A Washington State University researcher has discovered that vast amounts of carbon can be stored by soil minerals more than a foot below the surface. The finding could help offset the rising greenhouse-gas emissions helping warm the Earth’s climate. Marc Kramer, an assistant professor of environmental chemistry at WSU Vancouver, reports his finding in one […]
Sometimes you just get lucky. Graduate students Laura Briere and Jared Chastain, along with their faculty adviser, historian Orlan Svingen, were in College Park, Maryland, last spring looking for information about the storied 161st Infantry Regiment when they stepped off the elevator on the wrong floor. It turned out to be a fortunate mistake.
A new study by Washington State University researchers answers longstanding questions about the formation of a rare type of diamond during major meteorite strikes. Hexagonal diamond or lonsdaleite is harder than the type of diamond worn on an engagement ring and is thought to be naturally made when large, graphite-bearing meteorites slam into Earth. Scientists […]
It turns out that sex can move mountains. A Washington State University researcher has found that the mating habits of salmon can alter the profile of stream beds, affecting the evolution of an entire watershed. His study is one of the first to quantitatively show that salmon can influence the shape of the land. Alex […]
The Pacific Northwest was home to one of the Earth’s largest known volcanic eruptions, a millennia-long spewing of sulfuric gas that blocked out the sun and cooled the planet, Washington State University researchers have determined. “This would have been devastating regionally because of the acid-rain effect from the eruptions,” said John Wolff, a professor in the […]
Every day students, faculty, staff and administrators throughout Washington State University process a vast torrent of messages. Between lectures, reading assignments, tweets, texts, emails, advertisements, news stories and casual conversations, they’re processing countless discrete pieces of socially transmitted information. Much of this information is so advanced that Cougs can go on to breed new species […]
First, the good news. Washington State University researchers have found that a rat exposed to a popular herbicide while in the womb developed no diseases and showed no apparent health effects aside from lower weight. Now, the weird news. The grand-offspring of that rat did have more disease, as did a great-grand offspring third generation. […]
Monarch butterfly populations from western North America have declined far more dramatically than was previously known and face a greater risk of extinction than eastern monarchs, according to a new study in the journal Biological Conservation. “Western monarchs are faring worse than their eastern counterparts,” said Cheryl Schultz, an associate professor at Washington State University […]
Imagine running through a fantastical digital world of myth and danger—treasures and ancient artifacts around every corner. Now imagine being a new college graduate and saying “I built that” in a job interview. Both are reality for the 2017 graduates of the WSU Vancouver Creative Media and Digital Culture program. Last May, the program graduated […]
A new device being developed by Washington State University physicist Yi Gu could one day turn the heat generated by a wide array of electronics into a usable energy source. A multi-component, multi-layered composite material called a van der Waals Schottky diode, the WSU device converts heat into electricity up to three times more efficiently […]