Tag Archives: university of arizona

UA Researchers Solve Mystery of Lincoln’s Funeral Train

By Guest PostApril 25, 2013General, Politicsabraham lincoln, american history, benedictine university, brook beam, car project, Chicago, chicago group, color, death, funeral train, karen zimmermann, keck imaging center, lincoln, lincoln funeral, lincoln train project, model, mystery, nancy odegaard, new york, northern population, northern states, presidential funeral procession, presidential use, private railroad car, rich chocolate brown, robert kennedy, sesquicentennial, southern sympathizers, traditional funeral, train, united states, united states military, university of arizona, Washington, wayne wesolowski

With the 2015 sesquicentennial of Abraham Lincoln’s death approaching, interest is rising, and with new tools, UA researchers have turned their attention to one of the last remaining mysteries about what reportedly was the largest traditional funeral in American history – the train’s color.

A trove of information exists about Abraham Lincoln’s funeral, which drew millions of mourners during a two-week railway procession across the Northern states.

But until now, the precise color of the president’s railcar had been lost to history. (more…)

The Making of Antarctica’s Hidden Fjords

By Guest PostMarch 8, 2013Environmentantarctic ice sheet, Antarctica, antarctica topography, columbia university, cooling age, east antarctica, erosion rate, fjords, geologists, george e gehrels, geoscientist, geoscientists, glaciers, global climate, hidden fjords, ice sheet growth, lambert glacier, marine technician, mountains, national science foundation, ocean drilling program, pattern, peter w reiners, prydz bay, rock, rocks, sample, sea level change, sea-level rise, sediments, sidney r hemming, stuart n thomson, ty cobb, university of arizona

Antarctica’s topography began changing from flat to fjord-filled starting about 34 million years ago, according to a new report from a University of Arizona-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. (more…)

A Boost for Analyzing Biological Sequences

By Guest PostFebruary 10, 2013Scienceanalyzing sequence data, best parameters, biological molecules, biologists, computational biologists, computational model, dan deblasio, detect, DNA, evolutionary past, guessing game, improved software, john kececioglu, model, parameter advising, parameter values, parameters, phenomena, predict missing data, proteins, run alignment software, software tools, species, ua computer scientists, university of arizona

UA computer scientists John Kececioglu and Dan DeBlasio are developing improved software that provides biologists with much more accurate results when analyzing sequence data.

Imagine trying to construct a brick building with fewer than the requisite number of bricks and without a detailed blueprint.

Welcome to the world of computational biologists.

When biologists study proteins, DNA, or other biological molecules that are represented in the computer as sequences, they rely on known information but also must predict missing data. Given that reality, major challenges exist to having accurate results. (more…)

Flies of the World Embrace Vegetarianism

By Guest PostFebruary 2, 2013Nature, Scienceagricultural pests, animal kingdom, australia, bracken ferns, brassicas, canolas, change of lifestyle, convergent phenotypes, cyanogenic compounds, detoxify the plants, earth, evolutionary biologists, Facebook, family drosophilidae, fly detectives, genetic changes, genetic pathways, genome biology evolution, good model organisms, hawaii, hawaiian lineage, herbivores, herbivorous fly species, insects, levels of alcohol, microbe eating flies, mt lemmon, mustard plants, new zealand, noah whiteman, North America, north american flies, organisms, papua new guinea, richard lapoint, scaptomyza nigrita, South Pacific, toxic plants, united kingdom, university of arizona, vegetarianism

Microbe-eating flies from at least three different locations around the world recently have evolved into herbivores, feeding on some of the most toxic plants on Earth. Fly detectives and UA evolutionary biologists Noah Whiteman and Richard Lapoint are trying to find out what genetic pathways led the flies to such a major change of lifestyle.

For millennia, they buzzed through the woods, contentedly munching yeasts off the surfaces of leaves, bracken and rotting duff on the forest floor. But now, flies in the family Drosophilidae, whose disparate members dwell in areas all across the planet, have evolved into all-out vegetarians with a wicked diet of plants that are deadly to most other organisms.

