It is a living fossil whose ancestors go back a half billion years—to the early days of complex life on the planet, when the land was barren and the seas were warm. Naturalists have long marveled at its shell. The logarithmic spiral echoes the curved arms of hurricanes and distant galaxies. In Florence, the Medicis turned the pearly shells into ornate cups and pitchers adorned with gold and rubies.
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The first scientists to witness exploding rock and molten lava from a deep sea volcano, seen during a 2009 expedition, report that the eruption was near a tear in the Earth’s crust that is mimicking the birth of a subduction zone. Scientists on the expedition collected boninite, a rare, chemically distinct lava that accompanies the formation of Earths subduction zones. Nobody has ever collected fresh boninite and scientists never had the opportunity to monitor its eruption before, said Joseph Resing, University of Washington oceanographer and lead author of an online article on the findings in Nature Geoscience.
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Is climate change going to favor non-native species? Some research suggests so. Julian Olden and Josh Lawler have been participating in an NCEAS project to examine how climate change may work to the benefit of non-native species in both aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems.
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A new era in University of Washington student housing is beginning this month as Housing & Food Services opens two new buildings — one with student apartments and the other a residence hall with a powerful commitment to sustainability. The new halls are part of a four-building, $160 million project that will enable the UW to house hundreds more students on the west side of campus.
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How green is your office? Now there’s a way to find out and even quantify your office’s efforts at environmental responsibility. The Environmental Stewardship and Sustainability (ESS) office, housed within Finance & Facilities has created a Green Office Certification Program which consists of an informal audit of office practices, accomplished through a short survey. The effort to create an office certification program was initiated by Jennifer Perkins, now a UW graduate of the School of Forest Resources with a specialty in environmental science & resource management and a minor in quantitative science, who was an intern with ESS.
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