Tag Archives: university of washington

Got Milk? Climate Change Means Stressed Cows in Southern U.S. May Have Less

By Guest PostJuly 11, 2012Environmentclimate change, dairy cows, dairy industry, dry arizona climate, eric salathe, florida, guillaume mauger, heat of summer, holstein milk, humidity, maricopa, milk production, nancy gohring, northern california, southern us, stressed cow, temperature, tillamook, university of washington, yoram bauman

“Cows are happy in parts of Northern California and not in Florida” is a good way to sum up the findings of new research from the University of Washington, said Yoram Bauman, best known as the “stand-up economist.”

Bauman and colleagues found that the decline in milk production due to climate change will vary across the U.S., since there are significant differences in humidity and how much the temperature swings between night and day across the country. For instance, the humidity and hot nights make the Southeast the most unfriendly place in the country for dairy cows.

Their study combined high-resolution climate data and county-level dairy industry data with a method for figuring out how weather affects milk production. The result is a more detailed report than previous studies and includes a county-by-county assessment — that will be available to farmers — of the impact climate change will have on Holstein milk production in the U.S. through 2080. (more…)

Scientists Discover New Trigger for Immense North Atlantic Ocean Spring Plankton Bloom

By Guest PostJuly 7, 2012Environmentadam huxtable, amala mahadevan, atlantic ocean, biological pump, bjarni saemundsson, carbon dioxide, climate, climate on earth, CO2, craig lee, diatoms, don rice, eddies, emily kallin, eric d asaro, fossil fuel, global carbon cycle, holiday fireworks, mary jane perry, michael ohmart, microscopic plants, modulate, north atlantic bloom, not sunlight, nsf, ocean physics, oceanic cycling, oxygen, photosynthesis, physical biological model, phytoplankton, research vessel, silica, sun, surface warming, university of maine, university of washington, us beachgoers, whirlpools, whoi, zooplankton

Ocean eddies help jump-start plankton blooms that spread across hundreds of square miles

On this July 4^th week, U.S. beachgoers are thronging their way to seaside resorts and parks to celebrate with holiday fireworks. But across the horizon and miles out to sea toward the north, the Atlantic Ocean’s own spring and summer ritual unfolds. It entails the blooming of countless microscopic plants, or phytoplankton.

In what’s known as the North Atlantic Bloom, an immense number of phytoplankton burst into existence, first “greening,” then “whitening” the sea as one or more species take the place of others.

What turns on this huge bloom, what starts these ocean fireworks? Is it the Sun’s warmth? (more…)

UW Deploying Seismic Sensors in Hope of Getting to Bottom of Spokane Quakes

By Guest PostJune 29, 2012Environmentautomated earthquake, bill steele, cascades, detector, douglas gibbons, echoes, fault, geological structure, internet access, mild earthquake, motion sensor, netquakes, ocean shores, oregon, project, puget sound region, seismic network, seismometer, spokane, spokane area, university of washington, Washington, yakima

It’s been a decade since a swarm of relatively mild earthquakes shook up parts of Spokane. Now, armed with the right tools, scientists want to find out what was at fault.

“It was always something not as well understood as we thought it should be,” said Douglas Gibbons, a University of Washington researcher in Earth and space sciences, who is guiding installation of strong-motion sensors as part of a project called NetQuakes.

NetQuakes will install a half-dozen seismometers in the Spokane area by the end of June, mostly in volunteers’ homes, to help improve understanding of what lies beneath the city. (more…)

Building Molecular ‘Cages’ to Fight Disease

By Guest PostJune 9, 2012Scienceartificial vaccines, bioinformatics, biomedical engineering, building blocks, circulation, david baker, drug, drug delivery, duilio cascio, human like proteins, lego blocks, medicine, michael sawaya, molecular biology, molecular cages, molecular structure, nanoscale materials, neil king, puzzle pieces, specialized proteins, tangles of ribbon, three-dimensional, tiny structures, todd yeates, traditional vaccine, tumor cells, ucla, university of washington, virus derived proteins, yen ting lai

UCLA-created nanoscale protein containers could aid drug, vaccine delivery

UCLA biochemists have designed specialized proteins that assemble themselves to form tiny molecular cages hundreds of times smaller than a single cell. The creation of these miniature structures may be the first step toward developing new methods of drug delivery or even designing artificial vaccines.

