University of Arizona in the News

The Tucson Sentinel posts excerpts from three stories published in "The Consequences" by University of Arizona professor of English Manuel Muñoz, for which he received one of this year's 20 "genius grants" through the MacArthur Fellowship program.

University of Arizona professor of law Torivio Fodder, manager of the Indigenous Governance Program, writes about the long-term effects of the General Allotment Act of 1887, which shifted U.S. policy toward Native American groups from separation to assimilation – forcibly integrating them into the national population and transitioning tribal structures of communal land ownership under a reservation system to a private property model that broke up reservations altogether, as well as the federal government's repeated failure to meet treaty obligations.

A study published last week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences concludes some of the world's most populated regions, largely in the tropics and subtropics, will experience temperatures so extreme in the coming years that people simply will not be able to cool off without artificial help like air conditioning – a development that will put millions of live in danger. "Human bodies have fundamental physiological limits; our planet's perturbed, angry climate doesn't care about them.

Whether it supposedly appears as a vengeful spirit of a woman done wrong, or as an apparition atoning for unforgivable crimes, the story of La Llorona is wrapped in the the fabric of Mesoamerican folklore, with as many variations as there are storytellers. Growing up, Orquidea Morales, a professor at the University of Arizona who focuses on the intersection of Latinx studies and horror in film, theater and television, learned about La Llorona as a "woman whose husband crossed the border into the U.S. for work.

In a 2022 study published in the journal Sleep, University of Arizona associate professor of psychiatry Dr. Michael Grandner and his team at the university's Sleep and Health Research Program found people who shared a bed with their partner "most nights" reported less severe insomnia, less fatigue, less sleep apnea, more sleep and were able to fall asleep more quickly. Sleeping with a partner was also associated with lower depression, anxiety and stress, and greater social support and relationship and life satisfaction.

NASA on Wednesday showed off its first asteroid samples delivered last month by a spacecraft — the most ever returned to Earth.

Scientists said they got more material than expected from the OSIRIS-REx mission during its seven-year journey to the asteroid Bennu.

NASA revealed on Wednesday that "the building blocks of life on Earth" may have been found in an asteroid sample collected from space.

RetiSpec has developed an artificial intelligence algorithm that it says can analyze results from an eye scanner and detect signs of Alzheimer's 20 years before symptoms develop. The tool is part of broader work by startups and researchers to harness AI to unlock the mysteries of the disease. At the University of Arizona College of Medicine – Tucson, neurology associate professor Rui Chang built an AI model that aims to identify genetic triggers that are linked to Alzheimer's. The traditional approach researchers follow is painstakingly slow, said Chang.

The "Biospherians" were the original crew of eight people who were sealed inside Biosphere 2 north of Oracle, Arizona, for two years to see if humans could survive on other planets. Now operated by the University of Arizona, the facility continues to serve as a hub of innovative research.