Solutions
April 5, 2018
International problem solvers
Outside of the classroom, UW engineering students solve problems around the world.
Genetic fortune telling
Thanks to services such as 23andMe, genetics has gone mainstream. But should you believe the hype?
March 26, 2018
From playdough to Plato
Children are by nature philosophical thinkers—ready to take on heady topics like race, fairness and human rights.
March 13, 2018
New point of view
Lisa Zurk, ’95, will be the first woman to lead the Applied Physics Laboratory.
March 6, 2018
Cyber safe
Stefan Savage, ’02, earned a MacArthur "genius" grant for his work on cyber security.
March 5, 2018
Stop the bleed
It only takes a few minutes to bleed to death, but bystanders with a little knowledge can save lives.
March 4, 2018
The man who made us look
Psychology professor Anthony Greenwald developed the Implicit Association Test, a rapid-fire survey that reveals the biases that lurk inside us.
January 9, 2018
Rural rescue
Connecting UW Medicine research to primary care clinics around the region.
December 28, 2017
Forging new links
A new type of fire-resistant wood reduces atmospheric carbon and can be made of damaged trees. Could it revive depressed economies in Washington’s rural timber communities?
December 15, 2017
The puzzle of aging
Building on decades of research and outreach, UW experts are piecing together new ways to live longer and better.
December 11, 2017
History lessons
After Charlottesville clash, a history professor heard echoes of an ugly era.
December 8, 2017
Engineering on the brain
Doctors, engineers and other experts work together at the UW Center for Sensorimotor Neural Engineering.
December 7, 2017
The opioid boom
The prevailing practice for treating addiction to painkillers led to the worst man-made epidemic in modern medical history.
September 13, 2017
Transplants on the double
UW Medicine’s innovation could yield better results for kidney patients.
June 27, 2017
Welcome back, Paul Allen
Before he funded UW's computer science labs, Paul Allen got kicked out of them.
June 26, 2017
Predict and prevent
The UW has partnered with Microsoft and the city of Bellevue to curb traffic accidents with machine learning.
June 15, 2017
'If we don't, who will?'
A family eager to help their son has helped make the UW a leader in facing down an insidious disease.
June 12, 2017
Legal loop
Fees and fines are the punishment that keeps on giving in the criminal justice system.
May 25, 2017
Micro-damaging
Overt racism has long been linked to health disparities, but what about subtle slights?
March 24, 2017
Why do people give to charity?
Why do we give to charitable organizations and causes? Our motivations for philanthropic giving depend on how we feel we’re faring compared to others.
Cancer calamity
Disparities in health care access hit communities of color hard—particularly when it comes to cancer.
Gates gift
A historic $279 million donation will enable the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation to forecast health scenarios.
![If you are a Hispanic or African American woman diagnosed with breast cancer, your chances of a good outcome—and sometimes even of surviving—are not as good as that of a Caucasian woman. It’s an unfortunate fact in America’s health care system. Just ask Ali Mokdad. The UW professor of global health conducted a landmark study of 29 cancers and U.S. deaths by county from 1980-2014. What he uncovered was beyond sobering. Although deaths from all cancers combined fell by 20 percent in the U.S. as a whole, cancer rates are actually rising in 160 counties that had predomoniantly lower income and minority residents. In some counties, death rates are more than 20 times higher than average. “In a country where we spend more than anyone else on health care and we debate health all the time, it surprised me to see such huge disparities at the county level. We are leaving people behind in some places where the cancer rate is increasing,” says Mokdad, lead author on the study that was completed at the UW’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation. “You see certain counties where life expectancy is as high as anywhere in the world and other places where the life expectancy is like countries in Africa and Asia.” Medical science can’t always explain why a particular cancer occurs more often in one part of the U.S. than in another. For example, in the Puget Sound area, people tend to get less cancer overall and have better survival rates than in places such as the Deep South, the states bordering Mexico and the Southeast. On the other hand, Puget Sound residents appear more vulnerable to brain cancer. And this area has seen higher rates of some types of blood cancer with higher death rates than in other parts of the U.S. “It’s hard to speculate on reasons. Something else is going on, but it’s very important to know that it’s a problem,” says Mokdad. In general, disparities in cancer and death rates are affected by a host of factors: lifestyle, access to cancer screenings, patient compliance, access to quality care