My hat is off to your staff for what should be an award-winning issue. It was like a time machine for me. I spent many hours in the Conner Museum as an undergrad, marveling at the enormous moose and large black wolf. My high school friends and I explored Point Defiance Park in Tacoma every time our basketball team made it to the state tournament. Your article, “Rethinking the fundamentals,” is a classic. I can’t agree more that we need to rethink the way we farm. I’m glad you had as much fun with Shepherd’s Grains’ co-owner Fred Fleming as I … » More …
From The Pea & Lentil Cookbook: From Everyday to Gourmet published by the USA Dry Pea & Lentil Council,Randall Duckworth, editor. Photos by Mark LaMoreaux are from the book.
Our first night in the Yucatan this past December, my wife ordered lentil soup. Flavored with bacon and garnished with plantain and lime, it was delicious. Odds are that it was made with Pardina lentils grown here on the Palouse. In fact, you may be more likely to eat Palouse lentils in Latin America, India, or Turkey than in Washington.
I may be exaggerating a little, but seriously, … » More …
large clove garlic, minced (I actually use much more than this, but don’t want to scare people off)
2-3 slices of good thick bacon, chopped
a little Mexican oregano
1 chipotle pepper (canned in adobo sauce)
1 cup pardina lentils
large tomato, chopped, or 8 oz. canned chopped tomato
6 cups water
plantain
hardboiled egg
Melt a couple of tablespoons lard over medium heat in medium dutch oven. Cook onions and garlic until translucent, 5-10 minutes. Add bacon and cook for 5 minutes. Add tsp. or so of Mexican oregano and stir. Add mashed up pepper and cook … » More …
Oil industry executive Gene Voiland ‘69 and his wife Linda have promised $17.5 million to Washington State University’s School of Chemical Engineering and Bioengineering, contributing to the school’s focus on energy research.
An immediate $2.5 million gift will allow the school to hire faculty who will focus on transforming agricultural and municipal waste into useful fuels and chemicals.
In the pressing challenge to develop clean and sustainable energy sources, researchers are looking for alternative energy solutions that can employ the existing petroleum-based infrastructure. Municipal and agricultural waste can be converted to fuels that look and perform just like gasoline or fuel oil. But, because … » More …
Jeff Feinstein ’85 finds green investment a hedge against a down economy
Our gas-guzzling, carbon-spewing automobiles draw a lot of the blame for the build-up of greenhouse gases most scientists say is making the world warmer. That’s led to a worldwide flurry of investment in biofuels research and more fuel-efficient vehicles–even hybrid diesel Kenworth semis, built by Paccar in Kirkland.
But amid all that traffic, a quiet community of builders and designers is starting to speak up, saying that if we want to make real reductions in energy use, we just have to look closer to home–to our houses, offices, and high-rise condos.
In May of 2007, former college basketball player Kayla Burt received word that her friend and college coach June Daugherty was in the hospital in critical condition.
Upon hearing the news, she thought of nothing but getting from her home in Oregon to Everett, Washington, to see Daugherty.
“I packed my bag in five minutes,” recalls Burt, who played for Daugherty from 2001 to 2006 on the University of Washington’s women’s team. “I thought June had had a heart attack. I didn’t know if she had passed away because I didn’t have a lot of information. Immediately my adrenaline started going and I just left.”
An essential part of being a Cougar (as well as being human) seems to be the need to tell one’s story of one’s youth and experiences here at Washington State University.
To make it easier to do so and to share it with your fellow Cougs, we have introduced a new feature on our website called Our Story.
Together, the 140,000 or so living alumni of WSU have an extraordinary collective story to tell, not necessarily of the comings and goings of presidents and professors, of scientific breakthroughs and other major news, but of the day-to-day life on campus, of one’s … » More …
On November 5, an overflow crowd in the CUB Senior Ballroom heard some hard truths about the global food crisis. Dr. Vandana Shiva, founder of several organizations that promote agricultural diversification in India, described how corporate/government practices that are billed as beneficial to farmers, such as patenting seed and outlawing local varieties of crops, have driven rural people off the land and caused massive food shortages in more than 40 countries.
Shiva laid out her case in warm, often humorous, tones that didn’t entirely mask her anger at what she has witnessed.
“If you want to get me really engaged,” she said, “tell me a … » More …
Orest Pilskalns had electronic mapping on his mind long before coming to Washington State University, but it wasn’t until he was teaching a senior-level software engineering class the spring of 2006 that he knew he could realize his vision.
The assistant professor knew his students at WSU Vancouver had the skills and interest to tap into publicly-available map technology and adapt it for a wide variety of public uses.
“This is where you take the knowledge you’ve gained in other classes and apply it to a real-world problem,” says Pilskalns, who earned his doctorate in computer science at WSU in … » More …
Mike Kahn and Svetlana Yurgel, molecular biologists in Washington State University’s Institute of Biological Chemistry, have a challenge on their hands that involves one of the most abundant, but also difficult to obtain, substances on earth.
Nearly 80 percent of the atmosphere is nitrogen, and even that is only 7 percent of the total nitrogen on earth. However, most of it is locked up in rock. Only a tiny fraction of 1 percent of the total nitrogen is accessible to plants in the soil and in a form that can be used by living things.
And living things need nitrogen in a big way. Nitrogen … » More …
