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Washington State University fine arts professor is taking on the issue of plastic waste

“Willow of the Waste” is an interactive mechanical tree installation, that “breathes” with mechanical movements. It opens its branches inviting you to go inside.

Sena Clara Creston.The art piece is made of used plastic grocery bags and water bottles that Washington State University’s professor of Fine Arts and Digital Media, Sena Clara Creston saved for the past three years.

Creston, a New York City native, said she did not grow up with a whole lot of wild life and nature. Instead, she said she grew up seeing plastic bags floating around the city. She wants to recycle that trash into something with a better meaning.

“I am thinking about this as things that are really helpful and people need and want,” Professor Creston said. “But they are destroying our planet and covering it with plastic. So we think about it as a sweet and supportive environment that maybe is trying to consume us and take over.”

The grand opening for WSU Fine Art Faculty Exhibition will start January 31, 2020, at five p.m. at WSU Art Center. It will feature art by Creston and 15 other fine arts faculty and staff from three WSU campuses.

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KNDO / KNDU

Daily Evergreen

Microscopic partners could help plants survive stressful environments

Tiny, symbiotic fungi play an outsized role in helping plants survive stresses like drought and extreme temperatures, which could help feed a planet experiencing climate change, report scientists at Washington State University.

Stephanie Porter.
Porter

Recently published in the journal Functional Ecology, the discovery by plant-microbe biologist Stephanie Porter and plant pathologist Maren Friesen sheds light on how microbe partners can help sustainably grow a wide variety of crops.

While some microscopic fungi and bacteria cause disease, others live in harmony with plants, collecting water and nutrients in exchange for carbohydrates, or changing plants’ internal and external environment in ways that help plants grow.

These benefits help plants tolerate stresses that come from their environment. Dubbed abiotic stresses, challenges such as drought, extreme temperatures, and poor, toxic, or saline soils are among the leading causes of crop loss and decreasing farm productivity.

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Phys.org

WSU, Washington well represented in online architecture database

A raft of local buildings has joined the Society of Architectural Historians’ Archipedia database as part of a statewide effort to showcase 100 sites that represent the social, economic and historic impact of Washington’s built environment.

Coordinators of the information for Washington said a fixation on narrative as a way to interpret the state’s built environment allowed them to include some seemingly humble structures, including Pullman’s Dumas Seed Warehouse, the city proper’s only contribution to the site.

Now a Frontier Communications retail location, the structure was once a storage warehouse for dry peas, garbanzo beans and lentils harvested on the Palouse. While the building is no beauty to behold, it was once owned by Edwin Dumas, who is credited with helping to establish a toehold for Washington agricultural products in markets in Japan and East Asia.

Robert Franklin.
Franklin

“He was instrumental in helping build that relationship which is now a big chunk of the market for Palouse products in East Asia,” said history instructor Robert Franklin, who is one of the state’s two coordinators and assistant director of the Hanford History Project at WSU Tri-Cities. “So that little warehouse … it’s emblematic of that not only agricultural history but the connections between eastern Washington and East Asia.”

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Moscow-Pullman Daily News

WSU Insider

California’s monarch butterflies critically low for 2nd year

The western monarch butterfly population wintering along California’s coast remains critically low for the second year in a row, a count by an environmental group released Thursday showed.

The count of the orange-and-black insects by the Xerces Society, a nonprofit environmental organization that focuses on the conservation of invertebrates, recorded about 29,000 butterflies in its annual survey. That’s not much different than last year’s tally, when an all-time low 27,000 monarchs were counted.

Cheryl Schulz.
Schulz

A 2017 study by Washington State University researchers, led by Cheryl Schulz, associate professor of biological sciences, found the species likely will go extinct in the next few decades if nothing is done to save it.

The monarch is now under government consideration for listing under the U.S. Endangered Species Act. The decision on whether the butterfly will be listed as threatened is expected by December.

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Washington Post

Evangelicals Love Donald Trump for Many Reasons, But One of Them Is Especially Terrifying

The story of Gog and Magog is central to the bloody eschatology long embraced by millions of American evangelicals. In recent years, End Times has gained special political currency as believers have seen any number of Middle East conflagrations as fulfilling Ezekiel’s prophecy, notably the U.S. invasion of Iraq and the war in Syria. Gog and Magog took on fresh relevance earlier this month, when the Trump administration assassinated Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani, the commander of Iran’s elite Quds Force.

What may be less obvious is how Trump’s disdain for international governing bodies like NATO also dovetails almost perfectly with End Times theology, whether he realizes it or not.

Matthew Avery Sutton.
Sutton

Matthew Avery Sutton, a Washington State University history professor and author of American Apocalypse: A History of Modern Evangelicalism, says evangelicals who believe the end is near have always been hostile to any sort of international organizations. That’s because they believe biblical prophecies that say that in the last days, a world leader who preaches peace will emerge and move toward a one-world government. In fact, the prophecy goes, that leader will be the Antichrist who will force the world to accept a false religion and persecute people who don’t accept him as a Messiah.

Evangelicals love Trump’s talk of pulling out of NATO, his attacks on the UN, and his trashing of the Paris climate change accord. “They hate the UN,” Sutton says. “Trump’s unilateralism is also music to their ears.”

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Mother Jones