University of Arizona in the News

The New York Times Monday
COVID cases surge but deaths stay near lows

Most people in the U.S. now carry some COVID immunity, whether from vaccines, infection or both. "Our level of community immunity heading into this wave was much higher than it's ever been due to the combination of infection and vaccination," said Dr. Joe Gerald, an associate professor of public health at the University of Arizona. "A lot of people who weren't vaccinated, and were infection-naive – most of them were infected with Omicron over the period from January to early March."
Space.com Monday
'Betelgeuse on steroids' sheds light on how rare massive stars die

A University of Arizona-led team of astronomers created a detailed, three-dimensional image of a dying hypergiant star. The team, led by UArizona researchers Ambesh Singh and Lucy Ziurys, traced the distribution, directions and velocities of a variety of molecules surrounding a red hypergiant star known as VY Canis Majoris. Their findings, presented June 13 at the 240th Meeting of the American Astronomical Society, offer insights, at an unprecedented scale, into the processes that accompany the death of giant stars.
Tech Times Monday
Mysterious 'blue blobs' present a new star system

University of Arizona astronomers have identified five examples of a new class of stellar system located in the relatively nearby Virgo galaxy cluster. Not quite galaxies, the new systems  – which astronomers say appear through a telescope as "blue blobs" – contain only young, blue stars, which are distributed in an irregular pattern and seem to exist in surprising isolation from any potential parent galaxy. "It's a lesson in the unexpected," said Michael Jones, a postdoctoral fellow in the UArizona Steward Observatory who led the research. "When you're looking for things, you're not necessarily going to find the thing you're looking for, but you might find something else very interesting."
Education Week Monday
Thousands of students will face long COVID. Schools need to plan now

About 13.5 million children in the U.S. have had COVID-19, about 19% of all U.S. COVID-19 cases, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics. How many will have symptoms for weeks or months afterward isn't yet clear, but researchers estimate that it could be 20 to 30%. Dr. Sairam Parthasarathy, who is co-leading two studies of long COVID at the University of Arizona College of Medicine – Tucson, said better research is needed to accurately project how many children will battle COVID symptoms once the acute stage of illness has passed. But he believes the field is "hugely underestimating" its prevalence, because many doctors don't connect children's symptoms to COVID.
The Arizona Republic June 19, 2022
As other parts of Arizona see big employment growth, Tucson still hasn't recovered from 2020 job losses

Unemployment in Arizona currently sits at an all-time low of 3.2%, causing a labor shortage that has left businesses scrambling to find workers and vacancies. Arizona's job gains might not provide the full picture, however, said George Hammond, director of the Economic and Business Research Center at the University of Arizona. He noted that the state has so far only been able to replace jobs lost in the first two months of the COVID-19 pandemic. "We're going to need to see much faster workforce growth going forward if we're going to reverse this earlier trend," Hammond said.
Gizmodo June 18, 2022
The 11 best (and worst) sentient robots from sci-fi

University of Arizona associate professor, electrical and computer engineering and biomedical engineering Wolfgang Fink, a prominent artificial intelligence researcher, gave an interview to Software Development Times in which he noted the titular character in 2015's "Chappie" "has a self-sustaining drive" that is one of the hallmarks of sentience as we understand it.
The Associated Press June 18, 2022
Arizona wildfire near Kitt Peak observatory 40% contained

Incident commanders report 40% containment on the lightning-caused Contreras Fire southwest of Tucson. The blaze forced the evacuation of the Kitt Peak National Observatory and destroyed four non-scientific buildings. However, initially assessments indicated other buildings on the property, including the University of Arizona 12-meter Telescope, escaped damage. "We are in close contact with the (National Science Foundation's National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory) leadership, who are in direct contact with those leading the firefighting efforts," said University of Arizona President Robert C. Robbins. 
KSAZ-TV June 17, 2022
Monsoon fantasy forecasts – guess how rainy it'll get in Arizona this summer, win prizes

University of Arizona assistant research professor Zack Guido and colleagues have created a fantasy monsoon game, Southwest Monsoon Fantasy Forecasts, where people make predictions for this year's monsoon for a chance to win prizes. Players make a total of 15 forecasts over a three-month period, July through September. They can earn points through the riskiness and accuracy of their guesses.
The Associated Press June 16, 2022
President Biden nominates University of Arizona professor & alumna to US Court of Appeals seat

President Joe Biden on Wednesday nominated Roopali H. Desai, a professor of practice in the University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law, to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Desai earned her bachelor's, master's and Juris Doctor at the University of Arizona.
The Conversation June 16, 2022
The James Webb Space Telescope is finally ready to do science

NASA is scheduled to release the first images taken by the James Webb Space Telescope on July 12. They'll mark the beginning of the next era in astronomy as Webb – the largest space telescope ever built – begins collecting scientific data that will help answer questions about the earliest moments of the universe and allow astronomers to study exoplanets in greater detail than ever before. Marcia Rieke, an astronomer at the University of Arizona and the scientist in charge of one of Webb's four cameras, explains what she and her colleagues have been doing to get the telescope up and running.