“The sea is a big place. Most fish are small. So it stands to reason that it is difficult to work out with any degree of accuracy just how many fish live in the sea. One way is to measure how many fish we pull out of it. But is that the best way? Or even an accurate way?” asks an editorial in this week’s (Feb. 

An Informal Conversation about Interdisciplinary Teaching on Environmental Issues Tuesday, February 26, 2013 5:00-6:30 PM Program on the Environment Commons, Wallace Hall (ACC) 012 Free to attend.  Please register by Thursday, February 24, 2013. How big is your data? And can your students grok it? In an era when datasets are mushrooming, the cloud is ever expanding, and environmental science is in dire need of multidisciplinary, real world information to document and address global change; how do we bring students to the party? 

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 professor of biology at FHL, 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. 

Since it opened in 1934, the Washington Park Arboretum has been home to thousands of plant collections and species, each with a meticulously kept record and history. A computerized database for record keeping was established in the early 1990s but more than 55 years of the earlier records have remained preserved solely on paper, scribbled on grid maps or recorded in countless handwritten notes. 

Three members of the UW faculty are among 126 recipients of Sloan Research Fellowships, announced today (Feb. 19) by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.  The UW received two of just 12 fellowships awarded nationally in molecular biology. The new UW fellows include Lekelia (Kiki) Jenkins, assistant professor in SMEA. Read more here!