Understanding the planet’s history is crucial if we are to predict its future. While some records are preserved in ice cores or tree rings, other records of the climate’s ancient past are buried deep in the seafloor. (more…)
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 showed up on the scans, but the researcher couldn’t find it mentioned in any of the modern-day anatomy textbooks he had. (more…)
Sometimes, words just complicate things. What if our brains could communicate directly with each other, bypassing the need for language?
University of Washington researchers have successfully replicated a direct brain-to-brain connection between pairs of people as part of a scientific study following the team’s initial demonstration a year ago. In the newly published study, which involved six people, researchers were able to transmit the signals from one person’s brain over the Internet and use these signals to control the hand motions of another person within a split second of sending that signal. (more…)
Freshwater fish with bellies full of shrews – one trout a few years back was found to have eaten 19 – aren’t as random as scientists have thought.
In some years, probably when shrew populations boom, the small mouse-like land animals end up in the stomachs of a quarter of rainbow trout and Arctic grayling larger than a foot, according to University of Washington-led research in the coastal lakes and streams of Southwest Alaska. (more…)
Moon-Ho Jung is an associate professor of history and editor of the book “The Rising Tide of Color: Race, State Violence and Radical Movements across the Pacific,” published by University of Washington Press. He answered a few questions about the book.
Q: What is the concept behind this book and how did it come to be written?
A: In May 2011, when I was directing the Center for the Study of the Pacific Northwest, we hosted a major conference that sought to center the Pacific Coast in the study of race and politics, in part because the American West tends to be ignored in conversations about race. (more…)
One of Arizona’s largest watersheds – home to many native species of fish already threatened by extinction – is providing a grim snapshot of what could happen to watersheds and fish in arid areas around the world as climate warming occurs.
New research by University of Washington and Ohio State University scientists suggests that, by 2050, the Verde River Basin in Arizona will have up to one-fifth more streams dry up each season and at least a quarter more days with no water flow, a problem when fish are trying to reach spawning habitats and refuges where water still remains. (more…)
Following rapid warming in the late 20th century, this century has so far seen surprisingly little increase in the average temperature at the Earth’s surface. At first this was a blip, then a trend, then a puzzle for the climate science community.
More than a dozen theories have now been proposed for the so-called global warming hiatus, ranging from air pollution to volcanoes to sunspots. New research from the University of Washington shows that the heat absent from the surface is plunging deep in the north and south Atlantic Ocean, and is part of a naturally occurring cycle. The study is published Aug. 22 in Science. (more…)
The planet’s largest and most powerful driver of climate changes from one year to the next, the El Niño Southern Oscillation in the tropical Pacific Ocean, was widely thought to have been weaker in ancient times because of a different configuration of the Earth’s orbit. But scientists analyzing 25-foot piles of ancient shells have found that the El Niños 10,000 years ago were as strong and frequent as the ones we experience today. (more…)
