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Grants fuel research energy

Thanks to a steady influx of grant funding in recent years, Washington State University’s Nuclear Science Center has acquired a raft of state-of-the-art equipment significantly expanding research capabilities.

Liane Moreau.
Moreau

Liane Moreau, an assistant professor of chemistry and research scientist at WSU, said these kinds of instruments are few and far between, noting the closest SAXS is in Berkeley, Calif., so having access to them in one facility is a major advantage to researchers.

“Let’s say we generated a material using the nuclear reactor, we could then directly look at that in our instrumentation here, so it allows us to have capabilities that we don’t have anywhere else,” Moreau said of the SAXS. “To our knowledge there isn’t another instrument in the world that actually exists in the same facility as a nuclear reactor.”

Moreau said there are also major challenges to shipping and transporting radioactive material, and having access to these machines on one site in many cases eliminates the need to move the material from place to place.

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Daily News
Yahoo!News

WSU faculty receive $1.4 million grant for assessment addressing truancy in schools

Several Washington State University faculty are the recipients of a $1.4 million grant from the Institute of Education Sciences to refine and expand an assessment that helps address truancy in K-12 schools.

Nicholas Lovrich.
Lovrich
Paul Strand.
Strand

Paul Strand, WSU Tri-Cities professor of psychology, Brian French, Berry Family Distinguished professor and director of WSU’s Learning and Performance Research Center and Psychometric Laboratory, Nick Lovrich, WSU Regents professor emeritus, and Bruce Austin, research associate in educational psychology and the LPRC, have worked since 2014 to evaluate and refine WARNS. With the grant, the group is also adding the following members to their team to help refine the tool: Chad Gotch and Marcus Poppen, both WSU assistant professors in education, and Mary Roduta Roberts, an associate professor of occupational therapy at the University of Alberta.

Strand said the new grant will allow the team to update the instrument in a few ways. He said a variety of new issues have arisen that have impacted school attendance and performance in recent years. Examples, he said, include the prevalence of vaping and social media use.

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WSU Insider

Other regions have specific plans for heat waves. Experts say Seattle, Puget Sound cities need them too

In our current climate, a heat wave of similar severity could be expected, roughly, once every 1,000 years across the Pacific Northwest, according to a recent study that has yet to receive peer review. But as global warming advances, such a severe heat wave could be expected once every five to 10 years, the research suggests.

Deepti Singh.
Singh

“If you are vulnerable, or if you have vulnerable people in your household, it’s important to have cooling resources,” said Dr. Deepti Singh, a climate researcher at Washington State University – Vancouver, in the days before the heat wave hit.

The cooling sites were distributed across the city, but there were gaps in coverage. There were no sites in Georgetown or Queen Anne, and none below 95th Street in Northeast Seattle, for example, until June 28 — the third and hottest day — when the city opened one in Magnuson Park after residents in a low-income housing development raised concern.

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Seattle Times
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The Columbian

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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