Salmon are beginning to swim up the Elwha River for the first time in more than a century. But University of Washington marine geologists are watching what’s beginning to flow downstream — sediments from the largest dam-removal project ever undertaken.  Read more about this and see photos published in UW Today. 

Next month, a federal court judge will try to put a value on something that’s somewhat priceless: trees stolen from the Olympic National Forest.  The trees in question include old-growth fir, six feet across, that laid down roots before the Revolutionary War; they include intricately patterned maple destined to become high-end musical instruments; they include cedar for shingle or shake.  Read more about this issue. 

The number of confirmed gray wolves and wolf packs in the state nearly doubled during the past year, according a new survey, which based on field reports and aerial monitoring in 2012 found at least 51 wolves in nine packs, with five successful breeding pairs. Read more about this survey and what it means for wolf populations in the state.   

An Android app that measures atmospheric pressure is now feeding that distributed data to scientists working on better ways to predict the weather.  The app, called Pressure Net, highlights the potential of distributed sensing using mobile devices and shows how the sophisticated sensors found in modern smartphones could be harnessed for research. It was launched in late 2011 By Jacob Sheehy, a software developer for Flighthub.com, 

The Nature Conservancy of Washington has just completed a tidal marsh restorationthat reconnects 4,000 acres of tidelands at the northern end of Port Susan Bay in Snohomish County to Puget Sound.  The project included taking out 1.3 miles of a sea dike built in the 1950s to create more farmland. The conservancy built almost a mile of new dike roughly following the original shore to protect farmland.