jsteward | CAS in the Media | Washington State University

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A surprising amount of dry lightning hits California, fueling fire risk

August 19, 2023 jsteward

Lightning strikes are rare in Northern and Central California — so infrequent as to be overlooked by science.

But the subject has been of urgent interest since August 2020, when a massive complex of thunderstorms thrashed its way across the state, dropping not rain but thousands of bolts of “dry lightning”: cloud-to-ground strikes without accompanying rainfall exceeding one-tenth of an inch (2.5 millimeters). The effects were predictable, immediate and immense: wildfires, 650 in total, burning upward of 2 million acres.

The first in-depth look at the region’s dry lightning events was published this month, prompted by that historic event. For a sunbaked land now deep into a drought, the top-line findings are ominous: There may be more of these strikes than realized.

“Our team knew dry lightning happens in California during the summer,” said the paper’s author, Dmitri Kalashnikov of Washington State University at Vancouver. “But we didn’t know that it would be almost half (46 percent) of all lightning strikes in 34 years that were dry.”

Previous studies have shown that while Southern California sees more human-caused wildfires, lightning-caused fires are more prevalent in the northern section of the state, particularly over mountainous terrain.

There’s currently one active lightning-sparked wildfire in California: the Six Rivers Lightning Complex, about 30 miles east-northeast of Eureka. It had burned more than 27,000 acres as of Tuesday morning and is about 80 percent contained. It began the evening of Aug. 5, when thunderstorms touched off 11 blazes.

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The Washington Post
CNN.com
BBC.com
Phys.org
CBS News Sacramento
San Francisco Chronicle
Discover Magazine
WSU Insider

Chinese zoo denies, in voice of a bear, that sun bear is a person in a suit

August 18, 2023 jsteward

Sun, moon, grizzly, black, spectacled, sloth: Bears all over the world can stand, shuffle, totter and walk on two legs, though they usually prefer four.

They do not — strictly speaking — talk.

But a zoo in Hangzhou, China, decided that the best way to clear up a conspiracy theory about one of its bears was to release a statement in the bear’s voice.

The confusion appeared to begin in late July, when a video surfaced on the Chinese social media site Weibo of a sun bear named Angela standing on a rock in its zoo enclosure, with ramrod posture on its hind legs.

One commenter joked that being the bear was probably someone’s summer job, while another said that the prominent folds on the bear’s fur looked too much like those of a costume. (Experts say sun bears have loose skin that helps them wriggle away from predators.)

Charles Robbins, director of research at the Washington State University Bear Center, agreed with the theory that the bear was begging for food.

“Looks like a sun bear to me,” Dr. Robbins said on Tuesday. “Presumably, the bear has been rewarded with food by the crowd for standing, so it learned very quickly to do just that.”

It’s not unusual for bears to rely on their hind legs, he added. “[We] have a grizzly bear that will stand and walk two-legged.”

FBI’s secret search for lesbians in Manhattan Project revealed

August 17, 2023 jsteward

In 1943, thousands of workers began arriving at remote outposts in Washington, New Mexico and Tennessee where American ingenuity would be pressed to its limit in a secret and frantic push to build the first atomic bomb.

One particular group of eight women at Hanford in Eastern Washington and Los Alamos in New Mexico would have been among the forgotten, if not for the FBI’s feverish hunt for private details about their lives. The government that had recruited them to the elite Manhattan Project was now trying to strip them of vital security clearances by proving they were lesbians.

Declassified FBI records and Atomic Energy Commission memos reviewed by The Seattle Times chronicle the women’s experiences trying to live their authentic lives while staying ahead of the FBI in a chase that stretched from Los Alamos to Hanford and spanned a decade.

“The [Atomic Energy Commission], in saying these people are going to be security risks, they’re damning them. You’re also lumping them in with groups that might wish the U.S. and its allies harm,” Robert Franklin, assistant professor of history at Washington State University, Tri-Cities, and assistant director of the Hanford History Project, told the paper. “They’re not enemies, but the fact is they could be compromised just because of who they are.”

“It’s deeply unsettling and really should be a cautionary tale,” he added. “They wouldn’t have been a risk if we had been able to accept people for who they are.”

Find out more:
The Seattle Times
The Advocate
military.com

Of Royalty, Legends & Lore

August 14, 2023 jsteward

Whether it’s decadent desserts, rich curries, or lipsmacking snacks, it’s no secret that India has given the world some of its most iconic foods. While the taste of a dish is left to the chef’s genius, what also adds to its flavour is its winding history through time. Every dish, you see, is the result of a story.

And today we bring you 10 such fascinating stories that have not just stood the test of time but have found love in palates across the globe.

10. Curry and its trip through time

From dhansak and korma to rogan josh, kuzhambu and vindaloo, curries have established their dominion in our hearts for years. The origins of this favourite were traced back to the 400-year-old Harappan civilisation by two archaeologists Arunima Kashyap and Steve Weber of Washington State University.

Their analysis of starch grains led to the identification of the world’s ‘oldest’ proto-curry from the shards of a handi (a clay pot).

The curry has, of course, been an ever-evolving dish with contributions from many different cultures influencing the first recipe that was published by a woman named Hannah Glasse in 1747. Since then the curry has travelled far and wide and evolved into the staple that it is today.

Check your selfie before you wreck your selfie

August 22, 2019 jsteward

That cool selfie you just posted on social media might not be getting the flattering reaction you’re expecting — and may in fact have the opposite effect, new research from Washington State University suggests.

Scientists there used hundreds of actual Instagram users to see if those who take selfies cause others to make “snap judgments about the user’s personality.”

Professor Chris Barry displays a selfie (left) and a posie (right) on two phones. Photo illustration by Bob Hubner/WSU.

“Their work shows that individuals who post a lot of selfies are almost uniformly viewed as less likable, less successful, more insecure and less open to new experiences than individuals who share a greater number of posed photos taken by someone else,” writes Will Ferguson with WSU News. “Basically, selfie versus posie.”

The study was published in the Journal of Research in Personality by Washington State University psychologists.

The lead author of the study, WSU professor of psychology Chris Barry, says that even when two feeds had similar content, such as depictions of achievement or travel, feelings about the person who posted selfies were negative and feelings about the person who posted posies were positive.

“It shows there are certain visual cues, independent of context, that elicit either a positive or negative response on social media,” Barry said.

KOMOnews.com
MSN.com (withBuzz60 video)
PetaPixel
KTVB.com
nieuwsblad.be (Belgium)
WSU Insider
KPNX-PHX (NBC) – click to view
KWTX-WAC (CBS) – click to view
KSDK-STL (NBC) – Aug 22, 2019
KOTV (CBS) – click to view
FM News 101 KXL – click to view
MDedge – click to view
SheThePeople – click to view
Online Articles (India)

Medicine news line – click to view

ScienceDaily – click to view

Breitbart – click to view

Andhravilas – click to view

– click to view

UPI.com – click to view

Social News XYZ – click to view

NewsGram – click to view
Science Codex
Kansas City Live

Neatorama – click to view

KXLJ – click to view

KTVA (CBS) – click to view

Note: Many more outlets published about this research than could be listed here.

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