University of Arizona in the News

Arizona Daily Star Dec. 5, 2020
Meet the University of Arizona's rugby-playing, triple-majoring homecoming queen

It’s fitting that this year's University of Arizona homecoming queen would break from tradition. Nikita Ganesh is a rugby-playing, triple-majoring, 5-foot-5-inch dynamo who is just as comfortable in Shanghai as she is at Sitton Field.
The Wall Street Journal Dec. 4, 2020
The high cost of target-date funds

Target-date funds are designed to give investors a diversified portfolio that automatically rebalances over time, as a goal like retirement or college approaches. The funds are increasingly popular, particularly in 401(k) accounts and among younger investors. But a new academic paper, released in October but as yet unpublished, points a finger at the fees that target-date fund investors pay, which, the researchers calculate, total an average of one-third of a percentage point annually. The problem is that target-date funds are funds that invest in other funds (known as "funds of funds"), say authors David Brown of the University of Arizona's Eller College of Management and Shaun Davies of the Leeds School of Business at the University of Colorado.
The Arizona Republic Dec. 4, 2020
Arizona expected to recover job losses in 2021, UA forecast predicts

Arizona has recovered better than most states from COVID-19 economic disruptions but still has a long way to go, with the pace of improvement hinging on vaccines and further federal aid. That's the view of George Hammond, director of the Economic and Business Research Center at the University of Arizona, who presented a Dec. 4 forecast on behalf of the Eller College of Management.
The Conversation Dec. 4, 2020
I'm an astronomer and I think aliens may be out there – but UFO sightings aren't persuasive

Chris Impey, a Distinguished Professor of Astronomy at the University of Arizona, writes that scientists do not discount the idea of aliens, but they aren't convinced by the evidence to date because it is unreliable, or because there are so many other more mundane explanations.
The New York Times Dec. 4, 2020
How 700 epidemiologists are living now, and what they think is next

In a new informal survey of 700 epidemiologists by The New York Times, half said they would not change their personal behavior until at least 70 percent of the population was vaccinated. Thirty percent said they would make some changes once they were vaccinated themselves. "I won't take traveling to my extended family for granted," said Alicia Allen, an assistant professor at the University of Arizona.
The Wall Street Journal Dec. 4, 2020
Phoenix gave youth sports a pandemic escape – until COVID surged

The Phoenix area emerged as an unlikely oasis for sports in recent months because of its willingness to host youth events during the pandemic as nearby states restricted or barred them altogether. The resulting tension between these events and the COVID surge came to a head when Phoenix's city council gathered Wednesday night for a virtual meeting. With tournaments promising to bring together tens of thousands of young athletes, coaches and parents in the coming months, the council voted 7-2 to cancel all organized sports at the city's fields until virus levels in Maricopa County return to a moderate level. "It's bringing people together who wouldn't ordinarily be together. And those conditions are ripe to transmit the virus," said Joe Gerald, an associate professor of public-health policy and management at the University of Arizona who has modeled the virus trends in the state.
The New York Times Dec. 3, 2020
A 'front-row seat' to the birth of a comet

Astronomers are watching an object transform into a hyperactive comet that will head toward the inner solar system in the coming decades. Astronomers could see escaping icy matter forming a hazy cloud called a coma, and a tail rocketed out into the inky beyond. But its coma lacks water vapor, said Teddy Kareta, a planetary astronomy graduate student at the University of Arizona and co-author of the study. Combined with models of its orbital evolution, this suggests LD2 has not yet visited the inner solar system.
Forbes Dec. 2, 2020
Forbes 30 Under 30: Inventing the future from the atom up

University of Arizona graduate student Earyn McGee is included on the 2021 Forbes 30 Under 30 list for science.
KTVK Dec. 1, 2020
Former Surgeon General says voluntary measures key to compliance for slowing COVID-19 spread

Reentry Task Force Director Dr. Richard Carmona said any attempt at imposing a curfew requires a careful and comprehensive approach. "Does it have the potential to be beneficial? Yes, especially in communities where you see a rise in cases, and if that rise is associated with social activities at night, it is a way to deal with it," Carmona said. "The challenge is, how do you monitor it, and how do you enforce it?"
The New York Times Dec. 1, 2020
NASA launched a rocket 54 years ago. Has it finally come home?

Surveyor 2 crashed on the moon in 1966. Astronomers think they have spotted a piece of the mission that kept going deeper into space. Since September, scientists around the world have been investigating 2020 SO. Vishnu Reddy, a planetary scientist at the University of Arizona's Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, and Adam Battle, a graduate student there, compared observations of 2020 SO with a known Centaur rocket booster orbiting just a few hundred miles above Earth. The optical colors matched, Reddy said, but sealing the deal would require infrared observations of 2020 SO. At those wavelengths, it's a "slam dunk" to compare objects' compositions.