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Podcasters, musicians and other creators can rejoice

Students at Washington State University can now use a new audio lab located in Holland Library to produce podcasts or music recordings with state-of-the-art equipment and technology.

Jason Anderson, who works for the library’s systems department, collaborated with students and faculty to develop a fee proposal to fund the lab. The funds come from a student technology fee, and were awarded in 2019.

Reza Safavi.
Safavi
Ruth Gregory.
Gregory
Scott Blasco.
Blasco

Scott Blasco, associate professor of music theory, composition and electronic music; Reza Safavi, digital media coordinator and associate professor of fine arts; and Ruth Gregory, director of undergraduate studies for the Digital Technology and Culture Program all played a role in bringing the audio lab to life.

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Moscow-Pullman Daily News
WSU Insider

 

Weathercatch: Solving riddle of the milky rain that fell seven years ago this month

The Inland Northwest is used to precipitation in February, but not the kind that fell on Feb. 6, 2015.

That Friday morning, a mysterious milky rain began to fall in parts of Eastern Washington, including here in Spokane, and northeast Oregon. It left a chalky sheen on cars and windshields, people’s coats and along roadside curbs.

And it was a mystery that took weeks to solve. Theories ranged from ash blown by a volcanic eruption in Russia and another in Mexico, a Nevada dust storm and ashy particles from burn scars left by Pacific Northwest wildfires that summer.

Ultimately, all of those sources were ruled out, as were aliens and chemtrails. Working with scientists at Washington State University, including a hydrochemist, two geologists and an atmospheric scientist, our group concluded that the source of the milky rain was an ancient saline lake bed in remote Oregon, nearly 500 miles away.

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The Spokesman-Review

The mystery and beauty of pi

Who better than an expert mathematician to help celebrate the fourteenth day of the third month of the year, unofficially known as Pi Day for the numeric expression it shares with the the ratio of the circumference of any circle to the diameter of that circle: 3.14.

Charles Moore.Professor Charles N. Moore, PhD and chair of Washington State University’s Department of Mathematics and Statistics, provides a brief overview of the scientific significance of pi in a new video being shared broadly today on WSU’s social media channels.

“Pi is both troublesome and mysterious,” Moore explains. “A circle is something very simple and beautiful, yet the number pi is not.”

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WSU Insider

Who’s been sleeping?

This last winter, the 11 grizzlies at the WSU Bear Center were doing what they do best: a lot of nothing, and Washington State University researchers want to know exactly how they do that so well.

Charles Robbins.
Robbins

“We’re getting more and more interest from other researchers that bears might be a good model for what they’re studying,” says Charles Robbins, the wildlife biologist who first launched the bear program at WSU 36 years ago.

Joanna Kelley.
Kelley

WSU evolutionary geneticist Joanna Kelley is currently using cell cultures taken for that study to investigate which genes are being activated in response to the ingestion of glucose before, during, and after hibernation. Her research team hopes to identify proteins that are changing the cells’ uptake of the sugar-regulating hormone, insulin. Diabetes in humans occurs when the body loses its ability to produce or respond to insulin.

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WSU Insider

WebMD

NewsMax

Beasts of the Ice Age

Not so long ago, large creatures roamed the Pullman area. Formidable beasts journeyed through the plains of the Palouse during the last Ice Age.

Fossils of mastodons, distant mammoth relatives, were found a few hours from Seattle, according to Washington State Magazine. At the site in Sequim, WSU professor Carl Gustafson uncovered evidence humans hunted the giant beasts: a spear tip embedded in a fossilized rib. Gustafson’s finding revolutionized the timeline of human presence in North America, revealing humans arrived in North America at least 800 years earlier than previously thought.

Gustafson’s discovery remains one of the most significant in WSU history. He also unearthed mammoth bones in central Washington, according to the Seattle Times. After nearly 40 years of teaching, Gustafson retired from WSU in 1998. He passed away in 2016, leaving a legacy of mammoth proportions. You can visit the Conner Museum on the ground floor of Abelson Hall to see a fossilized mammoth femur and mastodon teeth in person.

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Daily Evergreen