The Quaternary Isotope Laboratory (QIL) at the University of Washington was launched in 1969 and directed by Minze Stuiver until his retirement in 1998. Here we review some of the scientific work undertaken in the QIL and the memories of some of Minze’s former students and colleagues.

The authors adopt a new approach to modeling the relationship between emissions and income using long-run per capita growth rates. This approach allows them to test multiple hypotheses about the drivers of per capita emissions in a single framework and avoid several of the econometric issues that have plagued the environmental Kuznets curve literature. They estimate models for carbon and sulfur dioxide emissions. They can reject restricted models that omit either growth or beta convergence effects. Although the term representing the environmental Kuznets effect is statistically significant for per capita carbon and sulfur dioxide emissions, the estimated income per capita turning points are out of the sample for the full data set.

This paper uses data for 134 countries for the period 1960–2010 to document an energy ladder that nations ascend as their economies develop. On average, economic development results in an overall substitution from the use of biomass to energy sourced from fossil fuels, and then increasingly towards nuclear power and certain low-carbon modern renewables such as wind power. The process results in the carbon intensity of energy evolving in an inverse-U manner as per capita incomes increase. Fossil fuel-poor countries climb more quickly to the low-carbon upper rungs of the national-level energy ladder and so typically experience larger reductions in the carbon intensity of energy as they develop. Leapfrogging to low-carbon energy sources on the upper rungs of the national-level energy ladder is one route via which developing countries can reduce the magnitudes of their expected upswings in carbon dioxide emissions.

The abilities for both computer technology, and intra-operative video-imaging, are evolving rapidly. The merger of these two sciences can be very beneficial, both to congenital cardiac surgeons in general, and in facilitating the creation of a cardioscopic database in particular.

At 1 year we assessed the neurodevelopmental outcomes in infants undergoing cardiac surgery, seeking to explore the predictive value of perioperative markers of cerebral injury. We prospectively enroled 47 neurodevelopmentally normal infants prior to planned cardiac surgery. Postoperative monitoring consisted of 10-channel video synchronised, continuous electroencephalography from 6 to 30 h, Doppler assessment of cerebral blood flow in the anterior cerebral artery at 1, 2, 3 and 5 h, and measurement of serum S-100B at 0 and 24 h. Neurodevelopmental assessments were performed using the second edition of the Bayley Scale of Infant Development. Follow-up at 1 year was available on 35 infants. The mean age of these patients at surgery had been 57 ± 15 days. We observed clinical seizures in 1 patient, with 3 other patients having electroencephalographic abnormalities. At follow-up of 1 year, neurodevelopmental scores were lower than preoperative scores, with mean mental scores changing from 103 ± 5 to 94 ± 13 (p = 0.001), and mean motor scores changing from 99 ± 8 to 89 ± 20 (p = 0.004). No association was found between electroencephalographic abnormalities, reduced cerebral blood flow, or elevation of serum S-100B levels and impaired neurodevelopmental outcome at 1 year. Infants with electroencephalographic abnormalities had elevation of the levels of S-100B in the serum (p = 0.02). At 1 year of follow-up, infants undergoing cardiac surgery demonstrated a reduction in the scores achieved using the second edition of the Bayley Scale of Infant Development. They require ongoing assessment of their progress. Electroencephalographic abnormalities, cerebral blood flow, or levels of S-100B in the serum were not useful perioperative markers for predicting a poor neurodevelopmental outcome in the clinical setting.

Flavimonas oryzihabitans is an uncommon organism with distinctive microbiological and biochemical features that is infrequently isolated from humans. The presence of foreign material, including indwelling intravascular catheters and artificial grafts, or various surgical procedures appear to predispose patients with underlying disease to bacteremic infection with Flavimonas. A gram-negative bacillus, F oryzihabitans is sensitive to most antibiotics except first- and second-generation cephalosporins. F oryzihabitans isolated from blood should be considered pathogenic in patients with indwelling catheters or prosthetic materials.

Previously designated Pseudomonas oryzihabitans and also known as Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Group Ve-2, F oryzihabitans is an unusual gram-negative, nonfermenting, oxidase-negative bacillus that is uncommonly associated with serious illness in humans.’ First described by Dresel and Stickl in 1928 and initially assigned the name Bacterium typhiflavum because of its similarity to the typhoid bacillus, the organism has been isolated from a variety of human sources, including blood, wounds, and abscesses, and (in mixed cultures) from sputum, urine, and cervical cultures.