NewsFlash is a monthly email of press items featuring our College's researchers. For a more complete and regularly updated list of COE media coverage, see In the Media.
Click on a headline to read that article on the web. Some links may require a subscription or no longer be active.
NewsFlash is a service of the UW College of Engineering and the UW Office of News and Information. If you have a newsworthy result about one month from publication, presentation or demonstration, please contact Michelle Ma at mcma@uw.edu@uw.edu or (206) 543-2580.
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NewsFlash, June 2012
Jun. 04, 2012 | New York Times: Green blog
Climate change threatens power output, study says
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As the climate gets warmer, so do the rivers and lakes that power plants draw their cooling water from. And that is going to make it harder to generate electricity in decades to come. Civil and environmental engineer Dennis Lettenmaier is quoted. |
Nuclear and coal-fired electrical plants vulnerable to climate change
Jun. 04, 2012 | USA Today: Greenhouse blog
Climate change causes nuclear, coal power plant shutdowns
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Climate change, by warming water and reducing river flows, has caused production losses at several nuclear and coal-fired power plants in the United States and Europe in recent years and will lead to more power disruptions in the future. |
Nuclear and coal-fired electrical plants vulnerable to climate change
Jun. 04, 2012 | The Washington Post: Wonkblog
Even our electricity is vulnerable to climate change
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A new study by UW civil engineers and European collaborators projects that the generation capacity of power plants could drop as the temperature of water drawn from rivers and lakes to cool turbines rises with global warming. |
Nuclear and coal-fired electrical plants vulnerable to climate change
Jun. 18, 2012 | Washington Post
Buying electricity from renewable sources can be complicated
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Getting all of your electricity from windmills, solar panels and the like may sound good, but what does it mean? Daniel Kirschen, professor of electrical engineering, is quoted. |
Jun. 20, 2012 | The (UW) Daily
A new home for collaboration: New Molecular Engineering Building prepares to open its doors
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Featuring four floors of lab and office space specifically tailored for research needs, the new Molecular Engineering and Sciences Building will opens its doors June 25. Bioengineer Pat Stayton and materials scientist Christine Luscombe are quoted. |
Jun. 27, 2012 | The Seattle Times
UW recruits superstars of computer-science world
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The University of Washington has landed four new faculty members considered among the brightest in their field. Computer scientists Hank Levy and Ed Lazowska, and incoming faculty members Carlos Guestrin and Ben Taskar, are quoted. |
New hires catapult UW's expertise in machine learning and 'big data'
Jun. 28, 2012 | GeekWire
Love and marriage: How the UW is making bets on the brains of ‘big data’ and ‘machine learning’
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Computer science is very much a discipline that revolves around numbers. But it was something a little less mathematical that led to the University of Washington strengthening its computer science department in recent months: Love, marriage and friendship. |
New hires catapult UW's expertise in machine learning and 'big data'
Jun. 05, 2012 | Xconomy
New UW spinout Zplasma aims to keep Moore's Law humming
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Aeronautical engineer Uri Shumlak and electrical engineer Brian Nelson discovered a way to make plasma pinches, which emit extreme UV light, last 100 times longer than before. Their startup uses the light to etch silicon for microprocessors. |
Plasma startup creates high-energy light to make smaller microchips
Apr. 05, 2012 | KING TV
Boeing drone makes first test flight
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Boeing's new "Phantom Eye" drone is powered by liquid-hydrogen and is designed to fly up to four days without refueling. Aeronautical engineer Jim Hermanson talks to aerospace reporter Glenn Farley in the UW's Kirsten Wind Tunnel. |
Jun. 26, 2012 | The (UW) Daily
Mining the moon: Aerospace engineering students place first in NASA aeronautics design competition
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Twenty-three aerospace engineering seniors' solution to the problem of mining the moon won them first place in a NASA aeronautics design competition. The competition asked teams to contrive a way to support a 30-person habitat on the moon. |
Jun. 27, 2012 | The Seattle Times
Weather could affect Super Guppy event
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The forward section of NASA's Full Fuselage Trainer has begun its journey from Houston to Seattle, and will be greeted at a Saturday ceremony at the Museum of Flight. UW aeronautical engineering alumnus Gregory Johnson is piloting the unusual-looking Super Guppy cargo plane. |
Jun. 07, 2012 | Bloomberg BusinessWeek
Zoran Popović: Recruiting gamers to fight disease
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A profile of computer scientist Zoran Popovic, who heads the UW's Center for Game Science. |
Paper uncovers power of Foldit gamers’ strategies
Gaming for a cure: Computer gamers tackle protein folding
Jun. 20, 2012 | Medgadget
Foldit and the power of games for science
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Medgadget posts computer scientist Seth Cooper's talk from TEDMED 2012, about Foldit and the potential of games in science. |
Paper uncovers power of Foldit gamers’ strategies
Gaming for a cure: Computer gamers tackle protein folding
Jun. 22, 2012 | Wired
New videogame lets amateur researchers mess with RNA
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A profile of former UW PhD student and postdoc Adrien Treuille, who was part of the team that developed Foldit. EteRNA, a similar game, was hatched up by Treuille and another former UW postdoc in the Wenatchee National Forest. |
Paper uncovers power of Foldit gamers’ strategies
Gaming for a cure: Computer gamers tackle protein folding
Jun. 19, 2012 | New Scientist (subscription required)
Positive switch for body electronics
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Materials scientist Marco Rolandi's new transistor speaks the language of body cells -- a breakthrough that might lead to a cure for Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. |
Proton-based transistor could let machines communicate with living things
Jun. 01, 2012 | NPR: Marketplace
Chipping our kids: Can we fight truancy with technology?
