David Hertzog, a 乱伦社区 professor of physics, is a recipient of the 2026 Breakthrough Prize for Fundamental Physics. The award is shared among roughly 400 scientists and celebrates decades of work to better understand the muon 鈥� a subatomic particle with anomalous properties.
The Ecological Society of America named the UW鈥檚 Claire Willing a 2026 Early Career Fellow. Willing, an assistant professor of environmental and forest science, studies fungal ecology, looking at how fungi are evolving and supporting plant communities as the climate changes.
In a new study, 乱伦社区 researchers show that an Earth-sized planet likely needs at least 20 to 50% of the water in Earth鈥檚 oceans to maintain a critical natural cycle that keeps water on the surface. These new parameters could exclude many exoplanets in the so-called habitable zone.
A new study doubles the evolutionary history of the weasel family. Researchers, including Chris Law, a UW principal research scientist in the biology department, have determined that a fossil that was discovered in Spain belongs to a new species dating back to around 6.5 million years ago. This new species was likely similar in size to the smallest living weasel species today, the least weasel.
At the brand-new Quantum Technologies Training and Testbed lab, researchers from across the UW probe the 鈥渟pooky鈥� mysteries of quantum phenomena.
New evidence suggests that a disease-causing tapeworm that has been spreading across the United States and Canada has arrived in the Pacific Northwest. The tapeworm, called Echinococcus multilocularis, was found in one-third of coyotes surveyed from the Puget Sound region.
Using preliminary data from the Simonyi Survey Telescope at the NSF鈥揇OE Vera C. Rubin Observatory, scientists have discovered over 11,000 new asteroids in our solar system. The findings include hundreds of distant worlds beyond Neptune as well as 33 previously unknown near-Earth objects.
Explore recent research from the 乱伦社区: the habits and habitats of Nautilus and Allonautilus, how green clay tennis courts remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, why temperature dynamics matter to mussels and what prompts bacteria to attack diatoms.
A team of 170 scientists and experts 鈥� led by Phil Levin, interim executive director of the UW鈥檚 EarthLab 鈥� has published a draft of a report detailing the health of U.S. nature. While some of the resulting statistics are grim, the report highlights many areas of opportunity. Researchers welcome public comment through May 30.
New research shows that as winters get warmer, more icy crusts may form within snowpacks in much of the Pacific Northwest, increasing the risk of avalanche in some areas and changing the behavior of wildlife across the region.
In a new study, 乱伦社区 researchers examine the impact of tilling on soil moisture and water retention using methods designed for monitoring earthquakes. They show that tilling disrupts important soil microstructures and highlight the potential utility of this method for precision agriculture and more.
Plants, like people, have a circadian clock and they sense seasonal changes to light and temperature. Plants that bloom in the spring use the longer days and warmer temperatures as seasonal cues that it鈥檚 time to bloom.
Mosquitoes are increasingly becoming resistant to current insecticides, leading to a pressing need for new methods to prevent mosquito bites 鈥� and the potential transmission of disease. New research by an international team, including researchers at the UW, reveals that Aedes aegypti mosquitoes use a specific sensory receptor to detect and avoid borneol (pronounced “bor-nee-ohl”), an organic compound found in several aromatic plants, including camphor trees, rosemary and other aromatic herbs.
Researchers tracked ravens and wolves in Yellowstone National Park for two and half years to show that ravens do not follow wolves to scavenge their prey but instead remember where wolves often kill and monitor these sites for fresh meat.
An oddly-behaving star led two UW astronomers to capture rare evidence of a collision between two planets in a distant solar system. The discovery could aid scientists in their search for worlds similar to our own.
Researchers at UW and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory are simulating something in the lab that they hope will rarely happen in the wild: a collision between underwater turbines and marine animals.
Forest managers in the eastern Cascades selectively thin forests to promote wildfire resilience. New research from the UW shows that the same process can also increase seasonal snowpack, providing some relief to drought-prone areas throughout central Washington.
A new study examining 13 years of ground motion data from sites near the Cascadia Subduction Zone shows that the entirety of the fault may not be as tightly locked as researchers thought, which could change our understanding of how a big earthquake might hit the Pacific Northwest.
Jennifer Ruesink, 乱伦社区 professor of biology, studies the relationship between the environment and marine organisms, including eelgrass, the primary species of seagrass that resides in the oceans surrounding Washington. In honor of World Seagrass Day, UW News asked Ruesink to explain what seagrass is and what makes the seagrasses in Washington unique.
