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What is anxiety?

National Public Radio’s Rhitu Chatteriee interviewed WSU anthropology professor Ed Hagen, among others, to expand understanding of anxiety.

JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:

Americans are anxious. Nearly three years of a pandemic, political unrest and ongoing economic instability have left people feeling fearful, ill at ease. This week, we’re spending some time understanding anxiety. We will kick off the series with a simple question – what is anxiety? NPR’s health correspondent Rhitu Chatterjee went looking for the answer and brings us this story.

RHITU CHATTERJEE: Most of us have experienced anxiety at some point in our lives, and we know how it shows up in our bodies – racing thoughts, struggling to sit still, queasy stomach, sensations that bring a sense of dread.

Ed Hagen.
Hagen

CHATTERJEE: …anxiety can be adaptive. That’s why researchers think that it probably played a key role in human evolution because it alerted our ancestors to threats in their environment. Ed Hagen studies the evolution of emotions and mental illnesses at Washington State University.

ED HAGEN: And if you look at the kinds of things that people tend to be anxious about, they do seem to line up with those kinds of longstanding evolutionary threats.

CHATTERJEE: Like predators, poisonous foods and animals, disease and even social threats.

HAGEN: Most of us are, you know, really concerned that we maintain a good reputation with our friends and group members.

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National Public Radio

As urban, suburban incarceration rates drop, more people going to jail in rural areas

As incarceration rates drop in Washington’s urban and suburban areas, police in rural areas are booking more people into jail often for minor offenses.

Lauren Patterson has the story as a professor of sociology at Washington state University Jennifer Schwartz started to notice a pattern in her research: while urban area incarcerations in Washington are going down, the number of people imprisoned in rural areas is going up.

Jennifer Schwartz.
Schwartz

“It wasn’t the serious transgressions or the serious criminals that are a danger to the community that kept coming back in. It was the sort of minor transgressions that kept the revolving door spinning,” Schwartz said.

Those minor offenses include things like driving with a suspended license or not showing up in court.

Schwartz and her colleague Jennifer Sherman received a three-year grant to continue researching rural incarceration. They hope to find potential solutions for policymakers.

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KUOW
TVEyes.com

Pioneering alumnus honored for contributions to science and society

Growing up in the arid landscape of Richland, Washington, hundreds of miles and a mountain range away from the nearest ocean, may seem an unlikely start for a man who would become a leading expert in marine geology and coastal conservation.

Orrin Pilkey.
Pilkey

But Orrin Pilkey was destined to be a pioneer. With his insatiable curiosity and an education in geology from then-Washington State College, he traveled to the edges of land and sea and launched a new field of science to improve life in both environments.

“Throughout his 65‑year career as a researcher, educator, mentor, and advocate, Dr. Orrin Pilkey has made numerous outstanding contributions to the field of marine geology and to coastal preservation,” said Todd Butler, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. “In addition to his positive impact on his discipline, he embodies the outcome of what we strive to accomplish as a college and university: a curious, life-long learner who integrates knowledge from many domains to address complex, real-world problems and issues.”

This year, Pilkey (BS Geology ’57) received the WSU Alumni Association’s Alumni Achievement Award, the organization’s highest honor, in recognition of his distinguished research and education in coastal geology and his public service in policy development and education to preserve America’s coastal resources.

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WSU Insider

How Jim Crow policies shaped the Tri-Cities

This is Part 1 of a two-part series connecting historical segregation policies to how minority groups struggle to get political representation today.

Segregation, red-lining, and sundown town policies in the 1940s through the 1960s shaped the Tri-Cities: Pasco, Kennewick, and Richland, Washington, according to a recent book by two history professors at Washington State University Tri-Cities.

During the 1940s and 1950s, Jim Crow-era policies forced Black, Hispanic, and other racial minorities to live in East Pasco, preventing them from living anywhere else in the region, like in Kennewick, said Bob Bauman, a history professor at WSU Tri-Cities.

Robert Bauman.
Bauman

“In Kennewick, African Americans were excluded completely by racially restricted covenants,” Bauman said. “Real estate prohibited anyone who was nonwhite from owning a home in Kennewick, and police would remove anyone who was nonwhite who was in Kennewick after sundown. There was a sort of term for these sorts of communities in different parts of the United States called sundown towns.”

Robert Franklin.
Franklin

Bauman and Robert Franklin co-wrote the book “Echoes of Exclusion and Resistance: Voices from the Hanford Region.” Using oral histories, government documentation about segregation policies, and written witness accounts, the two WSU Tri-Cities professors studied segregation in the area.

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NWPB.org

CABRI Awards $40,000 in Fellowships to Ten Undergraduate Researchers

Cayman joins the Cayman Biomedical Research Institute (CABRI) in recognizing the ten undergraduate students who have been awarded fellowships by CABRI for the 2022-2023 academic year. The fellowship awards are given to talented undergraduates that are pursuing a research project of their own under the guidance of a faculty mentor.

Undergraduate fellowships are awarded by CABRI on a competitive basis each year to students who have been offered an unpaid research position. “These fellowships provide a valuable opportunity to undergraduates by allowing them to focus on gaining laboratory experience that builds their scientific talent,” said Kourtney Goode, Ph.D., Academic Relations Coordinator at Cayman.

CABRI funds expanded opportunities for emerging scientists and awards research grants to academic scientists that address basic science research objectives with the highest unmet needs.

Ryan McLaughlin.
McLaughlin

The 2022 recipients include two students working with Ryan McLaughlin, an assistant professor of integrative physiology and neuroscience affiliated with the WSU Department of Psychology:

Addison Thompson, whose project is titled “Using Rodent Models to Interrogate Effects of Cannabis Use During Pregnancy on the Postpartum Phenotype’; and McKenna Spencer, whose project is titled “Cannabis Use in Females: Influence of Ovarian Hormones on Cannabis Vapor Self-Administration in Female Rats.”

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Yahoo! News