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 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 […]
Societies and political structures, like the humans they serve, appear to become more fragile as they age, according to an analysis of hundreds of pre-modern societies. The study, which holds implications for the modern world, provides the first quantitative support for the theory that resilience of political states decreases over time. Triggers of societal collapse […]
Human communities across the globe have a long history of generating effective solutions to climate change, and many of these often-little-known cultural adaptations could prove useful today. That’s according to a new special issue of Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, edited by Washington State University anthropologist Anne Pisor. The special issue brings together a […]
The breadth of scholarly interests and teaching expertise of the college’s newest faculty—from environmental humanities and many-body physics to economic globalization and the history of visual storytelling—enriches and expands the arts and sciences across the WSU system. Click “read more” to learn a little about each of these new faculty members. Arts & Humanities | […]
Adding evidence to the importance of early development, a new study links neutral maternal behavior toward infants with an epigenetic change in children related to stress response. Epigenetics are molecular processes independent of DNA that influence gene behavior. In this study, researchers found that neutral or awkward behavior of mothers with their babies at 12 […]
More than 500 years ago in the midwestern Guatemalan highlands, Maya people bought and sold goods with far less oversight from their rulers than many archeologists previously thought. “Scholars have generally assumed that the obsidian trade was managed by Maya rulers, but our research shows that this wasn’t the case at least in this area,” […]
The first complex weapon system developed by humans is helping Washington State University students learn about both ancient technological innovation and modern-day experimental archeology. Originating in Europe over 30,000 years ago, the “atlatl” consists of a short stick or board with a cup at one end that enables the wielder to throw a dart farther […]
Andrea Mora-Tice is traveling the world as she works on her WSU undergraduate degree in anthropology. “I could be in the jungles of Sumatra working on a paper,” she says. “If I know I’m going to be in the air or away from home, I can download assignments and reading. It’s all so flexible.”
In 1992, Washington State University extended its land-grant mission by launching one of the nation’s first opportunities for students to pursue a degree from anywhere on the globe through distance delivery. Today, our Global Campus is the second largest campus by enrollment in the WSU system with more than 4,000 students enrolled in one of […]