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Ask Dr. Universe: Why can’t we breathe in space?

On Earth, humans have oxygen to breathe. But there’s very little oxygen to breathe in space.

Space is actually a kind of vacuum, which means there isn’t a whole lot of matter, or stuff, out there between the planets and the stars.

Yimo Liu.
Liu

For Earthlings like you and me, oxygen is an essential part of life. While 21% of Earth’s atmosphere is oxygen, my friend Yimo Liu reminded me it wasn’t always that way.

As a professor of biology at Washington State University, she is very curious about life on our 4.6 billion-year-old planet.

“After we have that first oxygen, other organisms that require oxygen start to evolve,” Liu said.

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WSU Insider

Nature restoration project brings together community, arts, and science

In a narrow patch of land beside Missouri Flat Creek near downtown Pullman and the Washington State University campus, a new set of creatively designed signs celebrates a decade of ecological restoration efforts and a unique town–gown partnership combining environmental science and the arts.

Kayla Wakulich.
Wakulich

“Intriguing, educational, and beautiful—they are at the interface of art and science,” said Kayla Wakulich, a doctoral candidate in WSU’s School of the Environment (SoE) and staff assistant for the WSU Center for Civic Engagement. “To see them installed reaffirms that it was worth the wait—and the work.”

Over the years, more than 5,000 SoE 110 students have contributed upwards of 15,000 individual hours by planting native grasses and other beneficial vegetation, removing invasive plant species, monitoring water quality and wildlife, and checking for stream bank migration. The ongoing project has grown to include volunteers from local civic groups, such as the Phoenix Conservancy, Pioneer Explorers and Pullman Civic Trust, as well as four summer interns, three landscape architecture courses, two creative writing courses, and a visual arts course.

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WSU Insider

Student-athletes explore name, image, and likeness opportunities

Dallas Hobbs.
Hobbs

For most of his collegiate career, Dallas Hobbs lived a dual existence.

There was the Washington State University football player and mainstay on the Cougar’s defensive line. And then there was the student entrepreneur who owns a multimedia design business, co-hosts two podcasts and has a small ownership stake in a start-up brewery.

In the past, “I couldn’t post on my personal twitter page and say, ‘Hey, I’m a freelance graphic designer, and I’m looking for clients,’” said Hobbs, 24, a redshirt senior and online MBA student at the Carson College of Business. “You weren’t allowed to solicit customers like that.”

Hobbs, who majored in fine arts and digital technology and culture as an undergrad, recently set up a limited liability company for his business ventures. Since he’s been able to promote his work, Hobbs has seen an uptick in prospective clients for his firm, Hobbs Design. He’s also the director of marketing and design for Common Language Brewing in Spokane.

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WSU Insider

 

Systems approach assesses public health impacts of changing climate, environmental policies

A team co-led by a Washington State University scientist offers an alternative way to understand and minimize health impacts from human-caused changes to the climate and environment in a new study published in the journal One Earth.

Deepti Singh.
Singh

Based at WSU Vancouver, lead author Deepti Singh, assistant professor in the School of the Environment, drew on hundreds of studies of climate change, air quality, agriculture, and public health to propose a “systems lens,” or scientific approach, that connects health risks with simultaneous environmental changes driven by human practices.

“We’re offering a framework to assess the overall health impacts from multiple parts of Earth’s natural systems, which are all changing simultaneously because of human activities,” Singh said. “The research could help identify policies and solutions that will have multiple co-benefits for the environment and human health.”

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WSU Insider
News Wise
Science Daily
Florida News Times

Why The Supreme Court Probably Doesn’t Care What Most Americans Think About Abortion Or Gun Rights

The Supreme Court is more conservative than it’s been in almost a century. ​​Its new term begins today (Oct. 4), and by next June, when the term ends, Americans might finally understand what that means. Public opinion of the court is already at a record low after the court allowed a strict abortion law to go into effect in Texas in early September. Now, the justices are preparing to hear the court’s first major gun rights case since 2010 as well as a case on the future of abortion in the U.S. Both cases could result in decisions that are far more extreme than most Americans want.

Michael Salamone
Salamone

“In the past, even if the court was trending conservative overall, it wasn’t like the conservatives always won and the liberals always lost,” said Michael Salamone, a political science professor at Washington State University who studies the Supreme Court and public opinion. “Now it’s looking like conservative victories are going to be a lot more consistent and a lot more far-reaching.”

In that sense, this new term might be a turning point — and not just because of the importance of the cases or the risk of a backlash to an individual decision. The next few months might be the beginning of a new era in which the conservative justices move sharply away from where most Americans stand on major issues, and dare politicians to do something about it.

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FiveThirtyEight