University of Arizona in the News

Scientists have been trying to develop a vaccine for Valley fever since the 1960s. Tests of one candidate in the 1980s didn’t work well. However, in recent years, University of Arizona researchers led by Lisa Shubitz at the Valley Fever Center for Excellence developed a vaccine that's highly effective in dogs. While an approved Valley fever vaccine for humans remains years away, clinical trials may not be far off. "I'm really quite hopeful," said Dr. John Galgiani, director of the Valley Fever Center for Excellence.

A new study led by University of Arizona assistant professor of psychology and cognitive science Vicky Lai finds when people are in a negative mood, they may be quicker to spot inconsistencies in things they read.

Tribal groups are fighting an Arizona project whose backers say increasing the supply of copper, crucial to batteries, would reduce fossil-fuel use. There is an abundance of copper in Arizona, said Kray Luxbacher, head of the University of Arizona's Department of Mining and Geological Engineering, but there are daunting legal hurdles to starting new mines or smelting plants.

There are no bears on Mars, but the University of Arizona-run HiRISE camera on board NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter recently photographed a surface formation that looks like one. The "face" stretches roughly 6,560 feet across with a "nose" possibly formed by a volcanic or mud vent.

Several virologists published a commentary in mBio that states that all of the evidence to date indicates that the COVID-19 pandemic started naturally when a virus jumped from animals into people. Felicia Goodrum, a professor of immunobiology at the University of Arizona, is one of the authors. She says work with viruses is highly regulated and more regulation could slow down vital research. "The worst case scenario that I fear definitely is that we are going to limit our preparedness and our ability to respond to coming pandemics," Goodrum said.

Tribal nations hold the rights to significant portions of the Colorado River. In the increasing drought, some are showing the way to sustainability. Arizona law incentivizes underground water storage, which replenishes the state's aquifers, by allowing those who do it to sell water credits on the open market to developers and municipalities. "They essentially turned their water rights into a marketable asset," said Sharon Megdal, the director of the University of Arizona's Water Resources Research Center.

States dependent on the drought-stricken Colorado River may consider desalination to meet their demand for water. However, desalination plants come with a high price tag, require enormous amounts of energy, and pose problems for the environment. "Ocean water desalination has tremendous allure," said Robert Glennon, a Regents Professor Emeritus of Law and a water policy scholar at the University of Arizona. "The thought is that if we can just get the salt out of the water, everything can be fixed. But it's a kind of siren song that will turn bad."

Many scientists and researchers evoke images of familiar, earthly objects to convey the scope of asteroids and other near-Earth objects. Scientists don't have formal guidelines for describing the nature of asteroids on a human scale. "It's a real challenge to try and communicate physical properties of something that people aren't going to actually lay eyes on or have any personal experience with," said Eric Christensen, a University of Arizona astronomer who oversees a program that detects near-Earth objects.

Since beaming back its first iconic images, the James Webb Space Telescope has offered a never-before-seen perspective of the cosmos. "It showed that there were lots of galaxies far away, and that Hubble could not see the most distant ones," said Marcia Rieke, a Regents Professor of Astronomy at the University of Arizona and the principal investigator for the Near-Infrared Camera, one of four scientific instruments aboard the telescope.

Phil Pister, a biologist who singlehandedly saved a rare fish from extinction by walking through the desert at night with two buckets in his hands, has died at 94. Michael Bogan, an assistant professor in the School of Natural Resources and the Environment, discusses his experiences working with Pister.