Yan: Lead-Tainted Turmeric

Yan: Lead-Tainted Turmeric

In a feature for Undark, Wudan Yan (@wudanyan) takes us to Bangladesh’s spice markets, where vendors sell turmeric — until recently, often color-enhanced with lead chromate. The country practically eliminated turmeric adulteration through a multinational collaboration...
Takahama: Pioneering Transplant

Takahama: Pioneering Transplant

Elise Takahama (@elisetakahama) tells the inside story of a pioneering heart-liver transplant at UW Medicine, in which doctors saved the life of a heart-failure patient by replacing not only her heart, but also her healthy liver. By replacing her liver, the doctors...
Hede: Next-Gen Battery Design

Hede: Next-Gen Battery Design

For the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Karyn Hede (@KarynHede) writes about the lab’s new flow battery, which maintained its ability to store and release energy for more than a year of continuous charge and discharge — a record.Designed for energy storage on...
Milne: Underwater GPS

Milne: Underwater GPS

For UW News, new member Stefan Milne writes about the first underwater 3D-positioning app for smartwatches and similar devices, recently developed at the university. Instead of GPS, whose signals do not transmit far underwater, the technology uses the microphones and...
Scigliano: Tree Protection and Development

Scigliano: Tree Protection and Development

Eric Scigliano (@SeattleFlotsam) looks into Seattle’s controversial new tree protection ordinance for InvestigateWest. Scigliano breaks down the rates of tree canopy loss in different areas of Seattle over recent years, analyzes the potential effects of the ordinance,...
Cole: AI and the Atom Bomb

Cole: AI and the Atom Bomb

Writing for Wired, K.C. Cole (@kccole314) warns us that, like the nuclear bomb, generative AIs may soon get out of hand — with, perhaps, the same destructive power for our species. “What I’m mainly hearing is echoes,” she writes, “the exact same words and phrases, the...