天美影院News spoke with Paul Wiggins, a 天美影院 associate professor of both physics and bioengineering, to learn about a surprisingly relatable behavior prompting bacteria to stockpile huge reserves of essential proteins.
Engineering
天美影院 researchers developed a system called VueBuds that uses tiny cameras in off-the-shelf wireless earbuds to allow users to talk with an AI model about the scene in front of them. For instance, a user might look at a Korean food package and say, 鈥淗ey VueBuds, translate this for me.鈥� They鈥檇 then hear an AI voice say, 鈥淭he visible text translates to 鈥楥old Noodles鈥� in English.
At the brand-new Quantum Technologies Training and Testbed lab, researchers from across the 天美影院probe the 鈥渟pooky鈥� mysteries of quantum phenomena.
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.
Researchers at 天美影院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 天美影院shows that the same process can also increase seasonal snowpack, providing some relief to drought-prone areas throughout central Washington.
A team led by 天美影院 researchers has created DopFone, a system that uses an off-the-shelf smartphone鈥檚 existing speaker and microphone to accurately estimate fetal heart rate. The phone mimics a Doppler ultrasound, emitting a tone and listening for the subtle variations in its echo caused by fetal heart beats. A machine learning model then estimates the heart rate.
A 天美影院and Ai2 research team built OpenScholar, an open-source AI model designed specifically to synthesize current scientific research. In tests, OpenScholar cited sources as accurately as human experts, and 16 scientists preferred its response to those written by subject experts 51% of the time.
A new smart glove from the 天美影院Wearable Intelligence Lab could help physical therapy patients track progress and train robotic hands to grasp.
Lucas Meza, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering at the 天美影院, started his lab to build a new generation of tough and light nanomaterials inspired by natural materials like wood, shell and bone. Instead, he discovered 鈥渂ig gaps鈥� in our basic understanding of what makes a material tough or brittle. Meza spoke to 天美影院News about his strange and surprising journey into the nano realm.
New research from the 天美影院and the Toyota Research Institute explores how drivers trade off between cognitive tasks, driving and using the vehicle’s touch screen. Researchers placed participants in a driving simulator and had them complete memory tests while interacting with the simulator鈥檚 touch screen.
A new 天美影院 study suggests that AI could learn cultural values by observing human behavior, similar to how children learn by watching and interacting with adults. Researchers had AI systems observe two cultural groups playing a video game. The AI systems were able to learn each group鈥檚 degree of altruism and apply this to a new situation.
Researchers at the 天美影院have developed AI-powered headphones that automatically isolate conversation partners in a noisy soundscape. The system employs AI models that listen for the back-and-forth pattern of conversation and mute voices that aren鈥檛 following the established rhythm.
Researchers at the 天美影院have created a recyclable, flexible and self-healing composite material that could replace traditional circuit boards in future generations of wearable electronics.
Targeted drug delivery is a powerful and promising area of medicine. Therapies that pinpoint precise areas of the body can reduce the medicine dosage and avoid potentially harmful 鈥渙ff target鈥� effects. Researchers at the 天美影院took a significant step toward that goal by designing proteins with autonomous decision-making capabilities. By adding smart tail structures to therapeutic proteins, the team demonstrated that the proteins could be 鈥減rogrammed鈥� to act based on the presence of specific environmental cues.
天美影院researchers discuss their study which surveyed 166 gamers about how video games sparked meaningful changes in their lives.
New research from the 天美影院tested how much a car owner鈥檚 perception of public charger reliability influences their willingness to buy their first EV. The results were dramatic: Participants with a negative view of public charging were far less likely to choose an EV than those with a moderate view.
In her new book, Katharina Reinecke explores how “digital culture shock” manifests in the world, in ways innocuous and sometimes harmful.聽
In a recent paper, 天美影院 researchers argue that a key standard for deploying medical AI is transparency 鈥� that is, using various methods to clarify how a medical AI system arrives at its diagnoses and outputs.
New research led by the 天美影院 provides clear evidence that highly walkable areas lead to significantly more walking. Authors compared the steps per day of 5,424 people who moved one or more times among 1,609 U.S. cities. Across all relocations, when the Walk Score rose or fell more than 48 points, average steps increased or decreased by about 1,100 per day.
Antimicrobial resistance is a lurking threat in hospitals around the world. As more strains of bacteria and other microbes evolve defenses against available drugs, more patients run the risk of contracting infections that defy treatment. Now, 天美影院 researchers offer new insights into measures currently used to control the spread of antibiotic resistant bacteria and other infectious agents in health care facilities.
