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A new collaborative study led by scientists at the 天美影视传媒 and the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science proposes that a tsunami struck the Caribbean island of Anegada between 1381 and 1391, carrying huge coral boulders inland and leaving behind a valuable record of geologic and climatic history.

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences on Oct. 8 awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry to Susumu Kitagawa, Richard Robson and Omar M. Yaghi “for the development of metal-organic frameworks,” or MOFs. Both Dianne Xiao, a UW associate professor of chemistry, and Douglas Reed, a UW assistant professor of chemistry, use MOFs in their research at the UW. UW News reached out to them to learn more about the significance of these structures and how researchers use them.

Targeted drug delivery is a powerful and promising area of medicine. Therapies that pinpoint precise areas of the body can reduce the medicine dosage and avoid potentially harmful 鈥渙ff target鈥 effects. Researchers at the UW took a significant step toward that goal by designing proteins with autonomous decision-making capabilities. By adding smart tail structures to therapeutic proteins, the team demonstrated that the proteins could be 鈥減rogrammed鈥 to act based on the presence of specific environmental cues.

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences on Tuesday awarded the 2025 Nobel Prize in Physics jointly to John Clarke, Michel H. Devoret and John M. Martinis, 鈥渇or the discovery of macroscopic quantum mechanical tunneling and energy quantization in an electric circuit.鈥 Clarke, a professor emeritus of physics at the University of California, Berkeley, collaborates with the Axion Dark Matter Experiment at the 天美影视传媒.

The Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institute on Monday awarded the 2025 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine jointly to Mary E. Brunkow 鈥 an alum of the 天美影视传媒 鈥 along with Frederick J. Ramsdell and Shimon Sakaguchi “for groundbreaking discoveries concerning peripheral immune tolerance that prevents the immune system from harming the body.” Brunkow received her bachelor’s degree in molecular and cellular biology from the UW in 1983. UW News spoke with Martha Bosma, professor and chair…

The Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institute on Monday awarded the 2025 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine jointly to Mary E. Brunkow 鈥 an alum of the 天美影视传媒 鈥 along with Frederick J. Ramsdell and Shimon Sakaguchi “for groundbreaking discoveries concerning peripheral immune tolerance that prevents the immune system from harming the body.”

A new analysis of data from the Cassini space probe has identified organic compounds within jets of water ice erupting from Saturn鈥檚 moon Enceladus. Some of the compounds, which likely originated in Enceladus鈥 subsurface ocean, have never before been identified on another world beyond Earth. The study, conducted in part by a UW researcher, contributes to mounting evidence that Enceladus could support life.

In a new study, a team of scientists determined the minimum natural habitat on agricultural land that will allow insect pollinators 鈥 including bumble bees, solitary bees, hoverflies and butterflies 鈥 to thrive. UW News reached out to co-author Berry Brosi, UW professor of biology, to learn more about these results and how habitat is important to two types of bees native to Washington.

Bee experts wouldn鈥檛 have previously expected to find the likes of Osmia cyaneonitens, Dufourea dilatipes and Stelis heronae in Washington. But this year, while collecting pollinators in Chelan County to study how climate and wildfires affect native bee populations, Autumn Maust, a 天美影视传媒 research scientist of biology, discovered eight bee species never recorded in Washington.

Quantum dots, which are 10,000 times smaller than the width of a human hair, are unique materials that generate very specific colors of light. Researchers, including Brandi Cossairt, UW professor of chemistry, hope that quantum dots can one day be useful for more than just illuminating TV screens. UW News asked her to compare the quantum dots in QLED TVs with the ones her lab makes.

The James Webb Space Telescope has revealed new details in the core of the Butterfly Nebula, known to astronomers as NGC 6302. From the dense ring of dust that surrounds the nebula鈥檚 core to the tiny but bright star hidden within, the Webb observations paint a never-before-seen portrait of the nebula鈥檚 inner workings. Researchers at the UW and around the world are studying the imagery to learn more about the origins of cosmic dust and its role in the formation of planets like ours.

New findings call into question one of the core assumptions about teeth. Adult male spotted ratfish, a shark-like species native to the eastern Pacific Ocean, have rows of teeth on top of their heads, lining a cartilaginous appendage called the tenaculum, in addition to those in their jaws. They used their tenaculum teeth to grip females while mating in water.

