Cougars
bring in another QB to compete for Falk’s old job
Originally
published May 17, 2018 at 8:45 pm Updated May 17, 2018 at 8:54 pm
Washington
State has added Gardner Minshew, a graduate transfer out of East Carolina, to
compete for the starting QB job
From Seattle Times
PULLMAN —
Washington State has added a graduate transfer out of East Carolina who will
compete for the job to replace departed recording-setting quarterback Luke
Falk.
Gardner
Minshew threw for 2,140 yards and 16 touchdowns last season at East Carolina.
He appeared in 10 games for the Pirates last season, starting five.
At
Washington State, Minshew joins a group that includes juniors Trey Tinsley and
Anthony Gordon that is vying to replace Falk, who was a sixth-round pick by the
Tennessee Titans in last month’s NFL draft.
The
Cougars also signed defensive lineman Lamonte McDougle, who played extensively
as a freshman at West Virginia last season. McDougle appeared in all 13 games
and recorded 23 tackles, including four for loss, with two sacks. McDougle must
sit out the 2018 season.
:::::::::::
Pac-12
Conference
WSU COUGAR
BASEBALL IN CALIFORNIA’S BAY AREA
Washington
State Cougs (15-28-1, 7-16-1 Pac-12)
at # 3 Stanford
Cardinal (40-8, 18-6 Pac-12)
Stanford
Sunken Diamond:
--Friday, May
18, 6 p.m. first pitch
--Saturday,
May 19, 1:30 p.m. first pitch
--Sunday, May
20, noon first pitch
Pac-12
Network
TV: Pac-12
Network
RADIO:
WSU
GameDay App / TuneIn
Pullman -
KQQQ (104.7 FM, 1150 AM)
Moses Lake
- KBSN (1470 AM)
Spokane -
KXLY (920 AM - Saturday only)
Tri-Cities
- KONA (610 AM - Saturday and Sunday)
Coug
play-by-play “voice” Matt Chazanow
LIVESTATS:
wsucougars.com
TWITTER:
@CougBaseball
INSTAGRAM:
@Coug_Baseball
:::::::::::::
Analysis:
How much could legalized sports betting be worth to the Pac-12? Billions.
Originally
published May 17, 2018 at 10:11 am
The Pac-12
could be one of the first conferences to get a cut of the pie. They do, after
all, hold the men’s basketball tournament in Las Vegas and, for a time, allowed
NFL-geared fantasy sports sites to advertise on the Pac-12 Networks.
By Jon
Wilner
San Jose
Mercury News
The NCAA
won by losing this week with the Supreme Court’s decision to lift the federal
ban on sports wagering. The governing body took one in the gut, but member
schools stand to grow their coffers.
The
decision in Murphy v. NCAA, handed down Monday by a 6-3 vote, was reminiscent
of the 1984 SCOTUS ruling that the association’s ownership of television rights
violated antitrust law.
The act of
turning control of TV rights over to the conferences (to act on behalf of the
schools) created modern college football in both structure and economics.
Legalized
gambling could have a similarly momentous impact. The issue is in congressional
hands at the moment, but more than 30 states are expected to eventually allow
sports wagering. (Some, it seems, could do so within the next year.)
Seahawks
sign draft picks Shaquem Griffin and Tre Flowers, make additions of Keenan
Reynolds and Dadi Nicolas official
It’s a
galaxy changer for all sports, not merely those of the “amateur” variety.
“Mindboggling,”
according to Ryan Rodenberg, who would know as well as anyone.
An
associate professor in Florida State’s department of sports management,
Rodenberg specializes in sports law analytics and filed an Amicus brief to the
Supreme Court (in support of neither party).
That he
grew up in Seattle, got his doctorate from Washington and knows one Power Five
conference from another — well, all the better.
Rodenberg
began his explanation of the SCOTUS decision by describing three potential
sources of revenue.
The first
could take the form of support funds: Payments from state oversight boards to
the universities to bolster compliance staffs and educational initiatives.
The second
would unfold as marketing income: Numerous entities, from hotel/casinos to
gaming associations to fantasy sports leagues, could spending advertising and
sponsorship dollars with the schools (or buy commercial time on the
conference-affiliated TV networks).
Does that
mean Autzen Stadium could become DraftKings Stadium, or that we’d see Powerball
Pavilion at UCLA? Maybe not … Or maybe yes.
Those
revenue streams pale in comparison to the Nile of cash that could result from a
direct cut of the action.
“Conferences
could unilaterally pursue sports-gaming opportunities on their own, outside of
the NCAA,’’ Rodenberg said.
Let that
one settle as you envision tens of millions wagered across the country over the
course of 14 Saturdays.
