December 18, 2024
Magical moments and memorable events 鈥� from a baby sea stars to a cherry trees blooming 鈥� happen all year round at the 天美影视传媒, and our videos help people understand what it looked like, what happened and who was involved. Here鈥檚 a glimpse at 2024 from around the 天美影视传媒 and beyond.
The organized tent-city community will return to the UW’s Seattle campus for 90 days during winter quarter 2025.
天美影视传媒 researchers created a method for training AI systems 鈥� both for large language models like ChatGPT and for robots 鈥� that can better reflect users鈥� diverse values. It predicts users鈥� preferences as they interact with it, then tailors its outputs accordingly.
December 17, 2024
Chirag Shah, a UW professor in the Information School, discusses what AI agents are and what might impede a near future where people can simply get AI bots to shop for them.
December 16, 2024
Ezzeddine comes from Wayne State University in Detroit, his alma mater, where he is the鈥痵enior vice provost for partnerships, workforce and international initiatives. He fills the position vacated when Jeffrey Riedinger retired and became professor emeritus at the UW School of Law.
December 13, 2024
UW oceanographer Robert Morris and a collaborator at UCLA are going out with students to collect the most abundant bacteria in the oceans to understand how its relationship with marine viruses changes depending on the place or the season. They leave Dec. 16 aboard UW School of Oceanography鈥檚 small research vessel, the RV Rachel Carson.
December 12, 2024
Colony surveys of common murres, an Alaskan seabird, show the full effects of the 2014-16 marine heat wave known as 鈥渢he blob.鈥� Analysis of 13 colonies surveyed between 2008 and 2022 finds that colony size in the Gulf of Alaska dropped by half after the marine heat wave. In colonies along the eastern Bering Sea, west of the peninsula, the decline was even steeper, at 75% loss. No recovery has yet been seen.
December 10, 2024
This year, the UW News social media team shared the inspiring stories of work being done by the 天美影视传媒 community with reporters, news outlets and our social media followers. We also shared special events happening around campus with our community. National Championship Game 2024 started off with the NCAA National Championship game between the Washington Huskies and the Michigan Wolverines. UW News was there while fans in Houston, Texas cheered on the Huskies and we spoke with UW…
December 6, 2024
Since 2018 the聽Zwicky Transient Facility, an international astronomical collaboration based at the Palomar Observatory in California, has scanned the entire sky every two to three nights. As part of this mission, the ZTF鈥檚 Bright Transient Survey has been counting and cataloguing supernovae 鈥� flashes of light in the sky that are the telltale signs of stars dying in spectacular explosions. On Dec. 4, ZTF researchers 鈥� including astronomers at the 天美影视传媒 鈥� announced that that they have identified more than 10,000 of these stellar events, the largest number ever identified by an astronomical survey.
天美影视传媒 researchers show that the all-time record low in winter sea ice extent in 2023 can be explained by warm Southern Ocean conditions and patterns in the winds that circled Antarctica months earlier, allowing forecasts for sea ice coverage around the South Pole to be generated six or more months in advance. This could support regional and global weather and climate models.
December 5, 2024
Hummingbird bills 鈥� their long, thin beaks 鈥� look a little like drinking straws. But new research shows just how little water, or nectar, that comparison holds. 天美影视传媒 scientists have discovered that the hummingbird bill is surprisingly flexible. While drinking, a hummingbird rapidly opens and shuts different parts of its bill simultaneously, engaging in an intricate and highly coordinated dance with its tongue to draw up nectar at lightning speeds.
December 4, 2024
From a base at the southwest corner of the UW’s Seattle campus, the Office of the Washington State Climatologist’s Guillaume Mauger and Karin Bumbaco provide expertise, tools and resources on 鈥渁ll things climate鈥� to partners and communities across the state.
November 26, 2024
When he isn鈥檛 lecturing at the 天美影视传媒 or pursuing his doctoral studies at the University of California, Davis, Tory Johnston (Quinault) co-hosts a global Indigenous radio show, Sounds of Survivance.
