February | 2021 | CAS in the Media | Washington State University

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Ask Dr. Universe: How can you tell if a fish is female or male? Or if it is a kid or adult or teenager?

February 28, 2021 mikayla.makle

There are more than 34,000 species of fish on our planet. It can be tricky to tell the age or sex of a fish, but biologists have come up with a few different ways to find out.

My friend Paul Wheeler, a fish biologist at Washington State University, told me all about it.

There are also some outward characteristics that help us tell the sex of a fish. Wheeler is very curious about salmon. He said male salmon get darker and their colors are more intense than females. The males also have a big hook on their jaw and sharp teeth.

“It requires taking a little piece of their fin and the fins grow back. It’s like taking a little piece of fingernail,” said Wheeler.

We have to rely on outward characteristics or analyze fish scales to determine age. Biologists use scales of a fish that form yearly rings to count their age. It’s a lot like counting the rings of a tree.

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Ask Dr. Universe

Eyes in the sky monitor streamside ecosystems

February 27, 2021 mikayla.makle

Washington State University researchers are using satellites and drones to help local conservation districts monitor areas near rivers and streams to help improve agricultural sustainability.

“The state’s program is really a bottom-up approach, where the state encourages local stewardship to improve riparian areas and monitor them,” said Alexander Fremier, an associate professor in WSU’s School of the Environment (SOE). “Stakeholders, including counties, districts, or landowners, propose areas that they can help improve, then monitor the results of their actions.”

“Google created a platform to access satellite imagery from the entire globe,” Fremier said. “We can start to analyze those images in real-time using simple computer code.”

“We wanted to see how far we could take the analysis and what level of technical expertise is required for people working on the ground to use it,” said Amanda Stahl, who was an SOE Ph.D. student studying with Fremier. “Riparian areas tend to be very narrow, but new technology provides much more detailed satellite photos that are updated at least once a week.”

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WSU Insider
Mirage News
Farm Progress

WSU artists’ new album rising on the jazz charts

February 26, 2021 mikayla.makle

Greg Yasinitsky, professor and coordinator of Jazz Studies in the Washington State University School of Music, recently released the CD, “Yazz Band: New Normal” on Origin Records, a top jazz imprint.

The album ranked at 136 this week on the Jazzweek 300 chart which monitors radio broadcasts throughout the nation. Part of the album was recorded in the WSU Recording Studio but after the pandemic struck, musicians recorded their parts individually in their homes, according to a WSU news release.

The disc features Yasinitsky’s compositions and saxophone playing, along with performances by WSU faculty members Horace Alexander Young, Gabe Condon, Jake Svendsen, F. David Snider, bass and professor emeritus David Jarvis. It’s creation was supported by the WSU Arts and Humanities Fellowship. The album is available on iTunes, Apple Music, Spotify, Amazon and other online sites.

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Inland 360
The Lewiston Tribune
WSU Insider

A healthy sense of disgust can prevent sickness

February 26, 2021 mikayla.makle

You might want to pay attention to those bad, queasy feelings. New research, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on Feb. 15, 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 infections,” said Aaron Blackwell, a Washington State University associate professor of anthropology and co-author on the paper. “While the study shows that disgust functions to protect against infection, it also showed it varies across different environments, based on how easily people can avoid certain things.”

This study supports the hypothesis that disgust is an evolved human emotion that functions as a disease-avoidance mechanism, helping humans to reduce their exposure to pathogens. The findings also demonstrate that the human disgust response is calibrated to the local costs and benefits of avoidance and infection.

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WSU Insider
Yahoo! News
AJC
Feeling Fit
The Star
Whatsnew2day

Reconstruction-era amendment could bar Trump from future public office, historian Eric Foner says in WSU lecture

February 26, 2021 mikayla.makle

Constitutional changes following the American Civil War could be used to bar President Donald Trump from seeking future office, historian Eric Foner said in a virtual lecture hosted by Washington State University on Tuesday.

“Key questions facing American society right now are Reconstruction questions,” said Foner, the first to give a series of lectures about the state of American democracy as part of a distinguished speaker series hosted by the Thomas S. Foley Institute for Public Policy and Public Service at WSU that will continue into next month.

The historical insight provided by Foner, who has published several books on 19th century American politics including 2010’s Pulitzer Prize-winning “The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery,” is the goal of the speaker series, said Cornell Clayton, director of the Foley Institute.

“It’s a really opportune time to take a step back and look at what’s happening more broadly, whether or not we’re at a turning point,” Clayton said.

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The Spokesman-Review