Washington State Magazine

Several WSU scientists are gearing up to use stable isotope analysis to ask new questions of the Conner's specimens. Physiologists Ray Lee and Hubert Schwabl joined Dick Johnson and visiting scientist Elizabeth Yohannes of Germany's Max Planck Institute to do stable isotope analysis on hairs from small mammals collected on the Palouse over the past hundred years. Their study lays the groundwork for explorations of habitat and dietary changes in mammals, similar to tho...
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In addition to consulting botanists at the Ownbey Herbarium, retired veterinarian Clive Gay and range scientist Ernie Motteram have dipped into the specimen drawers and expertise at the James Entomology Collection. They have  been working with cattlemen in central Washington to pinpoint the insect vectors for pinkeye, the general name for a number of nasty eye infections. Ranchers in Kittitas County have told Motteram that pinkeye is their biggest herd health problem. He says the conven...
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The Conner has one of the biggest collections of bird skeletons in the nation. Kelly Cassidy opens a drawer and pulls out a box the size of a small microwave oven. It rattles. It contains a disarticulated golden eagle skeleton, each piece labeled with a number (except for the very smallest, which are about the size of a sesame seed). "Our skeletons are literally boxes of bones," she says. The Museum has a few dozen skeletons that have been fully assembled, which are useful for public dis...
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Several years ago, scientists noticed that recent herbarium specimens had been collected earlier in the season than specimens from decades past. Since most plants are collected when they are in flower, that meant they were flowering earlier. The easy explanation was that they were responding to the warmer temperatures caused by climate change. The trouble with that, says Larry Hufford, is that it didn't happen with every species. He searched the Herbarium's database for the first date of...
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A series of videos introducing WSU's James Entomology Collection and its work in research, collection, education and service....
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"[The collections] answer to a lot of people," says Rich Zack. "They answer a lot of questions, and at times they can generate funds, but it's not a steady stream of funds. Often you're answering small questions from hundreds of people." Any one of those hundreds might get along OK if the collections shut down, "but because we serve so many, it would be a major loss," says Zack. Anthropologist Karen Lupo, whose students make frequent use of the Conner Museum's bone collection, says she w...
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Meet the WSU Researcher: Michael NeffPart 2: A new biofuel crop for Washington farmers?Washington State University botanist Michael Neff discusses how to transform camelina as a possible biofuel crop in Washington.Neff's lab works on camelina, an oilseed used for lamps from the Iron Age that can grow on marginal farmland and not compete with food crops.Neff shows how his work uses transgenic seeds to make camelina a better fuel crop, complete with rose-colored glasses and green LEDs to see which...
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Meet the WSU Researcher: Michael NeffPart 1: What Plants See...Changes How They GrowWashington State University botanist Michael Neff studies the way plants sense light and plants around them, and change their growth patterns accordingly. Plants use photoreceptors sensitive to far-red light to determine their proximity to other plants. These photoreceptors are different from infrared receptors used for photosynthesis."What I've been interested in forever is how plants use light as a source of in...
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 In 2004, researchers at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York produced a line of mice with an intriguing mutation. The mice make a defective form of a protein called SMC1beta that binds to chromosomes during the crossing-over stage. Pat Hunt and Terry Hassold, on the lookout for anything that might be involved in damage to chromosomes in the eggs of older women, recognized a hot prospect. SMC1beta is part of a complex, or cluster, of four proteins called cohesins. The complex hold...
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Many questions remain concerning the contents of the longhouses  excavated at Ozette. One of the most intriguing is the nature of its art, which was pervasive. More than 400 artifacts stored at the Makah Cultural Center might be considered art. Although a few pieces, such as the well-known carved whale saddle, are (presumably) ritualistic, most are everyday objects, combs, bowls, clubs, embellished with designs. Jeff Mauger (PhD '78), an archaeologist at Peninsula Community Coll...
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