In the Media

Turner was one of the key figures in the initiative to nominate Howe Sound, a 135-square-mile fjord at the northeastern end of the Salish Sea. (Puget Sound is over 1,000 square miles.) A retired Canadian federal geologist, he makes informative videos about the ecology of the Salish Sea, like a homespun Pacific Northwestern Sir David Attenborough. This academic year he is a Salish Sea Fellow at Western Washington University.

There is growing agreement that the argument ranked-choice voting is “too complicated” is outdated, said Todd Donovan, a political science professor at Western Washington University.  

Instead, new research focuses on how to make ballots more accessible for voters. While there are challenges with starting a new system, the current single-winner system leaves voters more discouraged and less represented, Donovan said.  

"On the Border: Niagara Falls" is part of the BBC's "On the Border" series, and features WWU's Laurie Trautman of the Border Policy Research Institute.

There are many social and economic ties that bind the United States, Canada, and Mexico. Certainly, our integrated supply chains, multinational businesses, and linkages between families and friends spread throughout the continent undergird the relationship. It is our borders, however, that literally serve as the ties that bind us. The extent to which those borders enable goods, people, and services to flow between the three countries drives much of our ability not only to remain competitive on a global stage, but also to pursue an integrated North America.

Native dance, discussions and a film screening highlighted Keep the Fire Burning, an event to celebrate Indigenous Peoples' Day at Whatcom Community College (WCC) on Oct. 10.  

WCC’s Syre Auditorium was filled with community members who came to watch “Daughter of a Lost Bird,” a documentary about a woman’s journey to find her birth mother and return to her Lummi homeland. The event’s supporting partners included WCC, Western Washington University, Northwest Indian College, Bellingham Public Schools, Swinomish Indian Tribal Community, Bellingham Technical College, City of Bellingham, Skagit Valley College, PeaceHealth and Children of the Setting Sun Productions.  

Extra chairs were brought in to accommodate the crowds of people and those who got there in time received a free traditional Coast Salish salmon dinner.  

When Daphne Scott isn’t teaching math at Western Washington University, she’s busy smashing records. Using her mathematical skills to sharpen her athletic abilities, Scott recently broke an American and world decathlon record for the 60–64 age group. 

“A lot of people buy into this myth that as you age you have to slow down,” Scott said. 

High prenatal growth rates found in modern people may have first evolved in ancient hominids less than a million years ago, according to estimates based on fossil teeth.

Human fetuses grow by around 11.6 grams per day on average – considerably faster than the fetuses of gorillas, the next fastest ape in the hominid family, with a rate of 8.2 grams per day.

“We found that human-like gestation [may have] preceded the evolution of the [modern human] species – around 200,000 to 300,000 years ago – and may in fact be a critical factor that led to our evolution, particularly our large brains,” says Tesla Monson at Western Washington University.

The plentiful seaweed off the shores of Fidalgo and other surrounding islands has concentrated contaminants, according to a study published recently by a team at Western Washington University.

It's the same seaweed that is often eaten by area tribal members and kayakers looking for a snack.

The study found up to 162 chemical contaminants in three of the species of the edible seaweeds, which are bull kelp, bladderwrack and spiral bladderwrack. Those concentrations happened at 43 sites in the Salish Sea throughout the U.S. and Canada, according to a press release from the university.

The toxicity levels of seaweed at two Skagit County sites were included in a Salish Sea study done by Western Washington University researchers. 

The study, published in the scientific journal PLoS One on Sept. 23, looked at three species of edible seaweed at 43 Salish Sea sites, from British Columbia to south Olympia.

The idea for the study originated when Western Washington University researcher Jennifer Hahn was teaching workshops on how to harvest and prepare seaweed for eating straight from the Salish Sea.

“It has been very confusing to many of us who use the park, who do a lot of border policy work,” Laurie Trautman, director of the Border Policy Research Institute at Western Washington University, said of the prolonged closure.

Even with the Canadian side closed, the park proved a massive draw over the two and a half years of border restrictions, and remains so for unvaccinated Canadians who still remain restricted from entering the U.S. because of American policy, Trautman said.