University of Washington News - SciTechDaily

Two-Step Secret: Scientists Solve Electrochemical Biotechnology Mystery

University of Washington — Mon, 22 Jul 2024 16:17:51 +0000

New research has revealed that the lag observed in organic electrochemical transistors (OECTs) when switched on is due to a two-step activation process, providing crucial insights for designing more effective and customizable OECTs for various technological and biological applications. Researchers who want to bridge the divide between biology and technology spend a lot of time [...]

Detailed Wiring Diagram of Fruit Fly Muscles Reveals Unexpected Complexity

University of Washington School of Medicine/UW Medicine — Mon, 08 Jul 2024 23:40:07 +0000

Studies on fruit flies are shedding light on the complex neural coordination of movements, enhancing our understanding of motor neuron functionality. Scientists are developing a wiring diagram of the motor circuits in fruit flies’ central nervous system that control their muscles. This diagram, which is called a connectome, has already provided insights into the complex [...]

Umbrella Toxins: A Groundbreaking Class of Antimicrobials Found in Soil Bacteria

University of Washington School of Medicine/UW Medicine — Fri, 19 Apr 2024 14:52:10 +0000

Umbrella-shaped proteins discovered by scientists target and kill specific bacteria, holding promise for treating resistant infections. Researchers have discovered toxic protein particles, shaped like umbrellas, that soil bacteria known as Streptomyces secrete to squelch competitors, especially others of their own species. The discovery of the umbrella toxin particles and related information about their structures, composition, [...]

Ice Age Discoveries Cool Down Climate Change Alarms

University of Washington — Wed, 17 Apr 2024 18:00:56 +0000

New research indicates a decrease in the likelihood of the worst-case global warming scenarios, by studying ancient climate conditions and refining our understanding of climate sensitivity. As carbon dioxide accumulates in the atmosphere, the Earth will get hotter. But exactly how much warming will result from a certain increase in CO2 is under study. The [...]

How Talking to Your Baby in a High-Pitched Voice Boosts Their Language Skills

University of Washington — Sun, 14 Apr 2024 16:55:44 +0000

The sight of a parent engaging with their baby is universally touching. Speaking in a melodious, high-pitched tone—often called “parentese”—the parent reacts warmly to the baby’s coos and movements, frequently sharing smiles and making eye contact. These connections don’t just make for a touching sight. New research from the University of Washington’s Institute for Learning [...]

Unlocking the Ocean’s Secrets With Four Decades of Canned Salmon

James Urton, University of Washington — Sun, 07 Apr 2024 14:33:35 +0000

Using canned salmon, scientists studied anisakid roundworms to assess changes in Alaskan marine ecosystems over four decades, revealing insights into ecological health and the impact of environmental legislation. Alaskan waters are a critical fishery for salmon. Complex marine food webs underlie and sustain this fishery, and scientists want to know how climate change is reshaping [...]

Astrobiological Breakthrough: Detecting Life in the Ice Grains of Outer Moons

University of Washington — Sun, 31 Mar 2024 10:23:04 +0000

Research on ice grains from moons like Enceladus and Europa shows potential for detecting signs of life, paving the way for upcoming space missions with advanced detection instruments. The ice-encrusted oceans of some of the moons orbiting Saturn and Jupiter are leading candidates in the search for extraterrestrial life. A new lab-based study led by [...]

The 80 MPH Glacier Fracture: A Wake-Up Call From Antarctica

University of Washington — Sat, 02 Mar 2024 13:12:41 +0000

There’s enough water frozen in Greenland and Antarctic glaciers that if they melted, global seas would rise by many feet. What will happen to these glaciers over the coming decades is the biggest unknown in the future of rising seas, partly because glacier fracture physics is not yet fully understood. A critical question is how [...]

Unlocking Your Body’s Natural Weight Loss System That Works Like Wegovy, Ozempic and Mounjaro

Christopher Damman, University of Washington — Wed, 21 Feb 2024 14:03:22 +0000

Recent drugs like Wegovy, Ozempic, and Mounjaro represent breakthroughs in metabolic disease treatment, offering new hope for managing obesity and diabetes. However, their use raises questions about long-term effects and suitability for certain groups, underscoring the importance of a healthy lifestyle. Wegovy, Ozempic, and Mounjaro are weight loss and diabetes drugs that have made quite [...]

Soda Lakes: The Missing Link in the Origin of Life?

University of Washington — Fri, 26 Jan 2024 19:34:09 +0000

Charles Darwin suggested the possibility of life originating in a “warm little pond” with a suitable mix of chemicals and energy. New research conducted by the University of Washington and published in Communications Earth & Environment highlights a shallow “soda lake” in western Canada as a potential match for these conditions. The findings provide new [...]

Scientists Discover Groundbreaking Superconductor With On-Off Switches

Argonne National Laboratory — Mon, 22 Jan 2024 00:34:58 +0000

Material has potential applications in superconducting circuits for the next generation of industrial electronics. Researchers used the Advanced Photon Source to verify the rare characteristics of this material, potentially paving the way for more efficient large-scale computing. As industrial computing needs grow, the size and energy consumption of the hardware needed to keep up with [...]

Frozen Time Capsule: 800-Year-Old Ice Core Reveals Surprising Truths About Ocean Life

University of Washington — Tue, 26 Dec 2023 22:06:20 +0000

New research reveals that North Atlantic phytoplankton populations have been stable since the industrial era, contradicting previous studies of decline. To paraphrase Mark Twain, reports of declining phytoplankton in the North Atlantic may have been greatly exaggerated. A prominent 2019 study used ice cores in Antarctica to suggest that marine productivity in the North Atlantic [...]

