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‘All this for Oregon’

Event highlights the historical trail, family’s 1853 trek across U.S. to reach present-day Camas

The Oregon Trail is bringing people to Vancouver, Wash., again Saturday—this time for an exercise in history. The Oregon-California Trails Association is teaming with the Lewis and Clark Trail Heritage Foundation for a symposium at the Heathman Lodge.

A diary begun by Amelia Knight when her family left Iowa in 1853 is among documents to be discussed.

Oregon Trail diaries offer an unusual perspective on a significant era in American history, said Steve Fountain, a history professor at Washington State University Vancouver. Their authors seemed to realize they were participating in something historic and wanted to document it.

“A lot of these are written not as private diaries, but as narratives people will want to read,” Fountain said.

Fountain, who kicks off the symposium with a “Layers of History” overview, noted another interesting aspect of the emigrants.

“These are people who are doing middling and better; not poor people,” Fountain said. “People who are doing just fine are risking life and limb and traveling for months getting to a place they’ve never been.”

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The Columbian

April 4-May 6: Thesis exhibit, reception at Museum of Art

The Master of Fine Arts Thesis Exhibition at the Washington State University Museum of Art will be April 4-May 6. A reception will be 6-8 p.m. Friday, April 7, in the museum gallery. Admission to the museum is free.

Lin

This annual showcase represents the culmination of two or more years of work by master of fine arts graduate candidates. This year’s students are: Hayley Black, Stephen Cohen, Annie Cunningham, Andre Fortes, Yuanwen Lin and Laura Pregeant.

The world-class faculty at WSU encourage the MFA candidates to become more assured and articulate in their convictions, according to museum curators Ryan Hardesty and Zach Mazur: “We confidently present this year’s graduate thesis work in hopes that undergraduate students, first-year graduate students and anyone willing to be moved by art will find it a fun and stimulating experience.” » More …

Plant inner workings point way to more nutritious crops

Michael Knoblauch, biological sciences
Michael Knoblauch

Almost every calorie that we eat at one time went through the veins of a plant. If a plant’s circulatory system could be rejiggered to make more nutrients available – through bigger seeds or sweeter tomatoes – the world’s farmers could feed more people.

Washington State University researchers have taken a major step in that direction by unveiling the way a plant’s nutrients get from the leaves, where they are produced through photosynthesis, to “sinks” that can include the fruits and seeds we eat and the branches we process for biofuels. The researchers found a unique and critical structure where the nutrients are offloaded, giving science a new focal point in efforts to improve plant efficiency and productivity.

“If you can increase the sink strength by 5 percent, and you get 5 percent more product, you’d be looking at a multibillion dollar market,” said Michael Knoblauch, a professor in the WSU School of Biological Sciences.

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WSU News

Trump Backers Fear ‘Deep State’ Aims to Undermine Administration

The “deep state” is a murky and ominous term often suggesting a conspiracy—usually involving intelligence agencies, the armed forces or even judges—to influence policy and undercut democratically elected administrations.

It has been uttered in recent years to describe the situation in Turkey as well as the internal battles faced by governments in Egypt and Pakistan, and now is being used by conservative media and others in the U.S. to describe an alleged cabal intent on wrecking the presidency of Donald Trump.

Cornell Clayton
Clayton

“There’s no way you can disprove it,” said Cornell Clayton, Washington State University’s Distinguished Professor of Government. “That’s part of the problem.”

Most memorably, the term emerged with theories that U.S. intelligence agencies were involved in the 1963 assassination of President John Kennedy. » More …

Dramatic evolution within human genome may have been caused by malaria parasite

Omar E. Cornejo
Omar E. Cornejo

A genetic mutation that protects people from a common form of malaria spread like wildfire in sub-Saharan Africa about 42,000 years ago, according to a new study.

To learn more about how and when this mutation spread, Omar Cornejo, a population geneticist at Washington State University in Pullman, and colleagues analyzed full genome sequences from 1000 modern individuals from 21 population centers in Africa, Asia, and Europe. The researchers then employed a computer-based simulation that predicts how certain genetic variants spread throughout a population over time given the region’s known demographics and various selective pressures.

Based on rates of genetic change, the simulation suggests the most recent common ancestor of living Africans who possessed the DARC mutation lived about 42,000 years ago, the team reports this month in PLOS Genetics.

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Science Magazine