Natural Sciences Division

The heat wave in the Pacific Northwest is creating lasting damage to marine life. Emily Carrington, professor of biology at the UW, is interviewed.

The third and — hopefully — final wave of COVID-19 infections sweeping through the country could be a prolonged affair that stretches into the autumn. And the momentum of the virus means that we end up “overshooting” the herd immunity threshold, experts have said. Carl Bergstrom, professor of biology at the UW, is quoted.

Amid the crushing summer heat wave that has slammed the Pacific Northwest and parts of Canada, Alyssa Gehman, a marine ecologist who lives by the sea in Vancouver, B.C., walked down to the shore to go for a swim. As expected, the beach was packed with others looking to beat the heat. She made her way to the edge of the water. It smelled like putrid shellfish — cooking. Emily Carrington, professor of biology at the UW, is quoted.

Seattle-based Icosavax has filed to go public via an IPO, just four years after it launched out of the University of Washington. The company, a spin-out from the UW’s Institute for Protein Design, is developing vaccines to resemble naturally occurring viruses. The UW’s Neil King, assistant professor of biochemistry, and David Baker, director of the institute, are mentioned.

How long can a human live? New research predicts there's a chance that someone in the world will celebrate a 130th birthday in this century. Michael Pearce, a doctoral student in statistics at the UW, is quoted.

Through public events and exhibitions, connect with the UW community every week! This week, attend gallery exhibitions, watch recorded events, and more.

When Emily Levesque, associate professor of astronomy at the UW, was 2 years old, Halley’s Comet made its most recent close pass to Earth. Her older brother was observing the phenomenon for a school project and the whole family headed out to the backyard. Fussy, cold and afraid of the dark, young Levesque’s mood changed when her parents directed her attention to the night sky. From there she was hooked.

Are we ready to break up with our masks? Or is it hard to let go? Washington is open again (except for indoor events of 10,000-plus people) and mask restrictions have been relaxed, but with coronavirus variants still out there, people are confronting a new set of social and emotional challenges. Jane Simoni, professor of psychology at the UW, is quoted.

New insights and breakthroughs in artificial intelligence are coaxing, or forcing, proteins to give up their secrets. Scientists are now forging biochemical tools that could transform our world. The UW’s Lexi Walls, a postdoctoral researcher in biochemistry; David Baker, director of the UW Institute for Protein Design; and Longxing Cao, a postdoctoral researcher in biochemistry, are quoted. The UW’s Neil King, assistant professor of biochemistry, and Brooke Fiala, a researcher in the Institute for Protein Design, are mentioned.

Michael Pearce, a UW doctoral student in statistics, and Adrian Raftery, a professor of sociology, discuss the results of their new study.

Legacy Survey of Space and Time member and Associate Professor of Astronomy Mario Jurić discusses a giant comet.

With the publication of “Rare Earth: Why Complex Life is Uncommon in the Universe” 20 years ago, the UW’s Peter Ward, professor of biology, and Donald Brownlee, professor of astronomy, explained why microbial life may be ubiquitous in the universe, but intelligent life may be rare indeed. They are now working on a sequel, tentatively titled “The Rare Earth Hypothesis: Assessing the Frequency of Complex Life in the Cosmos, in the Age of Exoplanet Discovery.”

There's a market for just about anything — and fossils are hot right now. Collectors are paying tens of thousands of dollars for the latest dig, and that's making it difficult for paleontologists to track important finds. The UW's Christian Sidor, curator of vertebrate paleontology at the Burke Museum and professor of biology, is interviewed. [This is the third segment on "The Record"]

Tatiana Toro, professor of mathematics at the UW, will maintain her tenure at the UW during her five-year director term of MSRI, a collaborative mathematics research center based in Berkeley. [This is part of "Tech Moves"]