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Does using weed make you a nicer person? Results may vary.

Some people may turn to weed for anxiety, sleep and creativity. New research suggests it could also make you a nicer person.

The findings, published in the Journal of Neuroscience Research, suggests there could be a connection between cannabis use and empathy.

A study of 85 regular cannabis users and 51 nonusers asked participants to complete a test that measures empathy. Researchers also used brain imaging to study some of the subjects, analyzing a region of the brain that plays a central role in mediating the empathic response.

The recent research shows an association between cannabis use and empathy, but doesn’t prove cause and effect, said Carrie Cuttler, a psychology professor at Washington State University.

“We have no idea if it’s that the people who are more empathetic to begin with are more likely to use cannabis,” Cuttler said.

Or there may be another reason such as “a personality trait or difference in lived experience, that is driving people to be interested in using cannabis and have higher empathy as well,” Cuttler said. “There’s not enough evidence to convince me yet that the cannabis is causing them to be more empathetic.”

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The Washington Post
MSN.com
Benzinga.com

Pullman student helps bring linguistics event to WSU

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 the open round are then eligible to compete in the International Linguistics Olympiad against students from around the world.

A lifelong fascination with languages and puzzle-solving sparked Georgia Colvig’s interest in NACLO. However, the University of Washington was previously the nearest competition site, and the Pullman High School junior was concerned about traveling all the way to Seattle in the middle of winter.

“I thought it would be cool if people in the area who might not be able to travel to UW could participate too,” Colvig said.

She reached out to Nancy Bell, a linguistics professor at WSU Pullman, to see if the university would provide the space to host the opening round of NACLO.

“This is the sort of thing we love doing,” Bell said, noting that WSU’s Department of English has within it a linguistics major program.

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Daily News
WSU Insider

WSU students lobby state legislature

Eighty-one WSU students from the Pullman, Global, Tri-Cities and Vancouver campuses traveled to the Washington State Capitol in Olympia to lobby in front of Washington State’s legislature Monday.

The students were led by Collin Bannister, ASWSU legislative affairs director and second-year philosophy and political science pre-law major. After training consistently throughout the semester, the team met with legislators, the Secretary of State and the Washington State Treasurer to discuss the upcoming 60-day voting session.

“Washington State’s budget operates in a biennium. At the start of each Biennium, it is called a budget year which is where they allocate funding. That was in 2023,” Bannister said. “Now in 2024, we have entered the second half of the biennium which is referred to as a short session. There are fewer days to pass policy and generally a lot less money.”

Students were broken into groups of four and five on the morning of Jan. 22. Each group was assigned a handful of legislators or their legal assistants to talk to throughout the day. The students were able to get feedback and answer questions from the legislators concerning the bills.

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The Daily Evergreen

Recent weather won’t reverse snow drought in Pacific Northwest

This week’s snowfall likely won’t be enough to pull the Pacific Northwest out of its snow drought.

Snowpacks were at a record low across the Western U.S. in early January, the National Integrated Drought Information System reported last week. The Cascade Mountains’ snowpack is 40 percent to 60 percent of normal. Record lows also extend to California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon and Wyoming, with the northern Rocky Mountains facing the brunt of the snow drought.

“It is kind of striking that the pattern here is so widespread,” said Luke Gilbert Reyes, a doctoral student at Washington State University Vancouver who studies snowpack.

Multiple atmospheric rivers dumped snow atop mountains in early December. However, temperatures increased and light flakes turned to heavy rain, resulting in little mountaintop snow accumulation across the West. A dry wave lingered for the rest of the month, worsening the snow drought.

If winter precipitation is constant and temperatures remain cool through March, the snowpack might rebound, Reyes said. However, the current El Niño winter — abnormally warm and dry — will ultimately lead to below-average snow accumulation, he said.

Yet this seasonal weather pattern isn’t the only contributing factor hindering snow levels.

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The Columbian

 

 

 

Are anxiety and depression social problems or chemical disorders?

Two anthropologists question the chemical imbalance theory of mental health disorders.

Twentieth-century science was supposed to change everything. Indeed, thanks to vaccinations, antibiotics, and improved sanitation, humans thrived like never before. Yet in that mix was thrown pharmacological treatments for mental health disorders. On that front, little progress has been made.

It can be argued—it is being argued, in a new paper in American Journal of Physical Anthropology—that we’re regressing in our fight against mental health problems. As Kristen Syme, a PhD student in evolutionary anthropology, and Washington State University anthropology professor Edward Hagen argue, psychopharmacological treatments are increasing alongside mental health disorder diagnoses. If the former worked, the latter would decrease.

There are numerous problems with the current psychiatric model. Journalist Robert Whitaker has laid out the case that antidepressants, antipsychotics, and other pharmacological interventions are the real culprit behind chemical imbalances in the brain—a psychiatric talking point that’s been challenged for over a half-century. Patients suffering from minor anxiety and depression are placed on ineffective drugs, often being placed on a cocktail of pills. With many consumer advocacy groups being funded by pharmaceutical companies, we’ve reached a tipping point in mental health protocols.

As Syme and Hagan write, consumer advocacy groups are not the only compromised organizations. One review of 397 clinical trials discovered 47 percent of these studies reported at least one conflict of interest.

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Freethink.com