University of Arizona in the News

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.

Celina Ramirez, vice president for university initiatives at the University of Arizona, describes why it is important to offer each other grace at the beginning of a new academic year.

Preparing for more extreme heat will require rethinking how cities are planned. Researchers have known for more than 200 years that cities tend to be hotter than their rural counterparts because of what's now understood as the urban-heat-island effect. And within cities themselves, extra heat isn't equally distributed, in part, because neither is tree coverage. "We know from research that the hotter areas of the cities tend to be lower-income, marginalized, historically redlined communities.

Arizona and Nevada will be hit with another round of cuts to their water supply, as the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation said Tuesday that the ongoing drought continues to threaten water levels of the Colorado River and, by extension, impact communities across the West. Jeffrey Silvertooth, a University of Arizona professor of environmental science with expertise in water usage as it relates to agriculture, is interviewed.

If climate change continues unabated, South Florida could go from steamy to scorching, adding an extra month of "extreme heat" days by mid-century. A report released Monday from the nonprofit climate research group First Street Foundation found that Miami-Dade leads the nation as the county that could see the sharpest increase in dangerous hot days over the next 30 years, when the U.S. could be an average of 3 degrees hotter. One solution from the county is cooling centers or heat shelters.

Water levels in Lake Mead have risen for the first time in three years, thanks to the most active monsoon in a decade. As of Monday 15, the lake's levels were at 1,042.29 feet, 18 inches higher than a July measurement. "(Lake Mead) is all about storage ... and it's about seasonality of precipitation. And snow.

Marc L. Miller, dean and Ralph W. Bilby Professor at the University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law, and Robert A. Williams Jr., Regents Professor, E. Thomas Sullivan Professor of Law and faculty co-chair of the University of Arizona Indigenous Peoples Law and Policy Program, and colleagues, write law schools should be free to individualize admission criteria, and they encourage the American Bar Association Council on Legal Education to repeal its 50-year-old Standard 503, which requires almost all applicants for J.D. programs to submit standardized test scores.

Sending off a child to college can be one of the most exciting and yet emotionally fraught experiences a mom or dad can go through. But students benefit when allowed to start their new adventure in higher education without parents hovering over them. "Behavioral scientists believe that 'helicopter parenting' interferes with normal developmental experiences that allow children to build their own problem-solving skills and competence," said Chris Segrin, head of the University of Arizona's Department of Communication.

As principal investigator for the Near-Infrared Camera, the primary imager on the James Webb Space Telescope, Marcia Rieke knew the capabilities of the device she developed, but not until the telescope sent back its first jaw-dropping images in mid-July that the astrophysicist and professor at the University of Arizona, realized the full extent of her work. "Everyone was astounded at how beautiful and detailed the pictures were. I was above cloud nine because these were such stunning pictures," Rieke said.

The unsealed search warrant the FBI executed at Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago property revealed the agency believes former President may have violated the Espionage Act of 1917, among other potential crimes. Anyone convicted of violating the Act could face a fine or up to 10 years in prison. Derek Bambauer, a law professor at the University of Arizona, said the act is a "core" part of national security law and was designed to allow the government to prosecute people with sensitive information that could put the country's national security at risk.