Fall 2020
Exchanging solutions
Earning a college degree, securing a better life while under the specter of deportation—our politicians seek solutions. » More ...
Archives
Summer 2020
Celebrating 30 years
Three stories celebrating three decades of Washington State University in Spokane, Tri-Cities, and Vancouver » More ...
Fall 2019
Nowhere to Remember: Hanford, White Bluffs, and Richland to 1943
Review of "Nowhere to Remember: Hanford, White Bluffs, and Richland to 1943," by Robert Bauman and Robert Franklin and published by WSU Press in 2018. » More ...
Fall 2019
Low Dose Radiation: The History of the U.S. Department of Energy Research Programs
Review of "Low Dose Radiation: The History of the U.S. Department of Energy Research Programs," by Antone L. Brooks and published by WSU Press in 2018. » More ...
Fall 2019
Return to Red Mountain
The Williams family at Kiona Vineyards knows a legacy is like a good wine: it takes time. » More ...
Fall 2019
What’s missing in video gaming
Video games and gaming technology offer good, bad, and ugly aspects: potential for innovative education, but often racist and misogynistic stereotypes in some games. Washington State University faculty research all those dimensions. » More ...
Summer 2019
A point of reference
The Washington State University environmental research station at Meyer's Point on Puget Sound lends insight into the local ecology, history, archaeology, and shellfish farming, while providing environmental education opportunities. » More ...
Fall 2018
Cornfields to vineyards
“I quit working in 1996,” says master winemaker David “Merf” Merfeld ’13. That was the year he got a job at Bert Grant’s Brewery in Yakima—one of the early craft breweries in the region.
Merf’s passion for fermentation started in his kitchen a few years earlier. He’d driven west to Seattle from the family farm in Iowa. “Thirty, thirty-one hours straight through,” he says, with maybe an “hour stop for a rain storm in South Dakota.” He was in the ’79 Park Avenue his dad gave him: “a great ride, and everything I owned fit in that car.” The first thing he and the buddy … » More …
Fall 2018
Returns on education
Damien Pattenaude returned to Renton School District as a teacher, principal, and now superintendent—with an aim to improve the teacher diversity in Washington state. » More ...
Summer 2018
Smoke gets in your wine
Smoke truly gets under the skin of wine grapes.
As microscopic particles and liquid droplets ooze and eddy through the vineyard, grapes are coated with toxic chemicals. Worse, smoke from forest and range fires manages to get into the plant itself, wreaking havoc with the plant’s internal chemistry.
In self-defense, grape vines attempt to sequester toxic smoke particles that infiltrate berries and leaves by binding sugar molecules to the offending invaders. The plant can then metabolically shuffle the sugar-trapped particles into places where the smoke won’t be as harmful to the vines’ mission: produce grapes and reproduce.
Humans interfere with the vines’ mission when we … » More …