November 25, 2024
An analysis of the health care records of 1.2 million Southern California residents found that higher long-term smoke exposure was associated with a significant increase in the odds that a person would be diagnosed with dementia.聽Exposure to non-wildfire PM2.5 also increased a person鈥檚 risk of dementia, but to a much lesser degree.聽聽
November 21, 2024
The 天美影视传媒 was ranked No. 15 in the world for interdisciplinary scientific research, according to a new list published earlier this month by the U.K.-based Times Higher Education. The UW placed in the top 10 among U.S. institutions. Among U.S. public institutions, the UW placed fifth.
From campus to wherever you call home, we welcome you to learn from and connect with the College of Arts & Sciences community through public events spanning the arts, humanities, natural sciences, and social sciences. We hope to see you this December. Open Exhibits Henry Art Gallery Through March 2025 | Overexposures: Photographs from the Henry Collection This focused presentation features a selection of photographs from the Henry鈥檚 collections that explore the uses of light to obscure, obliterate, and alter…
A new study led by the 天美影视传媒 has for the first time quantified the risk for whale-ship collisions worldwide for four geographically widespread ocean giants that are threatened by shipping: blue, fin, humpback and sperm whales. In a paper published online Nov. 21 in Science, researchers report that global shipping traffic overlaps with about 92% of these whale species鈥� ranges. Only about 7% of areas at highest risk for whale-ship collisions have any measures in place to protect whales from this threat. These measures include speed reductions, both mandatory and voluntary, for ships crossing waters that overlap with whale migration or feeding areas.
UW News sat down with experts in public health and AI to discuss AI could enhance health care, what鈥檚 standing in the way, and whether there’s a downside to democratizing medical research.聽聽
November 20, 2024
A routine inspection of the 天美影视传媒鈥檚 animal care and use program conducted by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) on Oct. 8 identified issues that the UW had self-reported and corrected before the inspection took place.
天美影视传媒 researchers developed a system for detecting subtle biases in AI models. They found seven of the eight popular AI models they tested in conversations around race and caste generated significant amounts of biased text in interactions 鈥� particularly when discussing caste. Open-source models fared far worse than two proprietary ChatGPT models.
November 18, 2024
Jie Xiao, 天美影视传媒 professor of mechanical engineering, talks about batteries and how academia can help support the growing domestic battery manufacturing industry.
UW assistant professor Sheng Wang discusses BiomedParse, an AI medical image analysis model that works across nine types of medical images to better predict systemic diseases. Medical professionals can load images into the system and ask the AI tool questions about them in plain English.
November 14, 2024
The 天美影视传媒 named Deborah H. Fuller, a professor of Microbiology at the UW School of Medicine, the next director of the Washington National Primate Research Center. Fuller started in the new role on Nov. 1, said Vice Provost of Research Mari Ostendorf.
A team led by researchers at the 天美影视传媒 has created a headphone prototype that allows listeners to hear people speaking within a bubble with a programmable radius of 3 to 6 feet. Voices and sounds outside the bubble are quieted an average of 49 decibels, even if they鈥檙e louder than those in the bubble.
November 11, 2024
The 天美影视传媒鈥檚 annual Veterans Day ceremony, held on Monday at the Medal of Honor Memorial near Parrington Hall, honored those who have served and featured music by the Husky Marching Band. The Monday ceremony kicked off a number of events during Veteran Appreciation Week at UW. UW alum Dr. Dana Covey, 鈥�84, U.S. Navy, was honored with the Distinguished Alumni Veteran Award by Provost Tricia Serio. Covey is considered one of the world鈥檚 leading authorities on battlefield care…
November 8, 2024
A team led by scientists at the 天美影视传媒 and the University of Aberdeen attached tiny 鈥渂ackpack鈥� trackers to hummingbirds in the Colombian Andes to learn more about their movements. As they report in a paper published Oct. 10 in the journal Ecology and Evolution, the tracking system will aid conservation efforts in this region by revealing the previously hidden movements of hummingbirds and other small animals.