and proximity to quality treatment. “The question is, how can we bring prevention to the forefront of what we are doing,” he adds. “It’s not enough to have excellent treatment.” The sad truth is that disparities in health care access, treatment and outcome hit communities of color especially hard. Breast cancer is a primary example. African American and Hispanic women are more likely to have more aggressive forms of cancer, to be diagnosed with more advanced cancer and to have worse outcomes. Lupe Salazar, associate professor in the Division of Oncology, says underrepresented minority women are also more likely to receive treatment that fails to meet recognized standards of care. “Before the Affordable Care Act, we had patients at the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance who couldn’t get the full complement of services. For example, the Medicaid vouchers wouldn’t cover PET Scans,” says Salazar, ’02, ’03. PET scans are vital in pinpointing the location and severity of cancer. But they are expensive; the average cost of a PET scan ranges from $3,000 to more than $12,000. Minority women, particularly if they are low income or single parents, are also much less likely to participate in clinical trials. Government funding agencies always ask researchers to recruit from minority populations, “but [there is] nobody to give you resources or funding for things like paying for translators for help with getting consents,” Salazar explains. “It’s also very hard to enroll patients who don’t have a computer or a way to log on to clinicaltrials.gov or a way to find the database of experimental treatments.” Health disparities plague other communities including immigrants. India Ornelas, ’99, assistant professor in health services, and Vicky Taylor, research professor in health services, are working to increase the number of refugee women who receive regular screenings for cervical cancer. They created a video to build awareness for non-medical audiences. Collaboration is absolutely vital to addressing these inequities in diagnosis and treatment. “We are going to come together to figure out what we can build on and what we can deliver,” says Salazar. “We hope the Population Health Initiative will improve the health care of the poorest people, whether you’re in the Pacific Northwest or a developing country. We will see.” n—Julie Garner](https://magazine.washington.edu/columns_wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/live-better-150x150.jpg)
Live better
Where we live affects our quality of life in many ways, including our health, happiness and social equity.
February 28, 2017
Birds’ brains
An over-the-counter health supplement can be linked linked to aggression in songbirds, suggesting health implications for people who may be using the DHEA hormone.
Failure to grow
About 162 million children worldwide under the age of five are considered too short for their age—a growth failure called stunting.
February 27, 2017
Yes, it's rocket science. Really.
Inspired by the film "Hidden Figures," the Obama White House honored a group of women of color who have contributed to NASA’s success. Two UW alumnae were included.
December 29, 2016
The breast biopsy puzzle
Why some women don't get clarity when it comes to a cancer diagnosis.
Healthy people, healthy planet
With a $210 million gift, the UW moves forward to become a global hub for human health.
December 21, 2016
Fishy business
A broad examination of seafood mislabeling and the ecological and financial impacts suggests that because of the mislabeling, more people are eating more sustainably.
Smartphones over needles
A team of engineers and computer scientists from the University of Washington has developed HemaApp, a smartphone camera app to measure hemoglobin levels.
December 19, 2016
Smarter garbage
Compost. Recycle. Landfill. Three words, so many headaches. Two design professors think interactive trash bins could make life much easier.
December 16, 2016
Long live twins
Two UW researchers paired up to look at the life span of twins. They found that womb-mates live longer than the rest of us.
December 13, 2016
On the mend
No matter the fate of the Affordable Care Act, UW faculty and alumni continue to seek remedies for our health care system.
December 12, 2016
Social mourning
Two UW sociology researchers are studying how people tweet about death, analyzing feeds of deceased Twitter users.
September 1, 2016
Deep data
In April 2015, the Axial Seamount, an active underwater volcano about 300 miles off the coast of Oregon, erupted. For the first time ever, scientists, engineers and students from the UW and around the world could watch it in real time thanks to an elaborate array of sensors they installed a year earlier.
The batwoman
Forget the silly myths about vampires. Sharlene Santana discovered that the role of bats in the environment is underrated. And most don't want to bite you.
June 1, 2016
Nordic Noir
Scandinavian Studies Professor Andy Nestingen shares his research into the genre and how it contrasts with American Noir’s heroes and villains.
