Why is it important to study mosquitoes?Ěý

Willem Laursen: Mosquitoes have been an enduring scourge of humanity for millennia. Their bites are a nuisance to humans and animals alike, and ancient texts describe illnesses consistent with mosquito-borne diseases, such as malaria, long before the source of transmission was understood.

Globalization and climate change are expanding the geographic range of many mosquito species, and their increasing resistance to insecticides threatens the long-term effectiveness of current control strategies. As a result, we urgently need new approaches for controlling mosquito-borne disease.

If we can better understand the genetic and sensory basis of mosquito behavior, we might be able to find new opportunities to disrupt disease transmission. Critical behaviors such as host seeking and blood feeding are highly specialized and difficult to model in other organisms, making it essential to study these mechanisms directly in mosquitoes themselves.

Andrea Durant: These mosquito-related problems are not just for humans. Warmer winters and early-season snowmelt have led to massive swarms of mosquitoes coinciding with wildlife migration, which changes foraging patterns in the Arctic tundra and forces animals like caribou to use precious energy reserves on evading these mosquito-blackened skies. Mosquito swarms are also a big problem for agriculture, particularly cattle herds.

What do you study?

AD: My lab studies how mosquitoes maintain a stable internal environment when faced with changing external conditions. Mosquitoes start their life as an egg that is deposited in or near water, and the larval, or juvenile, stages are aquatic. Unlike the terrestrial flying adult mosquito that has agency in its choice of residence, a mosquito larva is tied to wherever it hatches — it must survive and develop there, or die.

Sometimes the aquatic reservoirs where an adult female has selected to lay her eggs can be quite extreme, such as very polluted freshwater and seawater. We study specialized adaptations that allow these larvae to survive — most mosquito species require clean freshwater for larval development. Our goal is to reveal how mosquitoes have been able to successfully expand their habitats to places like urban sewage systems and salty coastal habitats.

WL: In my lab, our research focuses on understanding how mosquitoes sense things at the cellular level. We are trying to determine what proteins mosquitoes use to detect human-associated cues, such as heat and humidity. By identifying the cellular and molecular machinery mosquitoes use to find hosts, food sources, mates and egg-laying sites, we hope to better understand how specialized behaviors, such as blood feeding, evolve, and to uncover new targets for controlling the transmission of mosquito-borne diseases.

Jeffrey Riffell: My lab studies the “how” of mosquito biting behavior. We also study how they visit flowers and plants — yes, they can pollinate certain plants! — to understand their natural behaviors. By learning more about mosquito physiology and behavior, we would like to develop new tools for traps and ways to control mosquitoes around people’s homes.

Tell us what it’s like to be someone who studies mosquitoes.

JR: Mosquitoes, all day and all the time. Although we try to minimize the potential for mosquito biting in the lab and in our field sites, you have to grin and bear it when dealing with these little vampires.Ěý

WL: Being around large swarms of mosquitoes all day does desensitize me a bit. Sometimes I will be out hiking or camping with family members and I won’t be paying much attention until I start hearing complaints about the mosquitoes. Working with mosquitoes also leads me to do funny things, such as collecting sweat or wearing a nylon stocking for days to collect human odors for behavioral assays.

Rearing transgenic mosquitoes in the lab is a bit like ranching: We have to keep track of large herds of animals. Because the life stages live in different environments, we have to constantly shuttle them around between water-filled trays, for the larvae/pupae, and cages, for the terrestrial adults. We also have to move the adults around on a specific schedule to make sure they have access to our artificial blood feeders. Some lab members jokingly put a sign on the door that says “Welcome to The Ranch.”

AD: Willem is to a rancher as I am to a protagonist in “Swamp People.” We often venture outside of the lab to hunt mosquitoes in their natural habitat in urban and peri-urban areas. Sometimes we find ourselves in picturesque places like the beautiful pillow basalt coastlines of the San Juan Islands. Most often, I can be found headfirst in a nutrient-rich septic system in someone’s backyard filled with mosquito larvae or marching into the fray of massive swarms of saline-tolerant mosquitoes that await in tidal marshlands and mangrove forests.

What is the coolest mosquito fact you know?

WL: There are over 3,500 species of mosquitoes, with vastly different appearances, life histories and host preferences. Many are generalists. A few strongly prefer humans and some feed from cold-blooded animals like frogs or earthworms. The large amber-encased Toxorhynchites elephant mosquito shown in the movie “Jurassic Park” feeds on other mosquito larvae and doesn’t actually drink blood at all.

JR: I like These mosquitoes are very pretty, and they shoot their eggs into tree holes.

What’s one thing you wish people understood about mosquitoes?

AD: The incalculable misery that mosquitoes exert on humans and other animals certainly overshadows any appreciation for the importance of mosquitoes in nature. Many species of mosquitoes are critical to biodiversity and are actually fundamental to the food chain. There are numerous examples of areas with reduced breeding success and animal survival because there have been effective vector control programs and non-targeted mosquito eradication efforts.

For more information, contact Laursen at wlaursen@uw.edu, Durant at durantan@uw.edu and Riffell at jriffell@uw.edu.

The U.S. and Israel against Iran on Feb. 28 that targeted military and civilian infrastructure, missile launchers, and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The strikes killed Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and triggered hundreds of retaliatory missiles from Iran.

