Imagine having a daylong Thanksgiving feast every day for a month, then, only pauper’s rations the rest of the year.
University of Washington researchers have discovered Dolly Varden, a kind of trout, eating just that way in Alaska’s Chignik Lake watershed.
Organs such as the stomach and intestines in the Dolly Varden doubled to quadrupled in size when eggs from spawning sockeye salmon became available each August, the researchers found. They were like vacuums sucking up the eggs and nipping at the flesh of spawned-out salmon carcasses. (more…)
Microsoft partners with the U.S. National Women’s History Museum to launch an exhibit examining the journey of American women who have started businesses over the last century.
REDMOND, Wash. – March 28, 2013 – At Microsoft, advocating for women in business is rooted in the corporate conscience, along with the belief in women’s power to blaze trails and shape their own destinies through entrepreneurship. In recognition of March commemorating both International Women’s Day and National Women’s History Month in the United States, Microsoft is shining a light on the stories of women entrepreneurs around the world and showcasing how technology has played a transformative role in enabling entrepreneurship.(more…)
People living near asphalt pavement sealed with coal tar have an elevated risk of cancer, according to a study in the journal Environmental Science and Technology. Much of this calculated excess risk results from exposures in children, age six or younger, to polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) from the sealant.
“The increased cancer risk associated with coal-tar-sealed asphalt (CSA) likely affects a large number of people in the U.S. Our results indicate that the presence of coal-tar-based pavement sealants is associated with significant increases in estimated excess lifetime cancer risk for nearby residents,” said E. Spencer Williams, Ph.D., principal author of the study and Baylor University assistant research scientist at the Center for Reservoir and Aquatic Systems Research in Baylor’s College of Arts & Sciences. (more…)
Peer support groups show promise for combating the debilitating stigma that surrounds epilepsy in much of the developing world, according to a new study led by a Michigan State University medical student.
The researchers report in the journal Epilepsy and Behavior that young people with the disease felt significantly less stigmatized after meeting regularly to discuss their illness. (more…)
As part of its YouthSpark initiative to create opportunities for youth, Microsoft welcomes 15,000 students to We Day at Seattle’s KeyArena.
SEATTLE — March 27, 2013 — At the age of 12, while looking for the morning comics in the newspaper, Craig Kielburger stumbled upon a news item about a 12-year-old boy killed in Pakistan for speaking out against child labor. Outraged by the story, he desperately wanted to do something to help. After a number of phone calls and attempts to contact nonprofit organizations, Kielburger realized it wasn’t so easy for kids to get involved with social activism. That’s when he got an idea.
That same year, the young Canadian founded his own nonprofit, Free The Children, to pave the way for kids to help other kids around the world. Twelve years later, in 2007, Kielburger took his organization to the next level, launching the We Act program in schools across Canada and creating a more widespread approach to helping youth make a difference. As part of the program, Free The Children hosts a celebration in each participating city called We Day. (more…)
Jordanna Bailkin is a University of Washington professor of history and author of the new book “The Afterlife of Empire.” She answered a few questions about the book for UW Today.
Q: What is the central concept behind this book?
A: I wanted to understand how Britain and Britons were affected by losing their empire, and how they were changed — often in deeply personal ways — by this process of decolonization. (more…)
Among other tragedies in countries with HIV epidemics, political violence can have the additional long-term consequence of an increase in viral resistance to treatment and HIV treatment failure, say the authors of a new paper in AIDS Reviews. The researchers, who have studied post-strife treatment failure and resistance in Kenya, argue that officials and health care providers need to study and prepare for how violence disrupts antiretroviral treatment and complicates the epidemic.(more…)
In October 2010 freshman Erin Diamond first walked into Yang Zhang’s lab, knowing nothing about his specialty: brain imaging.
Before the day was out, she was setting up experiments, putting an EEG cap on volunteers, and generally undergoing total immersion in the field.(more…)
