Science

Marking the 50th anniversary of the 1962 Seattle World’s Fair, the Emerald City will host its first-ever Seattle Science Festival next month.

The festival has landed a major celebrity as one of it’s so-called “Luminaries.”  Steven Hawking, the British physicist known for writing about the history of the universe, will speak on June 16th, at the Paramount Theater. 

EPHRATA, Wash. — Biologists went to check on endangered pygmy rabbits in a remote area of Columbia Basin sagebrush near Ephrata and found they've been reproducing like rabbits.

State Fish and Wildlife biologists told The Wenatchee World they 80 baby pygmy rabbits they found last week in the Sage Brush Flat Wildlife Area is more than they expected.

We've all been there: Banging the back of a glass ketchup bottle, begging it to give you a dollop of the good stuff or battling with a plastic bottle coercing it into giving up the last of its contents.

Maybe that will be a thing of the past.

Six MIT researchers say they've solved that problem as part of an entrepreneurship competition. The result is a bottle coated with "LiquiGlide," a non-toxic material so slippery that the ketchup or for that matter mayonaisse just glids out when you turn it over.

Here's a video from Fast Company:

Here's what the students told the magazine:

If you came face to face with a great whale, you might find a few surprises in its chin: Like whiskers, if you look closely at the surface.

And, hidden inside the chin, lies a mysterious sensory organ, unknown to centuries of whalers and biologists.

PORT ANGELES, Wash. — An oceanographer who tracks flotsam says West Coast beachcombers may find floating athletic shoes with human bones as more debris from the Japanese tsunami washes ashore. In a presentation Monday at a tsunami symposium in Port Angeles, Curt Ebbesmeyer told the audience he's expected 100 sneakers with bones in them.

Infections with the bacterium Clostridium difficile hit record numbers in recent years. Now there's evidence the hard-to-treat infections are becoming a problem for children.

The infections often strike the elderly, especially those who've been taking antibiotics that clear out competing bacteria in people's intestines. People sickened by the bug have persistent diarrhea that can, in severe cases, lead to dehydration.

The percentage of kindergartners in Washington who are fully vaccinated has gone up slightly, since a new law took effect making it harder to opt-out.

A change in state law took effect last July, requiring parents who want to exempt their kids from one or more vaccines to first hear from a doctor or nurse about the risks and benefits.

Michele Roberts, of the Washington Department of Health's immunization program, says some people doubted the law was strict enough to make a difference.  

"We didn’t take away an exemption. Parents can still get a philosophical exemption if they want to. A provider is just making sure they give that family information before they sign off on it. It’s still a parent choice," she says.

Spring is in the air! First, it was a litter of endangered red wolf pups at the Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium in Tacoma. Now, Seattle's Woodland Park Zoo is announcing the arrival of three endangered, yet adorable, snow leopard cubs.

Zoo officials say the cubs were born May 2nd and are just now opening their eyes. This is the second litter for 7-year-old Helen and 6-year-old Tom. The cubs will stay secluded in their mother's den for now, but may go on public display in July.

At least 6 red wolf pups have been born at Tacoma's Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium (PDZA).

Millie, an 8-year-old, gave birth to the pups over a 30 hour period that began Sunday night. The father is 9-year-old Graham. The mother and pups are secluded in an out of view den area in the Red Wolf Woods exhibit.