University of Arizona in the News

University of Arizona students, faculty and staff can now download and opt in to the Covid Watch exposure notification smartphone app

As the University of Arizona prepares for the start of classes on Monday, a number of measures have been implemented to help mitigate the risk for COVID-19.

Wearing a mask in public restrooms should be mandatory during the pandemic, researchers say, because there's increasing evidence that flushing toilets – and now urinals – can release inhalable coronavirus particles into the air. "Potentially, it could contaminate other surfaces you would touch – the handle, the tap," said Charles Gerba, a professor of virology at the University of Arizona.

"If you had a really good, firm calendar date for this event ... it would mean that at any archaeological site in that region where you hit the ash, you would have an exact dated layer," said Charlotte Pearson.

The University of Arizona received a $3 million grant to continue working with Indigenous communities to remove barriers around screenings for colorectal cancer, the second-most diagnosed cancer and the third-most common cause of cancer-related deaths in the U.S.

For his internship, University of Arizona student Josh Smith helped model power propulsion systems for autonomous vehicles. When he wasn't working on this project, he was attending virtual events organized by the Office of STEM Engagement for interns, which included presentations from employees and guided virtual tours.

 If you're feeling anxious, depressed or exhausted in the wake of COVID-19, you're not alone, says University of Arizona psychologist David Sbarra.

It's unclear how much excluding a significant chunk of test results is altering percent positivity rates, according to Joe Gerald, a University of Arizona associate professor who for months has modeled the spread of COVID-19 in Arizona.

"Things are really working as they're supposed to," said Deepta Bhattacharya, an immunologist at the University of Arizona and an author on one of the new studies.

"The eruptions on Io are many orders of magnitude bigger than what's happening on Earth today,”"said Alfred McEwen, IVO's principal investigator and Regents Professor of planetary sciences at the University of Arizona.