WSM Winter 2002

Winter 2002

The sink’s nearly full

Some climate change researchers have placed high hopes in forest and grassland soils and their ability to act as carbon “sinks.” These sinks store excess atmospheric carbon and thus partially offset the effect of increasing amounts of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Unfortunately, a recent study by Washington State University environmental scientist Richard Gill and his colleagues indicate the sink may be reaching capacity.

Although carbon dioxide has been increasing in the atmosphere for the last 10,000 years, the increase has been especially rapid in the last 150 years because of the industrial revolution and the conversion of land to agricultural uses. The rate of … » More …

Winter 2002

Designed to compete

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Winter 2002

A bizarre, slimy animal shows its stuff

Without jaws, most vertebrates-including us-would be stuck hanging around in the ocean or on the ground, unable to bite and scooping up or filtering food. We’d also be smaller. Instead, we’re fearsome predators and herbivores, with big brains and an infinite range of food sources. We have evolution to thank for our fortune-and Jon Mallatt to thank for helping us appreciate the fact.

“The evolution of jaws a half billion years ago was the single most important factor in the success of vertebrates,” says Mallatt, associate professor in the School of Biological Sciences and in basic medical sciences.

Mallatt began his study of the evolution … » More …

Winter 2002

Faculty research tops $100 million

Washington State University researchers conducted research valued at more than $100 million over the last year on projects that include a myriad subjects.

“We are proud of this achievement,” says James N. Petersen, interim vice provost for research. “This landmark shows the accomplishment and quality of our researchers and their programs.”

Petersen says all of the colleges contribute significantly to achieving this milestone. The College of Agriculture and Home Economics, through the Agricultural Research Center and Cooperative Extension, led the way with nearly $33 million expended last year to fund research, outreach, and educational programs. Other colleges also contributed significantly to these land-grant missions, with … » More …

Winter 2002

Sonata Concertante for Cello and Piano and other works

In the course of his 26 years at Washington State University, Lothar Kreck, who retired in 1997, served as director of Hotel and Restaurant Administration (1971-79) and was the program’s first Ivar B. Haglund Distinguished Professor. He also pursued an avocation as a composer and performer, playing viola in orchestras in the U.S. and Europe. Sonata Concertante for Cello and Piano and other works presents seven of his compositions.

Although he began writing music in 1953, the earliest piece on this CD dates from 1985. The disc includes performances by WSU piano faculty Susan Chan, organist and pianist David Hatt, and the Maui … » More …

Winter 2002

Seasoned with Love: Favorite Heart-Healthy Recipes with Reflections about Food, Family, Friends, and Faith

Carolyn Frances Meagher (’56 Speech) conceived a passion for cooking and baking while learning to make cinnamon rolls in a high school cooking class in Pullman, Washington. In time, rich desserts and “anything with cheese” became her trademark among family and friends.

However, the high-fat dinners came to an abrupt end several years ago during a health crisis that triggered an evaluation of her family’s dietary patterns. Meagher began experimenting with her favorite recipes—and looking for new ones—to lower the cholesterol and fat content without losing flavor.

In Seasoned with Love, she presents an eclectic selection of her favorite home-style recipes, all … » More …

Winter 2002

Sojourner

Style, phrasing, and rhythmic acuity are hallmarks of a great jazz singer. Julie Silvera displays all of these and more on her debut CD, Sojourner. A graduate of Washington State University with an M.A. in music, Julie cut her “jazz teeth” singing in Pullman with the Charlie Argersinger trio at Rico’s Smokehouse.

How refreshing to hear a singer dig into the literature of the American Songbook and pick out rarely recorded jewels! Sojourner boasts three such gems: “Sweet Georgie Fame,” “Lost and Lookin’,” and “All Alone.”

On Sojourner, Julie covers the gamut of emotional expression, flashing the extremes of her range and dynamics … » More …

Winter 2002

The Selected Poetry of Robinson Jeffers

How to describe Robinson Jeffers, now 40 years deceased? Visionary or reactionary? Hard-eyed realist or Romantic throwback? The West’s answer to the East’s Robert Frost? California’s anti-type in poetry and politics to John Steinbeck in fiction and politics?

Jeffers’s raw “inhumanism,” along with his defiance of government meddling, seems the essence of fabled American independence and individualism. In one of his anti-Modernist screeds, “Poetry, Gongorism, and a Thousand Years” (1948), which Tim Hunt, former professor of English at Washington State University at Vancouver, includes among other prose in the Selected Poetry, Jeffers advises young poets that a “posthumous reputation” is “the only kind worth considering.” … » More …

Winter 2002

Gardening in the Inland Northwest

If you are a gardener just embarking upon the horticultural journey of growing vegetables or fruit in the Inland Northwest, this book is quite simply the best reference you can find. Tonie Jean Fitzgerald starts out with the basics that every gardener should know about the unique soils and climate of the region. Next she gets down to the specifics of planning and planting a vegetable garden, including how to raise transplants from seed and what varieties perform best in area gardens.

She follows up with a chapter on pest control from pesky insects to damaging diseases, providing sound advice on how to limit the … » More …

Winter 2002

Down Along the Sunset

In this slender volume of 29 poems Benner Cummings (’51 Speech & Hearing Sci.) pays homage to the romance of surfing. Based upon Cummings’s years as surfing and swimming coach at San Clemente High School, the poems celebrate the beauty, grace, daring, and freedom inherent in the pursuit of surfing—often in terms that equate surfers with mythological figures:

Like the playful sea god Triton,He arose from out of the sea.

While these verses might lack the polish of a Robinson Jeffers, they nevertheless ring with the authority of Cummings’s deeply felt response to the magic of riding the waves. Perhaps no other lines exemplify that … » More …