More than 1,200 civilians so far in the conflict, Iran reports, while nearly 10,000 civilian sites have been hit and 3.2 million Iranians have been displaced. An ongoing military investigation also determined the U.S. is responsible for a deadly strike on an Iranian elementary school, according to a .Ěý

President Donald Trump, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth have offered for the war with Iran — now entering its third week — including the regime’s nuclear ambitions, its ballistic missile capabilities and its support for groups such as Hezbollah in Lebanon. Rubio said that the U.S. abandoned negotiations and bombed Iran because Israel had already attacked and Washington expected Iranian retaliation against U.S. bases.Ěý

Before the strikes, in December 2025, massive anti-government protests erupted in Iran. The protests, driven largely by the economic crisis caused by U.S. imposed sanctions and regime corruption, were the largest since the 1979 revolution. The Iranian government thousands of protestors in response.

, a professor of Persian and Iranian studies at the UW, researches modern Iranian and Afghan histories and modern Persian literature and has been widely quoted in the media since the war began. He spoke with UW News about the U.S.-Israeli strikes, the impact on Iranians and more.

What should people know about how Iranians and the Iranian diaspora feel about the conflict?

Aria Fani: The Iranian diaspora is . A segment of Iranians in the West has advocated for war on Iran, while others have against military intervention. Voices from within Iran appear conflicted as well, reflecting the precarity and desperation of the moment. As we have seen in Iraq, Venezuela and Cuba, the U.S. has relied on a security, economic and political apparatus that creates a state of paranoia for the ruling regime and collectively punishes the population, pushing them to the brink of despair. Equally undeniable is the Iranian regime’s brazen corruption, both moral and economic, and its violent repression of protesters.

When weighing in public opinion, as reflected in the media, we should not forget that the U.S. media to be a reliable partner for the military-industrial complex. The way in which pro-war voices are currently being amplified is a testament to this alignment. I immigrated to the United States when President George W. Bush was running for re-election and remember how the media failed to hold his administration to account. In many ways the media landscape is even worse today, as of major outlets. Yet, unlike the early 2000s, we now also have a number of independent platforms that cover war with greater transparency and skepticism.Ěý

On a personal note, as a teenager living under an Iranian regime that made anti-U.S. rhetoric a cornerstone of its revolutionary ideology, I held an abstract yet largely positive view of the U.S. Moving to the U.S. in 2004 — studying its history and traveling through and living in Latin American countries it has ravaged — profoundly shifted my perspective. Two wrongs do not make a right. The mantle of anti-colonial and anti-imperial struggle has never been on the minds of this Iranian regime, but it is a mantle we cannot afford to put down for a livable planet.Ěý

Iranian youth, much like their counterparts in places such as Hong Kong, Egypt and the United States, confront a militarized state that shows little regard for collective dignity and insatiable appetite for money and power. History teaches us that effecting durable change takes time. If change begins with a supposition of violence, it will undoubtedly end with more of the same. The spectacle of imperial violence is also designed to demoralize a generation of youth all over this beautiful planet who dare to dream of a different system. To them I say: do not despair and work toward positive change at any level you can.

What misconceptions about Iran do you see in Western media?

AF: The military-industrial complex thrives on generating hysteria and fear of racialized others. A familiar example is the claim that the Iranian regime is an ideological actor hellbent on the total destruction of the West. Yet the same regime entered into a nuclear agreement in 2015 with the United States and other world powers that placed its nuclear program under international scrutiny. Unlike the United States and Israel, both of which possess hundreds of nuclear weapons — the U.S. remains the only country that has used them — Iran is a signatory to the , and its nuclear facilities were regularly monitored before the United States withdrew from the agreement in 2018. Like Iraq, Iran is being attacked not because it has nuclear weapons, but because it does not.Ěý

Every time politicians sell the public a new war, the narrative is predictably the same: baseless claims of an imminent threat paired with promises that military objectives will be easily attainable and the suffering minimal. However, Israel and the United States have a documented history of destroying civilian infrastructure; we have seen this clearly in Gaza and Beirut. That it is happening again breaks my heart. Whether one believes the current war is justified or not — and on what grounds — the abuse of power and through which it is conducted should concern everyone. Equally disturbing is the role of religious fundamentalism as evidenced by references to the .Ěý

Let me be clear again: the Iranian regime’s willingness to engage in diplomacy abroad does nothing to absolve it of state violence, which it directs at . The regime poses a deadly threat to its own people and to Iran’s ecology, as evidenced by the brutal suppression of protesters in recent weeks.

How will this conflict impact Iran and its people in ways that are being overlooked?

AF: There are those in my community who accept any collateral damage if it means the Islamic Republic might ultimately collapse. This mindset is profoundly dangerous. For decades, the Iranian regime has invoked the men it lost during the (1980–1988) to justify cracking down on dissent years after the war ended. In effect, the regime has argued that any sacrifice at home is justified if it preserves the revolutionary state. Yet some of its most ardent opponents now accept the same logic in reverse: that widespread bloodshed and ecological destruction are acceptable if it leads to the regime’s downfall.

Even more troubling is that their idea of who counts as part of the “regime” is dangerously broad. It is not difficult to imagine a similarly vengeful purge to the one carried out by the regime’s own founders in 1979, should the regime fall. My mother recounts how her father — the Friday prayer imam in Shiraz — fled Iran after the Islamic Revolution because he was aligned with the Shah. He was never in the Shah’s regime, a fact that mattered little to those who were doing the purging. We cannot break the cycle of violence by doing one last purge.ĚýĚý

Vengeance does not offer a positive agenda for the working class and minoritized Iranians. The greatest victims in war are civilians and the infrastructure on which their lives depend. The more bombs that fall, the further we move from the day when those responsible for atrocities against the Iranian people might be held accountable.

