Biology | University Categories | CAS in the Media

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Effect of toxins shown to skip generations, DDT linked to obesity

October 23, 2013

Michael Skinner portrait — Michael Skinner

“What your great-grandmother was exposed to during pregnancy, like DDT, may promote a dramatic increase in your susceptibility to obesity, and you will pass this on to your grandchildren in the absence of any continued exposures,” says WSU professor Michael Skinner.

Research shows ancestral exposures to environmental compounds like the insecticide DDT may be a factor in high rates of obesity. The finding comes as DDT is getting a second look as a tool against malaria.

Read the full story at WSU News

Read latest research finding in the
current issue of the journal BMC Medicine.

Tasmania Devil study seeks to understand infectious cancer

October 22, 2013

Andrew Storfer, an Eastlick Distinguished professor of biology, received a $2.25 million grant from NSF’s Ecology and Evolution of Infectious Disease program to study a fatal facial tumor disease in Tasmanian devils caused by a rare infectious cancer that is pushing the species towards extinction.

Storfer, along with an international team of colleagues, will study the ecological genomics of both the disease and the Tasmanian devil to better understand the emergence, transmission and evolution of the disease.

Vancouver professor receives $1.1 million in grants to study how the brain understands what it hears

October 17, 2013

Christine Portfors, associate professor of biology and neuroscience and head of the Hearing and Communication Laboratory at Washington State University Vancouver, has received two federal grants totaling more than $1.1 million over three years. The grants will be used to study how neurons in the brains of mice detect, discriminate and categorize the different types of sounds mice use to communicate.

“Mice are social animals, and they use a variety of vocalizations to communicate with each other,” Portfors said. “These vocalizations are similar to the speech sounds used by humans to communicate, so what we learn about the mouse brain will help us understand how humans process speech.”

Grizzly bears benefit from return of wolves to Yellowstone

July 30, 2013

The return of wolves to Yellowstone National Park is having an interesting — though not surprising — effect on the larger ecosystem, affecting everything from grizzly bears to elk to berry bushes, according to new research from Oregon State University and Washington State University.

The study was published this week by scientists from Washington State University and Oregon State University in the Journal of Animal Ecology. WSU co-authors are graduate assistant Jennifer K. Fortin and Charles T. Robbins, professor in the WSU School of the Environment.

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On Gaiser Pond: Middle-schoolers have been doing real science

July 23, 2013

Now dubbed “Gaiser Pond” by the school community, wetlands below the school are being studied and cleaned up thanks to two dedicated Gaiser Middle School science teachers and their students and environmental science graduate students from Washington State University Vancouver.

The Partners in Discovery GK-12 Project brought together environmental science graduate students from WSUV with middle school science teachers in several Clark County districts for real-world science projects using funds from an NSF grant.