England came late to the Renaissance. But by the time it arrived, its greatest contribution would be literary. John Donne, William Shakespeare, and Ben Jonson served a literate aristocracy eager to be informed and entertained.
Into the late sixteenth century comes the observant figure of Michel de Montaigne, a French statesman and prolific essayist who wrote about nearly everything his mind encountered, “from cannibals to codpieces, suicide to faith,” as Will Hamlin, WSU’s English literature and Renaissance scholar, puts it. For most English readers of the time, Montaigne’s French Essais were made accessible by a translation undertaken by his contemporary John Florio, a language teacher … » More …
After decades of researching gender differences in the effects of drugs, Rebecca Craft has found that females using marijuana are likelier than men to become dependent on the drug and suffer more severe withdrawals.
At the same time, females seem to be more sensitive to the drug’s pain-relieving qualities.
Craft, a Washington State University psychology professor who studies the effects of psychoactive drugs on rats, has reported these findings most recently in journals such as Life Sciences and Drug and Alcohol Dependence. Her work, funded in part by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, focuses on the medical side of cannabinoids, the class of drugs … » More …
Winthrop to Marblemount–North Cascades Highway—87.4 miles
I was running late, headed for Marblemount over Washington Pass. As it grew darker, I drove through thick, swirling clouds. The clouds would part, revealing a jagged peak, then close quickly, then reveal another. It was dizzying and magical, the road before me disappearing and reappearing. It was only in 1972 that State Route 20 made the 87-mile drive from Winthrop to Marblemount possible. The highway passes through extraordinary landscape and ecological transitions, from the sagebrush of the Methow Valley … » More …
It’s 9:58 a.m. and Josie Tarr is running late for her 10:10 digital storytelling class.
Getting off the bus in front of the new Northside Residence Hall, the digital technology and professional and technical writing double major sprints up the stairs between Bohler and the PE Building to get ahead of the crowds heading in the same direction: the CUB elevator.
Too late. She groans. A crowd of about 35 is already waiting.
Briefly considering her alternatives, both lengthy sets of stairs, one running up near the elevator structure and the other wrapping around it, the junior from Tacoma drops the idea as the weight … » More …
In recent months, the Washington State University Alumni Association honored United Nations Food Safety Officer Masami Takeuchi and Louisiana State University Professor Gail L. Cramer with WSU Alumni Achievement Awards.
A native of Japan, Masami Takeuchi earned her first bachelor’s degree in 1994 from Kwassui University in Nagasaki, Japan. At WSU, she completed a bachelor’s degree in 1999, a master of science degree in 2001, and a doctorate in 2004, all in human nutrition.
Based in Rome, Takeuchi is one of a small group of food safety and quality officers working for the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization’s Nutrition and Consumer Protection Division.
When pathologist and researcher Nancy Gillett ’78 decided to leave Genentech, a major medical biotechnology firm, for a small contract research company, her colleagues called it professional suicide. But Gillett had made life-altering career decisions before, moving from being a practicing veterinarian to a research scientist and then to a top-level business executive overseeing 5,000 people at 13 sites around the world.
Gillett’s significant success as a researcher and executive has led to accolades, including the 2013 Regents’ Distinguished Alumna Award from Washington State University. Her path to the University’s highest honor started as the young student from Las Vegas, Nevada, came to WSU to … » More …
Imagine particles that can self-assemble at the nano-scale, so that machinery can delay its need for repair. Or that your 20-year-old truck could suddenly become more fuel efficient than today’s model.
Two years ago physics graduate student Pavlo Rudenko ’09 MS started his company, TriboTEX LLC, to develop bio-based super lubricants. He found that nanoparticles of ceramic powders in lubricants can, at high temperatures, create a film on metal surfaces that reduces both friction and wear behaviors.
He bought used analytical equipment off eBay and is running the business on a shoestring out of his home in Colfax.
Last summer he won a highly competitive … » More …
“Kenneth was interested in everything,” says Alexander’s mother Marilyn. When her son was four or five, “He would climb on his [father’s] lap and I remember Jack reading radiochemistry out loud to him.”
Once, a small telescope triggered a fascination for the stars and “his dad spent some cold nights outside with him,” says his mother. He also loved music, played the trombone, and as a teen, made frequent trips out of town to play with the local orchestra.
Jack Alexander was the first radiologist hired at WSU’s College of Veterinary Medicine. He was also head of medicine and surgery. Science, medicine, and the … » More …
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 …
“The whole concept has burgeoned ... to one where the landscape is part of why people select to live in certain locations, has political meaning, has religious meaning, has all of these other kinds of meaning.”
