A comparison of images taken by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter in November 2010 and May 2013 reveal the formation of a new gully channel on a crater-wall slope in the southern highlands of Mars.
These before-and-after images are available online at https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/spaceimages/details.php?id=PIA17958 . (more…)
Swirling, stormy clouds may be ever-present on cool celestial orbs called brown dwarfs. New observations from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope suggest that most brown dwarfs are roiling with one or more planet-size storms akin to Jupiter’s “Great Red Spot.”
“As the brown dwarfs spin on their axis, the alternation of what we think are cloud-free and cloudy regions produces a periodic brightness variation that we can observe,” said Stanimir Metchev of the University of Western Ontario, Canada. “These are signs of patchiness in the cloud cover.” (more…)
Using ultra-fast laser pulses, a team of researchers led by UA assistant professor Vanessa Huxter has made the first detailed observation of how energy travels through diamonds containing nitrogen-vacancy centers – promising candidates for a variety of technological advances such as quantum computing.
A team of researchers led by University of Arizona assistant professor Vanessa Huxter has made the first detailed observation of how energy travels through diamonds that contain nitrogen-vacancy centers – defects in which two adjacent carbon atoms in the diamond’s crystal structure are replaced by a single nitrogen atom and an empty gap. (more…)
UA undergraduate researcher Robert Clark, his public health mentor and Pima County officials collaborated on an investigation of rabies cases in Pima County.
In a volunteer opportunity turned research project, University of Arizona undergraduate researcher Robert Clark has developed a comprehensive, multi-year snapshot of animal cases of rabies in Pima County.
Clark began working with a mentor in the UA Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health and county officials to learn about the seasonality of rabies in animals and identify exactly where rabid animals were most often found. (more…)
A study projects how climate change may affect virus-carrying mosquitoes across the southern U.S. Changes are expected to vary with region, and the southern states should see a trend toward longer seasons of mosquito activity and smaller midsummer mosquito populations
The varied influence of climate change on temperature and precipitation may have an equally wide-ranging effect on the spread of West Nile virus, suggesting that public health efforts to control the virus will need to take a local rather than global perspective, according to a study published this week in the scientific journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. (more…)
Venom of the brown recluse spider causes a reaction in the body that is different from what researchers previously thought, a discovery that could lead to development of new treatments for spider bites.
University of Arizona researchers led a team that has discovered that venom of spiders in the genus Loxosceles, which contains about 100 spider species including the brown recluse, produces a different chemical product in the human body than scientists believed.
The finding has implications for understanding how these spider bites affect humans and for the development of possible treatments for the bites. (more…)
A new study published in Nature this week describes the forces that control the jets of water and organic material that erupt from the icy surface of Enceladus, a moon of Saturn. UA scientists contributed data to the study.
The intensity of the jets of water ice and organic molecules that shoot out from Saturn’s moon Enceladus depends on the moon’s proximity to the planet, according to data obtained by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft. The finding, detailed in the journal Nature this week, is the first clear observation that shows the Enceladus plume varies in a predictable manner. (more…)
Studying bacteria from the Baltic Sea, UA researchers have discovered an entire array of previously unknown viruses that barely resemble any of the known bacteria-infecting viruses.
Researchers of the University of Arizona’s Tucson Marine Phage Lab have discovered a dozen new types of unknown viruses that infect different strains of marine bacteria. (more…)
