K-State in the news

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Read some of today's top stories mentioning Kansas State University. See more K-State faculty, staff and students in the news in the clip archives.

Friday, Oct. 2, 2026

National/International

How El Niño will drive up the cost of foods you love
10/2/26 CNN
Nelson Villoria, an agricultural economist at Kansas State University, said there can be a time lag between an El Niño and its effects on food prices. “Tropical commodities such as palm oil, coconut oil, coffee and fishmeal, show the largest increases,” he said. With vegetable oils and coffee, prices can stay elevated for up to a year after an El Niño.

Exercise may blunt the genetic risk of depression, landmark study finds
10/2/26 ScienMag
Depression runs in families, but it is not destiny. That familiar refrain has now received its most rigorous quantitative test to date. In a study published in Nature Mental Health, researchers drawn from the University of Texas at San Antonio, Vanderbilt Health, the University of Texas at Austin and Kansas State University analyzed more than 23,000 participants from the United States National Institutes of Health’s All of Us Research Program, combining whole-genome sequencing with years of wearable-device activity data. Their central question was deceptively simple: does physical activity buffer the impact of inherited genetic vulnerability to major depressive disorder?