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This might be the world’s only library of unpublished manuscripts: Vancouver’s Brautigan Library honors a Northwest literary icon

From a tribute cocktail once served at Capitol Hill’s now-shuttered Redwood to the Pacific Northwest streams he fished in as a boy, it’s easy to trace the lingering influence of Tacoma-born writer Richard Brautigan if you know where to look.

Though known for depicting San Francisco’s counterculture of the 1960s and ’70s with surrealistic flair, you’ll find one of his greatest legacies on three bookcases in the basement of Vancouver’s Clark County Historical Museum.

Known as the Brautigan Library, the collection spans family histories, absurd Brautigan-esque capers, DIY religious tracts and memoirs of ordinary lives.

But in 1997, it closed due to lack of funding, and the manuscripts were put in storage in a basement.

John Barber.
Barber

This caught the attention of John Barber, a faculty member in the Creative Media and Digital Culture program at Washington State University, Vancouver, who had once studied under Brautigan.

He found space for the collection at the Clark County Historical Museum, and the library was moved and reopened in 2010.

Barber says he received an influx of manuscripts after the story about the Brautigan Library aired on “This American Life.” So far, 12 have been submitted in 2019.

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Seattle Times

Environmental DNA helps researchers track pythons and other stealthy creatures

It’s no secret that Florida has a snake problem. The Burmese python, which can reach up to 200 pounds and stretch to more than 20 feet, first became common in the Everglades in the late 1990s, likely as escaped pets. The snake quickly settled into its new home, breeding and taking down rabbits, bobcats, and other native animals in its path.

Biologists thought the Arthur R. Marshall Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge was one place that was safe. But from 2014 through 2016, scientists combed the waters in and around the refuge for environmental DNA (eDNA) — the trail of DNA left behind by an organism in sources such as feces, mucus, gametes, and shed skin or hair. The results suggested that the python’s DNA was, in fact, widespread throughout the refuge.

Caren Goldberg.
Goldberg

But interpreting eDNA results can be tricky. Tiny amounts of cross contamination in the field and lab could result in positive detections where animals aren’t present. “You can get these low signals that are either critically important or not reflecting the truth,” says ecologist Caren Goldberg of Washington State University, whose team has developed eDNA tests to monitor for a wide range of amphibians, including the endangered Sierra Nevada yellow-legged frog. In those cases, the eDNA is there, Goldberg says, but the interpretation of what that means can be wrong. Goldberg, for example, cannot control for moose that carry water in their coats from one pond to another, potentially transferring DNA of fish and other species.

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Medium

Zoom in on the body camera debate in Clark County

Body-worn cameras increase the public’s ability to scrutinize police officers and their actions, increasing transparency and accountability. But the cameras and management of the video they produce come with tangible costs, while academic research is mixed about whether they increase the quality of policing.

A fair number of law enforcement agencies in Washington have deployed body-worn cameras, including the Seattle, Pullman, and Pasco police departments.

But some wonder if camera programs are worth the cost.

David Makin.“The cost is a tremendous amount of money to just hold police accountable. We already do have mechanisms in place to hold them accountable,” said David Makin, an assistant professor in the Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology at Washington State University. “If you don’t trust them, then we’ve already failed. (Cameras) shouldn’t be the go-to for police accountability.”

Law enforcement agencies shouldn’t deploy cameras for the sake of appearances but should, rather, look at how they can “integrate this into what we do so we can do better for our community,” Makin said. “If you don’t do that, then you’re just wasting your money.”

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The Colombian

Male Birth Control: Why We Don’t Have It, And When We Might

Not every man wants to be a father and not every father wants more kids. Roughly half of all pregnancies in the United States are unintended. But when it comes to male birth control, none of the options are ideal and safe, reversible hormonal male contraception may be 10 years away.

Michael Skinner.
Skinner

But why has it taken this long? Why is there another decade to go? What barriers to male birth control still exist?

“Females only ovulate once per month, so it’s relatively easy to block with an endocrine approach,” Michael K. Skinner, director of the Center for Reproductive Biology at Washington State University told Fatherly. “Males produce millions of sperm daily…it’s difficult to design endocrine approach without shutting down all of male endocrinology.” In other words, in order to impact sperm production meaningfully, hormonal therapy would need to all but shutter the endocrine system—with serious side effects.

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Fatherly

Martial arts reviewer decries criminalization of doping in sports

In an “Under the Radar” segment, MMA Beat host Luke Thomas reads a letter from Dale Willits, assistant professor of criminal justice and criminology at WSU:

Dale Willits.
Willits

“…doping, based on our data, appears to be driven by many of the same forces that drive criminal and antisocial behavior more broadly. However our literature — which is ranging from criminology, criminal justice, and sociology — have all acknowledged that zero-tolerance approaches are not effective in combatting crime and especially not so in combatting drug use. Instead, we argue the point that the criminological literature provides guidance on more promising strategies that could be used instead of the criminalization of (performance-enhancing drugs).”

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MMAFighting SB Nation