University of Arizona in the News

The State of Arizona recently paused new housing construction in Phoenix and its suburbs, telling developers the water supply is about 4%, short of what's needed for growth over the next century. But many municipalities are already buying water from elsewhere and driving up prices. "Essentially, we're overdrawing that bank account of groundwater, and we're overdrawing the amount in storage," said Sharon Megdal, the director of the University of Arizona Water Resources Research Center. "I don't want to get into lecturing about supply and demand.

Climate change will continue to make almost every summer a scorcher and experts say marginalized populations will bear the brunt of it, with less access to medical care, air conditioning, and housing with adequate insulation. Research led by University of Arizona assistant professor of planning and sustainable built environments Ladd Keith analyzed links between heat mitigation plans and policies and the location of vulnerable communities in Baltimore, Boston, Fort Lauderdale, Seattle and Houston.

Stefano Bloch, an associate professor in the School of Geography, Development and Environment at the University of Arizona, writes that graffiti is now associated with "street artists" rather than violent street gangs.

Many Indigenous peoples, including the Hopi, use slow-water structures for various purposes, such as rock dams at the bases of mesas which divert runoff into fields or capture nutrient-bearing sediment to hold moisture, which allow those farmers to plant different varieties of crops without fertilizers or irrigation. "Crops always need new soil with nutrients," said University of Arizona Indigenous resiliency specialist Michael Kotutwa Johnson, a member of the Hopi people.

Researchers at the University of Arizona are close to developing a human vaccine for Valley fever, which is caused by the fungus Coccidioides. Valley fever only impacts a very small number of people worldwide, but it's a major public health concern locally according to University of Arizona professor of medicine Dr. John Galgiani, director of the Valley Fever Center for Excellence. "The economic impact is thought to be $1.5 billion, and that's before climate change," Galgiani said.

Living near parks and other outdoor green spaces has a host of physical and mental health benefits, including lower levels of stress and depression, a greater sense of community, improvements in physical activity, and a decreased risk of cardiovascular disease and obesity. Research has found that access to parks is unequal in America, and disparities fall along racial and economic lines, said Chris Lim, a public health researcher at the University of Arizona who studies the intersection of health, climate and the environment.

When the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft returns from its seven-year mission Sept. 24, the probe will drop off a canister holding about a cup of pebbles and dust from the surface of the near-Earth asteroid Bennu. About 200 scientists will receive portions of that material, some of the only pristine bits of primordial asteroid ever to reach Earth's surface, which mission managers hope will reveal the state of the solar system when it was first forming, and possibly whether amino acids and other chemical compounds important for biology were present.

Researchers at the University of Arizona Lunar and Planetary Laboratory report the discovery of tiny salt crystals that could only have formed in the presence of liquid water in a sample from a class of asteroid known to mostly lack water-bearing minerals. The discovery strongly suggests many of the solar system's asteroids may not be as dry as previously thought.

The OSIRIS-REx spacecraft returns from its seven-year mission September 24 when the probe will drop off a canister holding about a cup of pebbles and dust from the surface of the near-Earth asteroid Bennu. About 200 scientists will receive portions of that material – some of the only pristine bits of primordial asteroid ever to reach Earth's surface – which mission managers hope will reveal the state of the solar system when it first formed, including which amino acids and other chemical compounds important for biology were present.

Poet and novelist Luis Alberto Urrea includes two works by University of Arizona Regents Professor of linguistics Ofelia Zepeda – "Ocean Power: Poems From the Desert" and "Where Clouds Are Formed" – on his recommended list of books to help readers understand The Borderlands, the region on either side of the international boundary between the U.S. and Mexico. He describes the 1999 MacArthur fellow as "a Tohono O’odham poet of such elegant and exact rhetoric, such integrity of culture and vision, that you miss her quiet genius at your own risk.