天美影院 researchers recruited self-identifying Democrats and Republicans to make political decisions with help from three versions of ChatGPT: a base model, one with liberal bias and one with conservative bias. Democrats and Republicans were both likelier to lean in the direction of the biased chatbot they were talking with than those participants who interacted with the base model.
天美影院professor of aeronautics and astronautics Jim Hermanson took a ride Wednesday morning aboard a U.S. Navy Boeing F/A-18 Super Hornet 鈥� better known as one of the Blue Angels.聽
Researchers at the 天美影院 and Microsoft developed a new type of low-carbon concrete by mixing dried, powdered seaweed with cement. The seaweed-fortified cement has a 21% lower global warming potential while retaining its strength.
天美影院 researchers developed the game AI Puzzlers to show kids an area where AI systems still typically and blatantly fail: solving certain reasoning puzzles. In the game, users get a chance to solve puzzles by completing patterns of colored blocks. They can then ask various AI chatbots to solve and have the systems explain their solutions 鈥� which they nearly always fail to do accurately.
In 2023, 天美影院 researchers recruited a group of 29 laid-off U.S. tech workers to discuss the effects of recent mass layoffs on employees. Overall, the group was ambivalent about tech work. They said it was often unfulfilling, despite their plans to continue in the industry.
天美影院researchers designed a headphone system that translates several people speaking at once, following them as they move and preserving the direction and qualities of their voices. The team built the system, called Spatial Speech Translation, with off-the-shelf noise-cancelling headphones fitted with microphones.
A UW-led team has developed a system, called ProxiCycle, that logs when a passing car comes too close to a cyclist (four feet or less). A small, inexpensive sensor plugs into bicycle handlebars and tracks the passes, sending them to the rider鈥檚 phone. The team tested the system for two months with 15 cyclists in Seattle and found a significant correlation between the locations of close passes and other indicators of poor safety, such as collisions.
A new data set called OS-CONNECT maps sidewalks and other pedestrian paths statewide, from Forks on the Olympic Peninsula to Clarkston in the southeast. In House Bill 1125, the Washington State Legislature assigned the UW’s Taskar Center for Accessible Technology to build the data set, which was completed well ahead of its projected 2027 goal.
Researchers deployed a robotic feeding arm in a pair of studies outside the lab. In the first, six users with motor impairments used the robot to feed themselves a meal in a 天美影院cafeteria, an office or a conference room. In the second study, a community researcher and co-author on the research used the system at home for five days.
天美影院researchers developed a new system for turning used coffee grounds into a paste, which they use to 3D print objects, such as packing materials and a vase. They inoculate the paste with Reishi mushroom spores, which turn the coffee grounds into a resilient, fully compostable alternative to plastics.
Two 天美影院 researchers are developing treatments that aim to simultaneously treat cancer and improve patients’ quality of life. For World Cancer Day, 天美影院News asked them to discuss their novel materials and how these materials can treat both the cancer and the patient.
A 天美影院team studied how AI systems portray teens in English and Nepali, and found that in English language systems around 30% of the responses referenced societal problems such as violence, drug use and mental illness. The Nepali system produced fewer negative associations in responses, closer to 10% of all answers.
天美影院researchers have developed IRIS, a smart ring that allows users to point and click to control smart devices. The prototype Bluetooth ring contains a small camera which sends an image of the selected device to the user鈥檚 phone. The user can control the device by clicking a small button or 鈥� for devices with gradient controls, such as a speaker鈥檚 volume 鈥� rotating the ring.
Alex Prybutok, 天美影院assistant teaching professor of chemical engineering, studies anti-racism, diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility in engineering education.
A research team at 天美影院and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory examined the atomic composition of enamel samples from two human teeth.
天美影院 researchers created a method for training AI systems 鈥� both for large language models like ChatGPT and for robots 鈥� that can better reflect users鈥� diverse values. It predicts users鈥� preferences as they interact with it, then tailors its outputs accordingly.
Jie Xiao, 天美影院 professor of mechanical engineering, talks about batteries and how academia can help support the growing domestic battery manufacturing industry.
天美影院assistant professor Sheng Wang discusses BiomedParse, an AI medical image analysis model that works across nine types of medical images to better predict systemic diseases. Medical professionals can load images into the system and ask the AI tool questions about them in plain English.
A team led by researchers at the 天美影院 has created a headphone prototype that allows listeners to hear people speaking within a bubble with a programmable radius of 3 to 6 feet. Voices and sounds outside the bubble are quieted an average of 49 decibels, even if they鈥檙e louder than those in the bubble.