University of Arizona in the News

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports three people have died in the United States after being infected by Pseudomonas aeruginosa, a drug-resistant bacterium linked to eyedrops. The outbreak, which has now infected at least at least 68 people in 16 states, also been connected to eight recent reports of vision loss and four reports of surgical removal of an eyeball.

A new study estimates food-borne E. coli strains likely cause more than a half-million urinary tract infections annually in the United States. "These findings illustrate the connections between animals in the food supply and humans, and underscores the importance of avoiding unnecessary antibiotic use in animals, which will lead to drug resistant bacteria that will find their way into humans," said Elizabeth Connick, professor of medicine and immunobiology at the University of Arizona, who was not involved in the study.

University of Arizona researchers led by Brittany Miles of the Steward Observatory recently used the James Webb Space Telescope to observe a gas giant orbiting a binary system of brown dwarf stars, just 40 light years from Earth. Webb's sensitivity and the planet's enormous orbit – 10,000 Earth years – make it easy to see.

University of Arizona researchers led by Brittany Miles of the Steward Observatory recently used the James Webb Space Telescope to observe a gas giant orbiting a binary system of brown dwarf stars just 40 light years from Earth. Webb's sensitivity and the planet's enormous orbit – 10,000 Earth years – made it easy to see. "VHS 1256 b is about four times farther from its stars than Pluto is from our Sun, which makes it a great target for Webb," Miles said. "That means the planet's light is not mixed with light from its stars."

A decades-old tree-planting project in Tucson's Dunbar Spring neighborhood has transformed it into a rainwater-fed urban food forest where more than 1,700 trees and thousands more understory plants provide food to residents as well as shade to cool the streets. "If climate change continues at its current pace, cities in the Southwest such as Tucson could experience as much as 45 days more per year with temperatures above 90 degrees by 2100," said University of Arizona assistant professor Ladd Keith, who studies the intersection of urban planning and climate change.

Operators of a gene database that holds samples taken in late 2019 from animals sold at a public market in Wuhan, China, face scrutiny and criticism both for allowing Chinese researchers to withhold related data and for cutting off archive access to researchers who last week published a report supporting the case that the coronavirus pandemic originated with illegally traded wild animals.

After 20 years of battling for the right to draw water from the Colorado River, the Navajo Nation took its case to the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday, arguing the federal government failed to live up to its duty to provide the Diné people with an adequate supply of water. "In mainstream discourse, we have been talking about depletion of the Colorado River, the reservoirs, the water and how much everybody has to cut back," said University of Arizona professor of geography Andrew Curley, himself a member of the Diné.

An international team of virus experts, including University of Arizona professor of ecology and evolutionary biology Michael Worobey, reported last week they had found genetic data from a market in Wuhan, China, linking the coronavirus to the presences of raccoon dogs for sale there.

Inspired by the breadcrumbs left by "Hansel and Gretel" of folklore, researchers at the University of Arizona have developed technology that would allow robots to explore subsurface environments on other worlds.

Each year, the USA National Phenology Network – phenology is the study of seasonal change – keeps track of when leaves sprout as heat accumulates across the country. This year's winter weather pattern cleaved the country in half. As a ridge of high atmospheric pressure warmed the east, a low pressure system kept conditions cooler and wetter than usual across the west, said Michael A. Crimmins, a climate science professor at the University of Arizona.