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WSU geneticist helps solve mystery of Arctic peoples

Omar Cornejo
Omar Cornejo

With help from a Washington State University population geneticist, Danish researchers have concluded that North America and the Arctic were settled in at least three pulses of migration from Siberia. First came the ancestors of today’s Native Americans, then Paleo-Eskimos – the first to settle in the Arctic – followed by the ancestors of today’s Inuit.

The research, published in the journal Science, settles nearly a century of debate over Arctic settlement and whether today’s Inuit are related to Paleo-Eskimos, who disappeared 700 years ago. That’s about the time the technologically superior Inuit reached Greenland, but the researchers could not tie the disappearance of the Paleo-Eskimos to the Inuit’s arrival.

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WSU flu outbreak provides rare study material

Elissa Schwartz
Elissa Schwartz

In 2009, WSU took on the national distinction of having one of the first and largest H1N1 outbreaks at an American college. The epidemic gave Elissa Schwartz, an assistant professor of both math and biological sciences, an ideal phenomenon for scientific study. Using a trove of data gathered during the outbreak in Pullman, Schwartz has gained insight into how only a few infected people could launch the virus’s rapid spread across the university community.

Read more:

WSU News

Washington State Magazine

Science Newsline

(e) Science News

Health Canal

WSU Tri-Cities to offer course on Hanford history

Kathleen McAteer
Kathleen McAteer

A history course at WSU Tri-Cities is being overhauled with a local focus to better engage a growing freshman student body.

Five professors will teach “Hanford: An Interdisciplinary Team-Taught Freshman Seminar” this fall. The course will use local history, culture and development to teach students about global issues, while also covering time management and study skills to help freshmen adjust to college.

“The opportunity to look at Hanford from an interdisciplinary perspective is unique,” said Vice Chancellor Mike Mays. “Our students have a rich opportunity to benefit from this location and study of the Hanford area.”

Kate McAteer, a clinical assistant professor of biological sciences, received a $5,000 grant from the Samuel H. and Patricia W. Smith Teaching and Learning Endowment to turn the History 105 “Roots of Contemporary Issues” course into the new seminar course.

It will put freshmen into a lecture hall setting twice a week followed by smaller group discussions with a faculty member once a week. There will also be field trips to the new Hanford Reach center in Columbia Park and the Hanford site.

Read more in The Columbian

Researcher sees survival story in fly’s small genome

Joanna Kelley, assistant professor of biology
Joanna Kelley

Scientists have just sequenced the genome of a fly native to Antarctica, the coldest, driest and windiest place on the planet, a finding that may lead to a wider understanding of how these bugs evolved to cope with the environment.

The fly, named Belgica antarctica, is a survivor, or as Washington State University evolutionary biologist Joanna Kelley likes to put it…an extremophile.

“This fly has to withstand freezing, extreme temperature changes so in the Antarctic summer it’s on the rocks and those are getting quite hot,” Kelley said. “But imagine the Antarctic winter, it’s very dark and cold. There’s a lot of UV [ultraviolet] radiation. There’s dehydration.  And anything you can imagine as an extreme pressure, this fly probably encounters it.”

Continue reading the Voice of America story to learn more about how the surprisingly small DNA footprint of this polar insect may help it survive. (Audio also available.)

Kelley’s research was also featured on BBC Nature News, International Business Times, News Tonight Africa, Tech Times, Nature World News, WSU News, and many other online news outlets.

 

 

 

Microhabitats: Potential for oil cleanup, extraterrestrial life

Dirk Schulze-Makuch

Results from an environmental study of the world’s largest asphalt lake shine new light on how life on Earth can survive in even the most inhospitable environments.

Scientists already knew that microbes can thrive at the boundary where water and oil meet, but the discovery at Pitch Lake on the Caribbean island of Trinidad that they can live within the oil and were found to be actively degrading the oil opens up new possibilities for using them to clean up spills.

“We discovered that there are additional habitats where we have not looked at where life can occur and thrive,” says Dirk Schulze-Makuch, co-author of the study and a professor in the WSU School of the Environment.

The wiliness of these microbes suggests that life on other planets — at least at the microscopic level — may not be so far-fetched after all.

Read more about the research, results, and possibilities:

WSU News
Science Magazine
Discover Magazine
Nature
The Daily Galaxy
China Topix
The Times of India
Astrobiology.com
Mother Nature Network
Photos: Live Science