What, University of Arizona scientists would like to know, has caused these flies, yeast-feeders for nearly 80 million years, to independently go cold turkey with respect to their formerly meaty diets? (more…)

Testing Einstein’s E=mc2 in Outer Space

By Guest PostJanuary 5, 2013Sciencealbert einstein, andrei lebed, atomic bomb, conceptual model, cornell university library, curvature, electron, energy, energy level, everything, explosion, galileo galilei, general relativity, gps navigation, gravitational field, gravitational mass, gravity, hydrogen atom, iconic equation, mass, motion, moving object, nucleus, object, paradigm in physics, principles in physics, proton, quantum mechanics, quantum objects, relativistic, Space, special relativity, speed of light, stockholm, theory, theory of gravitation, ua physicist, unifying theory, university of arizona

UA physicist Andrei Lebed has stirred the physics community with an intriguing idea yet to be tested experimentally: The world’s most iconic equation, Albert Einstein’s E=mc2, may be correct or not depending on where you are in space.

With the first explosions of atomic bombs, the world became witness to one of the most important and consequential principles in physics: Energy and mass, fundamentally speaking, are the same thing and can, in fact, be converted into each other.

This was first demonstrated by Albert Einstein’s Theory of Special Relativity and famously expressed in his iconic equation, E=mc2, where E stands for energy, m for mass and c for the speed of light (squared). (more…)

Wildlife Monitoring Cameras Click Jaguar and Ocelot Photos

By Guest PostDecember 21, 2012Natureautomated, baboquivari mountains, big cats, boot heel, cat species, central, computer program, distribution of jaguars, ecology and habits, Environment, huachuca mountains, hunter, jaguar survey, lisa haynes, male jaguar, male ocelot, melanie culver, Mexico, monitoring project, mountain ranges, natural resources, neotropical cats, new mexico, ocelot movement, pictures of jaguar, project, rugged arizona landscape, santa rita mountains, sierra vista, sky island, south america, southern arizona, tail photo, united states, university of arizona, whetstone mountains, wildlife monitoring cameras

Automated trail cameras set up by a UA research team have snapped pictures of a male jaguar and a male ocelot roaming the rugged Southern Arizona landscape.

An adult male jaguar and an adult male ocelot have been photographed in two separate Southern Arizona mountain ranges by automated wildlife monitoring cameras. The images were collected as part of the Jaguar Survey and Monitoring Project led by the University of Arizona. Both animals appear to be in good health.

In late November, the UA project team downloaded photos from wildlife cameras set up as part of the research project and found new pictures of a jaguar in the Santa Rita Mountains. A total of 10 jaguar photos were taken by three UA cameras and one Arizona Game and Fish Department camera. The cat’s unique spot pattern matched that of a male jaguar photographed by a hunter in the Whetstone Mountains in the fall of 2011, providing clear evidence that the big cats travel between Southern Arizona’s “sky island” mountain ranges. (more…)

Post-Divorce Journaling May Hinder Healing for Some, UA Study Finds

By Guest PostNovember 28, 2012General, Healthdavid sbarra, divorce, divorced individuals, emotional recovery, failed marriage, feelings, healing, health care, high ruminators, journals, low ruminators, psychology, separation, traditional expressive writing, university of arizona

For those searching for deeper meaning in a failed marriage, writing about their feelings soon after divorce may lead to greater emotional distress, according to new research.

Following a divorce or separation, many people are encouraged by loved ones or health-care professionals to keep journals about their feelings. But for some, writing in-depth about those feelings immediately after a split may do more harm than good, according to new research conducted at the University of Arizona.

In a study of 90 recently divorced or separated individuals, UA associate professor of psychology David Sbarra and colleagues found that writing about one’s feelings can actually leave some people feeling more emotionally distraught months down the line, particularly those individuals who are prone to seeking a deeper meaning for their failed marriage. (more…)

Division of Labor Offers Insight into the Evolution of Multicellular Life

By Guest PostAugust 8, 2012Scienceann dornhaus, avida, beacon center, beacon researchers, ben kerr, charles ofria, communication system, digital organism, evolution, evolution platform, evolutionary history, genetic material, heather goldsby, human economies, michigan state university, multi celled, multicellular life, organism, single celled, university of arizona, university of washington

EAST LANSING, Mich. — Dividing tasks among different individuals is a more efficient way to get things done, whether you are an ant, a honeybee or a human.

A new study by researchers at Michigan State University’s BEACON Center for the Study of Evolution in Action suggests that this efficiency may also explain a key transition in evolutionary history, from single-celled to multi-celled organisms.

The results, which can be found in the current issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, demonstrate that the cost of switching between different tasks gives rise to the evolution of division of labor in digital organisms. In human economies, these costs could be the mental shift or the travel time required to change from activity to another. (more…)