In the developing world, anemia—a blood condition exacerbated by malnutrition or parasitic disease—is a staggeringly common health problem that often goes undiagnosed. In hospitals everywhere, children and adults with leukemia and other disorders require frequent blood draws to determine if they need blood transfusions. In both cases, doctors are interested in measuring hemoglobin, a protein found in red blood cells.

University of Washington engineers have introduced a way of communicating allows devices such as brain implants, contact lenses, credit cards and smaller wearable electronics to talk to everyday devices such as smartphones and watches. This "interscatter communication" works by converting Bluetooth signals into WiFi transmissions over the air.

When we go to the hair stylist, we can browse magazines with pictures of models and point to a photo we'd like to try. Actors change appearances all the time to fit a role. Missing people are often disguised by changing their hair color and style. But how can we predict if an appearance change will look good without physically trying it? Or explore what missing children might look like if their appearance is changed?

Scientists from the University of Washington recently reported a relatively simple method that would allow ordinary laboratory microscopes to illuminate many of cellular structures quickly and efficiently. They did not modify microscopes to boost resolution. Instead, they used an approach to swell the tiny, complex structures within cells, bringing them within range of a microscope's existing resolving range.

One of the most common, versatile daily items, a piece of paper is used to draw a doodle, practice writing, print reports or scribble a hasty shopping list. Now, connecting real-world items such as a paper aeroplane or a classroom survey form to the larger IoT environment is possible using off-the-shelf technology and a pen, sticker or stencil pattern.

Robots today can perform space missions, solve a Rubik’s cube, sort hospital medication and even make pancakes. But most can’t manage the simple act of grasping a pencil and spinning it around to get a solid grip. Intricate tasks that require dexterous in-hand manipulation — rolling, pivoting, bending, sensing friction and other things humans do effortlessly with our hands — have proved notoriously difficult for robots.

Most people in the developing world who have asthma, cystic fibrosis or other chronic lung diseases have no way to measure how well their lungs are functioning outside of a clinic or doctor visit. But many do have access to a phone, though it may be a 10-year-old flip phone or a communal village landline instead of the latest app-driven smartphone.

  "You just composted 2.31 ounces," the screen reads. "If everyone on campus composted this amount today, UW would save $1,181.00." An interactive recycling and composting station installed this spring at PACCAR Hall is showing the University of Washington community exactly how much money can be saved by composting and recycling correctly.

A technique developed by University of Washington and Microsoft researchers could shrink the space needed to store digital data that today would fill a supermarket down to the size of an ice cube. The team of computer scientists and electrical engineers has detailed one of the first complete systems to encode, store and retrieve digital data using DNA molecules, which can store information millions of times more compactly than current archival te...

The upside of WiFi is that it’s everywhere – invisibly connecting laptops to printers, allowing smartphones to make calls or stream movies without cell service, and letting online gamers battle it out. The downside is that using WiFi consumes a significant amount of energy, draining the batteries on all those connected devices. A team of University of Washington computer scientists and electrical engineers has demonstrated that it&rsq...

Heterostructures formed by different three-dimensional semiconductors form the foundation for modern electronic and photonic devices. Now, University of Washington scientists have successfully combined two different ultrathin semiconductors - each just one layer of atoms thick and roughly 100,000 times thinner than a human hair - to make a new two-dimensional heterostructure with potential uses in clean energy and optically-active electronics.

In the smart home, many technologies exist to track how much energy a particular appliance is using but they do not tell you who actually flicked the switch. A wearable device developed at the University of Washington can sense what devices and vehicles the user interacts with throughout the day, which can help track that individual’s carbon footprint, enable smart home applications or even assist with care.

  The University of Washington and Microsoft Research are developing a hyperspectral camera that uses both visible and invisible near-infrared light to 'see' beneath surfaces and capture details invisible to the naked eye.

Hands-free information could stream across your contact lens, in a device that came one step closer to reality this week. In a new paper, University of Washington researchers demonstrated the safety of a prototype device tested in the eye of a rabbit. At the moment, the contact lens device contains only a single pixel of information, but the researchers say it is a proof of the concept that the device could be worn by a person. Eventually it coul...