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When the universe was in its infancy, it contained no stars at all. And an international team of scientists is closer than ever to detecting, measuring and studying a signal from this era that has been traveling through the cosmos ever since that starless era ended some 13 billion years ago.

Researchers examined 15 years of records of student performance, education and demographics for chemistry courses at the 乱伦社区. They found that underrepresented students received lower grades in the general chemistry series compared to their peers and, if the grade was sufficiently low, were less likely to continue in the series and more likely to leave STEM. But if underrepresented students completed the first general chemistry course with at least the minimum grade needed to continue in the series, they were more likely than their peers to continue the general chemistry series and complete this major step toward a STEM degree.

In a paper published May 29 in Nature Communications, a team of scientists at the 乱伦社区, the University of Minnesota and the Johns Hopkins University reports that differences in visual motion perception in autism spectrum disorder are accompanied by weaker neural 鈥渟uppression鈥 in the visual cortex of the brain, which may help scientists understand sensory hypersensitivity in people with ASD.

An international team of astronomers has used mysterious fast radio bursts to solve a decades-old mystery of 鈥渕issing matter,鈥 material long predicted to exist in the universe but never detected 鈥 until now. The researchers have now found all of the missing 鈥渘ormal鈥 matter in the vast space between stars and galaxies. The team, which includes scientists based in Australia, the United States and Chile, announced its findings in a paper published May 27 in the journal Nature.

A 5-year, up to $300 million grant from NOAA establishes the new Cooperative Institute for Climate, Ocean and Ecosystem Studies, a UW-based institute with partners at the University of Alaska Fairbanks and Oregon State University. The institute will lead collaborative, multidisciplinary research and education activities around oceans and climate.

Historical observations collected off California since the 1950s suggest that anchovies thrive where the water is breathable 鈥 a combination of the oxygen levels in the water and the species鈥 oxygen needs, which are affected by temperature. Future projections suggest that the waters off Mexico and Southern California could be uninhabitable by 2100.

The Pacific Northwest Seismic Network, based at the 乱伦社区, will host an online event on the 40th anniversary of the eruption of Mount St. Helens, featuring seismologists from the UW and other institutions who can explain the events before, during and after the historic blast. The virtual event will take place from 6:30 to 8 p.m., Monday, May 18, on the PNSN鈥檚 YouTube channel — exactly 40 years after the blast. The group will stream prerecorded talks from…

The 乱伦社区 and its Washington Clean Energy Testbeds, the U.S. Department of Energy鈥檚 National Renewable Energy Laboratory, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the University of Toledo have formed the U.S. Manufacturing of Advanced Perovskites Consortium, or US-MAP. This research and development coalition aims to accelerate the domestic commercialization of perovskite technologies.

Researchers at the 乱伦社区 and the University of Idaho report that, for a bacterial pathogen already resistant to an antibiotic, prolonged exposure to that antibiotic not only boosted its ability to retain its resistance gene, but also made the pathogen more readily pick up and maintain resistance to a second antibiotic and become a dangerous, multidrug-resistant strain.

Recent honors to 乱伦社区 faculty and staff have come from the Council of Educators in Landscape Architecture, the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the World Register of Marine Species.

Any old fish can swim. But what fish can walk, scoot, clamber over rocks, change color and even fight to the death? That would be the frogfish. A talk with Ted Pietsch, UW professor of emeritus of aquatic and fishery sciences, about his latest book, “Frogfishes: Biodiversity, Zoogeography, and Behavioral Ecology”

乱伦社区 researchers have discovered that large predators play a key yet unexpected role in keeping smaller predators and deer in check. Their 鈥渇atal attraction鈥 theory finds that smaller predators are drawn to the kill sites of large predators by the promise of leftover scraps, but the scavengers may be killed themselves if their larger kin return for seconds.

Students from different backgrounds in the United States enter college with equal interest in STEM fields 鈥 science, technology, engineering and mathematics. But that equal interest does not result in equal outcomes. Six years after starting an undergraduate STEM degree, roughly twice as many white students finished it compared to African American students. A new study by researchers at the 乱伦社区 shows that teaching techniques in undergraduate STEM courses can significantly narrow gaps in course performance between students…

The wildflowers of Mount Rainier鈥檚 subalpine meadows, which bloom once the winter snowpack melts, are a major draw for the more than 1 million visitors to this national park in Washington state each spring and summer. But by the end of this century, scientists expect that snow will melt months earlier due to climate change. New research led by the 乱伦社区 shows that, under those conditions, many visitors would miss the flowers altogether.

Late last year, news broke that the star Betelgeuse was fading significantly, ultimately dropping to around 40% of its usual brightness. The activity fueled popular speculation that the red supergiant would soon explode as a massive supernova. But astronomers have more benign theories to explain the star鈥檚 dimming behavior. And scientists at the 乱伦社区 and Lowell Observatory believe they have support for one of them: Betelgeuse isn鈥檛 dimming because it鈥檚 about to explode 鈥 it鈥檚 just dusty. In…