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Record-setting heat blasts the West: ‘Your skin is almost sizzling’

Millions of blasting air conditioners strained electric grids, prompting Texas and California utilities to threaten shut-offs. The National Weather Service in Las Vegas tweeted all-caps appeals for residents to stay hydrated and stay inside: “Long duration heat waves are DEADLY.” Doctors from Palm Springs to Phoenix warned about pavement so scorching it can give people third-degree burns.

Deepti Singh.
Singh

Fueled by climate change, the first major heat wave of the summer has seized the western United States, toppling records and threatening lives. The event is unprecedented in its timing, intensity and scope, said Washington State University climate scientist Deepti Singh; never have such severe conditions been recorded over such a large area so early in the summer.

The persistent lack of moisture amplifies already scorching conditions, scientists say. The energy required to turn water into vapor usually brings down temperatures — that’s why evaporating sweat helps cool a person off.

“But right now, because of how dry it is, all that energy is just going into heating our atmosphere and heating the surface,” Singh said.

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The Washington Post
Yahoo!News

Toxin-adapted fish pass down epigenetic mutations to freshwater offspring

A research team led by Washington State University scientists analyzed the epigenetics—molecular factors and processes that determine whether genes are turned on or off—of a group of Poecilia mexicana , or Atlantic molly, that live in springs naturally high in hydrogen sulfide, which is normally toxic to most organisms.

Joanna Kelley.
Kelley

“After two generations in laboratory conditions, the fish generally retained their same epigenetic marks, which was really unexpected,” said Joanna Kelley, WSU associate professor of evolutionary genomics and a corresponding author on the study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. “In an evolutionary context, the study shows that these epigenetic marks are fairly stable.”

Michael Skinner.
Skinner

For this study, Kelley collaborated with WSU environmental epigenetics and reproductive biologist Michael Skinner, to do the epigenetic analysis. The researchers raised a sample of sulfidic and non-sulfidic fish in freshwater environments. When the fish produced two generations of offspring, they measured their epigenetic similarities, specifically regions of DNA methylation, a type of chemical modification that can regulate gene expression, turning a gene on or off, without changing the DNA sequence string itself.

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Phys.org
WSU Insider
Lab roots

Epigenetic Research, Healing, and the Global Village

The field of epigenetics has exploded in recent years, and for good reason. The more we understand about human behavior, trauma, and its transmission throughout future generations, the more epigenetic research shows that we’ve got work to do.

The Center for Disease Control (CDC) describes epigenetics as the study of how your behaviors and environment can cause changes that affect the way your genes work. While we may have inherited certain DNA from our biological parents, the choices we make in our lives in response to these genetics can alter the way our body reads a DNA sequence. Unlike genetic changes, epigenetic changes are reversible and do not change your DNA sequence.

Michael Skinner.
Skinner

In an article for Science Magazine, Andrew Curry chronicled stories of descendants of post-war veterans, Holocaust survivors, and children from Pakistani orphanages, alongside studies of noted biologist Michael Skinner at Washington State University. Curry stated that the hypothesis that an individual’s experience might alter the cells and behavior of their children and grandchildren has become widely accepted, and that in animals, exposure to stress, cold, or high-fat diets has been shown to trigger metabolic changes in later generations. Similarly, Skinner’s research suggests changes to the epigenome, a swirl of biological factors that affect how genes are expressed, can be passed down through multiple generations.

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Psychology Today

Why Venus Is Soon to Be the Most Exciting Place in the Solar System

It’s hot. It’s toxic. It spins backwards and is covered in volcanoes. And we’re headed there soon. Three Venus missions, recently announced by NASA and the European Space Agency, are going to reveal more than we’ve ever known about the scorcher of a planet, a place that many scientists describe as Earth’s evil twin.

In recent weeks, NASA green-lit two Venus missions, VERITAS and DAVINCI+, while the ESA announced a Venus orbiter called EnVision. Already, planetary scientists are exhilarated by the possibilities. We spoke with several experts about why Venus is so exciting.

Katie Cooper.“I was a bit giddy all day after I heard the announcement,” said Katie Cooper, a planetary scientist at Washington State University who specializes in tectonic evolution, in an email. “I’m particularly excited to learn more about the plateaus on Venus, which are interesting but challenging analogs to Earth’s own large plateaus. On Earth, plateaus like the Tibetan Plateau or the Altiplano Plateau have their origins in plate tectonics, but on Venus that may not be the case.”

Cooper added that what we learn “will not only give us insight into Venus, but also pre-plate tectonic periods within Earth’s own history.”

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Gizmodo

New official holiday commemorates end of slavery

Juneteenth becomes an official state holiday in 2022, providing symbolically important recognition of a pivotal moment in the nation’s promise of racial equality and serving as a necessary reminder of the continuing work still ahead.

Lisa Guerrero.
Guerrero

Like many holidays in the United States, Juneteenth is a celebration that belies historical nuance, said Lisa Guerrero, associate vice president for inclusive excellence and professor of comparative ethnic studies.

“Juneteenth represents a flawed but symbolically important moment when the promise of the Emancipation Proclamation was completed,” Guerrero said.

“With its responsibilities as a land grant institution, WSU must ask how it can make symbolic historical moments teachable and carry us forward,” Guerrero said. “We have to look at how we can increase enrollment of students from marginalized communities, how we can increase hiring of faculty from marginalized communities and how we can think about different research projects and which communities they are serving and impacting.”

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WSU Insider