Washington State Magazine

An insect’s small size gives it the gift of relatively greater strength. The newly discovered South African cockroach Saltoblattella montistabularis takes advantage of this fact plus several other features, as Washington State University entomologist Carol Anelli describes here:This is very cool for several reasons.It is a wingless cockroach, described for the first time only two years ago, and the first existing roach known to jump. It achieves this feat with modified hind legs that possess ...
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George Hirahara and his family, including Frank ’48, had their lives in Yakima disrupted in 1942 when they were forced to relocate with about 10,000 other Japanese Americans to Heart Mountain, Wyoming.Frank’s daughter Patti Hirahara has shared a number of items with Washington State University from her family’s internment experience. They include about 2,000 photographs and negatives, many of them showing daily life at Heart Mountain.The gallery below shows a...
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“When I made up the lineup, I always put Ole [John Olerud] in the third spot—where you want your best all-around player—and filled in around him,” says WSU baseball coach Bobo Brayton. “He led the world in everything.” On the rare occasion when Ole faltered a little on the mound, Bobo would visit the big lefthander with words of advice: “Remember you are John Olerud. There’s no one better.” He was named national College Player of the Year in 1988. —from More

If attention were a coin, it would be slipping through our fingers countless times a day. Here are a few simple tips to help you keep a grip. Do one thing at a time. Such advice is easy to ignore when you just want to check your phone while someone is talking to you. But it’s nearly impossible to pay attention to two things at once. “Even with pretty easy tasks” says Lisa Fournier, an associate professor of psychology at Washington State University whose research focuses on selec...
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Research lab works to ease life for elderly, others On-going research at Washington State University is exploring how homes can be built or retrofitted to make living a little bit easier. With the work of AI Lab Manager James Kusznir, doctoral student Aaron Crandall and other faculty and students, WSU's Smart Apartment is exploring the practical applications of how to help elderly people stay in their homes, and to create more efficient living spaces. From WSU News. Video by Matt Haugen...
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Pacific Northwest architect Jim Olson designs homes built for art. In this video he talks about early inspiration, the relationships between art and architecture, and the Northwest aesthetic. Read more about Olson, and the retrospective of his career at the Washington State University Museum of Art in "Homes for Art."...
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Coming soon: the Flourgirls story.Read more about the Unifine flour milling process in "The lost and found flourmill."...
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More than four decades ago, The Tassajara Bread Book opened up with the following epigram: “We need more cooks, not more cookbooks.” Now we have a lot more of both, plus video. Here are few of the latest gems of the genre....
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Between the book Moneyball and the movie “Moneyball,” there was the 2010 Simpsons episode “MoneyBART,” which introduced 6 million or so people to the artist Banksy, who wrote the opening sequence. Less celebrated is the fact that the show introduced many people to the concept ...
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If you contribute your daily bodily wastes to a municipal waste treatment plant, you are more than likely directly benefiting Washington soils. According to Puyallup soil scientist Craig Cogger, each person in Washington produces about 60 pounds of biosolids per year. “Biosolid” is a euphemism for human waste and other inputs once they have been treated at a wastewater treatment plant. For the past 15 years, Cogger has helped spread biosolids on wheat land in Douglas County and studied...
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