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Pandemic makes teaching abroad ‘surreal experience’

Tom Preston.
Preston

Thomas Preston, a political science professor at Washington State University and expert in international security policy, had just begun a four-month, Fulbright-sponsored teaching stint in Constanta, Romania, when the entire country was placed in lockdown and martial law was declared.

“It has been interesting to be under martial law, with the police vehicles constantly announcing from loudspeakers to stay in your homes or risk death!” Preston wrote almost 50 days into the southeastern European country’s 65-day lockdown. “Seeing convoys of disinfectant trucks going past, spraying the streets and buildings with chemicals, also has been unusual, to say the least. But these measures have really been effective, with Romania having only 11,000 cases and 600 deaths, and the peak having already been reached!”

Preston was a few weeks into teaching graduate seminars on political psychology and international security at Ovidius University when the U.S. Department of State suspended the Fulbright program and ordered all awardees to come home. But he and his wife, Leeanne Noble, decided to shelter in-place instead.

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Mirage News

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Controversial NBA Analyst Reveals Why Charles Barkley Is a Legend [VIDEO]

Charles Barkley has the coolest job in the world. Every Thursday, the Naismith Hall of Famer appears on telvision via Turner Sports’ Inside the NBA alongside Ernie Johnson, Kenny “The Jet” Smith, and Shaquille O’Neal.

David Leonard.
Leonard

“Charles has created a persona where he has positioned himself as outside the mainstream, where he is seen as a rebel who says what he wants, who challenges the status quo, yet when you look beyond the surface, he really is in line with mainstream values,” Dr. David J. Leonard, a professor in the Department of Languages, Cultures, and Race Studies at Washington State University, Pullman told me.

“He often laments ‘today’s players,’ he waxes nostalgically about his era and he condemns the destructiveness ‘political correctness.’ In part because he has long been positioned as anti-Michael Jordan and in part because of his ‘I am not a role model’ commercials, but he has successfully constructed himself as oppositional and a man who marches to his own drum with respect to race, social issue and cultural debates.”

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Heavy

New technology could keep one incredibly popular pet from going extinct

When an animal is infected with something like Bsal, it will also shed bits of that pathogen. So taking samples of the water from salamanders’ tanks can help to detect Bsal, new research shows — and keep it from contaminating millions of animals shipped around the globe as pets. In turn, that may help stop some species from going extinct.

Jesse Brunner
Brunner

This process — scanning water’s eDNA to look for Bsal — is far more efficient than taking samples from individual animals, reports Jesse Brunner, assistant professor in the School of Biological Sciences at Washington State University, in a paper published on Wednesday in the journal Scientific Reports.

In the study, Brunner describes the statistical formulas that would underlie this kind of salamander surveillance and explains how scientists would need to scale up the process. Brunner and others are in the process of testing the framework described in the study.

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Inverse
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The Sentinel

How Science Shows The Damaging Effects of Ego on Career Success

A successful former colleague of mine is someone who publicly, is without any airs. Privately, she believes she should be in an even bigger position than the one she’s in. She acknowledges she’s doing great work and receiving recognition for it. But like any person with a burning passion and desire, she wants much more.

Joyce Ehrlinger.
Ehrlinger

Ego can lead to overconfidence. Being overly-confident often leads to mistakes. Dr. Joyce Ehrlinger, assistant professor of psychology at Washington State University, in a combined study with professors from Stanford and Florida State University, found overconfidence can lead to poor decisions:

“A little bit of overconfidence can be helpful,” said Ehrlinger, “but larger amounts of overconfidence can lead people to make bad decisions and to miss out on opportunities to learn.”

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Medium

The Ladders

Using photography to help combat racial and social injustice

Sharing the complete picture of humanity, especially the hard topics, so that one-day she can affect positive change.

Protesters for social justice demonstrate in Pasco, Wash., photo by Madison Rosenbaum
Protest in Pasco on May 31. Photo by Madison Rosenbaum

That’s the reason photographer and Washington State University Tri-Cities alumna Madison Rosenbaum first picked up a camera. Shedding light on difficult social issues and providing a voice for the unheard is also what led her to document local protests following the death of George Floyd in Minnesota.

During her senior year, Rosenbaum was invited by digital technology and culture professor Peter Christenson to participate in the “Women artists from the Columbia Valley” exhibition, which featured 64 contemporary female artists and their work. As part of her submission for the exhibition, Rosenbaum collaborated with two other artists on images of mental health, and specifically her personal journey with depression.

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