University of Arizona in the News

As the polarization of public life deepens in the U.S., some companies see opportunity to attract customers. While political messaging cultivates loyalty among a devoted set of customers with matching beliefs, businesses risk damaging their bottom lines and further exacerbating polarization, since such ads alienate consumers with opposing views and freight everyday purchases with political overtones.

A monsoon is a seasonal change in wind patterns that delivers rainfall to a large area or continent, typically causing dry winters and wet summers. Although people often think of monsoons as a steady downpour that drenches the entire region for weeks or months on end, that is rarely the case: Monsoons are highly variable from day to day and year to year. In 2020, for example, the Southwest set a record for the driest and hottest monsoon season with just 2.97 inches of rainfall – followed by one of its wettest monsoon seasons ever in 2021 with 7.93 inches.

The 1922 Colorado River Compact virtually ignored tribal communities, but amid drought, Indigenous leaders have gained a say in what happens next. Tribes' access to legal assistance to advocate for asserting, protecting and quantifying their water rights has increased over the past 50 years as the Native American Rights Fund and other such organizations were founded.

A 2021 study found Indigenous peoples face the great challenges due to the historical dispossession of 99% of their native land. The University of Arizona Indigenous Resource Center, founded by associate professor of environmental science Karletta Chief, connects students to Indigenous communities to solve problems with water, food and natural resources caused by climate change with funding from the National Science Foundation.

Last August, the federal government declared a water shortage on the Colorado River for the first time in response to projections that Lake Mead, the nation's largest reservoir, would be at just 34% of its capacity by the end of 2020. The declaration, known as a Tier 1 shortage, triggered cuts that affected Central Arizona, which has low-priority rights. Farmers in Pinal County, who grow alfalfa, wheat and other crops, suffered the most, said Paul Brierley, a former farmer who now leads the Yuma Center of Excellence for Desert Agriculture at the University of Arizona.

Agriculture uses nearly 80% of the water from the Colorado River and fallowing – or paying farmers and ranchers to pause growing on their land – would free up supply. While experts agree desalination isn't going to solve the Colorado River crisis, Sharon Megdal, who studies water policy at the University of Arizona, says the Southwest shouldn't write it off completely. "When we're looking at the full mix and the full portfolio, I think there's a role for desalinated seawater.

Global warming is damaging the vast web of asphalt and concrete we use to move around. Fixing the problem won't be cheap and ultimately will have to be solved at a local level, since building roads is largely the province of municipal authorities and elected officials. "It's not so much a technical but a sociopolitical problem," said Ladd Keith, an assistant professor of planning and sustainable built environments at the University of Arizona.

The federal government wants to roll out another round of COVID-19 boosters this fall, but drugmakers are still testing the new boosters. Some scientists say health officials know enough about how vaccines work to start handling the COVID-19 vaccines like the flu vaccines, which are changed every year to try to match whatever strains are likely to be circulating but aren't routinely tested again every year.

The historic image of the black hole in the center of the Milky Way galaxy released May 12 by the Event Horizon Telescope confirmed what skywatchers had suspected for a long time.

Global warming may be a contributing factor in the spread of diseases like monkeypox to non-endemic areas. University of Arizona associate professor of public health Heidi Brown, who researches vector-borne and zoonotic diseases, spatial epidemiology and climate change, discusses how shifting disease patterns can be attributed to a warming world by speeding up virus replication, and increasing the probability of humans coming into contact with diseases or disease vectors.