University of Arizona in the News

The New York Times Dec. 14, 2021
Why the world's astronomers are very, very anxious right now

"You work for years and it all goes up in a puff of smoke," said Marcia Rieke of the University of Arizona. Rieke admits her fingers will be crossed on the morning of Dec. 22 when she tunes in for the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope. For 20 years, she has been working to design and build an ultrasensitive infrared camera that will live aboard the spacecraft. The Webb is the vaunted bigger and more powerful successor to the Hubble Space Telescope. Astronomers expect that it will pierce a dark curtain of ignorance and supposition about the early days of the universe, and allow them to snoop on nearby exoplanets.
The New York Times Dec. 13, 2021
Rising from the Antarctic, a climate alarm

Experts say wilder winds are altering currents, the sea is releasing carbon dioxide and that ice is melting from below. "From no perspective is there any place more important than the Southern Ocean," said Joellen L. Russell, an oceanographer at the University of Arizona. "There’s nothing like it on Planet Earth."
Arizona Daily Star Dec. 13, 2021
Arizona Wildcats move up to No. 4 in AP poll, the highest ranking in program history

The University of Arizona women's basketball team achieved another historical milestone under Adia Barnes when the Wildcats checked in at No. 4 in the latest Associated Press Top 25 poll. The Wildcats' latest position in the AP poll is the highest regular-season ranking in program history. UArizona and Baylor are the only two schools to have both men's and women's basketball programs ranked in the Top 10.
Boing Boing Dec. 13, 2021
Here's why the new James Webb Space Telescope is so cool

Soon, NASA will launch the James Webb Space Telescope, the most powerful space observatory in history and the world's biggest science project. An explainer video written and starring University of Arizona astronomer Kevin Hainline helps explain the project's significance.
CNN Dec. 13, 2021
Look up to see bright Comet Leonard this month before it vanishes forever

Comet C/2021 A1 Leonard will pass by Earth next month on its first visit in about 70,000 years. The comet was discovered on Jan. 3 by University of Arizona planetary sciences senior researcher Gregory Leonard at the Mount Lemmon SkyCenter Observatory.
Forbes Dec. 11, 2021
'Don’t Look Up' highlights potential global catastrophe with dark humor

This review of Netflix's new movie, "Don't Look Up" includes an interview with University of Arizona astronomer and professor of planetary science Amy Mainzer, the principal investigator of NASA's Near-Earth Object Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (Neowise) mission, who served as scientific adviser on the film. "My position is we should be going out and looking for these objects. Just go out and look, and either you find one that's headed your way, or you don't. And if you don't, you can just cross this worry off of our list of collective worries," she said
The Washington Post, 12/10/21 Dec. 10, 2021
Native Americans' farming practices may help feed a warming world

This story highlights the work of several University of Arizona programs and researchers focused on "reimagining and remaking agriculture in a warming world" by adapting practices used by indigenous farmers for millennia. Featured faculty include geography professor Greg Barron-Gafford, who leads a team examining the effectiveness of agrivoltaics – growing crops under solar panels – at Biosphere 2; research scientist Benjamin Wilder, director of Desert Laboratory on Tumamoc Hill, which plans to open a resilience garden next spring, using passive rainwater harvesting and other centuries-old strategies to grow a variety of edible, arid-adapted plants; and research social scientist Gary Nabhan with the Southwest Center. "We've had 5,000 years of farmers trying out different strategies for dealing with heat, drought and water scarcity. We need to begin to translate that," Nabhan said.
The Associated Press Dec. 10, 2021
Pandemic mystery: Scientists focus on COVID's animal origins

Nearly two years into the COVID-19 pandemic, most scientists believe the virus emerged in the wild and jumped from bats 3to humans, either directly or through another animal. Others theorize it escaped from a Chinese lab. Michael Worobey, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Arizona last month published a COVID-19 timeline linking the first known human case to the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan, China, where live animals were sold. "The lab leak idea is almost certainly a huge distraction that’s taking focus away from what actually happened," he said.
GeekDad Dec. 9, 2021
Netflix original 'Don’t Look Up' hits the big screen before streaming

This preview of Netflix's new movie, "Don't Look Up" includes an interview with Amy Mainzer, professor in the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory at the University of Arizona, who served as a consultant on the film.
The Conversation Dec. 9, 2021
James Webb Space Telescope: what astronomers hope it will reveal about the beginning of the universe

The gigantic James Webb Space Telescope is undergoing its final tests ahead of the launch scheduled for late December. University of Arizona Regents professor of astronomy Marcia Rieke appears on The Conversation Weekly podcast to discuss the development of the telescope and the questions she hopes it will answer about the beginning of the universe. "We have some clues that a range of sizes of galaxies or star clusters formed early on," says Rieke, "but we don't understand what that range of sizes is. Nor do we understand very well how those pieces come together to form bigger and bigger galaxies."