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Can technology keep kids from skipping school? In San Antonio, they're going to track children with the same microchips used for cattle, or boxes in a Walmart warehouse. Computer science PhD student Alexei Czeskis comments on the privacy implications. |
Computer Science and Engineering students win National Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition
Jun. 14, 2012 | KUOW Radio
The brain chip cure
| UW scientists are installing computer chips in patients' brains to try to reestablish lost or damaged connections. Biologist Tom Daniel, interim director of the Center for Sensorimotor Neural Engineering, is a guest on the Conversation. |
UW will lead $18.5 million effort to create mind-machine interface
May. 25, 2012 | The (UK) Telegraph
Is sci-fi surgery so outrageous?
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Dr. Richard Satava at UW Medicine is profiled as a pioneer on the future of surgery. Electrical engineer Howard Chizeck and visiting PhD student Frederik Ryden describe their work with the Raven surgical robot. |
Surgical robots to provide open-source platform for medical robotics research
Robotic surgeon to team up with doctors, astronauts on NASA mission
Jun. 15, 2012 | CNET
FCC to re-examine cellphone safety standards
| The Federal Communications Commission is taking a look at revising its 16-year-old safety limits for cellphones in a routine review of its standards. Bioengineer Henry Lai is quoted. |
Jun. 17, 2012 | The New York Times
Verifying ages online is a daunting task, even for experts
| Despite attempts by privacy advocates, academics, law enforcement officials, technologists and advertisers to determine a person’s age on the Internet, the problem remains a challenge. Computer scientist Oren Etzioni is quoted. |
Jun. 20, 2012 | Reuters
Analysis: With Siri and new alliances, Apple takes on Google search
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The stakes for how people search for information on the Internet are high, says UW computer scientist Oren Etzioni. "Google is very difficult to dislodge on the desktop," he says, "but mobile search is a very different beast." |
Jun. 20, 2012 | The Seattle Times
UW launches venture fund to spur startups
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The new W Fund will have $20 million of venture capital to help launch businesses based on innovations at the UW and other local research institutions. The fund represents another move by the UW to accelerate the commercialization of academic research and build businesses around professors' and students' discoveries and inventions. |
New W Fund officially launches, will invest in Washington-based start-ups
Jun. 20, 2012 | Xconomy
$20 million W Fund, focusing on research spinouts, open for business
| Starting today, the W Fund is officially ready to start cutting checks—and it’s already started investigating promising research projects from colleges and government R&D labs around the state. |
New W Fund officially launches, will invest in Washington-based start-ups
Jun. 19, 2012 | GeekWire
Newly-formed W Fund to pump $20M into university spinouts
| Washington’s startup community is getting yet another shot in the arm, thanks to the efforts of a newly-formed venture capital firm whose goal is to mine universities and research institutions for the state’s very best business ideas. The fund will seek the very best ideas emerging from the region’s research organizations in the fields of computer science, medical devices, biotechnology, clean tech and more. |
New W Fund officially launches, will invest in Washington-based start-ups
Jun. 11, 2012 | The Seattle Times
Seattle keeps its groove for tech jobs
| Business columnist Jon Talton comments on a study helping to explain why Seattle's economy is doing better than most. Part of the reason, he adds, is the University of Washington. |
Jun. 25, 2012 | GeekWire
Geek of the Week: Melissa Winstanley, UW computer science standout
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GeekWire profiles Melissa Winstanley, a recent graduate in computer science & engineering and winner of the 2012 UW President’s Medal. She credits instructor Stuart Reges as a role model who introduced her to computer science. |
Jun. 07, 2012 | GeekWire
Meet the future: These 21 UW computer science grads are ready to change the world
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Twenty-one undergrads who are set to receive their computer science degrees this weekend answer a series of questions for GeekWire. The new grads talk about where they’re headed, and what excites them about the technology world today. |
If you have a newsworthy result about one month from publication, presentation or demonstration, please contact Hannah Hickey. Notice of student and faculty awards and grants is also welcome.