Search Results

Spring 2003

The More You Learn: Distance Degree Program celebrates its tenth

What it came down to was that Michele Candela needed a college education-but it was going to have to come to her rather than her going to campus. When she made the trip from Bainbridge Island to Pullman for commencement last May, it was the first time she’d ever set foot on campus. Or met, face to face, the staff of the Distance Degree Program who helped her achieve a bachelor’s degree in social science (with a 4.0, it should be mentioned), working from the private classroom she shares with a husband and four children a few miles outside of Kingston.

“If you look at … » More …

Spring 2003

Mounting a defense against biological invaders

Whatever its impact on trade, the World Trade Organization has opened the doors to biological invasion, says Dick Mack. A professor of botany at Washington State University, Mack is a leading authority on invasive species and lead author of Predicting Invasions of Nonindigenous Plants and Plant Pests, a report recently published by the National Research Council.

Invasive species are those that are introduced, whether deliberately or not, only to find their new home much too accommodating. Whereas a plant might be an inconspicuous face in its home crowd, it could become the ubiquitous bully in a new ecological crowd with no defense against its aggressiveness. … » More …

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

How do we perceive sound?

Christine Portfors, a neurologist, tends a lair of 23 tropical moustache bats at WSU Vancouver in order to tease apart the question of how they distinguish between sounds-for example, between those they use for echolocation and those they use to communicate.

Bat communication sounds, like speech sounds, are very complex in terms of frequency and timing, says Portfors. Beyond that, “We don’t know anything about how the brain actually processes those types of sounds.”

Earlier work by Portfors revealed that bats have neurons that are very sensitive to the timing of the echolocation sound, between when they emit it and when the echo comes back. … » More …

Spring 2003

Living and gardening in the Pacific Northwest — Spring 2003

Some gardeners work to change conditions in their yard to create havens of greenery and blooms with plants that wouldn’t grow there otherwise. They amend the soil to suit plants’ needs, they water a lot during the summer, and they give added protection to non-hardy plants.

More and more gardeners today are saying “No!” to extra tasks, choosing to work with nature instead of against it. They are using nature as a model in creating yards and gardens that reflect the natural beauty of the place where they live. They’re determining the aspects their yards share with surrounding natural areas-sun, shade, rocks, slopes-and they’re choosing … » 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 …

Winter 2001

Basketball—Pac-10 tourney on their minds

GETTING TO THE INAUGURAL post-season Pac-10 women’s basketball tournament is not a problem. All conference teams are invited to the March 1-4 tourney in Eugene, Oregon. The challenge is to succeed.

Last year, the Cougars were 11-17 overall and ninth in the league. With eight letter-winners gone, just about every position is wide open. “Questions will be answered by how hard the players compete,” coach Jenny Przekwas says as she embarks on her third campaign in Pullman. “We have some good experience returning and a really high desire to win.”

Guard Jessica Collins, back for a fifth season after a medical hardship year, leads the … » More …

Winter 2001

Basketball—Heading in the right direction

THE WASHINGTON State men’s basketball program isn’t where Paul Graham wants it to be. But the third-year coach has it headed in the right direction.

Last year the Cougars doubled their win total to 12. Can the Cougars build on that momentum? Can they improve their sixthplace finish in the Pac-10, WSU’s best showing in six years?

WSU defeated Oregon, swept Arizona State, and won back-to-back league games— against Oregon and Oregon State— for the first time in four years. WSU’s 10 victories on Friel Court were the most since 1995.

Experience will be the team’s strength. Six-foot-10 senior center J Locklier started all 28 … » More …

Winter 2001

Arts for all

“WOULDN’T you like to write music for someone famous like NSYNC?” a Clarkston High School student asked Greg Yasinitsky.

Tough crowd.

But Yasinitsky, a Washington State University music professor and jazz studies coordinator and a nationally recognized composer, arranger, and saxophonist, can handle it.

“We’re in the only field where we have to compete with dead people for jobs. In jazz, everyone can buy a John Coltrane CD. Why buy yours?” he says.

Yasinitsky reflected on the first of his three years as composer-in-residence at Clarkston High (CHS), sponsored by the Commission Project of New York. He received the project’s inaugural Washington state residency in … » More …