University of Arizona in the News

Texas and Arizona along with Idaho and Utah ascended from pandemic depths, thanks to population growth, shifts by businesses and workers away from coastal urban areas. In Arizona, part of the reason it took less time to erase job losses was simply because Arizona employers eliminated fewer jobs in the first place, according to University of Arizona economist George Hammond of the Eller College of Management. "One big reason is because the stay-at-home order in Arizona wasn't very restrictive," Hammond said.

The highly-infectious nature of the omicron variant of COVID-19 likely will result in large numbers of people developing a hybrid immunity, from both vaccination and infection. And people who contract omicron will have even broader immune responses, said Deepta Bhattacharya, an immunologist at the University of Arizona. Though its constellation of mutations is unique, it is made up of individual changes that have been seen in other variants. "That really should buy us some more antigenic territory and hopefully some more time," he said.

This story reports on scholars' increasing attention on the seizure and excavation of antiquities from Greece and other countries by German forces during World War II. "Research has intensified greatly in many countries, including the United States, Germany, Italy, France, Poland and Greece," said Irene Bald Romano, a professor of anthropology at the University of Arizona and curator of Mediterranean Archaeology of the Arizona State Museum.

Backyard astronomers can look through their telescopes Tuesday night to catch a glimpse of a near-Earth asteroid zipping past our planet at 43,754 miles per hour. "While asteroid 7482 is passing by the Earth at about 5 times the Earth-Moon distance, its orbit is extremely well-determined, and it does not pose any impact risk to the Earth over the next century," said Amy Mainzer, a professor of asteroid surveys at the University of Arizona’s Lunar and Planetary Lab.

Faten Ghosn, a University of Arizona professor in the School of Government and Public Policy and Middle Eastern & North African studies, writes that while the Taliban feigns moderation on social media, the regime systematically violates human rights and tightens its autocratic grip on Afghanistan.

This story reports on scholars' increasing attention on the seizure and excavation of antiquities from Greece and other countries by German forces during World War II. "Research has intensified greatly in many countries, including the United States, Germany, Italy, France, Poland and Greece," said Irene Bald Romano, a professor in the University of Arizona School of Anthropology and the School of Art and curator of Mediterranean Archaeology of the Arizona State Museum.

University of Arizona professor of government & public policy and Middle Eastern & North African studies Faten Ghosn and a colleague write that while the Taliban feigns moderation on social media, the regime systematically violates human rights and tightens its autocratic grip on Afghanistan.

 Avoiding rejections protects our ego, but it also means we cheat ourselves out of growth. This story cites studies by University of Arizona psychology professor Robert C. Wilson that found there is "a 'just right' amount of failure" – about 15% of the attempts – that keeps people motivated.

Stephanie Troutman Robbins, department head of the University of Arizona's Gender & Women's Studies Program, contributes an essay explaining how she was influenced, personally and professionally, by the works of author bell hooks, who passed away Dec. 15.

University of Arizona President Robert C. Robbins discusses the strengths of the university’s role in space exploration and technology and Tucson's emergence as the "Space City of the Southwest."