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• WSU researcher works to expand barley market

  

  A WSU scientist hopes to expand the barley market by developing new varieties that can be used better as food. Steve Ullrich, professor of crop and soil sciences, is using cross-breeding to develop varieties that will make barley more attractive and valuable to farmers, processors and consumers. Read more

• Aiding quest to make gravitational waves visible

  PULLMAN – Einstein’s general theory of relativity predicts them. And tiny movements in large objects confirm them. But scientists have yet to see gravitational waves. Read more

• $6M in NSF grants a coup for graduate training

  

  WSU’s recent receipt of two grants has “lifted our graduate and research programs … to a new level,’’ according to Candis Claiborn, dean of the College of Engineering and Architecture. Read more

• Sport historian scores with writings on hockey

  

  PULLMAN – The key to research treasure was given to John Chi-Kit Wong when he was a doctoral student. He had planned to write his dissertation on sports organizations of the 1930s. When he contacted the National Hockey League, he got a surprise. The NHL granted him access to its archives of meeting records, letters and contracts. Read more

• WSU Spokane Clinical Research Team Selected for Two New Diabetes Trials

  

  SPOKANE, Wash. – Patient recruitment is underway for two diabetes-related clinical trials to be conducted through the College of Pharmacy at Washington State University Spokane. One is sponsored by Duke and Oxford universities, while the other was developed by the Population Health Research Institute in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, and offered to WSU through the University of Washington. It will develop data on whether the medication Januvia® makes a difference in cardiovascular outcomes in diabetic patients. Funded by Merck Inc., the trial will involve study sites in 33 countries and follow 14,000 patients for at least three years. Read more

• Eat, Sleep, Stay Warm: How Our Bodies Find the Balance

  PULLMAN, Wash. –A new study led by scientists at Washington State University shows that alternate products of a single gene help control whether an animal sleeps or stays awake, craves food or doesn’t, and maintains its body temperature or plunges deep into hypothermia. Read more

• WSU Joins with NASA, USGS CVO in High-Tech Monitoring of Mt. St. Helens

  VANCOUVER, Wash. – Using sensor software written by a team of researchers at Washington State University, a dozen high-tech robotic pods forming a network built to operate in hostile environments are currently being used in hot spots inside and around the mouth of the most deadly and active volcano in the continental United States. Read more

• Micronutrient studies important for wine grapes too

  

  PROSSER - Without enough Vitamin C, people can get sick with scurvy. Similarly, micronutrients like boron, zinc and copper can have a profound effect on plant health. Soil scientist Joan Davenport and her colleagues at the WSU Irrigated Agriculture Research and Extension Center in Prosser are studying micronutrient utilization in Concord grapes. Washington is the nation’s No. 1 Concord grape producer. Read more

• WSU Astrobiologist Updates Book on the Search for Life Beyond Earth

  PULLMAN, Wash.-The search for life on other worlds goes on, and Dirk Schulze-Makuch has a lot to say about how we should go about it. The Washington State University astrobiologist has just come out with a second edition of the 2004 book he wrote with Louis Irwin of the University of Texas at El Paso. “Life in the Universe: Expectations and Constraints” was so well received that the publisher, Springer, asked him and Irwin to write a second edition just four years later. Read more

• Luring natural predators to protect orchards

  

  Researchers and orchardists know quite a bit about the major pests in tree fruit systems, but what about the natural enemies of those pests? Scientists at WSU’s Tree Fruit Research and Extension Center in Wenatchee are working to learn more about these beneficial bugs in an effort to better leverage them in pest control. Read more

• How Solid Is Concrete's Carbon Footprint?

  

  PULLMAN, Wash.—Many scientists currently think at least 5 percent of humanity's carbon footprint comes from the concrete industry, both from energy use and the carbon dioxide (CO2) byproduct from the production of cement, one of concrete's principal components. Read more

Recent News

• WSU Researchers Trace Sources of Bee Colony Collapse Disorder

  PULLMAN, Wash. — Recent research by scientists at Washington State University suggests two potential contributors to Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), a mysterious malady that has slowly wiped out large numbers of bee hives throughout the United States in recent years, may be trace pesticides often found in old honeycombs and a new microscopic pathogen that has been quietly spreading throughout the Pacific Northwest and other regions of the country.

• Sleep Researchers Receive Air Force Grant to Model Cognitive Fatigue

  SPOKANE, WASH. - Researchers from the Sleep and Performance Research Center at Washington State University Spokane have been awarded a grant from the Air Force Office of Scientific Research to develop a computational model predicting the precise effects of fatigue on cognitive performance tasks.

• WSU Veterinary Cardiologist Discovers Gene for Heart Disease

  PULLMAN, Wash.—Washington State University veterinary cardiologist Kathryn M. Meurs has discovered a mutant gene in the Boxer breed that causes a type of heart disease that can be fatal in animals and humans. Well known in the Boxer breed community, the disease is called Boxer cardiomyopathy. The more formal term is arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy or ARVC.

• Researchers Propose Plan for Improving Native American Student Achievement

  PULLMAN, Wash.—Building relationships between Indian tribes and school districts is one of five key steps needed to improve Native American student success, according to Washington State University researchers.

• WSU Researcher’s Book Offers Tips on Countering Workplace Revenge

  PULLMAN, Wash. – The recent conviction of a disgruntled sheet-metal assembler at a Boeing Co. manufacturing plant in Pennsylvania for doing more than $100,000 in damage to a Chinook helicopter and causing a two-day plant shutdown provided a rare public glimpse at the kinds of problems companies can experience at the hands of their own vengeful employees.

• Washington State University Researchers Awarded $1.4M for Driver Fatigue Studies

  SPOKANE, Wash. – The Sleep and Performance Research Center at Washington State University Spokane has received a competitively awarded $1.4 million contract from the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s Office of Research to investigate the relationships between work hours in the transportation sector and drivers’ sleep, performance and health.

• Buying a Real Christmas Tree, Not Bad for the Environment, WSU Researcher Says

  PULLMAN, Wash. - It’s that time of year again, the stores are flooded with holiday decorations, the street corners are lined with Christmas trees for sale and many people are torn with the decision to decorate a real or fake tree this year. For those do-it-yourself individuals, “Cut your own Christmas Tree Month” is upon us and many families participate in the age-old tradition of chopping down their own tree.

• Better Tests Needed to Pinpoint Memory Problems, Study Shows

  PULLMAN, Wash. – There’s a lot more to memory than the ability to remember a story, who the President is, or what you ate for lunch. Do you recall who told you the story? How about whether you heard it before or after the President’s inauguration? Do you remember that you planned to meet a friend for lunch tomorrow?

• WSU, CSU Researchers Find Price Tag’s Leftmost Digit Makes a Big Difference

  PULLMAN, Wash. – Consumers may consider themselves savvy bargain hunters, but they often make surprising choices based on the first – or leftmost – digit of a price, according to a new study by Colorado State University and Washington State University.

• WSU Researchers Aim to Measure Greenhouse Gas From Space

  PULLMAN, Wash. – George Mount, professor in the Washington State University Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering’s Laboratory for Atmospheric Research, has been heavily involved in developing the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory Orbiting Carbon Observatory satellite, set to launch from California’s Vandenberg Air Force Base early tomorrow morning.

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