Innovation & Technology

The fin whale is the second-largest animal ever to live on Earth. It is also, paradoxically, one of the least understood. The animal’s huge size and global range make its movements and behavior hard to study.

We're very pleased to announce the possible partnering of WOOF, UW Recycling, UW ESS, and the UWGP.

Information streams live from sensors two miles below the ocean surface, gathering data for years at a time and providing a video stream accessible to anyone with an Internet connection.

After making do with battery-powered sensors that would need to be retrieved before their data could be accessed, engineers at the UW’s Applied Physics Laboratory are working to make these groundbreaking live-sensor oceanography tools a reality through the world’s largest underwater observatory off the Washington coast.

At the end of a long day, it can be more convenient to order your groceries online while sitting on the living room couch instead of making a late-night run to the store. New research shows it’s also much more environmentally friendly to leave the car parked and opt for groceries delivered to your doorstep.

Concrete is the most widely used manmade material in the world. Each year, more than 1 cubic yard of concrete is created for every person on the planet.

Every year the United States alone uses about 300 million cubic yards of ready-mix concrete to make streets, bridges, buildings, dams and driveways — and it lasts a very long time.

But, what if concrete could be made “greener”? What would the global energy savings be if concrete had a 50 percent smaller carbon footprint?

The basement lab near the University of Washington campus is, literally, buzzing. High-voltage machines produce energy that will soon run through cables snaking along the seafloor. A dozen engineers hunch over electronics, making alterations or running checks. In one corner, a nitride-coated titanium shaft has been sitting in a bucket of saltwater for four months to test the coating for corrosion. A glass-walled cleanroom prevents contaminants from interfering with seals on housings designed to keep out seawater pressing in at 4,200 pounds per square inch.

A row of space-age domes off the Washington coast may provide a peek at the future. Not the future of space travel, but of climate change and the effects of increasingly acidic oceans.

A University of Washington class is using the nation’s first controlled-ocean research tool to study the effects of increased acidity on marine ecosystems.

“The goal is to study the impact of ocean acidification on biological community structure in seawater from the San Juan Islands,” said James Murray, a UW oceanography professor.

The University of Washington Herbarium at the Burke Museum, the authors of Wildflowers of the Pacific Northwest, and High Country Apps have partnered to produce the new Washington Wildflowers wildflower identification app for iOS and Android mobile devices. The app provides images, species descriptions, range maps, bloom period, and technical descriptions for more than 850 common wildflowers, shrubs, and vines that occur in Washington and adjacent areas of British Columbia, Idaho, and Oregon.

$22,500 Awarded to Environmental/Clean Tech Innovators