University of Arizona in the News

The Indigenous Teacher Education Program in the University of Arizona College of Education trains teachers how to support students in Tribal communities while increasing the number of skilled Indigenous teachers in Arizona.

Research led by University of Arizona professor of economics Derek Lemoine and associate professor of government and public policy Laura Bakkensen shows that even small errors in temperature predictions – as little as one degree Celsius – lead to more deaths, and that improving forecasts would save thousands of lives and billions of dollars annually.

Water levels in Lake Mead stand at 1,072.46 feet as of Jan. 30, a rise of over four feet since the beginning of the month. "What really drives lake levels at Mead is the snowpack that melts in the spring," said Andrea K. Gerlak, a professor at the University of Arizona and director at the Udall Center for Studies in Public Policy. "That is the real contributor to our lake levels. Everyone I talk with suggests that it is the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation modelers that can speak to this better.

University of Arizona and NASA researchers report interesting discoveries from the material recovered from the asteroid Bennu by the OSIRIS-REx mission. Professor of planetary sciences Tom Zega discusses the key findings so far.

Six University of Arizona researchers helped author chapters in last year's National Climate Assessment – the nation's preeminent report on climate change impacts, risks and responses – covering topics ranging from ecosystems and biodiversity to water and human health.

Using in-ear headphones such as Apple AirPods poses a risk of ear infection if they go too long without being sanitized. Kelly Reynolds, associate professor of environmental health at the University of Arizona, told BuzzFeed that typically-harmless earwax can build up on earbuds, eventually acting "as a layer to trap bacteria and prevent it from drying out so it can survive and grow."

Retired University of Arizona Regents Professor of English N. Scott Momaday, who won the 1969 Pulitzer Prize for fiction for his first novel "House Made of Dawn," died last week at his home in Sante Fe, New Mexico. He was 89. Momaday taught English and comparative literature at the university from 1981 to 2005.

A Wisconsin couple recently discovered photos, newspaper clippings and other documents and mementos from the battleship U.S.S. Arizona. They plan to travel to Tucson this week to meet with the curator of the university's U.S.S. Arizona collection ahead of donating the material to the university.

The Hearing Healthcare Assistance Project, a new partnership among the Arizona Commission for the Deaf and the Hard of Hearing and all three state universities, will provide free hearing health care for eligible people age 21 or older who do not have insurance.

The Millennium Camera, an artistic effort developed by experimental philosopher Jonathon Keats, a research associate at the University of Arizona College of Fine Arts, will capture an image of Tucson from Tumamoc Hill over the course of the next 1,000 years.