University of Arizona in the News

President Joe Biden warned Wednesday that the country will likely see "another tough hurricane season" this year, and he pledged that his administration was prepared to respond to the storms and help Americans recover from them. This year, the University of Arizona and other major national forecasting centers predict a busier-than-average hurricane season. "We know hurricanes are coming our way. They grow more extreme every season," Biden said.

University of Arizona Regents Professor of Astronomy Marcia Rieke, principal investigator for the Near Infrared Camera aboard the James Webb Space Telescope, discusses how Webb may transform our understanding of the universe.

University of Arizona associate professor of natural resources Donald Falk and colleagues in March published a review paper that looked at the ecological processes involved with dry, brittle and, often burning forests. Falk discusses how resilient the state's forests might be to increasing threats from climate change and what people can do to protect these beloved landscapes.

Maha Nassar, an associate professor in the School of Middle Eastern and North African Studies at the University of Arizona, writes about the historical imbalance of media coverage regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The "Strange Slope" – a hill about 20 miles northeast of the city of Shenyang in China's Liaoning Province – creates an optical illusion in which it appears traffic going downhill is going uphill and vice versa. Jose Sasian, professor of optical sciences and astronomy at the James C. Wyant College of Optical Sciences at the University of Arizona, believes that the effect is created by the building in the background appearing to be seen from above. "The near vanishing point also contributes to the illusion," he added.

Maha Nassar, an associate professor in the School of Middle Eastern and North African Studies at the University of Arizona, writes about the historical imbalance of media coverage regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

University of Arizona professor of nursing Terry Badger received a four-year, $4 million American Cancer Society grant to improve health equity for Hispanic cancer survivors and their family caregivers through the creation of a Cancer Health Equity Research Center. "By looking at social determinants of health, we're hoping to come up with ideas of how we can decrease health disparities and enable people to access the health care they need," Badger said.

From social distancing to vaccine disputes to the inability to be with loved ones in their final hours, isolation was a key symptom of the pandemic. "Many people have not been able to spend time at the bedside in a hospital or long-term care facility, and that is very unusual for human beings – not to be able to provide that care," said University of Arizona associate professor of psychology Mary-Frances O'Connor. "People I have been doing research with just tell me, 'It feels like it hasn’t sunk in.

Aria Bernal graduated this week with a degree in environmental science from the University of Arizona. Bernal competed on the swim team and plans to attend graduate school to earn a master's degree in environmental science and continue swimming.

The first image of the black hole located at the center of our own Milky Way galaxy, called Sagittarius A*, was unveiled today by the international Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration. The discovery would not have been possible without the groundwork and heavy lifting provided by UArizona scientists and facilities. Feryal Özel, a professor of astronomy and physics at the University of Arizona and a founding member of the international Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration, joined a panel of EHT researchers in describing and answering questions about this new scientific discovery.