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Health equity issues the focus of new seed grants from HERC

Washington State University’s Health Equity Research Center (HERC) awarded seed grants to five research teams that will explore health equity issues with potential to draw major funding for further research.

HERC Director Paul Whitney said, “Each of the funded proposals addresses an issue critical to health equity. They all also have strong prospects for leveraging their seed grants to develop extramurally funded projects. We’ll be excited to follow their accomplishments over the next year and proud to contribute to WSU’s efforts to produce high quality scholarship that directly benefits the people of our state and beyond.”

Courtney Meehan.
Meehan

The funded seed grant proposals include:

  • Human Milk and Cannabinoids
    Principal Investigator: Courtney Meehan, Department of Anthropology, College of Arts and Sciences

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WSU Insider

It’s Summer, And That Means The Mysterious Return Of Glacier Ice Worms

Scott Hotaling.
Hotaling

High up on Mount Rainier in Washington, there’s a stunning view of the other white-capped peaks in the Cascade Range. But Scott Hotaling is looking down toward his feet, studying the snow-covered ground.

“It’s happening,” he says, gesturing across Paradise Glacier.

“There are so many,” says Hotaling, a biological sciences researcher at Washington State University. An estimated 5 billion ice worms can live in a single glacier.

For a long time, he says, biologists have written off high-altitude glaciers such as these as basically sterile, lifeless places. Ice worms, however, show that this fragile environment — where the glaciers are vulnerable to climate change and are retreating — is potentially far more complicated.

The National Park Service’s visitors center near Paradise Glacier, for example, has a nice display on alpine wildlife, Hotaling says, “and there is somehow nothing about ice worms. And it is a source of frustration for me.”

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Oregon silverspot butterfly population continues to decline, leaving researchers puzzled

Erica Henry, postdoctoral researcher in environmental science, carefully lifts the netting from the side of the small, improvised tent and squirms underneath.

Once partly inside, she begins to poke among the grasses and tiny, wild violets in search of rare caterpillars transplanted weeks earlier from a special breeding program at the Oregon Zoo.

That caterpillar carries the hopes and efforts of state and federal agencies, the zoo and dozens of other partners to keep the Oregon silverspot butterfly from extinction.

Henry estimates 200 butterflies will emerge this summer from the grass fields near Yachats.

Researchers with the U.S. Forest Service and the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service have been have been studying and trying to revive the declining population of the Oregon silverspot since 1980, when it was put on the federal threatened species list.

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Oregon Live

More bullying of LGBTQ+ students in politically conservative districts

Students who identify as LGBTQ+ in Washington state school districts with conservative voting records reported experiencing more bullying than their peers in more politically liberal areas, according to a new study.

Paul Kwon.
Kwon

“To my knowledge, nobody has really looked at this connection between a school district’s political attitudes and the experiences of LGBTQ+ students in schools,” said Paul Kwon, professor of psychology at Washington State University and coauthor of the study. “This project highlights an inequity that is not talked about a lot and shows the need for more explicit and inclusive anti-bullying legislation and policies that help mitigate the risks to LGBTQ+ youth regardless of district political attitudes.”

While each school district in Washington is mandated to enact policy that at minimum, complies with legislation prohibiting harassment, intimidation and bullying, Kwon and colleagues suggest individual school boards, regardless of political leanings, implement policy that goes beyond minimum protections for LGBTQ+ youth.

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U.S. News & World Report
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Scientist to testify to U.S. congressional panel on salmon-killing tire chemical

Jen Mcintyre.
Mcintyre

Washington State University scientist Jenifer McIntyre will testify before members of Congress on research linking a chemical found in tires to the die-off of endangered salmon.

An assistant professor at WSU’s School of the Environment, McIntyre studies urban runoff and its effects on aquatic animals, including salmon. She is one of several experts set to testify virtually Thursday, July 15, before members of the Natural Resources Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, which is probing scientific evidence that a chemical found in car tires, playground surfaces, and other sources plays a role in the massive death of coho salmon.

“I’m looking forward to the opportunity to share this important issue with members of Congress, in order to continue our efforts to protect aquatic animals from harmful environmental pollutants,” said McIntyre, who continues to study the effects of the molecule on fish.

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