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Sen. Murray seeks 6th term at new inflection point for women

Patty Murray was first elected to the U.S. Senate from Washington state in 1992 during the “Year of the Woman,” motivated to run for higher office in part by the contentious Clarence Thomas Supreme Court confirmation hearings.

At that time, Murray was the self-professed “Mom in Tennis Shoes,” advocating for working families and outraged by the way an all-male Senate committee questioned Anita Hill when she said Thomas had sexually harassed her.

Now Murray, 71, is one of the Senate’s most powerful members and seeking a sixth term at another inflection point for women following the U.S. Supreme Court’s overturning of the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion nationwide.

Murray’s campaign has spent more than $1 million to run television ads since June blasting her Republican rival Tiffany Smiley for supporting Roe v. Wade’s reversal.

Cornell Clayton.
Clayton

Cornell W. Clayton, a political scientist and director of the Thomas S. Foley Institute for Public Service and Public Policy at Washington State University, said Murray remains the favorite to win in November but faces challenges.

“In particular she has to worry about Biden´s negative approval ratings as a drag and the economy and inflation putting the electorate in a pretty sour mood,” Clayton said.

Smiley´s strategy appears to be focusing less on policy and more on turning the race into a referendum on Democrats, he said.

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Daily Mail

A new scientific method transcends the need for eyes in detecting the presence of species.

If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? This philosophical musing on perception and reality is often vaguely attributed to Irish philosopher George Berkeley, the San Francisco, California, Bay Area city’s namesake, whose own philosophy boiled down to, “To be is to be perceived.”

For much of the discipline’s history, ecological researchers studying the presence of endangered species in underwater habitats were forced to operate under a similar axiom.

If, for instance, after a day of trudging through ponds and combing the water with dip nets, Brian Woodward, an ecological researcher at the Santa Lucia Conservancy in Carmel Valley, was unable to perceive with his own eyes the presence of a California tiger salamander or its larvae, he would have no physical evidence of its existence. The rules of detective work 101.

Caren Goldberg.
Goldberg

Earlier this spring, with the help of a grant and a partnership with the Elkhorn Slough National Estuarine Research Reserve, Woodward and a team of researchers set out to monitor the presence of the tiger salamander and the similarly endangered California red-legged frog on the Santa Lucia Preserve. Instead of sweeping the ponds with a net and manually counting the adults and larvae they found, the team bagged up samples of pond water and shipped them to Caren Goldberg’s laboratory at Washington State University for analysis. The results, which Woodward expects to receive by September, will tell which ponds are hosting the endangered species.

The use of eDNA does for ecology what forensic labs did for crime scene investigators.

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Monterey County Weekly

Archaeologists identify contents of ancient Mayan drug containers

“Normally, you are lucky if you find a jade bead.”

Ancient Mayans have been a continuing source of inspiration for their monuments, knowledge, and mysterious demise. Now a new study discovers some of the drugs they used. For the first time, scientists found remnants of a non-tobacco plant in Mayan drug containers. They believe their analysis methods can allow them exciting new ways of investigating the different types of psychoactive and non-psychoactive plants used by the Maya and other pre-Colombian societies.

Mario Zimmerman.
Zimmermann

The research was carried out by a team from Washington State University, led by anthropology postdoc Mario Zimmermann. They spotted residue of the Mexican marigold (Tagetes lucida) in 14 tiny ceramic vessels that were buried over a 1,000 years ago on Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula. The containers also exhibited chemical traces of two types of tobacco: Nicotiana tabacum and N. rustica. Scientists think the marigold was mixed in with the tobacco to make the experience more pleasant.

“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 Zimmermann. “The analysis methods developed in collaboration between the Department of Anthropology and the Institute of Biological Chemistry give us the ability to investigate drug use in the ancient world like never before.”

The scientists used a new method based on metabolomics that is able to pinpoint thousands of plant compounds, or metabolites, in residue of archaeological artifacts like containers and pipes. This allows the researchers to figure out which specific plants were utilized.

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Freethink

New student regent named to WSU Board of Regents

A clinical psychology doctoral student who has worked with populations ranging from young children and university students to retirees and incarcerated men is serving as the new student regent on the WSU Board of Regents.

Reanne Chilton.
Chilton

Reanne Cunningham Chilton was selected by Washington Gov. Jay Inslee to serve on the WSU Board of Regents for academic year 2022–23. She is currently in her fifth year of the clinical psychology doctoral program, having already graduated from WSU with a bachelor’s degree in Spanish language teacher education and a master’s degree in special education and teaching.

Prior to serving as the student regent, Chilton got involved with the Department of Psychology’s student organization. She went on to serve as a senator for the department in the Graduate and Professional Student Association, winning its senator of the year award in 2021. She most recently held the role of GPSA president this past academic year.

“I tend to not be someone who thinks of themselves for different roles, but when it came to the GPSA presidency and before that with my work within my department, I decided after not to be the person to decide I don’t fit and that I felt that I can make an impact.”

Chilton was also recently recognized as a recipient of the President’s Award for Leadership.

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WSU Insider

Washington auditor candidates waging campaigns that undermine election results

Fueled by the false narrative that widespread fraud stole the 2020 election from Trump, election officials nationwide have been under constant attack from election conspiracists.

Now, many of those conspiracists are seeking control of elections offices, asking for votes while telling those same people their votes may not count.

Cornell Clayton.
Clayton

The trend, both locally and nationally, threatens to undermine trust in the elections process, said Cornell Clayton, director of the Thomas S. Foley Institute for Public Policy and Public Service at Washington State University.

“The central concern about having these types of individuals hold elective office like county auditors is that they will perpetuate the view that our elections aren’t fair, that they’re not transparent, that they’re being rigged and you shouldn’t trust them,” Clayon said. “Democracies can’t survive when that belief takes hold in a society.”

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Kitsap Sun