Features
Book Season: Washington State love its literature – In a report released last summer, the National Endowment for the Arts warned that literary reading has declined over the last 20 years. Scary stuff, huh? So we did our own informal survey of faculty, students, and alums. Their response? Read on! by Hannelore Sudermann
Shock Physics: Power, Pressure, and People – After the Soviet Union tested its first nuclear device, the U.S. determined that staying ahead in the arms race would require the best scientists and the best weapons. A new federal funding model emerged, channeling money into universities around the country for research and the training of the next generation of national scientists. By the late 1950s, WSU had started on shock-wave research. by Hannelore Sudermann
Bear Bones: A Murder Mystery – It must have been easy to drop the body into this part of Pullman, a section that sees so little traffic. The old county road was research land where hardly anyone but the groundskeepers ventured. But somebody had an ugly secret to hide. by Hannelore Sudermann
Panoramas
Leading the rebirth of the blast zone
A Nobel laureate promotes a “new Africa”
Jell-O brains and boa constrictors draw kids to science
Gig Harbor: Laureen Lund markets the town she loves
WEB EXCLUSIVE – Story: Birth, Death & Architecture – Architecture professor Paul Hirzel wanted to push his students out of their mindsets. So he asked them to design a single building for both the beginning and the end of life: a funeral home/birthing center.
Departments
FIELD NOTES: In Search of the Wild Chickpea
FOOD AND FORAGE: Asparagus
SEASONS|SPORTS: Jim McKean makes poetry of a powerful time
WEB EXCLUSIVE – Story: One-on-one: A chapter from Home Stand – A chapter from Home Stand: Growing Up in Sports, a memoir by James McKean ’68, ’74 about growing up in the Pacific Northwest in the late ’50s and early ’60s.
Tracking
What I’ve learned since college: King County sheriff Sue Rahr
This man might save your life—or teach your class
Pharmacist uses chemistry to duplicate human hormones
Ruth Bennett puts a crimp in Christine Gregoire’s majority
Books, etc.
Genes and DNA: A Beginner’s Guide to Genetics and Its Applications
Dancing to the Concertina’s Tune: A Prison Teacher’s Memoir
Cover: After 54 years of diligence, “Nature Boy” (more correctly, The Reader) takes a break from the west face of Holland Library for some beach and reading time with Seattle’s Hammering Man.” (Illustration by David Wheeler) Read story “Book Season: Washington State love its literature.”