For a big segment of the Iranian diaspora to throw up their hands and say, “bomb them,” is not an act of courage but the greatest abdication of collective responsibility. And to ask the same power that has economically strangled Iran to save it through its bombs is the stuff of Orwellian fiction. Millions of American voters feel deeply disempowered by the ongoing dismantling of democratic institutions here at home. Yet who among them would seriously advocate for their country to be bombarded by a foreign power?Ěý

The world has changed in the wake of the U.S.-Israel war on Iran. One thing seems increasingly clear: the cheerleaders of today’s war will later warn about a “caravan of Muslim refugees” supposedly arriving to invade the nation. This is already happening, as Iranian . While I do not begrudge any of my suffering compatriots celebrating the downfall of a brutal dictator, history suggests that the only actors ultimately left dancing on the global stage will be weapons manufacturers and oil industry executives.Ěý

For more information, contact Lauren Kirschman at lkirsc@uw.edu.

Scientists share their work by publishing articles in journals, such as Nature, Science or PLOS Biology. One major part of the publishing process involves having these manuscripts reviewed by unpaid peers. These scientists specialize in the same topic and volunteer to make sure the science is sound and the authors haven’t missed anything critical in their data analysis.

The peer review process has reached a critical point where there are too many manuscript submissions and not enough peer reviewers. , ÂŇÂ×ÉçÇř professor of biology, and , North Carolina State University professor of statistics, used mathematical modeling to demonstrate this crisis in the form of a self-perpetuating cycle. The team describes this cycle and potential interventions in PLOS Biology.

UW News reached out to Bergstrom and Gross to learn more about this cycle and how the potential interventions could mediate this crisis.

Why is the process of peer review important for science?

Carl Bergstrom and Kevin Gross: Peer review helps scientific literature maintain its credibility. The system of peer review guarantees that published research has been scrutinized by experts in the relevant field. While peer review is not, and never has been, a watertight seal of approval — peer reviewers are human, too! — it has proven to be a system that, by and large, helps ensure the reliability of the scientific literature.

What is happening to create and perpetuate this cycle you describe in your paper?

CB and KG: The basic insight that drives our paper is that when peer review functions effectively, it helps journals select the science most worthy of their readers’ attention and creates a strong motivation for scientists to be selective about where they submit their work. After all, a scientist gains little by having their paper rejected by a top journal. So high-quality reviewing encourages scientists to choose where they submit their work carefully, and to submit only their very best work to the most prestigious outlets. Thus, effective peer review reinforces itself through a virtuous cycle.

The cycle can spin in the other direction too. If peer reviewers have to dilute their efforts over a larger volume of submitted manuscripts, then each manuscript may receive less scrutiny and editors’ decisions consequently become less predictable. This encourages authors to try their luck at journals that might otherwise have been a stretch, increasing the volume of manuscripts that need to be reviewed even further and making editorial decisions even less predictable, and so on.

Why are we seeing this crisis now?

CB and KG: To be fair, scientists have been bemoaning the fragile state of peer review for decades. So we are far from the first to observe that using the goodwill of volunteers as a lynchpin of the scientific enterprise may not be a robust model.

But there is reason to believe that the situation is more dire now. There isn’t one single cause driving this more recent turn — many factors contribute. For example, over the past few decades, scientific communities have become larger and looser knit, and the willingness to volunteer tends to decline as groups become more diffuse.

Large commercial publishers have also discovered that scientific publishing can be a lucrative business — especially when they can dip into a tradition of free peer-review labor. Drawn by the sizable profits they could make, these publishers have launched countless new journals, crowding the journal landscape. Scientists, in turn, now have more options for what to do with a paper that has been rejected once or numerous times. There’s always another journal to send it to. And each time a paper is resubmitted, a new set of peer reviewers must be found.

The pandemic also shocked the system by compelling many researchers to reassess their time commitments. It seems that we have collectively yet to fully rebound to pre-pandemic levels of willingness to review.

Should people be concerned about the science described in current peer-reviewed papers?

CB and KG: Well, to back up a bit, the primary responsibility for the integrity and accuracy of the scientific literature rests squarely with the authors, as it always has. And, thankfully, most authors have strong reputational incentives to make sure that their work is solid and will stand the test of time. But authors have their blind spots.

Peer review isn’t going to suddenly collapse and take the literature down with it, but as the system becomes stressed, we might start to see a few more cracks emerge. While that isn’t catastrophic, it isn’t good for science, either. Social trust in science can wax and wane, and even a little slippage has real consequences for scientists, their livelihoods and society as a whole.

What about this crisis concerns you?

CB and KG: Perhaps our biggest concern is that journal editors who become frustrated with the inability to find willing peer reviewers will turn to AI for machine review instead. There may be ways in which machine review could complement human peer review, but we think it’s important that human review continues to be the engine of editorial deliberations at scientific journals.

Peer review is not just a process for making an accept-or-reject decision.Ěý Peer reviewers also provide commentary and feedback for the authors. These reports provide a venue for honest dialogue that helps researchers hone their ideas and grow in their careers. Outsourcing manuscript review to robots risks collapsing a discourse that is crucial to scientific progress.

One solution you discuss is to pay reviewers. Is this a viable solution?

CB and KG: Paying reviewers isn’t as crazy as it may sound. The landscape of scientific publishing includes both nonprofit and for-profit journals, and all sorts of business models in between. It seems reasonable that especially scientists who review for for-profit journals should be remunerated for their efforts when they provide a service on which the viability of the journal depends.

