Published research/scholarship/creative work

Rapid evolution may help adaptation to climate change, competition

Loss of biodiversity is a growing worldwide concern. A new study shows that species can adapt rapidly to an invader and that this evolutionary change can affect how they deal with a stressful climate. “Our results demonstrate that interactions with competitors, including invasive species, can shape a species’ evolution in response to climatic change,” said […]

Review: Legacies of the Manhattan Project

A scholarly retrospective that goes beyond the Hanford Site, this second book in the Hanford Histories series explores the myriad impacts that the top-secret government operation has left on the world, from education, health, and the environment to politics and pop culture. The depth and breadth of the collection makes clear that the history of […]

A healthy sense of disgust can prevent sickness

You might want to pay attention to those bad, queasy feelings. New research co-author by WSU anthropologist Aaron Blackwell  suggests that disgust could be the body’s way of helping humans avoid infection. “We found that people with higher levels of disgust had lower levels of inflammatory biomarkers that were indicative of having bacterial or viral

Breastfeeding while COVID‑19 positive

Breastfeeding women who have COVID-19 transfer milk-borne antibodies to their babies without passing along the SARS-CoV-2 virus, according to a new study. “The results indicate that it is safe for moms to continue to breastfeed during a COVID-19 infection with proper precautions,” said Courtney Meehan, a WSU anthropology professor and co-author on the study published

Big name corporations more likely to commit fraud

Fortune 500 firms with strong growth profiles are more susceptible to “cooking the books” than smaller, struggling companies, according to a recent study published in Justice Quarterly. “Prestigious companies, those that are household names, were actually more prone to engage in financial fraud, which was very surprising,” said Jennifer Schwartz, WSU sociologist and lead author on

Cannabis use and entrepreneurial creativity

New venture ideation is critical to the entrepreneurial process. To generate creative ideas, some entrepreneurs turn to cannabis, proposing its benefits. A new study by WSU psychology and business professors found cognitive, motivational, and experiential factors jointly shape creativity in new venture ideation. And while cannabis-using entrepreneurs in the study generated new business ideas that […]

Archeologists identify marigold residue in ancient Maya flasks

WSU scientists identified the presence of a non-tobacco plant in ancient Maya drug containers for the first time. “While it has been established that tobacco was commonly used throughout the Americas before and after contact, evidence of other plants used for medicinal or religious purposes has remained largely unexplored,” said anthropology postdoc and research lead […]

Identifying biomarkers linked to autism

Biomarkers in human sperm that can indicate a propensity to father children with autism spectrum disorder have been identified by a team of international researchers led by Michael Skinner, WSU professor of biological sciences. The biomarkers are epigenetic, meaning they involve changes to molecular factors that regulate genome activity such as gene expression independent of […]

Wildlife ecologists document rare jaguar-ocelot interaction

In what may be a sign of climate-change-induced conflict, researchers have captured rare photographic evidence of a jaguar killing another predatory wild cat at an isolated waterhole in Guatemala. Captured in the Maya Biosphere Reserve in March 2019, a dry month in a drought year for the tropical forest, by wildlife ecologists from WSU and […]