University of Arizona in the News

NASA provided an update Wednesday on the James Webb Space Telescope ahead of the release of its first full-color images and scientific data on July 12, an event expected to include the deepest views of the galaxy ever seen. The agency also extended JWST's projected lifespan from 5-10 years to 20 years. "There's a lot of things that had to happen to all of our very sensitive cameras," said University of Arizona assistant research professor of astronomy Kevin Hainline.

This story reports on the increasing use of agrivoltaics, which involves growing food crops under and around solar panels. The practice became of interest more than a decade ago because "big installations in the middle of nowhere aren't going to solve all of our energy problems – transporting that energy can be very expensive," said Greg Barron-Gafford, a biogeographer and an assistant professor at the University of Arizona.

Undergraduate students from the state's 22 federally recognized Native American tribes will no longer have to pay tuition and mandatory fees at the University of Arizona main campus in Tucson. This fall, new and continuing full-time, degree-seeking undergraduates will be eligible for the Arizona Native Scholars Grant, the first program of its kind in Arizona.

The Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday approved a plan to tweak the nation's next round of COVID-19 vaccines to include some version of the omicron variant. Many outside experts agree with the decision, including University of Arizona immunobiologist Deepta Bhattacharya. "Very clearly, I think what they should be doing is recommending that probably all vaccines include a component of omicron in there," he said.

The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation recently began tests on a new tool designed to better project summer rainfall associated with the North American Monsoon. "When we're thinking about really long lead times, and the ability of models to forecast if there's moisture available and the atmospheric patterns are in the right configuration, advancing beyond this traditional approach of looking myopically at temperature and precipitation is the way to go," said Chris Castro, an expert on the North American Monsoon at the University of Arizona.

Experts say heat is the top weather-related killer. On average, more people in the U.S. die from extreme heat than any other severe weather event, including tornados, hurricanes and flooding combined, according to the National Weather Service.

Research on guns and gun violence is seriously underdeveloped relative to the public health problem that guns represent.

University of Arizona women's basketball head coach Adia Barnes talks about the investment in women's sports, what the next step in equity looks like, and what things might look like when her nearly 2-year old daughter, Capri, grows up.

After some restrictions on gun permits were deemed unconstitutional by the nation's highest court, legislators across the country announced plans to craft new laws consistent with the ruling while still creating limits. "This case reflects broad-based cultural changes already underway in most other states with regard to the lawful carrying of guns in public," said Jennifer Carlson, an associate professor of sociology and government and public policy at the University of Arizona.

It has long been known that intense periods of sleep deprivation are bad for your health. In the first experimental study of sleep deprivation, published in 1894 by the Russian scientist Maria Manasseina, puppies were forced to stay awake through constant stimulation; they died within five days. Studies like that were seen as extreme to the point of being irrelevant to humans. While research continued "that was where it was sort of pigeonholed," said Fabian Fernandez, a neuroscientist at the University of Arizona who did not contribute to the new review.