Perhaps the most compelling argument for paying reviewers is that, of all the possible interventions one could propose, it requires the least amount of coordination among different stakeholders to succeed. As soon as one journal figures out a working model for paying reviewers, then everyone will notice that paying reviewers is viable, and there will be market pressure on other journals to follow suit.

Another idea that we quite like is for journals to offer substantial monetary awards for the most constructive or helpful reviews. This idea has its drawbacks too. Editors would have to spend a little bit of time choosing the prizewinning reviews, and editors could always select their friends for the prize. But every alternative is going to have its drawbacks, and it’s important to focus on the net effect, especially when the viability of the status quo seems so tenuous.

If we want to keep peer review voluntary, what are other possible solutions?

CB and KG: There are lots of possible interventions. But the intervention that probably would enjoy the broadest support would be for university hiring and promotion committees to prioritize quality of publications instead of quantity. Most academic scientists today are working in a system that rewards a researcher for the number of publications above all else. This obviously creates incentives for researchers to submit lots of manuscripts, which puts lots of pressure on peer review. If the norms changed so that hiring and promotion hinged on a candidate’s top two or three papers instead, then researchers’ incentives would change and the pressure on peer reviewers would diminish.

This research was funded by the National Science Foundation and the Templeton World Charity Foundation.

For more information, contact Bergstrom at cbergst@uw.edu and Gross at krgross@ncsu.edu.

Last December was the warmest on record for Washington, . As the mild winter continues, many of the plants in our gardens are starting to show signs of small buds, even though it’s only February.

, a ÂŇÂ×ÉçÇř professor of biology, studies the genes that plants use to monitor seasonal changes. UW News asked Imaizumi to talk about how plants know when to bloom and whether this might change in warmer winters.

How do plants know when it’s time to bloom?

Takato Imaizumi: There are two major factors that plants use to sense the seasons: light — the presence or absence, the intensity, or the color at a specific time of day — and temperature. To control flowering time, plants sense light conditions in the leaves and temperature at shoot tips, which are buds that contain cells that allow the plant to grow and make a flower.

All plants use both factors, but some plants rely more on temperature than light. Some examples include tulips, crocus and cherry blossoms. Plants that rely more on light include mustard greens, cabbage, rapeseeds and chrysanthemum, though temperature is still important for these plants.

Other environmental factors that can affect bloom time include water and the availability of nutrients.

How do you think the warmer weather in December has affected the plants here in Washington?

TI: Temperatures will affect plant growth and development. I assume that warmer ambient temperatures will accelerate the flowering process of some plants that use temperature information to control flowering time.

How does studying the genes involved in the timing of plant flowering help with conservation biology?

TI: Proper timing of flowering is crucial for reproductive success and the health of a plant species. Understanding how the flowering genes are regulated will help us predict how future changes in climate may affect flowering times. That will give us a better sense of which plants may struggle.

This information could also help us design restoration strategies for plants that are struggling. For example, if we wanted to introduce a plant to a novel environment, we would have some ideas about what it would require to thrive. Plants are adapted to local environments. Even within the same species, a plant that lives farther north may require different light and temperature conditions to grow and flower compared to the same species growing farther south. When we think about transplanting plants for conservation, learning specific environmental requirements may increase the chance of transplant success.

For more information, contact Imaizumi at takato@uw.edu.

A recent documentary about the breeding habits of antelopes in India includes the story of how engaging with artists and local communities can help researchers share the importance of their work.

“MELA,” short for Mating Ecology of a Lek-breeding Antelope, is a short film about a research project that studies the mating behavior of blackbuck, an antelope species native to India and Nepal. During mating, male blackbuck aggregate into certain areas, called “leks,” to perform a series of feats to try to impress females.

This story of “MELA” is told in three chapters. The first chapter summarizes the science behind the project, including the technical challenges associated with creating continuous and sweeping drone footage across an entire lek. Then the second and third chapters focus on the researchers’ work with artists and local communities.

, a ÂŇÂ×ÉçÇř assistant professor of biology, is one of the leaders of the MELA project, which started when he was a postdoctoral research associate at the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior and the University of Konstanz in Germany. UW News asked him for details about the project and the documentary.

How did this project get started?

Vivek Hari Sridhar: It started in 2019 when the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior put out a global call for collaborative research projects that addressed broad questions related to how animal societies emerge and function. The call was meant to support teams of two or three postdoctoral researchers.

The timing was perfect because I was in the latter stages of my doctoral degree. As part of my doctoral research, I discovered how animals choose between spatially separated objects. I developed a theory and validated my model predictions in both vertebrates and invertebrates under controlled laboratory conditions. For my postdoc, I wanted to explore if the theory could tell us something about spatial decisions made by animals in the wild.

I teamed up with , now an assistant professor at the Birla Institute of Technology & Science, and , a postdoc at the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior. For her doctoral research, Akanksha had already worked with blackbuck and had recorded a few drone-based videos of the lek. This got me excited because leks seemed like the perfect study system to extend my doctoral work. Hemal is a computer vision and machine learning expert who develops software to process large-scale drone footage. Hemal was crucial in the establishment of our art-science collaborations.

The project developed from our common commitment toward supporting junior researchers in the field, working with local communities and establishing a research project in India, our home country.

Chapter 2 of the documentary talks about art and science. Can you talk about how they are similar?

VHS: Artists use various media — writing, visual art, performances, etc. — to try to understand the world around them and to tell the stories that matter most to them. As scientists, we engage in evidence-based storytelling. We gather data and then we analyze and interpret it to reveal something new about the natural world. In that sense, science can be thought of being a form of art.

What was it like working with artists on this project?

