University of Arizona in the News

University of Arizona alumna Dana Mathewson enters the Tokyo Paralympic Games as America’s biggest hope for gold in the wheelchair tennis singles.

When the world's newest volcano burst open in the Geldingadalir valley in southwest Iceland, Christopher Hamilton, an associate professor of planetary sciences at the University of Arizona and adjunct professor at the University of Iceland, happened to be in the country on sabbatical. He told 60 Minutes Iceland provided the perfect substitute for the rugged volcanic landscape found on Mars to test the RAVEN drone he developed with a $3 million NASA grant. "The drone has completely revolutionized the way that we do fieldwork," Hamilton said.

The top U.S. public health officials announced this week that all Americans can get a booster shot starting the third week of September. The federal guidance says adults over the age of 18 will be eligible for another dose of Pfizer or Moderna eight months after their second dose.

"Missing in Brooks County," a documentary by filmmakers and University of Arizona School of Theatre, Film & Television faculty Lisa Molomot and Jeff Bemiss, is reviewed.

It is impossible to say how the coronavirus will continue to evolve. Those changes, after all, are a result of random mutations. But there are some fundamental principles that explain why the virus has morphed as it has, principles that could guide our understanding of its ongoing evolution – and what that means for our future with the pathogen.

Samara Klar, an associate professor in the University of Arizona's School of Government and Public Policy, discusses how the current COVID wave might affect public opinion and, more important, public behavior. "We're seeing the gap mostly among those people who personally dislike the other party, and that's weird," Klar said. "It's weird for your views on a public health crisis to be guided by your personal feelings toward members of the other party, but that is in fact what we're finding."

Maggy Zanger, professor of practice in the University of Arizona School of Journalism; Atifa Rawanm, emeritus library faculty who has directed and consulted on several university projects with Afghanistan academic institutions; Jeannine Relly, a UArizona professor who worked on the Afghan journalism partnership; Julie Ellison-Speight, associate director in the Center for Middle Eastern Studies Associate Director; and Anne Betteridge, director of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, write that Americans have a special obligation for the safety and security of the most desperate Afghans at

In the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's report released last week, the different emissions levels of the various scenarios drive different levels of warming in climate models, resulting in a range of physical impacts on the planet. The implications of the different socioeconomic storylines will come into play more in the second and third chapters of the new IPCC report, slated for release in 2022, since these chapters focus on climate adaptation and mitigation, says University of Arizona climate scientist and IPCC co-author Jessica Tierney.

Unearthed from the Mazon Creek deposit in northeastern Illinois, and dating back 310 million years, scientists discovered the first fossilized horseshoe crab brain ever found. "This is a completely different mode of brain preservation," said Nicholas Strausfeld, a neuroanatomist at the University of Arizona who was among the first to report a fossilized arthropod brain in 2012 but wasn't involved in this study. "It's remarkable."

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act is having a moment in the spotlight, but the federal health-care privacy law is in many cases being mischaracterized or misused. "What people really need to know to protect themselves is, what are the cases in their area? Is there a surge?" said Tara Sklar, a professor of health law at the University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law.