The NBA
and Major League Baseball are already pursuing the so-called integrity fee, a
percentage of the amount bet that’s cloaked as payments to maintain integrity
and oversight of their sport in each state.
“Neither
the NCAA or any conferences have joined them,” Rodenberg said, “but perhaps
they will.”
Of course
they will. There’s too much money at stake, not to mention too much existing
debt and too many escalating costs.
And
because the Power Five control college football, not the NCAA — thank you,
SCOTUS — they could be free to pursue their own integrity fees just as they cut
their own TV deals.
Imagine
each conference collecting one percent of the total handle (i.e., amount
wagered) on football games in states throughout its footprint.
(Also
think about the potential impact on realignment: Smaller schools in big-handle
states could become more desirable. By 2030, Buffalo just might be a member of
the SEC.)
Rodenberg
believes the Pac-12 could be one of the first to pursue a direct cut. After
all, the conference holds its men’s basketball tournament in Las Vegas and, for
a time, allowed NFL-geared fantasy sports sites to advertise on the Pac-12
Networks.
“In terms
of the allergic reaction to gambling,” Rodenberg said, “the Pac-12 has already
crossed that bridge.”
Just how
much cash is at stake?
According
to Rodenberg, New Jersey estimated the annual handle on sports wagers could be
$10 billion. “California,” he added, “would dwarf that.”
Let’s
assume that California, Washington, Oregon, Arizona and Colorado eventually
legalize sports wagering — let’s keep Utah out of the discussion for now — and
that the annual handle across the Pac-12 footprint is $50 billion.
Then let’s
estimate 20 percent of that total is bet on college sports: $10 billion per
year.
(Basketball
wagering will be significant, especially in March, but the NCAA’s control of
that sport adds uncertainty to the revenue dynamic.)
Finally,
let’s imagine the Pac-12, like every Power Five, were to cut integrity-fee
deals comparable to those of the NBA, MLB and NFL.
That
translates to $100 million annually for the conference.
And it
could be larger.
And it
doesn’t include the cash from gaming-related sponsorship/advertising deals.
And it
doesn’t include an increase in media-rights contracts resulting from more
eyeballs on the live events.
“I’m not
sure losing a Supreme Court case can be heaven-sent,” Rodenberg said, “but if
(the conferences) can get their ducks in a row, it could be a boon.”
…………
………….
WSU
research off to space
Local
scientists partner with NASA to investigate how plants adapt in a weightless
environment
By Scott
Jackson, Moscow Pullman Daily News
5/18/2018
Two
remote-manned laboratories - expected to aid local research - are destined for
the International Space Station and will launch into orbit Sunday.
Washington
State University scientists will have access to the NASA-funded Cold Atom
Laboratory (CAL) and the Final Frontiers Plant Habitat projects, which
investigate the behavior of particles in a quantum state and how plants develop
in a microgravity environment.
Both will
blast off from Wallop's Flight Facility in Virginia aboard Orbital ATK's Cygnus
spacecraft around 1:30 a.m. Pacific Time.
Norman
Lewis, a regents professor at WSU's Institute of Biological Chemistry, who is
leading the plant habitat study, said their experiments will provide insight
into how plants adapt and develop in a weightless environment.
"One
of the reasons we're looking at this is to try and understand how we can tailor
plants for colonization on the moon or on Mars or tailor plants for very, very
long spaceflight exploration," Lewis said. "The Advanced Plant
Habitat and devices like this are really so that one can go off on long-range
expeditions and long-term colonization and be able to grow these organisms in -
and really protect it against - extreme environments."
Plant life
is essential for long-term space exploration and extraterrestrial colonization
for a number of reasons, Lewis said, noting astronauts are in a contained
environment and must recycle everything right down to their sweat. He said
plant life can aid in the replenishing of air and water systems and provide
food during long-term expeditions.
Lewis said
another facet of the experiment is to determine whether the amounts of lignin -
an inedible, rigid material in plants that helps them stand erect - can be
reduced in microgravity without harming the performance of the plant.
"We'll
harvest them at four weeks and six weeks and then return them frozen to ground
where we will then conduct an analysis of them," Lewis said.
He said
researchers will then compare their results to an identical experiment
conducted on the Earth's surface. Lewis said his work will be a portion of a
consortium effort with researchers from the University of New Mexico and the
Los Alamos and Pacific Northwest National Laboratories.
While the
Cold Atom Laboratory may not aid in anything as exciting as space exploration,
WSU Physicists Peter Engle and Maren Mossman say it will expand the known
universe of quantum mechanics. Engle said CAL will use lasers and other
techniques to sap energy from clouds of atoms, cooling them to about a
billionth of a degree above absolute zero.
"Think
about an atom like a billiard ball that's rolling along on the table or
something that's our classical physics," Engel said. "When we go down
to these ultra-cool temperatures, the physics changes and a theory called
quantum mechanics comes into play, and what you see then is effects like, for
example, atoms starting to behave like waves."
