University of Arizona in the News

University of Arizona professor of environmental science Kathy Jacobs, director of the Center for Climate Adaptation Science and Solutions, discusses how communities can respond to the effects of climate change.

The movie "Barbie" set box office records and reignited the world's love for the fashion dolls. University of Arizona associate professor of practice in fashion industry science and technology Hope Simpara applauds Mattel – the company behind Barbie – for keeping the doll current with the needs of society. "Barbie is so relatable, and they do a great job of keeping her relevant to the current social climate," she said.

The burgeoning field of conservation paleobiology uses the fossil record to inform and assist present-day conservation efforts. "We often need some sense of the way things used to be before there was extensive human impact," said University of Arizona professor emeritus of geosciences Karl Flessa, a paleobiologist who coined the term "conservation paleobiology" two decades ago and co-authored an early look at the field in the 2015 Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences.

The Richard F. Caris Mirror Lab at the University of Arizona is finishing the sixth of seven mirrors for the Giant Magellan Telescope in Chile. Each mirror takes four years to produce. When completed around the start of the next decade, the GMT will be the world's most powerful land-based telescope.

Satellites have long been used to enhance weather forecasts, TV and radio signals, military surveillance and, more recently, cell phone and internet coverage and GPS navigation. And while low-earth orbit satellites such as the Starlink system deployed by SpaceX aren't the brightest man-made objects in the sky, the sheer number of them causes concerns for the future of terrestrial astronomy.

The U.S. aims to send a crewed mission, Artemis III, to the lunar South Pole as early as 2025. That mission's managers hope to learn from the experience of two robotic landers  – one built by India and the other by Russia – currently hurtling toward the Moon in something of a space race for those nations. University of Arizona professor of planetary sciences Vishnu Reddy argues what really matters, going forward, is who is able to set up a sustained and worthwhile presence on the moon. He dismisses talk of a race or competition between nations and private companies.

University of Arizona professor emeritus of American Indian Studies Tom Holm discusses his new book "Ira Hayes and the Price of Heroism," which recounts the life of one of the six U.S. marines seen in Joe Rosenthal's iconic photograph of the raising of an American flag over Iwo Jima during World War II.

There are early, concerning signs that the Sonoran Desert's iconic saguaro cacti have begun to die in some locations as a persistent heat wave punctuates a decades-long megadrought. "They're only adapted to a point," said Frank Reichenbacher, an associate researcher at the University of Arizona Tumamoc Desert Laboraty on Tucson's Tumamoc Hill. "And then after that, you start getting mortality and you start getting dieback."

Extreme heat is far deadlier than other natural disasters, killing on average more than twice as many people each year as hurricanes and tornadoes combined, according to data tracked by the National Weather Service. Despite this, heat doesn't appear on the list of disasters eligible for assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency because the Stafford Act – the federal law that gives FEMA the power to respond to emergencies and determines what qualifies as one – doesn't cover it.

The University of Arizona Campus-Community Relations Committee gives residents of 10 neighborhoods adjacent to the main campus a chance to meet monthly with university and city representatives. "It's been a really valuable opportunity for the neighbors to let us know what they're experiencing with university students living in the neighborhoods," said Julie Katsel, the university's assistant vice president of community relations.