News
Environmental variability and global change are discussed more and more frequently in news articles and programs as the general public becomes increasingly aware of the rapid environmental transformations taking place around the world. The Institute of the Environment produces general interest articles about current UA research relevant to the environment, spotlights that chronicle the work of IoE faculty, and other articles, including a series on drought in the Southwest. The most recent articles are listed below. Older articles and links to UA News press releases also are available in the News Archive.
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Females of a little-known primate from the rainforests of Madagascar have been known to outlive their male peers by many years, despite no obvious differences in hormone levels or lifestyle. A team led by a UA anthropologist has found the likely answer to the mystery.
Long-term droughts in the Southwestern U.S. often mean failure of both summer and winter rains, according to new tree-ring research from a UA-led team. The finding contradicts the commonly held belief that a dry winter rainy season is generally followed by a wet monsoon season, and vice versa.
Ever wonder how the density of flowers in a patch influences the kinds of insects that visit it? Carla Essenberg of the UA Center for Insect Science did, and she proceeded to develop a mathematical "foraging model" that explores how flower visitors distribute themselves across floral patches differing from each other in density.
Antarctica's topography began changing from flat to fjord-filled starting about 34 million years ago, according to a new report from a UA-led team of geoscientists. Knowing when Antarctica's topography started shifting from a flat landscape to one with glaciers, fjords and mountains is important for modeling how the Antarctic ice sheet affects global climate and sea-level rise.
What kinds of institutional settings allow for art-science collaboration? This is one of the questions at the root of an international collaborative study with deep connections to the University of Arizona.
Thin snowpacks coupled with potentially warm temperatures and dry conditions have resource managers in the Southwest concerned for an elevated risk of wildfires in the spring.
As part of a $9 million research contract from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, UA plant sciences professor Judith Brown studies the molecular interactions between a tiny insect and a bacterium that causes citrus greening disease, a threat to commercial and residential citrus growing efforts.
The UA Science and Technology Park seeks to become a laboratory for third-party testing and evaluation of border technologies. It would draw on the University's expertise in engineering, optics, computing and other sciences. "Southern Arizona could be a leading center in the world for development of border technology," said Bruce Wright, UA associate vice president for university research parks.
UA students are installing rainwater-harvesting systems in a class that helps the campus continue to improve its environmental sustainability. Rainwater harvesting also helps control flooding, which erodes streets, and it helps combat the urban heat-island impact.
UA entomologists are joining forces with scientists on the other side of the globe to protect cotton in China from potentially devastating insect pests. Xianchun Li, associate professor of entomology, and Bruce Tabashnik, head of the department of entomology, are partnering with Chinese scientists to combat insect resistance to genetically engineered cotton plants.