The area of the brain that plays a primary role in emotional learning and the acquisition of fear – the amygdala – may hold the key to who is most vulnerable to post-traumatic stress disorder.
Researchers at the University of Washington, Boston Children’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School and Boston University collaborated on a unique opportunity to study whether patterns of brain activity predict teenagers’ response to a terrorist attack. (more…)
Your eye could someday house its own high-tech information center, tracking important changes and letting you know when it’s time to see an eye doctor.
University of Washington engineers have designed a low-power sensor that could be placed permanently in a person’s eye to track hard-to-measure changes in eye pressure. The sensor would be embedded with an artificial lens during cataract surgery and would detect pressure changes instantaneously, then transmit the data wirelessly using radio frequency waves. (more…)
New research by the University of Washington and the UA shows that background odors can interfere with pollinators’ ability to find flowers.
Car and truck exhaust fumes that foul the air for humans also cause problems for pollinators.
In new research on how pollinators find flowers when background odors are strong, University of Washington and University of Arizona researchers have found that both natural plant odors and human sources of pollution can conceal the scent of sought-after flowers. (more…)
In his new book, “Get a Job: Labor Markets, Economic Opportunity, and Crime,” University of Washington sociologist Robert Crutchfield takes on the popular notion that the unemployed are more likely to commit crimes. A former juvenile probation officer and parole agent, Crutchfield explains the nuanced links between work, unemployment and crime.
Q. You write that the stratification of labor contributes significantly to a person’s lifestyle and whether or not they commit crimes. Can you explain?
A. When someone has a low-end job (what some scholars refer to as secondary sector jobs), such jobs don’t pay well, and have few or no benefits and limited prospects for the future. Young adults in that situation may feel like they don’t have to conform to society’s expectations, and are at risk of getting involved in crime because they are likely to spend time with similar young men. People with good jobs, what some scholars call primary sector jobs, by contrast have something to lose if they do not constrain their own lifestyles. So they spend less time in situations where crime might occur. The stratification of labor that I write about is the structuring of the labor market into primary sector (good) jobs and secondary sector (bad) jobs. (more…)
A significantly greater number of students fail science, engineering and math courses that are taught lecture-style than fail in classes incorporating so-called active learning that expects them to participate in discussions and problem-solving beyond what they’ve memorized.
Active learning also improves exam performance – in some cases enough to change grades by half a letter or more so a B-plus, for example, becomes an A-minus. (more…)
Social work researchers from the University of Washington have found that among a group of active-duty Army personnel who use illicit drugs, the most abused substance is synthetic marijuana, which is harder to detect than other drugs through standard drug tests. (more…)
By hightailing it to nearby ponds and shallow waterways, frogs and salamanders have – until now – had a way to evade exotic trout introduced to the West’s high-mountain lakes for recreational fishing.
A warming climate, however, will dry up some of the places where amphibians and their young have found refuge. Researchers in the May 1 issue of Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment write about this challenge and a novel combination of tools that could help land managers, biologists, fishing enthusiasts and other citizens weigh where amphibians are in the most need of help and guide plans for possible fish removals from selected lakes. (more…)
University of Washington political scientist John Wilkersonhas matched data visualization with the study of lawmaking to create a new online tool for researchers and students called the Legislative Explorer.
Think of it as big data meeting up with How a Bill Becomes a Law. (more…)