The Vera C. Rubin Observatory has issued its first real-time alerts of changes in the night sky. The ultrafast alerting system, developed at the UW, will eventually detect up to seven million changes in the cosmos every night and notify scientists around the world.
The peer review process in scientific publishing has reached a critical point where there are too many manuscript submissions and not enough peer reviewers. UW News asked Carl Bergstrom, 乱伦社区 professor of biology, and Kevin Gross, North Carolina State University professor of statistics, to describe this self-perpetuating cycle and potential interventions.
Last December was the warmest on record for Washington, according to the Washington State Climate Office. Now many plants in our gardens are beginning to bud, even though it’s only February. UW News asked Takato Imaizumi, UW professor of biology, to talk about the mechanisms behind blooming and how warmer winters might impact flowering plants.
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. UW News asked Vivek Hari Sridhar, a UW assistant professor of biology and one of the leaders of the project, for details about the project and the documentary.
NASA announced on Thursday last week that both the 乱伦社区 STRIVE team and the UW-affiliated EDGE team were selected to lead satellite missions to better understand Earth and improve capabilities to foresee environmental events and mitigate disasters.
A 乱伦社区 study shows that existing models underestimate methane loss in the stratosphere and generate uncertainty in the global methane budget 鈥� a key metric for tracking climate change.
UW News spoke with Lauren Buckley, 乱伦社区 professor of biology, to learn about “functional resurvey” experiments and what they can tell us about how organisms change over time.
New research supported by Yingjie Cheng, a 乱伦社区 postdoctoral researcher in astronomy, uncovered a contender for one of the earliest observed spiral galaxies containing a stellar bar 鈥� a notable visual feature that can play an important role in the evolution of a galaxy.
A new smart glove from the UW Wearable Intelligence Lab could help physical therapy patients track progress and train robotic hands to grasp.
A team led by 乱伦社区 astronomers has discovered the fastest-ever spinning asteroid with a diameter over half a kilometer.
乱伦社区 researchers show that wildfire is increasingly impacting lands managed under the Northwest Forest Plan, a seminal measure enacted in 1994 to preserve habitat for endangered species.
Rivers cover more than 4 million miles of the U.S., but protections for rivers are piecemeal, accounting for less than 20% of total river length and varying widely by region, shows a new study co-led by the 乱伦社区.
The American Geophysical Union honored five 乱伦社区 faculty and researchers from the departments of Earth and space sciences and atmospheric and climate science this week for their valuable researcher contributions.
More than a decade ago, data from the Cassini mission to Saturn suggested that the planet’s largest moon, Titan, had a vast ocean of liquid water below its frozen surface. In a new study, UW researchers teamed up with NASA scientists to show that the interior is likely composed of slushy layers instead.
New research led by the 乱伦社区 suggests that two different climate transitions millions of years ago fueled the diversification of carnivoran body plans.
In a new study, 乱伦社区 researchers collected salmon DNA in air filters near a stream, showing that eDNA can move between air and water, a possibility scientists hadn鈥檛 accounted for that opens new avenues for monitoring aquatic species.
鈥淭he Memory of Darkness, Light and Ice鈥� 鈥� a documentary film featuring Eric Steig, a UW professor of Earth and space sciences 鈥� tells the story of a U.S. military and research base established in Greenland during the Cold War, and how the samples collected there are driving modern climate science. The film is now available on YouTube, Apple TV and Amazon Prime.
The green hermit hummingbird, which lives primarily in mountain forests of Central and South America, fights to win a mate. New research found that these fights have shaped the species鈥� evolution, yielding significant differences in bill shape for male and female green hermits.
The Northeastern Pacific Ocean is becoming more acidic faster than other oceans as the water absorbs carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and natural processes feed carbon dioxide up from the deep. The rate of CO2 accumulation is outpacing atmospheric rises and driving acidity to new extremes.
A new 乱伦社区-led study shows that space dust sandwiched between layers of sediment tells scientists where and when ice covered the Arctic, and what happened to marine life when it disappeared.
New 乱伦社区-led research attributes accelerated warming to reduced cloud reflectivity. As efforts to improve air quality have reduced pollution, clouds became less mirror-like, letting more solar radiation reach Earth and revealing the true impact of greenhouse gases.