university of washington – Page 12 – Shamskm: A site to exchange knowledge and solutions

Mutant Champions Save Imperiled Species from Almost-Certain Extinction

By Guest PostFebruary 25, 2013Scienceantibiotics, bacterium, benjamin kerr, changing environments, climate change, disease causing bacteria, e coli, environmental changes, environmental deterioration, escherichia coli, eth zurich, evolutionary adaptations, evolutionary rescue, extinction, extinction bullet, genes, genetic engineering, haley lindsey, heavy metals, high concentration environment, human caused changes, imperiled species, insects, jenna gallie, lower concentration, mutant champions, number of factors, overfishing, pesticides, population, populations of microorganisms, rapid rates, relay team, seattle, susan taylor, university of washington

Species facing widespread and rapid environmental changes can sometimes evolve quickly enough to dodge the extinction bullet. Populations of disease-causing bacteria evolve, for example, as doctors flood their “environment,” the human body, with antibiotics. Insects, animals and plants can make evolutionary adaptations in response to pesticides, heavy metals and overfishing.

Previous studies have shown that the more gradual the change, the better the chances for “evolutionary rescue” – the process of mutations occurring fast enough to allow a population to avoid extinction in changing environments. One obvious reason is that more individuals remain alive when change is gradual or moderate, meaning there are more opportunities for a winning mutation to emerge. (more…)

Mussels Cramped by Environmental Factors

By Guest PostFebruary 22, 2013Environment, Natureautumn hurricanes, biodiversity, breed resistant, bungee cords, byssal threads, byssus, coast of washington, commercial growers, crabs, cramp, david garrison, emily carrington, environmental biologist, environmental factors, environmental fluctuation, fibrous threads, filaments, golden colored threads, hydrothermal vents, keystone species, laura newcomb, lobsters, marine food web, mass, mussel populations, mussels, Nature, ocean acidification, possible environmental culprits, rocky intertidal areas, science arena, sea anemones, seasonal weakening, spawning cycle, species, storms, stressor, typical summer temperatures, university of washington

The fibrous threads helping mussels stay anchored – in spite of waves that sometimes pound the shore with a force equivalent to a jet liner flying at 600 miles per hour – are more prone to snap when ocean temperatures climb higher than normal.

Emily Carrington, a University of Washington professor of biology, reported Saturday (Feb. 16) that the fibrous threads she calls “nature’s bungee cords” become 60 percent weaker in water that was 15 degrees F (7 C) above typical summer temperatures where the mussels were from. She spoke at the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in Boston. (more…)

European Satellite Confirms UW Numbers: Arctic Ocean is on Thin Ice

By Guest PostFebruary 20, 2013Environmentandy ridout, arctic ocean, Arctic sea ice, arctic waters, assimilation system, axel schweiger, below the ice, cloud, cryosat 2 satellite, data, duncan wingham, european satellite, european space agency, extent, ice ocean modeling, icesat, jinlun zhang, katharine giles, land elevation satellite, NASA, ocean surface, pan arctic, piomas, polar scientist, rosemary willatt, satellite observation, seymour laxon, thin ice, total volume, uk, university of washington, vulnerable, warming

The September 2012 record low in Arctic sea-ice extent was big news, but a missing piece of the puzzle was lurking below the ocean’s surface. What volume of ice floats on Arctic waters? And how does that compare to previous summers? These are difficult but important questions, because how much ice actually remains suggests how vulnerable the ice pack will be to more warming.

New satellite observations confirm a University of Washington analysis that for the past three years has produced widely quoted estimates of Arctic sea-ice volume. Findings based on observations from a European Space Agency satellite, published online in Geophysical Research Letters, show that the Arctic has lost more than a third of summer sea-ice volume since a decade ago, when a U.S. satellite collected similar data. (more…)

CryoSat-2 Mission Reveals Major Arctic Sea-Ice Loss

By Guest PostFebruary 18, 2013Environmentalfred wegener institute, aperture radar altimeter, Arctic, Arctic sea ice, assimilation system, autumn, canadian archipelago, cracks, cryosat 2 satellite, data, energy, european space agency, german aerospace center, greenland, high resolution, ice ocean modelling, ice thickness, icesat satellite, jet propulsion laboratory, katharine giles, microwave, modelling, NASA, pan arctic, piomas, polar observation, pulse, sea ice, seymour laxon, svalbard, synthetic, uk, university of washington, volume, york university

Arctic sea ice volume has declined by 36 per cent in the autumn and 9 per cent in the winter between 2003 and 2012, a UK-led team of scientists has discovered.

