many of whom don't understand their roles and responsibilities according to a pair of sports psychologists who have written a new book to guide parents through the mindfield that sports can be.

• share
• favorite_border

Scientists from the University of Washington and the British Antarctic Survey explain in the March 25 Nature how they successfully used ground-penetrating radar to show the precise location for each layer of glacial ice, a key to correctly interpreting ice cores to glean climate data.

• share
• favorite_border

Friendship with your spouse is the foundation of a happy marriage says a University of Washington psychologist after nearly 25 years of studying what makes marriages blossom or shrivel. "Men aren't from Mars, nor women from Venus," but really want the same thing from a relationships, he says.

• share
• favorite_border

A package of interventions targeted at teachers, parents and children throughout the elementary school years had long-lasting effects in reducing levels of violent behavior, drinking and sexual intercourse and in improving school performance at age 18 among urban children, according to a study by University of Washington

• share
• favorite_border

University of Washington engineers are testing a new concrete framing system that enables large buildings to ride out an earthquake with minimal damage. The system employs concrete columns and beams reinforced with steel cables stretched like rubber bands which pull a building back to its original position after an earthquake.

• share
• favorite_border

For three decades social scientists have had little success in figuring out how a person's race affects the outcomes of crimnal cases. Now University of Washington researchers have found that court reports prepared prior to sentencing by probation officers consistenly portray black and white juvenile offenders differently, leading to harsher sentencing recommendations for blacks.

• share
• favorite_border

Flipping a nano-scale molecular switch may regulate cell-binding in a protein involved in healing and other biological activities. Computer simulations show that, like untying a shoelace, tugging on a strand of the protein fibronectin unravels a loop critical to cell recognition but allows the protein to easily reassemble.

• share
• favorite_border

Joblessness, not race, is the key predictor of all forms of violent death -- homicide, accidental death and suicide -- according to a study by University of Washington demographers who looked at census data and vital records for Chicago. They also found the average life expectancy for poor black males dropped by 1 1/2 years between 1970 and 1990.

• share
• favorite_border

Being male doesn't generate a lot of respect or status in the insect world. At best males are merely tolerated and thoroughly dominated by females. But a University of Washington research has discovered the first species of social insect, a wasp, where males rule the nest.

• share
• favorite_border

Long-term climate phenomena have happened throughout history, but scientists increasingly are able to see how cycles such as El Nino might affect weather a year or even a decade from now. A University of Washington researcher says that information can give developed nations time to avoid a potential climate catastrophe.

• share
• favorite_border

A three-year spectroscopic survey shows a group of stars near our solar system have two to three times greater concentration of elements heavier than hydrogen and helium than other nearby stars that are like our sun, according to a University of Washington astronomer.

• share
• favorite_border

Two University of Washington astronomy professors and two UW graduate students were among dozens of scientists on two teams who this year showed that the expansion of the universe is actually accelerating, a discovery lauded by the journal "Science" in the Dec. 18 edition as the most important science advance of the year.

• share
• favorite_border

Paleontologists from the South African Museum and the University of Washington have discovered what appears to be the first complete fossil of a gorgonopsid, a ferocious predator with both reptilian and mammalian characteristics that became extinct 250 million years ago.

• share
• favorite_border

Atmospheric pollution from eastern Asia is beginning to have measurable, though still small, effects on air quality in western North America, according to a researcher from the University of Washington, Bothell.

• share
• favorite_border

A team American and British researchers studying more than 3,000 pairs of 2-year-old twins has found that genetics, not the environment, plays the major role in the delayed acquisition of language among children who are having the most difficulty learning to speak.

• share
• favorite_border

The University of Washington is poised to become the first institution anywhere to launch a doctoral program specifically geared to train scientists to search for life on celestial bodies such as Mars or Europa, an icy moon of Jupiter.

• share
• favorite_border

A powerful new psychological tool that shows a shocking number of people -- as many as 90 to 95 percent -- display the unconscious roots of prejudice will be demonstrated at a 10 a.m. PDT press conference Tuesday, Sept. 29 at the University of Washington by UW and Yale psychologists.

• share
• favorite_border

A half century-old hunt for the exact site of Lewis and Clark's winter camp at Fort Clatsop, Oregon, is being renewed by archaeologists this month. A number of projects are underway, including one novel effort to find the fort by searching for mercury, which was used as a treatment for syphilis, in the soil.

• share
• favorite_border

American society need to take a critical look at treatment programs for men who batter their wives or girlfriends and stringently test them to make sure that they actually work to end domestic violence, says one of the leading researchers of abusive relationships.

• share
• favorite_border

Although many Americans wish the entire public current debate about sexual behavior in high place would just go away, that's not necessarily a good thing, claims a sociologist who says "sexuality is a precious, positive part of life, not a prurient part."