“This is the first decisive demonstration of an approach that can be used to combine protein molecules together to create a whole array of nanoscale materials,” said Todd Yeates, a UCLA professor of chemistry and biochemistry and a member of the UCLA–DOE Institute of Genomics and Proteomics and the California NanoSystems Institute at UCLA. (more…)

Engineered Microvessels Provide a 3-D Test Bed for Human Diseases

By Guest PostMay 31, 2012Science3 d test bed, abraham stroock, abundant protein, bioengineering, blood clots, bloodstream, cancer, chemical factor, collagen, cornell university, disease, endothelial cells, honeycomb, human, human blood vessels, human cancer, human cell, jose lopez, mechanical, mice and monkeys, michael craven, model, petri dish, samuel totorica, shear stress, tumor progression, university of washington, ying zheng

Mice and monkeys don’t develop diseases in the same way that humans do. Nevertheless, after medical researchers have studied human cells in a Petri dish, they have little choice but to move on to study mice and primates.

University of Washington bioengineers have developed the first structure to grow small human blood vessels, creating a 3-D test bed that offers a better way to study disease, test drugs and perhaps someday grow human tissues for transplant.

The findings are published online this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. (more…)

It’s in the Genes: Research Pinpoints How Plants Know When to Flower

By Guest PostMay 27, 2012Nature, Scienceandrew millar, arabidopsis, barley, benjamin to, biofuels, biology, circadian clock, factors, fkf1 protein, flowering locus t, flowering plants, know, mathematical model, molecular changes, molecular events, photoreceptor, plant, plants, prediction, protein, robert smith, sandra hines, scientists, sequence, shoot apex, sunlight, takato imaizumi, time keeping mechanism, university of edinburgh, university of washington, uw lab, wheat, when to flower, young hun song

Scientists believe they’ve pinpointed the last crucial piece of the 80-year-old puzzle of how plants “know” when to flower.

Determining the proper time to flower, important if a plant is to reproduce successfully, involves a sequence of molecular events, a plant’s circadian clock and sunlight.

Understanding how flowering works in the simple plant used in this study – Arabidopsis – should lead to a better understanding of how the same genes work in more complex plants grown as crops such as rice, wheat and barley, according to Takato Imaizumi, a University of Washington assistant professor of biology and corresponding author of a paper in the May 25 issue of the journal Science. (more…)

How Public Should Public Records Be? Increased Availability Sparks Privacy Concerns

By Guest PostMay 16, 2012Media, Technologybatya friedman, changes in behavior, Facebook, james fogarty, mashup, online technology, pacific northwest, peter kelley, political campaign, privacy concern, public, public record, sean munson, university of washington, us citizen, us democracy, web, zillow and redfin

Online technology has vastly increased citizens’ access to public records such as political campaign contributions and real estate transactions. But that explosion of information availability also sparks privacy concerns and may dampen some people’s willingness to engage in public activities, according to recent research.

Six researchers, including two from the University of Washington, co-authored the paper “Attitudes Toward Online Availability of U.S. Public Records.” It was presented at the Proceedings of the 12th Annual International Digital Government Research Conference in College Park, Md. An expanded version of the article will appear in a forthcoming issue of Information Polity. (more…)

Portable Diagnostics Designed To Be Shaken, Not Stirred

By Guest PostMay 12, 2012Scienceashutosh shastry, asymmetrical surface, audio speaker, blood, energy, hannah hickey, karl bohringer, lotus effect, lotus leaf, medical researcher, menlo park, Nanotechnology, portable diagnostics, rough surface, saliva, smartphone, todd duncombe, university of washington, vibration, vibration frequency, water sample, yegan erdem

As medical researchers and engineers try to shrink diagnostics to fit in a person’s pocket, one question is how to easily move and mix small samples of liquid.

University of Washington researchers have built and patented a surface that, when shaken, moves drops along certain paths to conduct medical or environmental tests.

“This allows us to move drops as far as we want, and in any kind of layout that we want,” said Karl Böhringer, a UW professor of electrical engineering and bioengineering. The low-cost system, published in a recent issue of the journal Advanced Materials, would require very little energy and avoids possible contamination by diluting or electrifying the samples in order to move them. (more…)