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Dr. Universe: Do fish pee?

Not only do fish pee, but their pee gives other animals in the ocean what they need to survive.

Cori Kane.That’s what I found out from my friend, Cori Kane, a marine biologist who earned her doctoral degree in biological sciences at Washington State University. She knows a lot about coral reefs in our oceans. Coral reefs look like a ridge made of rock, but they are actually made up of living things.

Corals need a few things to survive. They need clear, warm water, sunlight, and nutrients, a kind of food that helps them grow. There aren’t usually a lot of nutrients in water near coral reefs. Luckily, there are a lot of nutrients in fish pee—and a lot of fish in the reef.

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Dr. Universe

McMorris Rodgers, Murray oppose Trump’s emergency declaration

When Majority Leader Mitch McConnell made a twofold announcement Thursday that President Donald Trump would approve the budget proposal and declare a national emergency at the southern border, Washington legislators Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers and Sen. Patty Murray issued statements that this could establish a troubling precedent.

Cornell Clayton.
Clayton

Cornell Clayton, director of Washington State University’s Thomas S. Foley Institute for Public Policy and Public Service, was not surprised by McMorris Rodgers’ position.

“It’s a consistent position that most conservatives have taken,” Clayton said. “They’ve been very squeamish — in the eight years of the Obama administration, in particular — about the expansive use of executive branch power.”

“I think it’s going to be a very interesting proposition, and there’s a number of conservative senators who are on record as saying they would be opposed to using emergency powers to do this,” Clayton said. “… I think it’s not a done deal in the Senate, and I think it will be a close vote.”

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HaroldNet

In Trump’s Census Plans, Hints of a Citizenship Registry

Last August, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine issued a report on the U.S. Department of Commerce’s decision to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census. Prepared by some of the nation’s leading statisticians, including two former U.S. Census Bureau directors, the report concluded that the decision was “inconsistent with” what the Bureau is supposed to be doing.

Don Dillman.Continuing with the 2020 census as planned “would be like creating a population registry without asking everyone if it was okay,” said Don Dillman, a member of the National Academies committee, regents professor of sociology, deputy director for research and development in the Social and Economic Sciences Research Center at Washington State University, and a founder of one of the first university-based telephone survey research centers. The impact of doing so “worries me a lot,” he added.

As the committee reviewed many of the materials that recent lawsuits have turned up, Dillman “really started wondering if the citizen question was put there to identify people.” Not knowing what would be done with information gathered from answers to the question and administrative sources, as well as being unsure about the real motivation behind adding the question, also made him anxious about the scope of its impact. “If it’s really a registry,” Dillman said, “I don’t know where it would start — and where it would end.”

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Undark

In new book, WSU Vancouver professor sees benefits of legalized marijuana

Clayton Mosher.
Mosher

In the months after Washington voters approved legalized marijuana in 2012, Clayton Mosher, a sociology professor at Washington State University Vancouver, noticed what he believed to be unnecessary safety concerns.

Years after sales began, Mosher believes the apprehension has been proven to be unwarranted.

“We’re only four years out, but I don’t think you’re going to see a lot of negative outcomes,” Mosher said. “We’ve done a really good job in our state, I think.”

Mosher, who has studied marijuana policy for roughly 30 years, recently released his new book “In the Weeds,” coauthored with Scott Akins of Oregon State University. The book traces the evolution of society’s views on the drug and how it has affected policy.

The book tackles the effects, medical applications and possible harms of marijuana. “If the sky was going to fall, it probably would’ve fallen by now,” Mosher said, “Legalization didn’t create marijuana, and we’ve seen some positive effects of this.”

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The Columbian

IFL Science