University of Arizona in the News

University of Arizona associate professor Jekan Thanga and a team of student researchers in the College of Engineering are developing smart, robot-built sandbag shelters for astronauts on future NASA missions to the moon. The structures take their inspiration from cathedral termite mounds, which can soar as high as 23 feet and stand for as long as 80 years.

In the same lab where University of Arizona scientists invented ways to decipher Earth's climate history in tree rings, associate professor Bryan Black is using a similar technique – but with tiny fish bones.

Research led by University of Arizona professor of psychology David Sbarra finds people who get divorced have an increased risk of death compared with those who stay married.

NASA recently announced that the University of Arizona-led OSIRIS-REx mission returned to Earth with 121.6 grams of rocks and dust from the asteroid Bennu – more than twice the amount required to declare the mission a success. The final tally came after technicians at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston unstuck two stubborn fasteners and emptied the Touch-and-Go Sample Acquisition Mechanism, the part of the spacecraft that actually contacted Bennu's surface in 2020, and suffered damage during the reentry process last September.

Serving as the heart of knowledge and scholarship in higher education, academic libraries are uniquely positioned to advance and support digital and data-driven storytelling and archival efforts, especially as they relate to marginalized communities. This concept is exemplified by the University of Arizona Libraries' work through the Digital Borderlands Project, a grant project funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation that began in 2020 and utilizes digital technologies to improve understanding of Hispanic and Indigenous populations living near the U.S.-Mexico border.

A new study published in the journal JAMA Network Open finds tai chi, the traditional, slow-moving form of Chinese martial art, does a better job than conventional aerobic exercise at lowering blood pressure in middle-aged people with prehypertension. It appears practice tends to elicit more of a response from the parasympathetic nervous system, according to University of Arizona professor of nursing Ruth Taylor-Piliae, who was not involved in the study. The parasympathetic nervous system is the network of nerves that relaxes your body after periods of stress or danger.

A Wisconsin couple, Lowell and Wendy Franklin, donated approximately 200 items collected by his father while serving aboard the USS Arizona prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor to the University of Arizona Libraries' Special Collections. The memorabilia will be unveiled to the public at this morning during a media availability at the USS Arizona Lounge in the Student Union Memorial Center.

Experts say people's relationships with pets often are as strong as, and sometimes stronger than, those we they with other humans, and are far less complicated. Pets tend to be always the same, even on good and bad days, reliably who they are and reliably ours in our relationship with them. "When they are tuned into us, you have their full attention. They are not texting on their phones," said University of Arizona assistant professor of veterinary medicine Emily Bray.

After seven years in space and over 4 billion miles traveled, NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission successfully collected and delivered the first U.S. sample from a near-Earth asteroid. University of Arizona scientists received 200 milligrams of material collected from the asteroid Bennu by the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft and returned to Earth. Initial analyses indicate the samples contain plentiful amounts of water locked up in minerals like clays and are also rich in carbon, nitrogen, sulfur and phosphorous.

This Valentine's Day will be the first since the U.S. surgeon general issued a public health advisory declaring loneliness and isolation an "epidemic." University of Arizona professor of psychology David Sbarra calls that a tad overblown, but he concedes the holiday can exacerbate psychological distress among people who are already lonely. "So a simple way of saying it would be that people are looking at and monitoring themselves being socially isolated instead of shifting their perception toward opportunities to reengage, and then pursuing that.