Remember to bring a reusable bag when you go grocery shopping. Bring a reusable mug when you go to a coffee shop. Shop your closet or thrift your clothes whenever you can. For many people, sustainable actions like these have become second nature. With new COVID-19 regulations limiting the use of reusable or “pre-loved” products, many of us are left wondering how we can still practice sustainable behavior in our daily lives.
Eelgrass, a species of seagrass named for its long slippery texture, is one of nature’s superheroes. It offers shade and camouflage for young fish, helps anchor shorelines, and provides food and habitat for many marine species.
A University of Washington study adds one more superpower to the list of eelgrass abilities: warding off the toxin-producing algae that regularly close beaches to shellfish harvests.
The most common organism in the oceans, and possibly on the entire planet, is a family of single-celled marine bacteria called SAR11. These drifting organisms look like tiny jelly beans and have evolved to outcompete other bacteria for scarce resources in the oceans.
We now know that this group of organisms thrives despite — or perhaps because of — the ability to host viruses in their DNA.
It wasn’t supposed to be Mount St. Helens.
In the 1970s, scientists including Emeritus Research Professor Steve Malone (then a postdoctoral researcher at UW) investigated what they believed to be earthquakes on Mount Rainier. Further work determined they were “glacier quakes” instead: As glaciers on a mountain shift, the energy created mimics an earthquake.
Then in 1975, Mount Baker began to steam.
Join the UW College of the Environment to recognize the recipients of the College Awards, have some fun in the sun and celebrate the academic year gone by. All College faculty, staff, students and their guests are welcome.
The UW College of the Environment is pleased to announce that Megan Dethier has agreed to serve as director of the Friday Harbor Laboratories, effective May 1, 2020 through June 30, 2022. Dethier has been serving as the Interim Director of Friday Harbor Laboratories.
Dethier is a research professor in the Biology Department at the University of Washington and works full-time at the College’s Friday Harbor Laboratories on San Juan Island.
Dr. Michael McGoodwin established an endowment to support undergraduate students in the College of the Environment in December 2019. This endowment honors the life and memory of Rebecca McGoodwin and their shared passion for the natural environment.
By supporting undergraduates on the basis of academic merit and/or financial need, this scholarship helps students who are pursuing the study, investigation, and conservation of the biosphere and its protection from human impacts.
Recent years have brought unusually large and damaging wildfires to the Pacific Northwest – from the Carlton Complex Fire in 2014 that was the largest in Washington’s history, to the 2017 fire season in Oregon, to the 2018 Maple Fire, when normally sodden rainforests on the Olympic Peninsula were ablaze. Many people have wondered what this means for our region’s future.
The University of Washington College of the Environment’s Assistant Dean for Diversity, Equity & Inclusion, Terryl Ross is the recipient of the American Society of Public Administration (ASPA)’s 2020 Gloria Hobson Nordin Social Equity Award. ASPA is the largest and most prominent broad-based professional association in American public administration. It has a diverse membership of approximately 8,000 practitioners, academicians and students.
Polar bears are spending more time on land than they did in the 1990s, due to reduced sea ice, new University of Washington-led research has found. Bears in Baffin Bay are getting thinner and adult females are having fewer cubs than was recorded at times when sea ice was more available.
The new study published in Ecological Applications compares polar bear satellite tracking and visual monitoring data from the 1990s with more data collected in recent years.
In 2017, University of Washington ichthyologist Luke Tornabene was inside a small submersible called Idabell near the island of Roatan, Honduras. Sitting next to him were a masters’ student in his lab named Rachel Manning, and a pilot. They were collecting samples of marine life 550 feet deep when they spotted an unfamiliar bright blue and yellow fish.
“We knew it was something new before we even got it into the collection tube,” Tornabene says, excitement still clear in his voice.
Microsoft announced University of Washington School of Oceanography Assistant Professor Alison Gray as one of the winners of the inaugural Microsoft Investigator Fellowship, which empowers researchers of all disciplines who plan to make an impact with research and teaching using the Microsoft Azure cloud computing platform. Each fellowship provides $100,000 annually for two years and various training and community events.
Gray is an oceanographer who studies the circulation of the ocean and its impact on the physics and chemistry of the climate system.
Nearly half of the fish caught worldwide are from stocks that are scientifically monitored and, on average, are increasing in abundance. Effective management appears to be the main reason these stocks are at sustainable levels or successfully rebuilding.
That is the main finding of an international project led by the University of Washington to compile and analyze data from fisheries around the world.
Killer whales prefer to eat only the biggest, juiciest Chinook salmon they can find. The larger the fish, the more energy a whale can get for its meal.
Each year these top ocean predators consume more than 2.5 million adult Chinook salmon along the West Coast. Except for the endangered southern resident population in Washington, all other fish-eating orca populations that live along the coast, called “residents,” are growing in number.
To commemorate the season of all things spooky, gross and disturbing, we’ve compiled a list of some of the creepiest creatures to be found in the waters of the Pacific Northwest.
To kick things off, we dip our toe into the salty waters of the Salish sea, where UW’s Friday Harbor Laboratories (FHL) are situated. These labs make the ideal setting to study the marine world, and provided us with no shortage of horrors to include in this list.