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Effect of toxins shown to skip generations, DDT linked to obesity

October 23, 2013

Michael Skinner portrait — Michael Skinner

“What your great-grandmother was exposed to during pregnancy, like DDT, may promote a dramatic increase in your susceptibility to obesity, and you will pass this on to your grandchildren in the absence of any continued exposures,” says WSU professor Michael Skinner.

Research shows ancestral exposures to environmental compounds like the insecticide DDT may be a factor in high rates of obesity. The finding comes as DDT is getting a second look as a tool against malaria.

Read the full story at WSU News

Read latest research finding in the
current issue of the journal BMC Medicine.

Tasmania Devil study seeks to understand infectious cancer

October 22, 2013

Andrew Storfer, an Eastlick Distinguished professor of biology, received a $2.25 million grant from NSF’s Ecology and Evolution of Infectious Disease program to study a fatal facial tumor disease in Tasmanian devils caused by a rare infectious cancer that is pushing the species towards extinction.

Storfer, along with an international team of colleagues, will study the ecological genomics of both the disease and the Tasmanian devil to better understand the emergence, transmission and evolution of the disease.

Vancouver professor receives $1.1 million in grants to study how the brain understands what it hears

October 17, 2013

Christine Portfors, associate professor of biology and neuroscience and head of the Hearing and Communication Laboratory at Washington State University Vancouver, has received two federal grants totaling more than $1.1 million over three years. The grants will be used to study how neurons in the brains of mice detect, discriminate and categorize the different types of sounds mice use to communicate.

“Mice are social animals, and they use a variety of vocalizations to communicate with each other,” Portfors said. “These vocalizations are similar to the speech sounds used by humans to communicate, so what we learn about the mouse brain will help us understand how humans process speech.”

Ten CAS undergraduates receive WSU awards to pursue research

October 16, 2013

Ten CAS students have been selected to receive $1,000 each to support research, scholarship, and creative work at WSU. Projects range from creating interactive applications for teaching to investigating properties of different flax proteins to testing a hypothesis about learning performance expectations.

Note: CAS affiliation includes a Spanish double major and a School of Environment major not originally counted in the press release story.

Powering cultural preservation: 2 new grants expand archiving of indigenous treasures

October 12, 2013

Just thinking about the box of fragile cassette tapes gives Kim Christen chills. Recorded on the thin ribbons was the last-known speaker of the Kiksht language, yet another vanishing treasure of Native American culture.

“I was so afraid the tapes would be accidentally damaged before they could be more safely archived,” said Christen, associate professor of English and associate director of the Digital Technology and Culture Program. Her intense drive to help tribal people protect their heritage materials and increase their accessibility and use – while respecting the communities’ limits in terms of resources and cultural sensitivities – has led to two new, federally funded grants totaling almost $1 million.