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Spring 2024

Tina Hilding

Spring 2003

Smoke & asthma

For as long as Jami Hinshaw can remember, she has coughed, sneezed, sniffled, and felt miserable every September. When she was nine, the Spokane native and WSU alum was diagnosed with asthma.

Last fall, Hinshaw was fighting her usual symptoms, but she was also carrying a portable air quality monitor in a backpack as part of a study to better understand the health effects of agricultural field burning. Researchers from Washington State University are working with their counterparts from the School of Public Health at the University of Washington to examine volunteers’ exposure levels to atmospheric pollutants coming from field burning in the region.

Controversy … » More …

Spring 2003

Solid footing

Ah, for the safety and comfort of computer modeling in a cozy office.

Instead, Thanos Papanicolaou, assistant professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Washington State University, found himself in a small boat in the churning waters of the Tacoma Narrows during a “peak tidal event” taking water velocity measurements, soundings, and underwater pictures of the bottom of the channel.

“I was a little nervous,” he admits, recalling his guide’s efforts to avoid vortices in the current.

Papanicolaou and graduate student Kyle Strom have been working to determine exactly how much of a scour hole tides make around the pilings that hold … » More …

Spring 2003

Rebuilding a city, repairing psyches

“You can’t put the blame on one side. Everybody has made some contributions to the misery.”

So thought Rafi Samizay, professor in the School of Architecture and Construction Management at Washington State University, as he stood in what is left of his high school in Kabul, Afghanistan. As he tried to chat cheerfully with students about favorite teachers they shared, the remains of the school teetered around them. Classes are still held in part of the building that was blown up, so students have to gingerly make their way across a second-story, narrow piece of concrete that falls off to nothing. Others walk below. Where … » More …

Winter 2002

Don’t panic yet

An asteroid may be heading for a collision with earth, reports a group of researchers including Washington State University’s Scott Hudson. Fortunately, the actual probability of a collision is only one-third of one percent, and we have 878 years to prepare.

In an article in the April 5 Science, scientists predict that Asteroid 1950 DA, about one kilometer in diameter, could hit earth in March 2880. Typically, it is very difficult to predict asteroid collisions this far into the future. However, by obtaining radar imagery of the asteroid, the researchers were able to model in detail the evolution of its orbit for the next several … » More …