University of Arizona in the News

In 2004, the National Science Foundation and the University of Arizona Controlled Environment Agriculture Center collaborated to build the South Pole Food Growth Chamber, intended to test the idea of controlled-environment agriculture – a means of maximizing plant growth while minimizing resource use.

The nationwide baby formula shortage – caused by supply chain issues and a February safety recall that shuttered a major manufacturing plant – prompted some on social media to suggest women should breastfeed because "it's free!" "Breastfeeding – and relatedly pumping breast milk – is not free because it consumes women's time and resources in ways that amount to another job on top of being a mother," said University of Arizona professor of management and organizations Allison S. Gabriel, an organizational psychologist.

In the wake of a recent shooting at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York, many African-Americans remain on edge. From lynchings and church bombings to the murder of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police and beyond, hate crimes have a cumulative impact. It shatters trust and can fuel collective anxiety, stress, depression, hopelessness and post-traumatic stress, experts said.

The international Event Horizon Telescope collaboration has snapped a second image of a black hole – this time at the center of our own Milky Way galaxy. But to give the image meaning, the collaboration had to compare it with black hole simulations. "Snapping an image is just the beginning. To really understand the object we're observing, we had to compare it to simulations," said Chi-Kwan "CK" Chan, a University of Arizona associate research professor in the College of Science's Steward Observatory.

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.

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.