VHS: It was an incredible learning experience! I worked with , a German-based institution that brings artists and scientists together, for my artist residency.

At first I was nervous. The idea of working on something artistic myself felt daunting. Retrospectively though, it was one of the most rewarding experiences. I met several interesting people over the years and collaborated with many of them. They helped me realize that I had several stories that I wanted to share that I couldn’t do solely through science. Working with writers and sound artists, I have since been able to explore a creative side of myself that I didn’t know existed.

Chapter 3 explains that it was important to engage with the community where you did this research. Can you talk about why that is?

VHS: As academics, we spend much of our time within the confines of the university, engaging with literature within our field and building on those ideas. And while these are extremely important aspects of the job, it is only one of the many sources of inspiration, especially in the context of studying animal behavior — people in local communities spend their lives surrounded by these animals every day.

Conversations with the locals gave us a head start in terms of understanding the natural history and activity patterns of these animals. A great example of this is when the locals told us about the location of a new lek. Because leks are traditional mating grounds, they’re occupied by males year after year. We intended to conduct our study on a lek that had been around for nearly 40 years. But then the locals told us about a second location with a larger aggregation of males. This information allowed us to monitor both sites, which led to a whole new line of research inquiry.

Beyond science, I also believe we have an ethical obligation to let people know what we’re doing. Many people from these communities are curious to know why we’re visiting their corner of the world. Once we learned what interested different community members, we were able to engage with them accordingly. For example, we took some children birding because they were fascinated with our use of binoculars.

What do you hope people who watch the documentary will learn?

VHS: Perhaps that science is not just a knowledge-seeking endeavor — it’s also a human-endeavor. We can do more impactful work when we work together with other people from various walks of life. Here, we came together as three scientists collaborating with artists, local communities and students to produce what we believe is something more than “just science.”

But doing this work takes time, effort and resources. In a fast-paced and productivity-focused society, it is important to stop and consider what is important to us. We were fortunate to have the time and opportunity to shape our work and we hope this inspires others to think beyond the immediate call of their jobs.

This research was funded by a Collaborative Research Grant funded by the Department for the Ecology of Animal Societies at the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior and the Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour at the University of Konstanz.

For more information, contact Sridhar at behavior@uw.edu.

Researchers are trying to understand how changes in the environment lead to changes in organisms. For example, how do warmer spring and summer days affect how well the caterpillar of a common Washington butterfly grows? One way to answer this type of question is by repeating an old experiment years later to see how results have changed over time.

, ÂŇÂ×ÉçÇř professor of biology, recently had the opportunity to organize a featuring papers that use these types of “functional resurvey” experiments to answer questions about a variety of organisms, from bacteria to plants and animals. For example, one study explores resurrecting flower seeds to reveal evolutionary responses to drought. Another compares the genetics of coral reef fish preserved in rum in 1908 to these same fish now to examine how populations changed over the past century.

UW News spoke with Buckley about these experiments and what they can tell us about how organisms change over time.

What are the benefits of repeating historical experiments?

Lauren Buckley: As environments shift, species are migrating, changing in abundance and interacting with new species in response. But we lack effective strategies to anticipate these changes and plan for impacts to agriculture, disease and biodiversity. Repeating historical experiments reveals the processes underlying biological responses and should allow us to improve our ability to predict what will happen in the future.

Are there any drawbacks involved in these experiments?

LB: Replicating methods based on the descriptions in published papers can be difficult. We also face challenges, such as working with poorly preserved data or specimens, or trying to control for other changes that have happened over time — for example, Seattle is drastically different than it was 25 years ago. Knowing the best time to repeat an experiment is also a challenge, but wait times can be surprisingly short for organisms with short life cycles, such as bacteria.

Our current work is uncovering evolutionary changes in Washington butterflies after 25 years. This research is made easier because we are collaborating with the original researcher, who is 25 years older than me. We joke that the undergraduate researchers, who are 25 years younger than me, are expected to repeat the study again in 25 years.

How common is this technique?

LB: When I was looking for examples of functional resurvey experiments to include in the special issue, I was surprised to find that not many people use the approach. Many of the experimental approaches that we think hold the most promise for repeating are now decades old — perfect timing to be repeated. Also, the accelerating environmental change over recent decades has rapidly expanded opportunities for more of these types of experiments. I hope more scientists will be inspired to use this technique.

Functional resurvey experiments can be great fun! It’s exciting to plot new data against past experimental results and, despite our best efforts at improving predictions, we are often surprised by the biological changes. We get to see evolution happening, but not necessarily in the way we expect.

ĚýFor more information, contact Buckley at buckley@uw.edu.

The ancestors of our furry cats and dogs once looked similar to today’s modern mongoose, a mammal with a long body and small, round ears. In fact, all members of the , which includes a variety of mammalian species, such as bears, wolves and even seals, evolved from these ‘mongoose-like’ creatures.

How did such a variety of body shapes emerge from one body type? New research led by the ÂŇÂ×ÉçÇř suggests that two different climate transitions millions of years ago fueled this change.

The team, led by , a UW principal research scientist in biology, studied the skeletal shapes of more than 850 carnivoran specimens held at 17 different natural history museums. The specimens include almost 200 different species of carnivorans: 118 that currently exist and 81 that are extinct.

The researchers found that the Eocene-Oligocene Transition, which took place around 34 million years ago, led to changes in body shape between different carnivoran families — such as between cats and dogs. Then the Mid-Miocene Climate Transition, which took place around 15 to 13 million years ago, led to changes within families — such as changes between canid species.

