pollution

By Eric Sorensen, WSU News PULLMAN, Wash. – As cars become more fuel efficient, less heat is wasted in the exhaust, which makes it harder to clean up the pollutants being emitted.

It is estimated that 75 percent of contamination in the Puget Sound is unwittingly produced by citizens — via commercial wastewater, sewage treatment plants, stormwater runoff from roads and paved surfaces, construction and other activities.

By Tina Hilding, Voiland College of Engineering & Architecture PULLMAN, Wash. – Washington State University researchers have developed a soy-based air filter that can capture toxic chemicals, such as carbon monoxide and formaldehyde, that current air filters can’t.

By Sylvia Kantor, College of Agricultural, Human & Natural Resource Sciences SEATTLE – Washington State University aquatic ecotoxicologist Jenifer McIntyre will share her research on the lethal impacts of stormwater for fish as well as solutions that are within reach.

By Eric Sorensen, WSU science writer PULLMAN, Wash. – A Washington State University biologist has found the genetic mechanism that lets a fish live in toxic, acidic water. The discovery opens new insights into the functioning of other “extremophiles” and how they adapt to their challenging environments.

By Beverly Makhani, Office of Undergraduate Education PULLMAN, Wash. – Environmental artist Chris Jordan will discuss albatross chicks that died from eating plastic trash in a free, public presentation, “Encountering Midway: A Barometer for Our Culture and Our World,” at 7 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 26, in the CUB auditorium at Washington State University.

By Beverly Makhani, Office of Undergraduate Education PULLMAN, Wash. – Americans each produce 102 tons of trash in a lifetime. Impacts and implications of “the invisible waste embedded in America’s consumer society” are discussed in the common reading book that will be used 2014-15 at Washington State University Pullman.

By E. Kirsten Peters, College of Agricultural, Human & Natural Resource Sciences PULLMAN, Wash. – We’ve all seen globes in classrooms. They represent the Earth well – better than flat maps.

WSU Puyallup researchers inspect the sprinkler system used to simulate rain events on the asphalt test plot. (l-r) Curtis Hinman, low-impact development extension specialist; Jen McIntyre, postdoctoral researcher, stormwater program; and Richard Bembenek, agriculture research technician, low-impact development. Photo by Betsy Fradd, WSU Extension Puyallup.  McIntyre PUYALLUP, Wash. – Finding a solution to toxic highway […]

WSU’s Schulze-Makuch PULLMAN, Wash. – Two university researchers say environmental restrictions have become unnecessarily restrictive and expensive – on Mars. Writing in the journal Nature Geoscience, astrobiologists Alberto Fairén of Cornell University and Dirk Schulze-Makuch of Washington State University say the NASA Office of Planetary Protection’s “detailed and expensive” efforts to keep Earth microorganisms off […]