HuGE AI Breakthrough: Using Crowdsourced Feedback in Robot Training

Adam Zewe, Massachusetts Institute of Technology — Mon, 27 Nov 2023 10:42:52 +0000

Human Guided Exploration (HuGE) enables AI agents to learn quickly with some help from humans, even if the humans make mistakes. To teach an AI agent a new task, like how to open a kitchen cabinet, researchers often use reinforcement learning — a trial-and-error process where the agent is rewarded for taking actions that get [...]

Breaking the Born-Oppenheimer Approximation – Experiments Unveil Long-Theorized Quantum Phenomenon

Argonne National Laboratory — Tue, 03 Oct 2023 21:16:22 +0000

Ultrafast lasers and X-rays have revealed the coupling between electronic and nuclear dynamics in molecules. Nearly a century ago, physicists Max Born and J. Robert Oppenheimer developed a hypothesis about the functioning of quantum mechanics within molecules. These molecules consist of complex systems of nuclei and electrons. The Born-Oppenheimer approximation postulates that the movements of [...]

Robotic Acoustic Swarms: Shape-Changing Smart Speaker for Ultimate Audio Control in Any Room

University of Washington — Thu, 21 Sep 2023 09:00:48 +0000

Introducing a smart speaker system that uses robotic ‘acoustic swarms’ to pinpoint and manage sounds, promising both enhanced audio control and privacy in busy settings. In virtual meetings, it’s easy to keep people from talking over each other. Someone just hits mute. But for the most part, this ability doesn’t translate easily to recording in-person [...]

New Research Reveals That Long COVID Is Not a Single Condition

University of Washington School of Medicine — Tue, 12 Sep 2023 00:42:06 +0000

The study revealed that symptoms evolve over time, with numerous patients experiencing headaches and fatigue. New data from a nationwide study recently published in the journal Open Forum of Infectious Diseases suggests that Long COVID is not a single condition, and should not be treated as such. This research examined the lasting symptoms of COVID-19 [...]

Unlocking the Secrets of Microbial Dark Matter: The Enigmatic World of Patescibacteria

University of Washington School of Medicine — Sun, 10 Sep 2023 05:19:58 +0000

Scientists uncover the genes essential for the unusual lifestyle of minuscule bacteria that live on the surface of larger bacteria. Patescibacteria are a mysterious group of minute microbes with elusive survival methods. While scientists can only cultivate a handful of these types, they are part of a diverse family found in many environments. The few [...]

Why Omicron Is Different – New Study Helps Explain SARS-CoV-2 Variants’ Rapid Spread

University of Washington School of Medicine — Fri, 01 Sep 2023 10:18:18 +0000

Omicron variants, which spread rapidly worldwide, attach to cells more effectively and elude antibodies with greater efficiency compared to earlier variants. The omicron variants of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which have rapidly spread around the world over the past year, latch onto our cells more tightly, invade them more efficiently, and elude many of the antibodies [...]

No More Cavities? Organoids Pave the Way for Enamel Regeneration

University of Washington School of Medicine — Wed, 16 Aug 2023 20:29:54 +0000

This advance is viewed as a pivotal initial step toward innovative therapies for the repair and regeneration of teeth. Stem cells have been used to produce organoids that release the proteins responsible for forming dental enamel, a substance that shields teeth from harm and decay. This initiative was led by a multi-disciplinary team of researchers from [...]

Global Genomes: Scientists Rewrite the Story of Human Genetics

University of Washington School of Medicine — Mon, 07 Aug 2023 17:14:51 +0000

University of Washington School of Medicine researchers played key roles in several aspects of a new genomic reference collection representing greater human population diversity. UW Medicine genome experts made significant scientific contributions to a National Institutes of Health (NIH) Human Genome Research Institute reference collection that better represents the genetic diversity of the world’s populations. [...]

Near-Earth “Potentially Hazardous” Asteroid Discovered: First Triumph for HelioLinc3D Algorithm

University of Washington — Wed, 02 Aug 2023 02:29:48 +0000

HelioLinc3D, a next-generation asteroid discovery algorithm developed for the Vera C. Rubin Observatory’s upcoming sky survey, has identified its first “potentially hazardous” asteroid, 2022 SF289. An asteroid discovery algorithm — designed to uncover near-Earth asteroids for the Vera C. Rubin Observatory’s upcoming 10-year survey of the night sky — has identified its first “potentially hazardous” [...]

Gateway to 3D Material Revolution: Researchers Put a Graphene Twist on Graphite

University of Washington — Wed, 19 Jul 2023 15:00:27 +0000

A breakthrough study by the University of Washington has shown that graphite, a 3D material, can be manipulated to possess properties of its 2D counterpart, graphene. This paves the way for the potential modification of other bulk materials to exhibit 2D-like properties, potentially expanding the frontier for technological innovations. Exploring the Potential of 2D Materials [...]

A Major Quantum Computing Leap With a Magnetic Twist – “A New Paradigm”

University of Washington — Wed, 28 Jun 2023 12:06:13 +0000

A University of Washington-led team has made a key quantum computing breakthrough by detecting fractional quantum anomalous Hall states in semiconductor material flakes, which could be instrumental in creating stable, fault-tolerant qubits. Quantum computing could revolutionize our world. For specific and crucial tasks, it promises to be exponentially faster than the zero-or-one binary technology that [...]

The Great Odyssey: Where Does Beach Sand Come From?

David R. Montgomery, University of Washington — Mon, 26 Jun 2023 17:51:00 +0000

Where Does Beach Sand Come From? The seemingly simple beach sand is actually the result of an epic natural process of mountain erosion and river transport. As mountains erode, they produce sediments including mud, sand, gravel, cobbles, and boulders, which then travel via streams and rivers to the sea, getting ground down along the way. [...]