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Congress has been historically unproductive. How did we get here?

During the first half of Joe Biden’s presidency, when Democrats controlled both chambers, 365 bills were signed into law. Then Republicans took control of the house in the 2022 midterms.

More than halfway through its two-year term, the 118th Congress has enacted, and Biden has signed, 47 pieces of legislation. The last 10 Congresses averaged almost 390 bills enacted per term.

“It is the least productive Congress in at least 50 years in terms of the numbers of bills,” said Cornell Clayton, a political science professor at Washington State University and the director of the university’s Thomas S. Foley Institute of Public Policy and Public Service.

And an unproductive Congress means an unproductive president, at least in terms of bills signed. But judging a Congress’ productivity solely on the number of bills passed isn’t entirely accurate, Clayton said.

“I think quantity is important, but more important than quantity is quality,” he said. Still, the 118th Congress hasn’t done well on either count.

Read the full story:
Spokesman-Review

Testing AI to advance health equity

A sociologist at Washington State University will test how people at risk for lung cancer in a rural area of the state respond to AI-generated text messages encouraging them to visit a local clinic to be screened for the disease.

Two versions of messages will be sent to some 200 patients, one direct and one polite, said Anna Zamora-Kapoor, who’s leading the NIH-funded project that aims to advance health equity and researcher diversity.

Why it matters: The project aims to help rural clinics use the limited resources they have to reach out to a higher number of patients than they’ve been able to in the past.

It should also show which message would most effectively convince people to be screened for cancer.

Zamora-Kapoor’s project targets people between ages 50 and 80 with a history of smoking who would benefit from a low-dose CT scan to detect lung cancer as early as possible. But the insights from the project could also be useful for screening for other cancers, she said.

“We need to create structures to make sure that emerging and powerful tools like AI and machine learning are democratized,” she told Carmen. “Right now, if we just let the market decide who’s going to access these tools, they’re just going to benefit the rich, they’re just going to benefit urban areas and they’re just going to benefit the white majority that doesn’t have an accent,” she said.

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Future Pulse (Politico.com)

How our first jobs shape the rest of our lives

We all start somewhere. And our first jobs — no matter if you’re an ice cream scooper or an investment intern — leave lasting marks on us. First jobs teach us about ourselves and the world around us. Sometimes for better, sometimes for worse.

MPR News host Angela Davis talked with WSU sociologist Monica Kirkpatrick Johnson about how our first jobs shape our minds, habits and futures.

Listen to the full interview:
Minnesota Public Radio News

 

New program emphasizes service learning

A partnership between Washington State University’s Center for Civic Engagement and the LAUNCH Program is bringing service-learning into the classroom, with positive impacts on student success.

The two offices collaborated on an effort to include service-learning in Psychology 105 and Human Development 200 courses in the 2023-24 academic year. More than 800 students were asked to engage in service-learning experiences scaffolded into the courses and then reflect on the experience as part of their fall semester course curriculum.

“Our goal was to give students the space and opportunity to think about who they are, where they want to go, and what learning experiences could help them in that developmental process,” Samantha Swindell, psychology professor and associate dean of undergraduate studies in the College of Arts and Sciences.

Service-learning doesn’t just give students an opportunity to live their values – it also has a substantial impact on their success. A study conducted by biology faculty and CCE staff during academic years 2017-18 and 2018-19 found that students who participated in a similar service-learning project received an academic boost: end-of-semester grades for participants were almost 10% higher than non-participants’ grades, and participants’ fall-to-fall retention was 9.3% higher. The impact was particularly pronounced among students of color.

“We have every reason to believe that the benefits of service-learning are as true for our students as they were in the group that was studied,” Swindell said. “Service-learning helps students be more civic-minded, feel more like a member of the community, improves self-efficacy, and is great practice in stepping into an unfamiliar situation and seeing it as a learning opportunity.”

Read the full story:
KHQ News
WSU Insider

Meet the ice worm, one of the most mysterious creatures in the world

When Peter Wimberger of the University of Puget Sound was first told about ice worms, he thought that his colleagues were pranking him. Imagine his surprise when he learned that not only are these creatures real, they are full of mysteries that if solved, could help answer one of the biggest questions in science.

There are millions of these animals across the world and yet despite their abundance, they have barely been studied, with scientists treating them as a mere curiosity. Scott Hotaling, a glacier biologist [at Utah State University and a former postdoctoral researcher at] Washington State University, and his colleague Peter Wimberger have been studying ice worms for several years.

“There are more mysteries than there are solved things with ice worms”, says Hotaling.

Unlike humans, who lose energy when they are in a cold environment, ice worms thrive in the cold and their energy levels go up when they are subjected to low temperatures. They live comfortably at 32 degrees Fahrenheit (0 degrees Celsius), but if temperatures dip slightly below that, they die.

Read the full story:
AfricaPress