Researchers at UW hope to harness gaming for the benefit of medical discoveries.

Gamers have devoted countless years of collective brainpower to rescuing princesses or protecting the planet against alien invasions. This week researchers at the University of Washington will try to harness those finely honed skills to make medical discoveries, perhaps even finding a cure for HIV.

A new game, named Foldit, turns protein folding into a competitive sport. Introductory levels teach the rules, which are the same laws of physics by which protein strands curl and twist into three-dimensional shapes — key for biological mysteries ranging from Alzheimer’s to vaccines. [uwnews]

I think this is so cool! It reminds me a lot of reCAPTCHA, a website that uses captchas (those little word jumbles you have to fill out to prove you’re human) to digitize books. Jane MacGonigal has written extensively on using games to improve the world, and as a cognitive psychologist I love the motivational twist it places on gaming.

Are you one of those people who graduated from the University of Washington but never quite recovered from the glory of your college days, so you’re still a little bit obsessed with the school? You just want to talk about how great it is, all the time? And you write catchy tunes? Well, the UW needs a new alma mater, and they’re looking right at you [Times].

The alma mater is different from the fight song, and they want something like a hymn that tugs at the heartstrings. The current one is unpopular and possibly slightly racist, and it doesn’t mention cherry blossoms at all. The new one will be set to music by Bill Conty, who wrote the score for “Rocky.” They’d like it to be written by a student, faculty member, or alum. (I have no idea what the alma mater for my college was. I’m not entirely sure it has one.)

The deadline is May 28, and you can submit via this handy form.

Washington Weekend technically kicked off on Thursday, with a faculty/staff BBQ in Red Square, but the University of Washington has a ton of events packed into the next couple of days. Granted, I’m a bit of a nerd (and a recent Midwestern transplant to boot), so things like touring the giant research vessel at the College of Oceanography and Fishery Sciences’ Open House truly appeal to the part of me that always wanted to be a marine biologist but was thwarted by the supreme lack of ocean in central Illinois… I digress.

Additionally, today saw the official dedication of the UW Tower (formerly known as the Safeco Tower, and likely to remain known as that for as long as the Safeco name remains inscribed in the building). Tomorrow’s festivities include open houses galore, a simulated cybersecurity competition at Microsoft, and the Plateau Native Arts Celebration at the Burke Museum, including beadwork and saddle-making demonstrations.

The exhibitions and demonstrations should be enough to keep the whole family occupied for the better part of a day, and is only a few short neighborhoods away from a relaxing evening at the Ballard Jazz Festival. Enjoy your Saturday!

^{Paula Reynolds, president and CEO of Safeco, former owner of the tower, passes a symbolic key to
University of Washington President Mark Emmert.}

Did you hear the joke about the college students who want to carry concealed weapons on campus?

Oh yeah, that’s not a joke. [m-b, p-i]

Hey, UW students who want to carry concealed weapons on campus, listen carefully:

You’re huge dorks. Gigantic. What you should really be focused on concealing is your profound castration anxiety and your inability to keep your fantasies of omnipotence contained to your 6 hours a day spent playing the latest first-person shooter.

Most of the time I’m a tolerant guy. Come one, come all, no matter race, creed, religion, orientation, or nerdiness. But when you want to carry a loaded handgun into my biology lab or my English Lit class, that’s when I draw the line and you become what you are: Unbelievable, humongous, gigantic dorks.

Cite your laws, split hairs with your statistics, call me un-American, and dream up wild fantasies where you save a classroom full of students from a lone gunman and end up rehashing the incident on Larry King Live and The O’Reilly Factor, you’re still just dorks with a surprising inability to reason.

See, the last thing I want to worry about when I embarrass you in our Poly Sci class is that you’ll feel so bad that your finger will start twitching on your carpal tunnel-riddled hand and you’ll begin to imagine what it would be like to shut my ass up with a bullet to the face. Because, guess what, the means to do that will be strapped to your hip and that’s not good for your coming to terms with just how huge of a dork you are.

I think someday you’ll come to really regret that picture in the P-I, too. Because now you’ve pigeon-holed yourselves and even if you wanted to change your mind, you can’t without losing face. Besides what would your Counter-Strike clan think of you then?

