University of Arizona in the News

Recent research suggests regular workouts create improved resistance to infectious – including COVID – but "there is a huge debate about whether or not too much exercise makes you more susceptible to infection and illness," said University of Arizona professor of nutritional sciences Richard Simpson, who studies exercise physiology and immunology. Marathon runners often report getting sick after races, Simpson said, and some researchers think that too much vigorous exercise could inadvertently overstimulate cytokines and inflammation in the body.  

Entrepreneurs from Arizona's tribal nations can develop their small businesses with help from the University of Arizona Native FORGE program, which seeks to support and develop Indigenous entrepreneurship.

Aari McDonald joined the University of Arizona's women's basketball program last week as director of recruiting. She will continue to play in the WNBA, returning to Tucson during her offseasons to work for the Wildcats and train under head coach Adia Barnes and assistant coach Salvo Coppa.

Research suggests about 3-6% of the 300,000 vasectomy patients each year will want to undo the procedure. “Sometimes a partner set on not having children reverses their stance," said Dr. Sheldon Marks, a clinical assistant professor of urology at the University of Arizona College of Medicine – Tucson, who performs reversal surgeries. "But couples change their minds. If both partners think that they're done having children, then a vasectomy is the easiest form of permanent birth control."

The University of Arizona uses the UAlert system, which sends out campus emergency alerts to subscribers to keep students and staff informed and safe.

Helen S. Schaefer, a champion of arts and cultural organizations and endeavors at the University of Arizona and across southern Arizona, and the namesake of the building the that houses the university's poetry center, died on Thursday. She was 89.

Canada has just approved an updated COVID-19 vaccine to target the first highly contagious omicron variant, with doses expected to start rolling out within days. Less than half of Canadians have received a booster, while only about 12% have received a fourth dose. "As we start to head into the fall and we start to see almost certainly cases rise again, the updated booster is definitely going to be better than not getting a booster at all," said University of Arizona professor of immunobiology Deepta Bhattacharya.

A proposed Chilean constitution would enshrine some of the world's most extensive Indigenous rights. But those reforms have become the focal point of the campaign to reject the new text. By some measures, the United States is at the forefront of Indigenous rights. "Though far from perfect, there is no comparison in the world with the degree of self-governing powers U.S. Indian tribes have," said University of Arizona Regents Professor of Law Robert Williams Jr., an Indigenous rights expert.

This column supports the concept of students entering income-share agreements rather than taking out loans to fund their university education. University of Arizona assistant professor of economics Daniel Herbst and a colleague last year wrote a paper about financing human capital in which they said that being able to sell a share of a lifetime stream of income would be very valuable to someone who was trying to start businesses without a track record.

The director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Thursday recommended updated coronavirus booster shots to the vast majority of Americans, adding a critical new tool to the country's arsenal as it tries to blunt an expected wintertime surge of the virus. Deepta Bhattacharya, an immunologist at the University of Arizona, said that CDC recommendations could afford to space out doses of routine childhood vaccines at precisely the right intervals because children are unlikely to be exposed to those pathogens in the interim.