Spring 2014
Flood Basalts and Glacier Floods
Exploring eastern Washington state's abundant rock history on the side of the road.
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Spring 2014
A true story fraught with peril
As disaster-obsessed scientists go, geologists must be near the top of the list. They deal with time scales spanning billions of years, so a set of catastrophes occurring 10 million years ago is like yesterday. Something in the last century comes close to being, well, now.
And they see catastrophe all over the place.
Take the roadcut near the Old Moscow Road. It’s a modest pile of crumbling rock, but John Wolff and Rick Conrey can see in its surrounding rock a thick blanket of hot lava inundating southeast Washington.
“It covers an area that goes from here to Spokane to The Dalles, buried at … » More …
Winter 2013
Watching the sea
The paint has barely dried at the new Salish Sea Research Center near Bellingham, but the $2.2 million facility is already in use. Student scientists dip into a freezer full of recently collected shellfish, a Zodiac boat and a collection of waders are drying in the back mud room, and several projects to study acidity in the water and the health of the aquatic organisms are already underway.
The Northwest Indian College was established in 1973 to train technicians who would work in Indian-run fish and shellfish hatcheries throughout the region. More recently it has expanded to include two- and four-year college degrees. And today … » More …
Fall 2013
Eugene Rosa 1942–2013—Working for people and the planet
When you fill out a career pushing the limits of knowledge, rising to “pioneer in your field” status, things are bound to get pretty technical.
Gene Rosa, environmental sociologist, lived that reality, penning papers with terms like “biosociology,” “post-normal risk,” and acronym-rich analytical tools like STIRPAT. In spite of the technical thickets of his work, say friends and colleagues, Rosa kept his eye on the increasingly threatened natural environment and the people in it.
“Gene was not just interested in the environment for its own sake, but rather he had a deep desire to see a better world, one with greater quality of life and … » More …
Summer 2013
New & noteworthy
Blazing a Wagon Trail to Oregon: A Weekly Chronicle of the Great Migration of 1843
by Lloyd W. Coffman ’87
Caxton Press-University of Nebraska, 2012
Diaries, letters, and reminiscences of pioneers tell the story of the earliest wagon trains to undertake the six-month trek from Missouri to Oregon in 1843, as they faced bad weather, threatening Indians, and scarce supplies.
Career Choices for Veterinarians: Private Practice and Beyond
by Carin A. Smith ’84
Smith Veterinary Consulting, 2011
The opinions and insights of experienced veterinarians offer examples of how veterinary students, current … » More …
Spring 2013
Passing the Smell Test
The act of smelling starts out as chemical detection but often ends up as an emotional trigger
Among all the modern variations on evolution are several hundred shoppers who two years ago wandered into a home decoration store in northern Switzerland. For most of them, it was just another chance to buy some plates or a basket, with the exception of a researcher asking them to fill out a questionnaire at the cash register. But after nearly a month of monitoring customers, researchers noticed that one group of about 100 spent on average significantly more money. The customers told the researchers as much, and receipts … » More …
Spring 2013
Tiny cracks, big effect
Of all the troubling images evoked by the Hanford Nuclear Reservation, the nation’s most contaminated nuclear site, the plume of uranium-tainted groundwater seeping into the Columbia River comes near the top of the list. Millions of gallons of radioactive waste were processed at the site and, starting in the ’40s, government scientists detected it in the area’s groundwater.
One site, called the 300 Area, has a plume of several million gallons affecting a 3,000-foot stretch of the Columbia River shoreline. Monitoring wells and riverbank springs have had uranium levels in excess of drinking-water standards set by the Environmental Protection Agency.
The river provides drinking water … » More …
Spring 2013
The forgotten forest
Early successional forests, the stage following a major disturbance such as fire, windstorm, or harvest, have typically been viewed in terms of what is missing. Considered by the forest industry as a time of reestablishment or “stand initiation,” these early successional forests have been studied from the perspective of plant-community development and the needs of selected animals. Neither view fully grasps the diverse ecological roles of the early successional stage, argue WSU forest ecologist Mark Swanson and colleagues in a 2011 paper in the journal Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment.
Forest management throughout the twentieth century focused at first on wood production and later … » More …
Winter 2012
Salmon and orcas
The Kitsap Sun and their environmental reporter Chris Dunagan have produced an interactive map for salmon watching on the Kitsap Peninsula.The map has videos of salmon at various locations.
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Winter 2012
The Ethics of Climate Change
In 2012 the Thomas S. Foley Institute for Public Policy and Public Service, in conjunction with the School of Politics, Philosophy, and Public Affairs, began a new public symposia series that focuses on the ethical and public policy ramifications of new scientific innovations and knowledge. Each semester the symposia, which are open to the public, bring together WSU faculty with other internationally prominent scholars. The first in the series, “Ethics and Global Climate Change,” was held in April 2012, and brought to WSU’s campus Andrew Light, director of the Center for Global Ethics at George Mason University and a fellow at the Center for American … » More …