University of Arizona in the News

Most scientists are confident that life exists on many of the 300 million potentially habitable worlds in the Milky Way galaxy and some may be home to intelligent life. University of Arizona Distinguished Professor of Astronomy Chris Impey examines the wisdom of broadcasting our location to anyone who may be out there listening.

New research finds the genes that shape dog behavior predate modern breeding efforts, which primarily have focused on appearance and, on average, breed only accounts for about 9% of the variations in any given dog's behavior. "This is one of the first papers to really do impressive dog genomics work using mixed breed dogs. And this paper just shows how valuable those populations can be," said Evan Maclean, director of the Arizona Canine Cognition Center at the University of Arizona who was not involved in the study.

Phyllis Taoua, a professor of Francophone studies at the University of Arizona, writes about the work of activists fighting corruption in Burkina Faso.

This story recounts the 1985 theft of Willem de Kooning's "Woman-Ochre" from the University of Arizona Museum of Art and the making of the new documentary about the crime, "The Thief Collector." The film premiered at this year's South by Southwest festival in Austin, Texas, where the filmmakers took part in a panel at the University of Arizona Wonder House.

Columnist Zeynep Tufecki examines the delayed rollout of a COVID-19 vaccine for children under 5. The author writes: "As Deepta Bhattacharya, an immunologist at the University of Arizona, explained to me, a singular measure doesn't capture all the benefits of vaccination. Vaccines train the immune system to recognize and more quickly respond to a virus, giving it a head start that he notes can 'reduce severity and reduce the period of time that you are contagious.'"

Five decades after the park service took over the Buffalo National River in Arkansas, the Cherokee can once again gather plants there to create medicine, food and supplies. An employee at the National Park Service came up with the idea for such a pact around 2014 and worked with researchers at the University of Arizona to propose the agreement to the Cherokee.

University of Arizona Distinguished Laureate Professor of Public Health and 17th U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Richard Carmona writes this guest column to encourage Arizonans to get a COVID-19 booster shot.

The presidents of the three Arizona public universities said that their institutions flourished during the pandemic, but the post-COVID changes in the economy will require more support from the business community and the Arizona Legislature. The three leaders spoke at an event sponsored by the Greater Phoenix Chamber of Commerce at the Musical Instrument Museum in Phoenix on Thursday. University of Arizona President Robert C. Robbins said that investment in early childhood education is vital for the success of the universities.

Alain-Philippe Durand, dean of the University of Arizona College of Humanities, and UArizona alumnus Bennett Dorrance write the humanities offer tools to approach topics with openness, tolerance and curiosity during a time of increasing political partisanship.

NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft will swing by Earth to deliver a sample from asteroid Bennu on Sept. 24, 2023. But it won't clock out after that. NASA has extended the University of Arizona-led mission, which will be renamed OSIRIS-APEX, to study near-Earth asteroid Apophis for 18 months. Apophis will make a close approach to Earth in 2029. Planetary sciences assistant professor and OSIRIS-REx deputy principal investigator Dani DellaGiustina will become principal investigator of OSIRIS-APEX.