Engel said
studying these particles in space provides a number of advantages over
conducting the same research on earth.
For one,
he said, space is very cold, which means the cloud of wave-like atoms will be
warmed less quickly, allowing them to study them in a quantum state for longer.
Engel said the negligible gravity aboard the ISS means the sample of atoms will
stay suspended in view of a microscope for much longer.
"On
Earth if we drop a cloud of atoms, it falls out of our view in about 13
milliseconds," Mossman said. "On the ISS we're able to look at things
from a much longer time scale by factors of 10 or 100."
Mossman
said the atom cloud is expected to remain within view for as long as 10
seconds, allowing them to study quantum behaviors more in depth.
Engel said
furthering human understanding of quantum mechanics will be essential to future
generations of technology.
Live coverage
of the event will be broadcast on NASA Television and on the agency's website.
….
SPOKANE: WSU
nabs $1 million grant to study work shifts of nurses
Fri., May
18, 2018
By Rachel
Alexander, Spokane S-R
From truck
drivers to police officers, a lot of research has shown working 12-hour
overnight shifts can hurt job performance.
A research
team at Washington State University is hoping to quantify those risks for
nurses.
Led by
Lois James, a researcher with the university’s sleep and performance lab, the
$1 million, three-year grant will evaluate how well nurses can calculate
medication dosages and perform other patient care tasks after three consecutive
12-hour shifts, and also evaluate their driving safety.
Why study
something that seems like common sense?
James said
the project will go beyond the well-known fact that 12-hour night shifts tend
to cause fatigue. Nurses will be studied in WSU’s nursing simulation lab, where
they’ll perform patient care tasks on hyper-realistic mannequins.
They’ll
also be outfitted with goggles to track eye motion, which will help researchers
understand the underlying causes of any errors they make.
“If a
nurse doesn’t respond quickly to a change in vitals, is it just because they’re
not seeing it?” James said.
Twelve-hour
shifts are popular for many nurses, who like having four days off and being
able to care for patients for a long period, and for hospitals, where they make
scheduling easier.
“There’s
not really enough evidence to say whether it’s a bad idea for nurses in terms
of patient-care outcomes and their own safety,” James said.
Marian
Wilson, a professor of nursing at WSU who worked in hospitals for decades, said
existing work about the negative effects of 12-hour night shifts has yet to
make an impact in hospitals.
“We have
evidence from all kinds of other industries and professions that 12-hour
shifts, particularly on night shift, can be detrimental to performance,” she
said. “There’s a culture in nursing where I feel we expect nurses to be
superhuman.”
Wilson is
one of the researchers on the study and will be focused on interpreting
clinical results from the simulation and working with the nursing community to
publicize their findings.
Doctors
are typically allowed, and sometimes encouraged, to nap during night shifts so
they can remain alert on the job, she said. Nurses, who perform the majority of
hands-on patient care, don’t get the same consideration.
“Nurses
often forgo meals. Nurses certainly are not encouraged and can even be fired
for sleeping,” she said.
James said
doctors in the U.S. have had regulations about the number of consecutive hours
they can work since 1987, but there are no similar guidelines for nurses.
Historically,
that’s because they’ve been considered secondary to doctors, though nurses are
often performing the hands-on tasks where errors can have a huge impact.
“Preventable
medical errors are a huge cause of concern in the U.S.,” James said.
In
particular, calculating medication dosages is vital to get right.
“It also
has very deadly consequences if it’s wrong,” Wilson said.
The study
will include 100 nurses from Providence Sacred Heart Medical Center, half
working day shifts and half working night shifts.
James said
one of her goals is to see whether a 12-hour night shift is worse for
performance than a 12-hour day shift. She hopes the results might lead to
hospitals developing safe work guidelines for nurses, and wants to work with
health care providers to apply the results.
“The goal
of research is to try and improve the conditions of whoever you’re
researching,” she said.
……………..
Spokane
Spokesman-Review THE PRESSBOX with Larry Weir includes a May 17, 2018, audio
interview about WSU football of Paul Sorensen, Cougar athletics Hall of Fame
member as a football player. Link below:
https://www.spreaker.com/user/spokesman-review/0517-pressbox
“Larry
Weir talks with Eastern Washington University football broadcasting partner and
former Washington State standout Paul Sorensen about Cougar football and what
he's expecting this fall; The two also touch on EWU football.”
Here’s a
link …
https://www.inlander.com/Bloglander/archives/2017/11/22/qanda-cougar-hall-of-famer-paul-sorensen-weighs-in-on-wsus-defensive-success
… to a
Nov. 21, 2017, Inlander Q&A with Paul Sorensen.
#
