Research
March 1, 2015
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.
December 1, 2014
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
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.
June 1, 2014
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.
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.