As a child growing up in rural China in the 1970s, Xiuyu Wang remembers competing with his friends to get as many fireworks as possible to usher in the Lunar New Year. It is a celebration of the arrival of spring and the most important holiday in China. “We’d save up ahead of time to […]
In her award-winning documentary “Richland,” Irene Lusztig drew heavily upon the expertise of Robert Franklin, history professor at WSU Tri-Cities and assistant director and archivist for the Hanford History Project. The film, which investigates a community that created an identity, and future, on a type of “nuclear origin story,” opened at the Tribeca film festival in New York […]
Whisky, contraception, cannabis: many of the Washington State University studies that garnered the most attention from news media in 2023 seemed to involve human pleasures—and their consequences. That focus may say something about the global mood in the first post-pandemic year, but it also speaks to the real-world impact of WSU’s research enterprise. Three initiatives […]
A snippet of hair can reveal a pregnant person’s stress level and may one day help warn of unexpected birth problems, a study indicates. Washington State University researchers measured the stress hormone cortisol in hair samples of 53 women in their third trimester. Of that group, 13 women who had elevated cortisol levels later experienced […]
Here’s a question with a thousand answers: How do we create a livable future amid climate change? Such a big challenge demands an equally expansive approach to solutions. At Washington State University, more than 60 departments are active in climate-related research, work that in many cases has been under way for decades. It’s a priority […]
Washington State University’s Pullman campus is a host site for the initial round of this year’s North American Computational Linguistics Open Competition. As part of the annual contest, high school students from around the country use their logic skills to work through complex linguistics puzzles, often centered on decoding ciphers. Students who do well in […]
A framework for combining climate and social data could help scientists better support climate change adaptation ahead of future weather-related disasters. The Washington State University-led research draws on the expertise of climate and social scientists to show how data on different characteristics of climate variability can be used to study the effectiveness of various human […]
Population declines in the Tasmanian devil, a top predator species, caused by a transmissible cancer, may be affecting the evolutionary genetics of a subordinate predator species, the spotted-tailed quoll, research published in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution reports. Top predator declines are occurring globally and have cascading ecological effects, one of which is to reduce competition and […]
From ancient Babylonians making new commitments to their gods to today’s average office worker pledging to give up soda, humans have been struggling with New Year’s resolutions for a very long time. Yet there is hope, according to a group of Washington State University experts who offer their insights into keeping positive lifestyle changes going […]
Even in the precipitation-heavy Pacific Northwest, more frequent heatwaves are threatening a key source of water supply. A Washington State University study that intended to look at snow melting under a single, extreme event, the 2021 “heat dome,” instead revealed an alarming, longer-term rising trend of successive heatwaves melting snowpack earlier in the year. […]