November 5, 2024
As Earth faces unprecedented climate change, a look into the planet鈥檚 deep past may provide vital insights into what may lie ahead. But knowledge of the natural world millions of years ago is fragmented. A 15-year study of a site in Bolivia by a joint U.S.-Bolivia team has provided a comprehensive view of an ancient ecosystem when Earth was much warmer than it is today, and changed how we look at the Andes.
Before the results of the 2024 election start rolling in, UW News asked three 天美影视传媒 professors of political science to discuss what鈥檚 on their minds heading into the final hours.
November 4, 2024
NASA has awarded a five-year, $2.5 million grant to establish a regional scientific consortium based at the 天美影视传媒, in partnership with Washington State University and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. The consortium will use an interdisciplinary approach to explore how the space environment 鈥� both in low-Earth orbit and beyond 鈥� affects living things.
The 天美影视传媒 on Monday announced several improvements and new practices to address concerns of antisemitism and Islamophobia that were raised in a recent climate assessment and associated task force reports.
October 31, 2024
天美影视传媒 researchers found significant racial, gender and intersectional bias in how three state-of-the-art large language models ranked resumes. The models favored white-associated names 85% of the time, female-associated names only 11% of the time, and never favored Black male-associated names over white male-associated names.
October 30, 2024
Chelsea Wood, a 天美影视传媒 associate professor of aquatic and fishery sciences, has an upcoming children’s book titled 鈥淧ower to the Parasites! Everything You (N)ever Wanted to Know About the Creepy Crawlies Hidden in Your Home, Your Food, Your Pets – and Maybe Even in You!” The book introduces kids to the world of parasitism.
Across its three campuses, the 天美影视传媒 generated a total impact on the state鈥檚 economy of $20.9 billion in fiscal year 2023, according to an economic contribution analysis released today. The study further concludes that the economic activity of the UW system supported or sustained 111,951 jobs statewide.聽
October 29, 2024
The 天美影视传媒 on Tuesday announced a transformational gift from the estate of Stan and Alta Barer to the School of Law, expanding the couple鈥檚 namesake institute: The Barer Institute for Leadership in Law & Global Development. The gift will support the recruitment of additional international fellows, increase scholarships, endow faculty positions and create more global impact.
America鈥檚 homeless services system relies on a massive amount of data, and at first glance, that data is exacting. Federal reports describe the country鈥檚 unhoused population in granular detail, listing precisely how many people are experiencing homelessness in each city along with detailed demographic data. Want to know how many people ages 55-64 slept outside in Spokane last year? A spreadsheet confidently provides the answer: just one.聽 That data influences decisions at every level of government, from how the U.S….
October 24, 2024
From campus to wherever you call home, we welcome you to learn from and connect with the College of Arts & Sciences community through public events spanning the arts, humanities, natural sciences, and social sciences. We hope to see you this November. Election & Democracy Events November 7 | Trust on the Ballot: Voting in Washington Shortly after the General Election, three Washington Secretaries of State discuss the history and evolution of voting in our state鈥攆rom the various systems in…
October 23, 2024
Charity Urbanski, a teaching professor of history at the UW, studies monsters and monstrosities in medieval Europe. One of her interests is the purpose monsters served for medieval Europeans, and what we can learn about medieval European society by looking at their monsters, which served as vehicles for expressing anxieties and fears.
A new study finds that rocky planets orbiting small stars do have the potential for stable, life-supporting atmospheres. The finding supports continued study of the TRAPPIST-1 system and other top candidates in the search for life outside our solar system.
天美影视传媒 researchers created MobiPrint, a mobile 3D printer that can automatically measure a room and print objects onto the floor. The team鈥檚 graphic interface lets users design objects in a space that the robot has mapped out. The prototype, which the team built on a modified consumer vacuum robot, can add a range of objects to rooms.
October 22, 2024
Polar bears in some parts of the high Arctic are developing ice buildup and related injuries to their feet. The changes appear to be an unexpected consequence of climate change, related to changing conditions in a warming Arctic.