University of Arizona in the News

The largest asteroid that has been predicted to make a close approach of Earth this year will zip by from a safe distance on Sunday, according to NASA. "We're trying to do geology with a telescope," said Vishnu Reddy, associate professor at the University of Arizona's Lunar and Planetary Laboratory. "We're going to use the (telescope) to get the infrared spectrum to see its chemical makeup. Once we know that, we can make comparisons with meteorites on Earth to find out what minerals 2001 FO32 contains."

"The home office has a lot more bacteria than work offices do," said Charles Gerba, a professor of environmental microbiology at the University of Arizona. At home, he notes, you may have family members sharing spaces, and consuming more food and drinks while they work. "Even in my own home, our computer area is littered with sticky notes, mail, Coke cans and snacks," he said.

Diana Liverman, a Regents Professor of Geography and Development at the University of Arizona, is interviewed about how her childhood sparked her interest in climate justice, what she wishes the media would get right about the climate crisis, and how to make sure climate adaptations are fair.

"The Heist," the true story of the theft of Willem de Kooning's "Woman-Ochre" from the University of Arizona Museum of Art, is in the works from "The Love Bugs" director Allison Otto.

University of Arizona women's basketball player Aari McDonald writes a tribute essay to last year's seniors whose season was cut short due to the COVID-19 pandemic. "When I thought about our seniors, something didn't feel right about me leaving school early. I really took that to heart. I wanted to come back and achieve more. I wanted to take this program somewhere it’s never been. That's what I came here to do," McDonald writes.

Researchers working to show when and how the virus first emerged in China calculate that it probably did not infect the first human being until October 2019 at the very earliest. And their models showed something else: It almost didn't make it as a pandemic virus. "It was a perfect storm – we know now that it had to catch a lucky break or two to actually firmly become established," said Michael Worobey, head of the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Arizona who worked on the study.

Genomics studies are helping to reveal how bacteria and archaea influence one of Earth’s largest carbon stores as it begins to thaw. Although there are other efforts to study the microbes that dwell in permafrost, this project, known as IsoGenie, is one of the largest and longest-running field studies of its kind. "We put together measurements in geochemistry and microbial ecology, two things that are in completely different areas, to find out something new," said Scott Saleska, an ecologist at the University of Arizona in Tucson and a co-founder of the project.

Experts say pandemic survivor guilt may be pervasive, but it is hard to detect, leaving many struggling in silence. About 10-20% of people who live through a traumatic event like a serious accident or illness have persisting mental health issues, which can include survivor guilt, said Mary-Frances O’Connor, an associate professor of psychology at the University of Arizona who studies loss and bereavement. She expects those rates to be similar for the pandemic, although "it's still early days," she said. "We don't have a lot of data yet."

Deepta Bhattacharya, an associate professor in the Department of Immunobiology and a member of the university's BIO5 Institute who studies immune responses to infections and vaccines, discusses how long people need to wait until they can consider themselves "fully vaccinated."

Researchers have used puppies to show dogs' ability to understand human pointing – a rarity in the animal kingdom and key to social intelligence – appears to be hardwired in canine DNA. Evan MacLean, director of the Arizona Canine Cognition Center at the University of Arizona and study author, is interviewed.