A team led by researchers at the University of Washington has discovered a major cause for a drop in nighttime pollinator activity — and people are largely to blame. Nighttime pollution creates a chain of chemical reactions that degrades scent cues, leaving flowers undetectable by smell.
Read more at UW News »NBC's 'Wild Kingdom' features sea star rearing lab at UW Friday Harbor Labs
Friday Harbor Laboratories’ sunflower sea star rearing lab recently was featured on the NBC show “Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom Protecting the Wild.” It's part of an episode on the plight of the Pacific Ocean’s kelp forests — and what’s being done to save them.
Read more »Q&A: How ‘slow slip’ earthquakes may be driven by deep hydraulic fracturing
The Cascadia Subduction Zone is a massive geologic fault that last ruptured in January 1700. But while this fault has stayed quiet for centuries, it regularly generates small tremors that accompany gradual, nondisruptive movement along the fault. The tiny tremor events and slow slippage are known collectively as “episodic tremor and slip.” Seismic waves associated with these tremor events are recorded and tracked by the UW’s Pacific Northwest Seismic Network.
Read more at UW News »El Niño shows us the true face of climate change
Though the El Niño period we’re in is natural and relatively predictable, its impacts on the global environment and economy have been significant — from sweltering heat in Australia to deep freezes across the southern U.S. El Niño may be giving us a glimpse of what’s to come if climate change is not soon curtailed.
Read more »Atmospheric Science’s Mike Wallace awarded 2024 Japan Prize
Mike Wallace, UW professor emeritus of atmospheric sciences, is a 2024 recipient of the Japan Prize. The prestigious award honors scientists and researchers worldwide for having contributed significantly to the peace and prosperity of humankind through achievements that have substantially advanced science and technology.
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