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Rock Doc column

Rock Doc column: Earth’s next epoch … is now

By E. Kirsten Peters, College of Agricultural, Human & Natural Resource Sciences PULLMAN, Wash. – I was raised in the Baptist church. As a grade school child, I memorized the books of the Bible. Maybe because of that personal history, when I started to study geology I didn’t resist memorizing the many pieces of the […]

Rock Doc: Keeping warm with gold fever

By E. Kirsten Peters, College of Agricultural, Human & Natural Resource Sciences PULLMAN, Wash. – I own a couple of small gold nuggets. They came from the Round Mountain gold mine in Nevada, which I visited a few years ago. A tour of the open-pit mine was crowned by a visit to the foundry where […]

Rock Doc column: Wake up and smell the genes

By E. Kirsten Peters, College of Agricultural, Human & Natural Resource Sciences PULLMAN, Wash. – Like millions of Americans, my day starts by plugging in the coffeepot. In my case, it’s an old fashioned percolator. It clears its throat and brews my coffee while I rub sleep out of my eyes and brush my teeth.

Rock Doc: How much does it hurt? Assessing animal pain

By E. Kirsten Peters, College of Agricultural, Human & Natural Resource Sciences PULLMAN, Wash. – When I take my elderly mother to the emergency room, the nurse asks how much pain she is in, on a scale of 1 to 10. There is a chart with pictures of little smiley faces, neutral faces and grimacing […]

Rock Doc: Kennewick Man’s bones tell quite a story

By E. Kirsten Peters, College of Agricultural, Human & Natural Resource Sciences PULLMAN, Wash. – His teeth had no cavities but were heavily worn. He was about my height – some 5 feet, 7 inches tall. He wasn’t petite, likely weighing around 160 pounds. Well before his death, he broke six of his ribs. Five […]