University of Arizona in the News

Unprecedented dryness across the western United States is meeting with increasingly warm temperatures to create climate conditions so extreme that the landscape of California could permanently and profoundly change, a growing number of scientists say. Now, a growing body of evidence suggests that a prolonged period of dryness known as the Great Drought is to blame, at least partially, for their exodus. A similar drying has also been linked to the collapse of ancient cities in Mesopotamia and the Mayan Empire. Researchers say that can offer clues about what's to come.

In April 2021, NASA's Ingenuity Mars helicopter took flight and opened up a new era of off-the-ground exploration on the Red Planet. A team led by engineers at the University of Arizona wants to fly even higher with an ambitious concept for a motorless sailplane that could soar above the Martian surface. A paper published this month in the journal Aerospace details a preliminary design for the craft which would be equipped with sensors and cameras and use wind energy to fly for hours or even days.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.