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Lucas Meza, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering at the Ä¢¹½ÊÓÆµ, 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 “big gapsâ€� in our basic understanding of what makes a material tough or brittle. Meza spoke to Ä¢¹½ÊÓÆµ News about his strange and surprising journey into the nano realm.

More than a decade ago, data from the Cassini mission to Saturn suggested that the planet’s largest moon, Titan, had a vast ocean of liquid water below its frozen surface. In a new study, Ä¢¹½ÊÓÆµ researchers teamed up with NASA scientists to show that the interior is likely composed of slushy layers instead.

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences on Oct. 8 awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry to Susumu Kitagawa, Richard Robson and Omar M. Yaghi “for the development of metal-organic frameworks,” or MOFs. Both Dianne Xiao, a Ä¢¹½ÊÓÆµ associate professor of chemistry, and Douglas Reed, a Ä¢¹½ÊÓÆµ assistant professor of chemistry, use MOFs in their research at the Ä¢¹½ÊÓÆµ. Ä¢¹½ÊÓÆµ News reached out to them to learn more about the significance of these structures and how researchers use them.

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 “off targetâ€� effects. Researchers at the Ä¢¹½ÊÓÆµ 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 “programmedâ€� to act based on the presence of specific environmental cues.

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences on Tuesday awarded the 2025 Nobel Prize in Physics jointly to John Clarke, Michel H. Devoret and John M. Martinis, “for the discovery of macroscopic quantum mechanical tunneling and energy quantization in an electric circuit.â€� Clarke, a professor emeritus of physics at the University of California, Berkeley, collaborates with the Axion Dark Matter Experiment at the Ä¢¹½ÊÓÆµ.

The Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institute on Monday awarded the 2025 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine jointly to Mary E. Brunkow — an alum of the Ä¢¹½ÊÓÆµ — along with Frederick J. Ramsdell and Shimon Sakaguchi “for groundbreaking discoveries concerning peripheral immune tolerance that prevents the immune system from harming the body.”

In a new study, a team of scientists determined the minimum natural habitat on agricultural land that will allow insect pollinators — including bumble bees, solitary bees, hoverflies and butterflies — to thrive. Ä¢¹½ÊÓÆµ News reached out to co-author Berry Brosi, Ä¢¹½ÊÓÆµ professor of biology, to learn more about these results and how habitat is important to two types of bees native to Washington.

Quantum dots, which are 10,000 times smaller than the width of a human hair, are unique materials that generate very specific colors of light. Researchers, including Brandi Cossairt, Ä¢¹½ÊÓÆµ professor of chemistry, hope that quantum dots can one day be useful for more than just illuminating TV screens. Ä¢¹½ÊÓÆµ News asked her to compare the quantum dots in QLED TVs with the ones her lab makes.

Antarctic ice is melting at a startling pace, and the West Antarctic Ice Sheet is one of the greatest sources of uncertainty in climate projections. Researchers thought westerly winds were accelerating ice loss, but a new study from Ä¢¹½ÊÓÆµ flips the narrative by 90 degrees, pointing instead to winds from the north.

The positive impact of Big Ten universities across the Pacific Northwest and around the nation will be highlighted in a new 30-second ad that will air during sporting events featuring conference members, starting with this week’s season-opening football games. The ad – entitled “We Are Hereâ€� – will air alongside the fan-favorite “Mapsâ€� spot. The new spot focuses on how the Ä¢¹½ÊÓÆµ and other Big Ten universities make America healthier, safer and more prosperous in a variety of…

The Ä¢¹½ÊÓÆµâ€™s College of the Environment will expand its work related to climate solutions thanks to a grant announced today from Fund for Science and Technology, FFST, a new foundation within the Paul G. Allen philanthropic ecosystem.

A new study from the Ä¢¹½ÊÓÆµ shows that households enrolled in the City of Seattle’s Fresh Bucks program experience a 31% higher rate of food security and consume at least three daily servings of fruits and vegetables 37% more often than those assigned to a program waitlist. Fresh Bucks, a $40 a month benefit, works with local partners to help residents access fresh food.

A Ä¢¹½ÊÓÆµ-led project aimed to test the viability of seaweed as a soil amendment, and, if successful, develop a market for sea-based farmers to sell excess seaweed to their counterparts on land. The USDA froze the project’s funding, and for now, a solution remains just out of reach.

Two Ä¢¹½ÊÓÆµ researchers are developing treatments that aim to simultaneously treat cancer and improve patients’ quality of life. For World Cancer Day, Ä¢¹½ÊÓÆµ News asked them to discuss their novel materials and how these materials can treat both the cancer and the patient.

America’s homeless services system relies on a massive amount of data, and at first glance, that data is exacting. Federal reports describe the country’s unhoused population in granular detail, listing precisely how many people are experiencing homelessness in each city along with detailed demographic data. Want to know how many people ages 55-64 slept outside in Spokane last year? A spreadsheet confidently provides the answer: just one.  That data influences decisions at every level of government, from how the U.S….