Urban evolution
The UW's Urban Ecology Research Lab studies how species change in response to cities.
March 1, 2016
Test driven
Here, we present the tales of two clinical trials of technology that one day could alleviate suffering and improve lives for the hundreds of thousands of people suffering from severe heart problems and kidney failure.
December 1, 2015
'Scarface' found
A team of scientists has identified a new species of “pre-mammal” based on fossils unearthed in Zambia’s Luangwa Basin in 2009. Its discoverers include Christian Sidor, UW professor of biology and curator of vertebrate paleontology at the Burke Museum.
Sweet gratitude
Gratitude is universally considered a social good—the warm feeling that results from a kindness received. But it can have a dark side: It can impel us to eat more sweets, according to new research by Ann Schlosser, professor of marketing at the Foster School of Business.
Tech that knows
A new wearable technology developed at the UW called MagnifiSense can detect what devices and vehicles the user interacts with.
September 1, 2015
High volume
Recordings by current and former UW researchers in fjords show that melting at glacier edges in the narrow rock-edged canyons are some of the noisiest places in the sea.
Cellphone guilt
A new UW study finds that cellphone use at playgrounds is a significant source of parental guilt, as well as a powerful distraction when children try to get caregivers’ attention.
Cling like a fish
Scooting around in the shallow, coastal waters of Puget Sound is one of the world’s best suction cups. It’s called the Northern clingfish, and its small, finger-sized body uses suction forces to hold up to 150 times its own body weight.
Space explorers
Fifty years is no time at all for a universe that dates back 13.8 billion. But for those who study the sky, the past five decades have changed everything.
June 1, 2015
Blood stancher
An injectable polymer could keep soldiers and trauma patients from bleeding to death.
Mindfulness
Whether it’s coping with college or taming an addiction, mindfulness has real medical and practical benefits, and it’s something UW researchers have been exploring for decades.
A startling find
Since she was a student in pharmacy school, Shelly Gray has felt a strong connection to the situation many elderly patients find themselves in: “I was struck by how many different medications older adults are taking, as well as their struggle with trying to keep those medications straight,” she recalls.
Hazy on the law
More than two years after Washington legalized marijuana, parents and teens may be hazy on the specifics of the law.
Leaves tell a story
Miniscule, fossilized pieces of plants could tell a detailed story of what the Earth looked like 50 million years ago.
March 1, 2015
Brain discovery
A couple of years ago a scientist looking at dozens of MRI scans of human brains noticed something surprising: a large fiber pathway that seemed to be part of the network of connections that process visual information.
Mirage Earths
Planets orbiting close to low-mass stars—the most common stars in the universe—are prime targets in the search for extraterrestrial life. But new research led by an astronomy graduate student at the UW indicates some such planets may have long since lost their chance at hosting life.
Baby face
It’s a game parents like to play: What will my child look like when she grows up? A computer could now answer the question in less than a minute.
Brain spotting
Football concussions get a lot of attention, but UW researchers want to know how a single brain injury can affect an ordinary person decades down the line.
Clues from bird brains
Brain cells that multiply to help birds sing their best during breeding season are known to die back naturally later in the year. For the first time, researchers have described the series of events that cue new neuron growth each spring.
Phone training
Mobile phones have become second-nature for most people. What’s coming next, say UW researchers, is the ability to interact with our devices not just with touchscreens, but through gestures in the space around the phone.
Toddler logic
Researchers have found that children as young as 2 intuitively use mathematical concepts such as probability to help make sense of the world.
September 1, 2014
Fighter flies
University of Washington researchers used an array of high-speed video cameras operating at 7,500 frames a second to capture the wing and body motion of flies after they encountered a looming image of an approaching predator.
Tide turner
Tidal power holds tremendous potential, especially here in the Evergreen State, because of the sheer volume of water moving in and out of Puget Sound each day.
Robot response
UW electrical engineers have developed telerobotics technology that could make disaster response faster and more efficient.
About everything
Computer scientists from the UW and the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence in Seattle have created the first fully automated computer program that teaches everything there is to know about any visual concept.
June 1, 2014
Deep into oceans
The chemistry of the ocean has changed dramatically over the decades that Terrie Klinger has been studying her beloved West Coast waters.
