University of Arizona in the News

The World Health Organization has requested access to China's wildlife farming areas such as the mountains of Enshi prefecture, an agricultural corner of China's Hubei province, calling it a key step in the search for the origins of the coronavirus. Beijing has denied the requests. China's government and the WHO say the likeliest origin of the pandemic is natural transmission through wildlife. Yet little progress has been made in establishing a definitive natural pathway from a bat to a Wuhan market – or for any competing theory, for that matter – because of the Chinese government's refusal to grant scientists access. "We really need to find out more about what viruses are circulating in those bats" in the Enshi caves, said Michael Worobey, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Arizona. "That kind of proximity of farmed animals and bats that could be carrying coronaviruses is exactly the kind of thing we worry about."

University of Arizona Lunar and Planetary Laboratory professor Amy Mainzer comments on the approach of Comet Bernardinelli-Bernstein: "One of the best things about this comet is that we've got a while until it makes its closest approach to the Sun, so we've got years to study how it brightens up as its surface gets exposed to the Sun's warmth. By watching the show as the comet creeps closer, we'll be able to tell more about which chemicals act like the propellant in the spray can, so to speak, pushing rocky particles and dust off its surface."

A study by University of Arizona Health Sciences researchers finds patients undergoing active chemotherapy have a lower immune response to two doses of the COVID-19 vaccine, but a third dose increases the response.

President Joe Biden announced his intent to nominate as chair of the National Endowment for the Humanities University of Arizona alumna Shelly Lowe, the former graduate education program facilitator for the American Indian Studies Program.