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US Sen. Maria Cantwell faces former head of state GOP

Democrat Maria Cantwell has easily won re-election to the U.S. Senate from Washington state in previous years, but as she seeks her fourth term this November she is facing her most recognizable opponent.

Republican Susan Hutchison, who spent two decades as a Seattle TV news anchor before leading the state Republican party for five years, said people are looking for change.

Cornell Clayton.
Cornell Clayton

Cornell Clayton, director of the Thomas S. Foley Institute for Public Policy at Washington State University, said even though Hutchison is a recognized name in the state, she has an uphill battle in not only trying to take on a Democratic incumbent in a state where Democrats hold most statewide offices, but doing so in a year where Democratic voters appear to be turning out in force.

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Peninsula Daily News

WSU researcher sees huge carbon sink in soil minerals

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.
Kramer

Marc Kramer, an assistant professor of environmental chemistry at WSU Vancouver, reports his finding in one of two related papers demonstrating how the right management practices can help trap much of the carbon dioxide that is rapidly warming the planet.

Soil holds more than three times the carbon found in the atmosphere, yet its potential in reducing atmospheric carbon-dioxide levels and mitigating global warming is barely understood.

Kramer, who is a reviewer for one of three reports issued with the federal National Climate Assessment released last week, compared what we know about soil to how little we know about the deep ocean.

“Hardly anyone has been down there and they just found a new species of octopus” he said. “We know more about the surface of Mars than we do about either oceans or soils on Earth”

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Science Magazine

From crystals to climate: ‘Gold standard’ timeline links flood basalts to climate change

About 16 million years ago an enormous volcano erupted in the Pacific Northwest, pouring lava across what’s now Washington, Oregon and Idaho, ultimately burying the region to the height of a 30-story building.

Before now, most geologists believed that it took almost 2 million years to erupt all that lava, collectively known as “the Columbia River flood basalts.” But new research shows it happened more than twice as fast as previously believed, with 95 percent erupting within a 750,000-year window.

Stephen Reidel.
Stephen Reidel

“This is the most significant paper to come out about the Columbia River flood basalts in a decade or two,” said Stephen Reidel, a research professor of geology at Washington State University-Tri-Cities, who has studied these lava flows since 1972 and contributed to the study analysis.

The researchers “deserve a lot of compliments for thinking to look at the zircons in the ash beds between the flows…,” he said. “Of course, now we’re going to have to go back and re-calculate everything that used the old timeline or eruption rate. That’s okay — that’s part of the fun.”

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Science on Tap: WSUV professor to share Ebola experiences

The first social scientist to be invited by the World Health Organization to help Ebola control efforts works right here in Clark County.

Barry Hewlett.
Barry Hewlett

Barry Hewlett, an anthropology professor at Washington State University Vancouver, visited Central Africa to help the WHO in 2000, and he has visited the continent about five times as part of response efforts.

Hewlett will share stories on his experience, and how he worked to develop trust between local communities and the international and national response teams, at 7 p.m. Wednesday for Science on Tap at Kiggins Theatre in Vancouver.

When Hewlett first arrived, there was some apprehension from locals when it came to dealing with those response teams.

“The number of cases was going up, even though they were doing everything they thought they needed to do,” Hewlett said. “People were essentially running away from the World Health Organization treatment centers, isolation units and the rest. So the thought is, ‘What’s going on here?’ ”

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Scientists Race To Research Stonefly Species Threatened By Climate Change

Scientists know very little about a species of stonefly that can only be found in the alpine streams of the Grand Teton Mountain Range: the Lednia tetonica.

It was discovered in 2012. But as climate change slowly melts glaciers and threatens the aquatic insect’s habitat, researchers are trying to learn as much as they can about the species, before it disappears.

Scott Hotaling squats on a rock at the edge of a glacier and mountain stream.ng.

Scott Hotaling looks for stoneflies in a stream under Skillet Glacier. Photo by Taylor Price

On a cold morning at a Grand Teton campground, three scientists prepared to do just that by packing their bags for an expedition.

Scott Hotaling, a post-doctoral scholar in biological sciences at Washington State University, got out of his green Subaru and said, “it’s about 6 am, people are just starting to wake up and we’re heading to the Skillet Glacier later today.”

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Wyoming Public Media