University of Arizona in the News

The University of Arizona on Wednesday celebrated the grand opening of the Student Success District, a nine-acre, four-buildings section of campus houses resources students need to thrive, including library services, learning support, tutoring, advising, mentoring, career services and health programs.

The death rate of Latinos in Los Angeles rose dramatically more than any other ethnic group during the COVID-19 pandemic. While all ethnic groups suffered more than usual deaths during the first year of the pandemic, only the Latino population saw the trend continue the following year. That challenges what has been called the "Latino health paradox," or the tendency for people of Hispanic or Latino descent to live longer than their counterparts, including non-Hispanic White people.

A study led by University of Arizona ecology and evolutionary biology researched Michiel Pillet estimates that, by midcentury, global warming could put 60% of cactus species at greater risk of extinction. Most cactus species "are in some way adapted to the climates and the environments that they live in," Pillet said. "Even a slight change may be too much for them to adapt over shorter time scales."

This story reports on local efforts nationwide to track COVID-19 outbreaks by examining wastewater. The feature photo shows coronavirus trackers in August 2020 collecting wastewater samples from a University of Arizona dormitory.

In the last three weeks, BA.2 has become the dominant COVID variant in the U.S., now accounting for 86% of cases, per the CDC. Meanwhile, U.S. cases have hovered at around 28,000 new reports daily, a plateau not seen since last June. And daily hospitalizations, perhaps the most telling pandemic indicator, dropped to around 1,400 nationwide, less than a tenth of the rate at the height of January's Omicron spike.

A bill currently working its way through California's state legislature would move non-union, hourly workers at large companies to a 32-hour week with no cut in pay. "There's this hope that having a four-day workweek will lead to greater job satisfaction, a better work-life balance – especially having longer weekends and some time off that allows for traveling – and less commuting," said Oliver Schilke, an associate professor in the University of Arizona's Eller College of Management.

University Distinguished Professor Joellen Russell and colleagues write that a new collection of aerial photos adds to a near half-century perspective of irrefutable and dramatic climate change impacts on New Zealand's frozen landscapes.

This story summarizes the University of Arizona's leading position in space sciences, including such high-profile NASA projects as the OSIRIS-REx and HelioSwarm missions, the James Webb Space Telescope and Giant Magellan Telescope.

A new suicide prevention initiative from Campus Health Service is available to both students and employees. The initiative's website, preventsuicide.arizona.edu, provides information on how to recognize warning signs of suicide, how to help others and how to support survivors of suicide attempts, along with a host of other resources.

A plan to return federally endangered California condors to a rugged and remote stretch of Northern California coastline and redwood forests is taking shape on Yurok tribal lands where the Klamath River meets the Pacific Ocean. Critics of such proposals include John Wiens, a professor at the University of Arizona and an expert on climate-related extinctions. "It's treating California condors – the largest land bird in North America – like livestock," he said. "It's also opening the door for sacrificing any number of other captive-bred imperiled species."