The team Dec. 16 in Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

UW News reached out to Law, who is also an affiliate curator at the UW Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture, to learn more about these results and what they mean for carnivorans today.

Can you talk about the significance of these results?

Chris Law: Major transitions in climate can lead to tremendous changes in biodiversity on Earth. Here, we found that climate and environmental transitions over the past 56 million years facilitated the diversification of modern carnivorans and their body forms.

Before these climate transitions, early carnivorous mammals occupied most niches as the top predators and therefore prevented the ancestors of modern carnivorans from exhibiting much body shape diversity. But climate transitions contributed to the extinction of these early carnivorous mammals, releasing the ancestors of modern carnivorans from these constraints and enabling them to exploit new environments and resources. Thus, climate transitions enabled the ancestors of modern carnivorans to increase their phenotypic diversity and fill these new niches. Our work shows how the radiation of carnivorans — and probably other animal groups — occurs in sequential evolutionary phases triggered by multiple climatic and environmental transitions.

What was happening climate-wise during the Eocene-Oligocene and the Mid-Miocene Climate transitions?

CL: The Eocene-Oligocene Transition, which lasted for about 500,000 years, was characterized by plummeting global temperatures and the appearance of the first Antarctic ice sheets. The Earth’s climate transitioned from a warm ‘greenhouse’ with relatively consistent temperatures to a cooler, temperate ‘icehouse’ with increased seasonality, all of which led to habitat transitions from warm humid forest to dry temperate forests interspersed with grasslands.

The Mid-Miocene Climate Transition, which lasted around 2 million years, can also be characterized as another major period of rapid temperature decline, increased aridity and enhanced seasonality, which in turn facilitated further trends toward grasslands from forest habitats.

Why do you think one transition led to diversification between families and the other led to diversification within families?

CL: The Eocene-Oligocene Transition was the first release point for modern carnivorans. It eliminated most competing early carnivorous mammals and allowed early modern carnivorans to exploit these novel habitats, resources and other opportunities. These led to the appearance of all modern carnivoran families from the Early Oligocene to the Mid-Miocene.

The onset of the Mid-Miocene Climate Transition created even more novel habitats and resources, giving modern carnivorans even more opportunities to further diversity and exploit the new ecological niches during the Late Miocene to the Pleistocene. And the lack of other competing carnivorous groups may have helped fuel this period of diversification. As niche space is filled to capacity, additional skeletal diversification and evolution of skeletal innovations within families may have also been necessary to help partition species that are ecologically similar to each other.

Can you give some examples of some of the mammals that reside in the order Carnivora?

CL: Modern carnivorans are very phenotypically diverse. They range from dogs and cats to small elongated weasels and robust bears. Seals, sea lions and walruses are also carnivorans even though they spend the majority of their time in water and have flippers.

Extinct pan-carnivoran groups also include animals like saber-tooth cats, hyena-like dogs and bear-dogs — dog-like animals the size of bears.

There are also some surprises: Pandas, red pandas and kinkajous all belong in the carnivoran lineage even though they are not carnivorous.

Why did modern carnivorans all start out with mongoose-like body plans?

CL: As far as we know, the mongoose body plan is a very generalized body form. That is, they are not specialized to eat a specific food or move in a certain way, unlike a specialized runner like a cheetah or wolf, a specialized digger like a badger or a specialized climber like a panda. An issue with being a specialist over evolutionary time is that you may be prone to extinction if your resources or habitat change. Thus, being a generalist can be evolutionary advantageous.

So did mongooses just not change that much over time?

CL: Most likely, the mongoose — and the similarly shaped civets — retained their body types from the early carnivorans. It’s the other carnivoran groups like felids, canids and ursids that are the weird ones, because they evolved different body forms from the generalized mongoose body plan.

Do these findings have any bearing on our current understanding of these species and on our current climate situation?

CL: This study shows how major climate transitions can have profound impacts on the evolution of one group of mammals. For example, climate transitions can be detrimental to one group, leading to extinction, but can be advantageous to another group by eliminating competitors, which creates new habitats and facilitates diversification. So in the present, anthropogenic climate change may lead to the extinction of some species but we could see others take advantage of it.

at the National Research Center on Human Evolution and at the University of California, Berkeley are also co-authors on this paper. This research was funded by the National Science Foundation, a University of Texas early career provost fellowship, an Arthur James Boucot research grant through the Paleontological Society, a Vertebrate Paleontology Collections Study grant through the Burke Museum and the European Research Council within the European Union’s Horizon Europe.

For more information, contact Law at cjlaw@uw.edu.

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences on Oct. 8 to Susumu Kitagawa, Richard Robson and Omar M. Yaghi “for the development of metal–organic frameworks,” or MOFs.

These materials are made up of a repeated network of molecular building blocks that form a crystalline structure that has large pores in it. MOFs are incredibly modular, which means they can be used for a seemingly endless variety of applications, including harvesting water from desert air or removing toxic chemicals from a solution.

Both , a ÂŇÂ×ÉçÇř associate professor of chemistry, and , a UW assistant professor of chemistry, use MOFs in their research at the UW. UW News reached out to them to learn more about the significance of these structures and how researchers use them.

Can you explain what a MOF is?

Dianne Xiao: MOFs are materials composed of metal ions — we call these the “nodes” — connected by rigid organic bridging groups — we call these the “struts.”Ěý Together they make an extended, crystalline porous network.

There are many different analogies that people have used to explain MOFs to a general audience. One common description is a “crystalline sponge,” which highlights how MOFs have very large interior surface areas and void spaces that can be used to bind and store specific molecules, what we call “guests.”

