Science magazine reports that faculty members Luke Tournabene and Adam Summers have a new mission in life: CT scanning all the vertebrates in the world, with fish and frogs well on their way. All the scans will be made freely available for researchers to have access to unprecedented 3-D images of the skeletal structure of 80% of all vertebrates.

A CT scan of a pirañha (Serrasalmus medinai), picture by Adam Summers and Matthew Kolman 

Faculty member Julian Olden and others in ChronicleVitae urge scientists to see their careers as “an adventure on a long and winding path” that involves interacting with nature and making their science relevant. Instead of focusing on publishing small units of science, we should be embracing the spirit of discovery and striving for societal impact. 

Citizen scientists in a program run by Julia Parrish provided data about two mass die-offs of seabirds on the outer coast of Washington state, which is the largest mass death ever to be definitively ascribed to harmful algal blooms. The new report was authored by SAFS postdoc Timothy Jones, with other SAFS contributions from Julia Parrish, André Punt, and Jennifer Lang, as part of the Coastal Observation and Seabird Survey Team (COASST; a citizen science program at the University of Washington). 

Preview of the 2016 Eastern Bering Sea Pollock Stock Assessment
Please see flier for information about the upcoming Preview of the 2016 Eastern Bering Sea Pollock Stock Assessment at SAFS.
Nov. 9, 2016, 4:00 – 5:30 PM; Reception to follow. 

Each summer, aquatic and fishery sciences professor Daniel Schindler and his students travel to Bristol Bay, Alaska to observe one of the most valuable fisheries in the world. 

Ray Hilborn, UW professor of aquatic and fishery sciences, will receive the 2016 International Fisheries Science Prize this week at the World Fisheries Congress in Busan, South Korea. 

“If reforms were implemented today, three-quarters of exploited fisheries worldwide could reach population goals within 10 years, and 98 percent by mid-century,” according to a report in PNAS co-authored by SAFS Professors Ray Hilborn, Trevor Branch, and Research Scientist Mike Melnychuk. 

SAFS professor Adam Summers, based at Friday Harbor Labs, collaborated with two English majors, Ian Stevens and Zack Bivins, to create an award-winning video about the clingfish – as chosen by 6th through 8th graders around the world, through the Ocean 180 Video Challenge.
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The Seattle Times Reports “Puget Sound salmon are on drugs — Prozac, Advil, Benadryl, Lipitor, even cocaine. Those drugs and dozens of others are showing up in the tissues of juvenile chinook, researchers have found, thanks to tainted wastewater discharge.”
A research team of NOAA and UW scientists, including SAFS’ professor Dr. Graham Young, have documented levels of over 80 “chemicals of emerging concern”, pharmaceuticals and personal care products in estuarine waters and in juvenile chinook salmon and Pacific staghorn sculpin at sites in south Puget Sound impacted by discharge from wastewater treatment plants.