Cosmetic enhancement
Millions of people each year remove wrinkles, soften creases and plump up their lips by having a physician inject a gel-like material into their facial tissue. These cosmetic procedures are sometimes called “liquid facelifts” and are said to be minimally invasive. It’s rare, but sometimes things go wrong.
Robot observers
This fall the UW will complete installation of a massive digital ocean observatory. Dozens of instruments will connect to power and Internet cables on the sea floor, but the observatory also includes a new generation of ocean explorers: robots that will zoom up and down through almost two miles of ocean to monitor the water conditions and marine life above.
Mobile medicine
A collaboration between UW Computer Science and Engineering and PATH, a Seattle-area non-governmental organization, has led to a simple, ingenious solution to a dilemma facing women in Sub-Saharan Africa who wish to store breast milk. While medical care and safe water are not always available, most Africans today have smartphones.
March 1, 2014
Lake Mars
The mystery of how the surface of Mars, long dead and dry, could have flowed with water billions of years ago may have been solved by research that included a University of Washington astronomer.
Brain sugar
A growing body of evidence suggests that the brain plays a key role in glucose regulation and the development of type 2 diabetes.
Genetic echo
Researchers led by Dr. John Stamatoyannopoulos have discovered a second code hiding within DNA. This second code contains information that changes how scientists read the instructions contained in DNA and interpret mutations to make sense of health and disease.
Got data. Now what?
At the UW, the best minds are collaborating to ask questions and harness the power of “Big Data” to find answers and seek solutions to advance the common good.
December 1, 2013
Autism onset
Between ages 3 and 10, children with autism spectrum disorder exhibit distinct brain chemical changes that differ from children with developmental delays and those with typical development, according to a new study led by UW researchers.
Distracted drivers
In Washington state’s first study to examine driver use of electronic devices, UW investigators saw that more than 8 percent of drivers were engaging with such devices behind the wheel, higher than previously estimated.
Brain bonding
UW researchers have performed what they believe is the first noninvasive human-to-human brain interface, with one researcher able to send a brain signal via the Internet to control the hand motions of a fellow researcher.
Robot bonds
Julie Carpenter, who earned her doctorate in education from the UW in June, isn’t interested in fantasy movie robots. She wants to know something more serious: the social relationship between robots and their operators in the military.
September 1, 2013
The inspiration inquiry
Expanding the boundaries of knowledge in dance, theater and other performing arts requires research of a different stripe.
Wi-Fi lifestyle
Thanks to gesture-recognition technology developed by University of Washington computer scientists, you may soon be able to brew a pot of coffee, shut off your computer, and turn up the stereo with just a few waves of your hands.
Pollution pall
For years, scientists regarded the decades of drought in Central Africa that reached an apex in the 1980s as the result of poor agricultural practices and overgrazing. New University of Washington research, however, shows that the drought was caused at least in part by Northern Hemisphere air pollution.
Finding phosphorous
Life on Earth may have never come to exist if not for some meteorites that pelted the planet billions of years ago.
Keeping kids clean and sober
An answer to teen drug use isn’t quite as simple as “just say no.” Many teenagers know they are supposed to say no to tobacco, alcohol and other drugs but they don’t know why.
June 1, 2013
Sediment settlement
Salmon are headed upstream in the Elwha River for the first time in more than a century, but sediment—and lots of it—is headed downstream. The sediment is the result of the largest dam removal project ever undertaken.
Planet unearthed
Using the Kepler telescope, scientists have been looking for Earth-like planets beyond the solar system since 2009. UW associate professor of astronomy Eric Agol has discovered perhaps the most Earth-like planet yet found outside the solar system.
Keeping cool
UW scientists have provided fresh insight into an issue that has vexed civilization since the beginning: how to keep a drink cold on a hot day.
Probing DNA
The University of Washington Adult Medical Genetics Clinic is not only well-established—both UW and Johns Hopkins started the first genetics programs in 1957—but is widely considered the best in the world.
March 1, 2013
Trisomy trials
Certain medical problems experienced by people with Down Syndrome may eventually be helped because of a research breakthrough at the UW.
Solving IBS
The cause and treatment of Irritable Bowel Syndrome are complex problems that researchers at the UW School of Nursing are systematically addressing.