Another phrase people have used is “molecular tinker toys,” which highlights how tunable and modular the synthesis is: You can pair virtually any metal ion on the periodic table with hundreds, if not thousands, of different organic bridging groups, and obtain a MOF with properties tailored to your specific application.

What kind of chemistry do they help facilitate?

Douglas Reed: The modularity of MOFs allows researchers to design materials to soak up a specific guest molecule, and the immensely high surface areas enable MOFs to remove large quantities of these guest molecules very quickly. One example is removing carbon dioxide from industrial waste streams: This application requires a material that can selectively soak up carbon dioxide, but leave behind benign molecules, such as nitrogen and water. MOFs can do this with greater selectivity, higher carbon dioxide removal capacity and lower energy penalties than traditional technologies.

In another example, MOFs with different organic struts and metal nodes can be used to remove forever chemicals, such as PFAS, or toxic chemicals, such as heavy metals, from water.

Other researchers use the high surface area of the pore to more effectively store large quantities of gasses, such as hydrogen, that can be used as clean fuels. People can even place catalytic sites within the pores to perform challenging chemical reactions.

What is the significance of the discovery that was awarded this year?

DX: We already have some porous materials, such as activated carbon, mesoporous silica and zeolites, which play incredibly important roles in industry and in our daily lives. But compared to these traditional porous materials, what makes MOFs distinct and significant is their molecular tunability and structural diversity.

As the , since Kitagawa, Robson and Yaghi’s foundational work in the 1990s, tens of thousands of MOFs have been synthesized and discovered. Some of these MOFs have already been commercialized for applications, such as carbon dioxide capture and toxic gas storage. However, regardless of commercialization potential, the field of MOFs has been and will continue to be a very exciting field for basic science, thanks to their tunability!

Can you talk about how you use MOFs in your research at the UW?

DX: Porous materials, and MOFs specifically, are central to my group’s research. One area is heterogeneous catalysis, where we take advantage of the tunability of MOFs to create active sites that make it easier for chemical reactions to happen than they would on their own. We’re also very interested in making porous materials that can conduct electricity for applications such as electrochemical carbon dioxide capture and electrocatalysis.

DR: While our research group doesn’t study traditional MOFs, we use MOF-based concepts to make existing materials porous. With this extra space, we can potentially make more stable solar cells by introducing repair molecules. Similarly, we can increase the efficiency of cooling devices by providing better airflow through the material. Many foundational synthetic methods for our current research are based on existing metal–organic frameworks.

For more information, contact Xiao at djxiao@uw.edu and Reed at dreed4@uw.edu.

The Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institute on Monday jointly to — an alum of the ÂŇÂ×ÉçÇř — along with Frederick J. Ramsdell and Shimon Sakaguchi “for groundbreaking discoveries concerning peripheral immune tolerance that prevents the immune system from harming the body.” Brunkow received her bachelor’s degree in molecular and cellular biology from the UW in 1983.

UW News spoke with , professor and chair of biology at the UW, to learn more about the current major, and what students can do with it.

What does the biology major look like right now?

Martha Bosma: We have several tracks for our bachelor of science degrees, including majors in general biology; molecular, cellular and developmental biology; and physiology. Students who are in those tracks all take the same general biology sequence for their 100 and 200 level courses and then go from there into their tracks for their 300 and 400 level courses.

How has the molecular, cellular and developmental biology track progressed since Brunkow got her degree?

MB: What’s interesting about Mary Brunkow’s degree here is that she likely would have taken the same intro series, but then would have gone straight into 400 level classes, which would include taking a lab in cell biology. That would have been so different from what it is now. For example, she would have learned how to extract DNA, but it would have been such a painful and difficult set of techniques to learn at that point. She would have learned a lot about genetics and promoters, and how a gene is regulated based on what its promoter is. She would have learned how to extract messenger RNA using very challenging techniques. This was before we even knew there were other kinds of RNA besides messenger RNA.

Now our students on the molecular biology track have courses where they’re reading papers and learning the techniques that led to this Nobel-winning research and how people understand this science, as well as learning basic molecular techniques. I think it is really cool.

How popular is the molecular, cellular and developmental biology track?

MB: It is extremely popular. That and physiology are probably our most popular tracks. We have so many students that we are actually planning to change the structure of the degree next year. Right now the tracks are very specific — you need to take one class, then another class and then the next class, and if a class in that series is not available, then the person is stuck. It makes it really hard for the students to complete their degree requirements.

We’re still planning what the future of the degree will look like. We’ll still have concentrations, we’re just not going to have required courses in those tracks. With the future degree,Ěý students will be able to build their own concentration to some extent.

What can people do with this degree — besides potentially winning the Nobel Prize?

MB: A lot. They could work in startups. They could go to medical school. They could get doctoral degrees. Nongovernmental organizations are not that common in this track because it’s so applied. Basically our alumni can do anything that a molecular scientist could do, from being a scientist at the bench under someone else’s direction, to being at the bench under your own direction and formulating research questions. These are the kind of people who are going to become neurogeneticists or cancer biologists who understand both the patient and the clinical aspects of the science.

But alumni don’t have to stay in medicine. For example, they could do field biology. Imagine a study where someone is trying to understand what causes the differences between a population of birds in one valley compared to the population one valley over. That’s a molecular biology question. It’s awesome. This degree really covers many, many aspects of biology. That’s why it’s such a popular major.

Do you have any advice for people who are thinking about choosing this as a major?

MB: They should do it! And try to work in a lab too. There are a lot of labs that are open to undergraduates. Working in a lab helps students actually take the techniques from class and apply them to a project. Students learn how to ask a question and then how to use these techniques to answer it.

