University of Arizona in the News

University of Arizona associate professor of geosciences Jianjun Yin writes that "(sea) levels are rising whether people are ready or not, and that will bring profound flood risks to large parts of the Gulf and Atlantic coasts and the U.S. economy."

Since the 1990s, a warming climate has shortened winters, extending the duration and expanding the reach of traditionally seasonal illnesses such as Lyme disease and Valley fever. University of Arizona climate scientist Andrew Comrie suspects that Valley fever is already quietly trekking north, as desert-like conditions spread up the Mountain West.

Communities of color bear a disproportionate burden from pollution, research shows. But using race to allocate federal help could result in legal problems. "The intention is to address some of these longstanding disparate harms," said Toni M. Massaro, a professor of constitutional law at the University of Arizona. Then comes the hard work of figuring out how to operationalize that, and a constraint that they have is that they must do so that is consistent with the case law. There's campaign talk and then there's write-the-law talk."

Researchers at the University of Arizona's Lunar and Planetary Laboratory confirm a hefty chunk of space junk expected to meet a fiery end on the far side of the Moon turns out to be a rocket booster from a Chinese mission in October 2014.

Craig Nazareth an assistant professor of practice of intelligence and information operations at the University of Arizona, writes that as the U.S. and other NATO member governments monitor Russia's activities and determine appropriate policy responses, social media, big data, smartphones and low-cost satellites have taken center stage.

Laura Brandimarte, an assistant professor of management information systems at the University of Arizona, writes that understanding the nature of privacy calls for a better understanding of its origins.

NASA's new space telescope captured its first starlight Feb. 11 and even took a selfie of its giant, gold mirror. All 18 segments of the primary mirror on the James Webb Space Telescope seem to be working properly six weeks into the mission, officials said Friday. The telescope's first target was a bright star 258 light-years away in the constellation Ursa Major.

Misha Harrison, executive director of experience with University of Arizona Marketing and Brand Management, appears as a guest to discuss the UArizona Wonder House at South by Southwest in Austin, Texas, next month and what story the university is telling about itself and Tucson at this global festival.

The spacecraft recorded a series of images of a target star that will be used to help its mirrors prepare for scientific research. Marcia Rieke, a professor of astronomy at the University of Arizona who led the team that built NIRCam, described the Webb team as "ecstatic."

New research shows that hamsters and deer can pass COVID-19 to humans. "It is potentially concerning that something could end up in something like whitetail deer and evolve for, let's say, five or 10 years in that population, and then jump back into humans and have picked up a whole bunch of mutations that allow for escape from human immune responses, or some degree of escape," said Michael Worobey, head of the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Arizona.