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Would resuming or halting the NBA season help the league’s efforts to fight racial inequality?

In recent seasons, NBA players have refused to just shut up and dribble. With the NBA slated to start next month in the middle of a pandemic and racial strife, however, is it time for players to stop dribbling so the bouncing ball does not drown out their voice?

David Leonard.
Leonard

“I don’t think playing the season necessarily has a positive or a negative affect,” said David Leonard, professor in the School of Languages, Cultures, and Race, at Washington State University. He teaches classes on politics of sports and wrote the book, “After Artest: The NBA and the Assault on Blackness.” “People can make an argument that each space can be used and leveraged toward shining a spotlight on racism and police violence,” Leonard said.

“Even if there are no games going on, their voices and their platforms are still big,” Leonard said. “The power in their voices transcend the game.”

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USA Today

WSU psychologist to appear in Netflix series ‘Babies’ this Friday

Masha Maria Gartstein.
Gartstein

Maria Gartstein, a Washington State University professor of psychology, explores how social-emotional development unfolds rapidly during infancy in a new episode of the Netflix documentary series Babies, airing this Friday, June 19.

The series follows 15 families from around the world through the first full year of their babies’ lives. Each episode focuses on a different aspect of a baby’s development and includes extensive interviews with early childhood development experts such as Gartstein.

Gartstein’s episode is one of six being released this Friday. The first part of the series initially aired in November 2019 and rose to number seven on Netflix’s list of most watched shows.

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WSU Insider

Ask Dr. Universe: What creature has lived on Earth the longest and is still alive until today?

There are many kinds of creatures that lived on Earth long ago and their relatives still exist today. We know about them from fossil records, imprints or remains that we find in rock.

While these living things have been around a long time, there is one organism that has outlasted pretty much all others. It is so small you would likely need a microscope to see it: cyanobacteria.

Michael Berger.
Berger

I learned about these long-lived bacteria from my friend Michael Berger, clinical assistant professor of the School of Biological sciences at Washington State University Vancouver.

Berger studies barnacles, which have been on the planet for about 500 million years. He told me that cyanobacteria have been around even longer than barnacles.

One of the oldest fossil records of cyanobacteria was found in Australia. It was nearly 2.7 billion years old. For a bit of perspective, that was way before dinosaurs roamed the earth between 230 and 65 million years ago.

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Ask Dr. Universe

Study shows cannabis temporarily relieves PTSD symptoms

Carrie Cuttler.
Cuttler

People suffering from post‑traumatic distress disorder report that cannabis reduces the severity of their symptoms by more than half, at least in the short term, according to a recent study led by Carrie Cuttler, a Washington State University assistant professor of psychology.

Cuttler and her colleagues analyzed data of more than 400 people who tracked changes in their PTSD symptoms before and after cannabis use with Strainprint, an app developed to help users learn what types of medical cannabis work best for their symptoms. The group collectively used the app more than 11,000 times over a 31‑month period.

“A lot of people with PTSD do seem to turn to cannabis, but the literature on its efficacy for managing symptoms is a little sparse,” Cuttler said.

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