But don’t shoot me! I’m just the messenger.

It’s widely agreed, even by people who don’t like paying public dollars for stadiums: UW’s Husky Stadium is a disaster waiting to happen.

While this may sound a bit like a Sonics-style “but MAAAAAAAAA, you SAID I could HAVE a new STADIIIIIIUUUUMMM with MORE BOXES and THAT KID’S LUNCH MONEY” whine, the Huskies have a bit more justification. Husky Stadium is nearly 90 years old. It shows. Rust, exposed rebar, dangerous wires, you name it: the stadium is a mess, and needs to be fixed.

All well and good, but somebody has to pay for the damn thing. We’re only heading into a recession here. Anybody got a few hundred million burning a hole in your pocket?

(more…)

I watched the evening news tonight in vain for more details on Tuesday morning’s assault of a UW student just north of campus, near the sorority buildings at 18th and 45th.

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It’s a pretty scary story for those of us who are on campus every day, and the specifics of the story are even weirder: it happened before 7am, when few people are on the street, and the victim was dressed in what seemed like indoor clothing (pajamas) despite then driving all the way down to the guardhouse south of 45th street. No mention of any kind of inside information on the usual student sites either, but the UW Police are supposed to be releasing some more info in the next day or so.

Over the weekend, William H. Gates Hall at the University of Washington Law School was peppered with threatening (and vague) graffiti [p-i]. The school itself is under very tight (and vague) security. Students have been advised to not ask too many questions and trust that the administration and police are doing everything [vaguely] necessary to ensure their safety. The police say they’re not sure how serious the threat is and they’re being vague about the details of what was exactly threatened.

So, as you can see, everything is under control.

I asked a friend who is a student at the law school if he had any more information and this is what he had to say:

From what I understand, and they’ll be telling us more this afternoon, but somebody made vague, non-specific threats to shoot law students in the month of November. Makes me feel safe, although it’s probably just some street kids who are angry over the fact that they can’t use the internet in our library all day long anymore.

As usual, the Sound Off [#] section of the P-I produces some fantastic dialogue about the facts as reported in the story. There was sparkling commentary, insightful observations, and new details uncovered! Oh wait, that’s wrong. Ah, yes, I see it devolved into a debate about the school’s attention to social justice and how it ranks against other law schools. Note to Sound Off’ers: You’re not actually required to Sound Off to every story.

Update: Contrary to earlier reports, the graffiti was discovered last Thursday, not over the weekend.

From Cosmic Variance comes proof that UW is way hipper than I thought:

Religion and Conflict in Battlestar Galactica [#]

Coordinator: Charles Richter

This focus group will explore the many complicated relations between religion and conflict in modern times and throughout history, using the current television program “Battlestar Galactica” as an entry point. The contrasting theologies of the humans and Cylons, their mutually exclusive destinies, and the many moral and ethical issues raised provide us with an accessible point from which to delve into real problems. Some of the topics include: religion in government, suicide terrorism, monotheism vs. polytheism, and bio-ethical dilemmas.

We will view a selected episode every week and discuss the themes presented in accompanying readings. No prior knowledge of “Battlestar Galactica” is required, but we will be watching episodes from various points in the series. If you haven’t seen the show at all, watching the miniseries premiere before the quarter starts would be a good idea in order to get some of the basic premises.

I don’t have the words to describe how awesome this is. Do Cylons bleed purple?

Disney is not happy about a University of Washington study that found that time spent watching baby DVDs was associated with poorer language acquisition among children aged 8 to 16 months [sciencedirect]. Uncle Walt’s lawyers sent an angry letter to Mark Emmert, complete with bullet point rebuttals. Although they weren’t keen on the study results, the University’s press release is the main focus of their ire. From the letter (reprinted in the Post-Intelligencer) this line of reasoning, based on a non-significant finding from the article, is among the more entertaining points:

Applying the same misleading standards that the press release used, the study could be said to advise parents to be sure that infants watch television — for the study finds that not watching television is associated with reduced vocabulary– but to avoid having infants watch baby videos. That is to say, watching American Idol is better for infants than no television at all. Of course, such advice is absurd. [p-i]

More on this study, including the new Google feature [#] that allows people who are involved with news stories to comment on them, at Language Log [#]