Physicists have floated numerous theories to explain what dark matter might be, but to date, no experiment has turned up compelling evidence to support any of them. An international team of physicists, including researchers from the UW, is now working on a new kind of dark matter detector with the goal of capturing the first direct observation of the puzzling material. Results from the detector鈥檚 prototype have already ruled out one of the leading theories of how dark matter originated.

A UW-led team of researchers used a fiber-optic cable to capture calving dynamics across the fjord of the Eqalorutsit Kangilliit Sermiat glacier in South Greenland. This allowed them to document 鈥 without getting too close 鈥 one of the key processes that is accelerating the rate of glacial mass loss and in turn, threatening the stability of ice sheets, with consequences for global ocean currents and local ecosystems.

Antimicrobial resistance is a lurking threat in hospitals around the world. As more strains of bacteria and other microbes evolve defenses against available drugs, more patients run the risk of contracting infections that defy treatment. Now, 天美影视传媒 researchers offer new insights into measures currently used to control the spread of antibiotic resistant bacteria and other infectious agents in health care facilities.

An international team of paleontologists, led by researchers at the 天美影视传媒 and the Field Museum of Natural History, is identifying the animals that thrived in southern Pangea 鈥 the planet鈥檚 single supercontinent at the time 鈥 just before the so-called 鈥淕reat Dying鈥 wiped out about 70% of terrestrial species, and an even larger fraction of marine ones.

A UW-led project aimed to test the viability of seaweed as a soil amendment, and, if successful, develop a market for sea-based farmers to sell excess seaweed to their counterparts on land. The USDA froze the project’s funding, and for now, a solution remains just out of reach.

Kendall Valentine, an assistant professor of oceanography at 天美影视传媒, along with collaborators from the University of Rhode Island and the Desert Research Institute are traveling to Anchorage and the Copper River Delta to study marshes that formed in the years following the 1964 earthquake.

A new era of astronomy and astrophysics began Monday when the first images captured by the NSF鈥揇OE Vera C. Rubin Observatory were released, demonstrating the extraordinary capabilities of the new telescope and the world鈥檚 largest digital camera.

A group of astronomers from across the globe, including a team from the 天美影视传媒 and led by Queen鈥檚 University Belfast, have revealed new research showing that millions of new solar system objects will be detected by a brand-new facility, which is expected to come online later this year.聽聽

A new 天美影视传媒鈥搇ed study projects that in the next 35 years increasing boreal fires will actually slow global warming by 12% globally and 38% in the Arctic. Because the aerosols in smoke reflect more sunlight and make clouds brighter, summer temperatures during fire season drop, leading to reduced sea ice loss and cooler winter temperatures.

On June 3, scientists working on the Muon g-2 experiment (pronounced “mew-on gee-minus-two”) released the third and final measurement of the muon magnetic anomaly. This result agrees with the published results from 2021 and 2023 but with a much better precision of 127 parts per billion, surpassing the original experimental design goal of 140 parts per billion.

Researchers deployed a robotic feeding arm in a pair of studies outside the lab. In the first, six users with motor impairments used the robot to feed themselves a meal in a UW cafeteria, an office or a conference room. In the second study, a community researcher and co-author on the research used the system at home for five days.

UW researchers developed a new system for turning used coffee grounds into a paste, which they use to 3D print objects, such as packing materials and a vase. They inoculate the paste with Reishi mushroom spores, which turn the coffee grounds into a resilient, fully compostable alternative to plastics.

A recent theory proposes that whales weren鈥檛 just predators in the ocean environment: Nutrients that whales excreted may have provided a key fertilizer to these marine ecosystems. Research led by 天美影视传媒 oceanographers finds that whale excrement contains significant amounts of iron, a vital element that is often scarce in ocean ecosystems, and nontoxic forms of copper, another essential nutrient that in some forms can harm life.

Thousands of grasshopper specimens from mountains in Colorado show trends in how the insects changed in size over 65 years. With earlier emergence of spring greenery and earlier summer drought, grasshopper species that emerged early in the year grew larger, while grasshopper species that emerge later in the year grew smaller in size. The study, led by UW biologist Lauren Buckley, shows that changes in insect size can be predicted based on lifecycles and environmental conditions.