CAS in the Media | Washington State University

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Study shows that cannabis combats stress, anxiety and depression

September 6, 2019 adriana

A Washington State University study has examined how cannabis combats stress, anxiety and depression by looking at different strains and quantities of cannabis being inhaled by patients at home.

The work, published in the Journal of Affective Disorders, suggests that inhaling cannabis can significantly reduce short-term levels of depression, anxiety, and stress but may contribute to worse overall feelings of depression over time.

Cuttler

This new study, led by Carrie Cuttler, WSU clinical assistant professor of psychology, is one of the first attempts by United States scientists to assess how cannabis with varying concentrations of THC and CBD affect medicinal cannabis users’ feelings of wellbeing when inhaled outside of a laboratory.

Previous research to see whether cannabis combats stress and anxiety has be done with THC only strains that have been put into a capsule – but this study looks at the impact of cannabis when it is inhaled.

“Existing research on the effects of cannabis on depression, anxiety and stress are very rare and have almost exclusively been done with orally administered THC pills in a laboratory,” Cuttler said. “What is unique about our study is that we looked at actual inhaled cannabis by medical marijuana patients who were using it in the comfort of their own homes as opposed to a laboratory.”

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HealthEuropa

420 Intel
The Fresh Toast

‘BAM! Chicago’s Black Arts Movement’ screenings in Vancouver and Pullman

September 4, 2019 adriana

Two Washington State University Vancouver professors have chronicled one of America’s preeminent artistic and cultural movements in a new film and will screen it on two campuses this month.

“BAM! Chicago’s Black Arts Movement” introduces viewers to more than a dozen writers, artists, musicians and community organizers who were instrumental in the campaign centered on black pride and aesthetic. People like poet Eugene Redmond, musician Mwata Bowden, and Dr. Safisha Madhubuti, who founded four African-centered schools and went on to teach at Northwestern University before retiring in 2018.

“BAM!” is the brainchild of Thabiti Lewis, WSU associate professor of English, who met many of the important figures in the movement in his 20s while working for Third World Press in Chicago – founded in 1967 as a platform for black literature.

“They were committed to making a positive impact in their community,” Lewis said of the movement’s leaders. “The Civil Rights struggle reached its apex during the Black Arts Movement and people in Chicago were concerned with the community’s needs in terms of resources and creating art that impacted the souls, minds and spirits of those around them.”

Lewis began working on “BAM! Chicago’s Black Arts Movement” while writing a book on the same subject. He enlisted help with the film from English department colleague Pavithra Narayanan.

It will be screened at WSU Vancouver at 3:45 p.m. Sept. 10 in room 110 of Dengerink Administration Building and on the Pullman campus at 5 p.m. Sept. 11 in room 5062 of the Fine Arts Building. Q&A sessions with the filmmakers are scheduled to follow both screenings.

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WSU Insider

New round of Amazon Catalyst Grants awarded to WSU innovators and entrepreneurs

September 4, 2019 adriana

The Amazon Catalyst Program at Washington State University has awarded nearly $20,000 in grants to two teams comprised of research faculty and students from varied university disciplines and locations.

Team Cross-Cultural Optics and team Virtual Reality 360 received grants for their innovative solutions to specific problems posed by Amazon. Launched in 2018, the collaborative program between Amazon and WSU funds projects with potential global impact. This year, applicants were asked to consider the themes of urban transportation and computational social science and submit innovative ideas that have the possibility for big change in these areas.

Team Cross-Cultural Optics, led by Julie Kmec, professor of sociology, was awarded a grant to develop a virtual reality environment that enables female engineers based in the U.S. to explore engineering spaces elsewhere in the world that have higher levels of engineering participation by women. In the U.S., women hold 24% of engineering degrees but represent only 18% of the engineering labor force. Cross-cultural Optics aims to create a visual world and set of narratives that will provide users an opportunity to experience the stories of other engineers in countries across the globe where women represent a higher percentage of the engineering student body and workforce; enabling them to share testimonies, seek advice, learn from others’ experiences, and problem solve.

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WSU Insider

Ask Dr. Universe: Why do people have different accents? Why do we have them and need them?

September 4, 2019 adriana

Whether you say hello, ‘ello, hey ya’ll, toe-may-toe or toe-ma-toe, we all have a kind of accent that often comes from where we live or who lives around us.

That’s what I found out from my friend Nancy Bell, a Washington State University professor of linguistics and English as a second language who is really curious about the way language works. She told me more about why we have accents and why we need them.

There are a lot of different accents. You might have friends who speak English but have a Scottish, Irish, Australian, or French accent.

Even in the U.S., there are many accents from the east to the west to the mid-west to the south. In those regions, people also speak many types of English such as Chicano English, African American English, or Indian English.

A lot of times when you see a difference in the way people talk, there is also some kind of physical barrier between them. This might be something like a mountain, a river, or the Atlantic Ocean that separates you and me. When groups of people are isolated from each other, they develop unique ways of speaking, including accents and whole new languages.

We also have social barriers, Bell said. We sometimes see differences in the way people talk when groups are segregated from each other. These social barriers still persist today.

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Dr. Universe

Pullman exhibit explains discovery and significance of 2,000-year-old tattoo tool

September 4, 2019 adriana

The discovery of the oldest tattooing artifact in western North America earned a Washington State University PhD student international acclaim earlier this year from the likes of National Geographic, the Smithsonian, and the New York Times.

Now, faculty, staff, and students have the opportunity to learn firsthand about the ancient implement and the Ancestral Pueblo people of Southeastern Utah who made it.

Andrew Gillreath-Brown, an anthropology PhD candidate, created a small exhibit outside the WSU Museum of Anthropology explaining the 2,000-year-old cactus spine tattoo tool he chanced upon while taking inventory of archaeological materials that had been sitting in storage for more than 40 years.

The exhibit explains how the tool was identified and gives viewers a rare glimpse into the long history of customs and cultures of Indigenous groups of the southwestern United States.

“Even the smallest artifacts can allow us to extrapolate and help us understand more about people of the past, how different things like tattooing got started,” Gillreath-Brown said. “In many ways, I think they also give us a better understanding of customs and cultural traditions today.”

This fall, Gillreath-Brown will use the exhibit to help his anthropology 101 students start thinking more critically about the conditions that enabled people in the ancient world to practice artforms like tattooing.

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WSU Insider