Research in recent years has suggested that young Americans might be less creative now than in decades past, even while their intelligence — as measured by IQ tests — continues to rise.
But new research from the University of Washington Information School and Harvard University, closely studying 20 years of student creative writing and visual artworks, hints that the dynamics of creativity may not break down as simply as that. (more…)
Talk about a precious stone — the largest piece of the only known meteorite from the planet Mercury has found its way to Yale, where it is now on display at the Peabody Museum of Natural History.
Known as NWA 7325, the fist-size, greenish space rock is a rarity among rarities: there just aren’t many verified planetary meteorites. Scientists know of about 70 from Mars and, until now, none from any of the other planets in Earth’s solar system. There are about 180 known meteorites from the moon. NWA 7325 is the first believed to be from Mercury. (more…)
It’s a foggy fall morning, and University of Washington researcher Susan Dickerson-Lange pokes her index finger into the damp soil beneath a canopy of second-growth conifers. The tree cover is dense here, and little light seeps in among the understory of the Cedar River Municipal Watershed about 30 miles east of Seattle.
She digs a small hole in the leaf-litter soil, then pushes a thumb-sized device, called an iButton, about an inch beneath the surface. If all goes well, this tiny, battery-powered instrument will collect a temperature reading every hour for 11 months. Researchers hope this tool and a handful of other instruments will help them map winter temperatures throughout the watershed as they track snow accumulation and melt. (more…)
Leslie Rosenberg and his colleagues are about to go hunting. Their quarry: A theorized-but-never-seen elementary particle called an axion.
The search will be conducted with a recently retooled, extremely sensitive detector that is currently in a testing and shakeout phase at the University of Washington’s Center for Experimental Nuclear Physics and Astrophysics. (more…)
During spring break the last five years, a University of Washington class has headed to the Nevada desert to launch rockets and learn more about the science and engineering involved. Sometimes, the launch would fail and a rocket smacked hard into the ground.
This year, the session included launches from a balloon that were deliberately directed into a dry lakebed. Far from being failures, these were early tests of a concept that in the future could be used to collect and return samples from forbidding environments – an erupting volcano, a melting nuclear reactor or even an asteroid in space. (more…)
Many people use tree ring records to see into the past. But redwoods – the iconic trees that are the world’s tallest living things – have so far proven too erratic in their growth patterns to help with reconstructing historic climate.
A University of Washington researcher has developed a way to use the trees as a window into coastal conditions, using oxygen and carbon atoms in the wood to detect fog and rainfall in previous seasons. (more…)
In a typical yoga class, students watch an instructor to learn how to properly hold a position. But for people who are blind or can’t see well, it can be frustrating to participate in these types of exercises.
Now, a team of University of Washington computer scientists has created a software program that watches a user’s movements and gives spoken feedback on what to change to accurately complete a yoga pose. (more…)
Researchers from four universities, including the University of Washington, estimate that nearly a half-million people died from causes attributable to the war in Iraq from 2003 through 2011.
The results, from the first population-based survey since 2006 to estimate war-related deaths in Iraq and the first covering the conflict’s full timespan, are published Oct. 15 in the open-access journal PLOS Medicine. (more…)