Researchers from the Centre for Polar Observation and Modelling at UCL used new data from the European Space Agency’s CryoSat-2 satellite spanning 2010 to 2012, and data from NASA’s ICESat satellite from 2003 to 2008 to estimate the volume of sea ice in the Arctic. (more…)

Get off my lawn: Song Sparrows Escalate Territorial Threats

By Guest PostFebruary 17, 2013Naturebehavior, brain mechanism, caglar akcay, communication system, cornell university, discovery park, distinctive ways, early warning signal, elizabeth campbell, flipping the bird, hierarchical warning scheme, human language, learn language, learning, male song sparrow, mari tom, melospiza melodia, michael beecher, pattern of signaling, people, seattle, song matching, territorial song sparrows, territory, threatening signals, trespassing rivals, university of washington, wing waving

Territorial song sparrows use increasingly threatening signals to ward off trespassing rivals. First an early warning that matches the intruder’s song, then wing waving – a bird’s version of “flipping the bird” – as the dispute heats up, and finally, if all other signals have failed, attack.

This hierarchical warning scheme, discovered by researchers at the University of Washington, adds nuance to a communication system that has been long-used as a model to study how people use and learn language (more…)

Mars Rock Takes Unusual Form

By Guest PostFebruary 12, 2013Sciencecuriosity mars rover, earth, erosion, mars, mars rock, martian rock, mast camera, mastcam, metallic object, NASA, natural elements, ronald sletten, seattle, shiny appearance, shiny looking rock, similar phenomena, types of rocks, university of washington, unusual appearance, unusual form

On Mars, as on Earth, sometimes things can take on an unusual appearance. A case in point is a shiny-looking rock seen in a recent image from NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover.

Some casual observers might see a resemblance to a car door handle, hood ornament or some other type of metallic object. To Ronald Sletten of the University of Washington, Seattle, a collaborator on Curiosity’s science team, the object is an interesting study in how wind and the natural elements cause erosion and other effects on various types of rocks. (more…)

More Sex for Married Couples with Traditional Divisions of Housework

By Guest PostFebruary 7, 2013General, Health, Sexdata, divisions of housework, everyday life, gender identity, juan march institute, julie brines, katrina leupp, madrid, marital satisfaction, marriage, married couples, more sex, sabino kornrich, sex, sex and housework, sexual behavior, sexual frequency, traditional gender roles, traditional ways, types of chores, university of washington, us couples

Married men and women who divide household chores in traditional ways report having more sex than couples who share so-called men’s and women’s work, according to a new study co-authored by sociologists at the University of Washington.

Other studies have found that husbands got more sex if they did more housework, implying that sex was in exchange for housework. But those studies did not factor in what types of chores the husbands were doing. (more…)

Organic Ferroelectric Molecule Shows Promise for Memory Chips, Sensors

By Guest PostFebruary 1, 2013Sciencebarium titanate, brittle materials, carbon based material, China, da wei fu, digital information, diisopropylammonium bromide, electrical field, energy storage, ferroelectric, future of hardware, gianluca giovannetti, hard, heart of computing, inorganic crystals, jiangyu li, low cost, massimo capone, memory, natural polarization, natural vibrations, negatively charged, nontoxic organic molecules, organic alternative, piezoelectric, positively charged, ren gen xiong, room temperature, seattle, sensing, silicon based semiconductors, southeast university, store energy, synthetic ferroelectrics, tiny crystals, titanium, toxicity, university of washington, yuanming liu

At the heart of computing are tiny crystals that transmit and store digital information’s ones and zeroes. Today these are hard and brittle materials. But cheap, flexible, nontoxic organic molecules may play a role in the future of hardware.

A team led by the University of Washington in Seattle and the Southeast University in China discovered a molecule that shows promise as an organic alternative to today’s silicon-based semiconductors. The findings, published this week in the journal Science, display properties that make it well suited to a wide range of applications in memory, sensing and low-cost energy storage. (more…)

Tag Archives: university of washington