University of Arizona in the News

University of Arizona research indicates the state's economy has seen substantial recovery toward its pre-pandemic peak last February but that the breadth of the recovery during the pandemic has varied widely by both job sector and by geography. Professor George Hammond of the university's Eller Economic Business and Research Center reports that Arizona as of December outpaced the nation as a whole by replacing over two-thirds of the 294,600 jobs lost from February to April while remaining 90,100 jobs below the February Peak.

Deepta Bhattacharya, an associate professor in the University of Arizona's Department of Immunobiology, is deeply involved in research related to COVID-19. His lab is a leader in researching how vaccines generate an adequate immune response to the virus including their safety, efficacy and role in getting us past the pandemic.

Experts say a spat between the European Union and the British-Swedish pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca is threatening to hamper global vaccine efforts, and is raising tensions on the continent as European countries struggle to vaccinate their populations amid the threat of new, more virulent strains of the coronavirus. It has turned into "a very bureaucratically cumbersome process," said Paulette Kurzer, an expert on European politics and public health at the University of Arizona. The EU had to consult with the individual governments and balance all their interests.

A new study examines the planning challenges that residents and officials in the rural mountain American West have been watching unfold for years. The researchers specifically looked at over 1,500 "gateway communities" – rural communities adjacent to national parks, forests, rivers and other outdoor recreational amenities.

The United States is in a race against time to vaccinate as many people as possible before other potentially more worrisome variants of the coronavirus emerge, according to experts. "The reason we're doing this phased approach is because there is limited supply," said Deepta Bhattacharya, an associate professor of immunobiology at the University of Arizona. "By and large, if you can fix the supply issues, you can vaccinate as many people as fast as possible."

Since its launch in September 2016, the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft has traveled billions of miles, mapped the surface of an asteroid in unprecedented detail, and made new scientific discoveries about near-Earth asteroids. Now, it's preparing to bring a piece of asteroid Bennu home.

There are three mutated variants of SARS-CoV-2 of particular concern around the world. The rise of these variants "may have something to do with the use of convalescent plasma," said Michael Worobey, head of the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Arizona.

In the past two years, researchers have found several possible black holes in the mass gap. Then, earlier this month, astronomers presented evidence of what might be our best candidate yet — a 2.9-solar-mass object dubbed "the unicorn." If the unicorn really is a black hole, it could be one of many in this gap waiting to be discovered and studied. "That's what's exciting about this paper.

NASA has awarded $3.1 million to Christopher Hamilton in the University of Arizona's Lunar and Planetary Laboratory to develop a drone that could act as a "field assistant" to a rover and explore previously inaccessible regions on Mars.

A collaboration between University of Arizona, cotton growers, and government and industry partners eradicated the pink bollworm – one of the world's most damaging crop pests – from the United States and Mexico.