For more information, contact Bosma at martibee@uw.edu.

Even though video games have grown as an artistic medium , they are still often written off as mindless entertainment. Research is increasingly exploring meaningful gaming experiences. Less studied, though, are the ways such experiences can alter people’sĚý lives long term.Ěý

In a new study, ÂŇÂ×ÉçÇř researchers surveyed gamers about video games’ effects. Of 166 respondents researchers asked about meaningful experiences, 78% said such experiences had altered their lives. Researchers then pulled recurring themes from the responses — such as the power ofĚý rich storytelling — so that developers, gamers and even parents or teachers might focus on those elements.Ěý

The team will Oct. 14 at the Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play in Pittsburgh.Ěý

To learn more about the paper, UW News spoke with lead author , a UW doctoral student in human centered design and engineering; co-senior author , a UW professor and chair in human centered design and engineering; and co-senior author , a UW professor in the Information School.Ěý

What are the most significant findings in the study?

Nisha Devasia: We highlighted three conclusions drawn from modeling the data. The first is that playing games during stressful times was strongly correlated with positive outcomes for physical and mental health. For example, during COVID, people playedĚý games they felt strongly improved their mental health, such as Stardew Valley. Others mentioned that games that required movement, or games that had characters with interesting physical abilities, inspired them to get outside or try new sports. Many participants also said that they gained a lot of insight from the game narrative. Story-based games often tell a sort of hero’s journey, for instance. People reported that the insight they gained from those stories correlated to their own self-reflection and identity building.

Finally, most people had these meaningful experiences in very early adulthood or younger, when they’re still trying to figure out who they are and what they want to be in the world. Playing as a character and seeing your choices change the course of events is pretty unique to games, compared with other narrative media like novels or movies.

Do any individual stories really stand out to you from the survey you took?

ND: All the stories about Final Fantasy VII, because that’s the game that I love. I’m actually sitting in my childhood bedroom right now and the wall behind me is covered in Final Fantasy VII posters. The quote we used in the title also really resonated with me: “I would not be this version of myself today without these experiences.” I definitely cannot imagine what I would be doing in my life if I had not played Final Fantasy VII when I did.Ěý

People also said things like, “This helped me build the skills that ended up being my career. I learned how to program because I wanted to make games.” I worked in the gaming industry and can verify that’s true for many people in the industry.Ěý

How should these findings fit into how we view games as a society?

Julie Kientz: People have a tendency to treat technology as a monolith, as if video games are either good or bad, but there’s so much more nuance. The design matters. This study hopefully helps us untangle the positive elements. Certainly, there are bad elements — toxicity and addictiveness, for example. But we also see opportunities for growth and connection. Some people in the study met their spouses through games.

Jin Ha Lee: What Nisha studies is essentially what I live. I’m a gamer, and I have definitely started playing certain games with my two children specifically because I wanted to have more conversations with them. When my daughter plays games with interesting stories, we have the opportunity to talk about our lives as we analyze the story. What were these people thinking? Why did they make certain decisions?Ěý

As researchers, we develop games for learning, for instance, for teaching people about misinformation or AI, or promote digital civic engagement, because we want to foster meaningful experiences. But a lot of the existing research just focuses on the short-term effects of games. This study really helps us understand what actually caused a game to make a difference in someone’s life.

What societal changes could we make in our approach to gaming?

JK: Because people have a tendency to oversimplify things, some of the proposed solutions can be counterproductive. For instance, limiting kids’ screen time can actually interfere with positive experiences, especially if someone is immersed in the storyline and identifies with the characters. If 30 minutes into a game, a kid’s Nintendo Switch turns off because of parental controls, that might hinder the ability to have a positive experience. If we aren’t using these tools consciously, it might actually lead to kids playing more casual, junk games, because those can be played in 30 minutes.

ND: You see this with discourse around game addiction, too. Sometimes excessive gaming is because of dark patterns in a game’s design. But it is often a symptom of someone going through something difficult in their life, and the game happens to be a way to cope. As our study shows, there’s the potential for growth in that coping.Ěý

JHL: There’s also a place for games and media that we consider “bad.” You might play a game that’s so horrible that you make a meme out of it, and the jokes you share become a way to build community. Online communities can grow into offline events and friendships. But that isn’t necessarily obvious if you just view gaming as something you need to protect your children from.

What technological changes might accentuate the meaningful effects of games?

JHL: Games are naturally interactive and complex, so there’s a lot of opportunity for critical engagement beyond just the gameplay. There’s music, there’s art, there’s storytelling. All of these offer space for meaningful interaction. Designers can skillfully incorporate these elements to prompt reflection, evoke emotions, or challenge players’ perspectives.Ěý

ND: We’re calling our next study Video Game Book Club. Right now I’m building a tool to allow people to annotate their gameplay as if they were writing in the margins of a book. While you play, a little pop-up lets you make a note. At the end, an interface pops up showing your gameplay stream and all the notes you made, which should allow them to reflect on what they were thinking as they were playing.

We’re also working on a reflection chatbot. Every time after you play a session that’s 30 minutes to an hour long, you’ll interact with this bot that prompts you to think critically about the experience, much like we’re taught to relate to literature. What was really memorable? How is this connected to your life?Ěý

Co-authors include , a UW doctoral student in human centered design and engineering, and , a UW doctoral student in the Information School. This research was funded by the .Ěý

For more information, contact Devasia at ndevasia@uw.edu, Kientz at jkientz@uw.edu and Lee at jinhalee@uw.edu.