Data from the research plots on Tumamoc Hill reveal changes in the Sonoran Desert and have been important to key advances in the science of ecology.
Researchers at the University of Arizona’s Tumamoc Hill have digitized 106 years of growth data on individual plants, making the information available for study by people all over the world.
Knowing how plants respond to changing conditions over many decades provides new insights into how ecosystems behave. (more…)
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 UA Libraries has just made 150 years of regionally published newspapers documenting the voice of Mexican and Mexican American communities digitally available for the first time.
A new digital collection at the University of Arizona Libraries makes accessible more than 150 years of news coverage documenting the voice of the Mexican and Mexican American community.
Curated, researched and digitized by librarians and archivists, in consultation with UA professors, the collection features 20 significant Mexican and Mexican American publications, many in Spanish. (more…)
The popular new strategy of planting genetically engineered crops that make two or more toxins to fend off insect pests rests on assumptions that don’t always apply, UA researchers have discovered. Their study helps explain why one major pest is evolving resistance much faster than predicted and offers ideas for more sustainable pest control.
A strategy widely used to prevent pests from quickly adapting to crop-protecting toxins may fail in some cases unless better preventive actions are taken, suggests new research by University of Arizona entomologists published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Corn and cotton have been genetically modified to produce pest-killing proteins from the bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis, or Bt for short. Compared with typical insecticide sprays, the Bt toxins produced by genetically engineered crops are much safer for people and the environment, explained Yves Carrière, a professor of entomology in the UA College of Agriculture and Life Sciences who led the study. (more…)
Billions of trees killed in the wake of mountain pine beetle infestations, ranging from Mexico to Alaska, have not resulted in a large spike in carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere, contrary to predictions, a UA-led study has found.
Massive tree die-offs release less carbon into the atmosphere than previously thought, new research led by the University of Arizona suggests.
Across the world, trees are dying in increasing numbers, most likely in the wake of a climate changing toward drier and warmer conditions, scientists suspect. In western North America, outbreaks of mountain pine beetles (Dendroctonus ponderosae) have killed billions of trees from Mexico to Alaska over the last decade. (more…)
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…)
UA researcher Don Fallis has spent years studying the existence of lies and deception in social interactions and popular culture, developing a framework to better explain the difference between an honest mistake and an intentional lie.
Don Fallis searches for disinformation, the process of intentionally disseminating misleading information, in political dialogue, books, television and film – and he finds examples most everywhere.
That may come of little surprise, given the fictional nature of many entertainment-based cultural exchanges.
But for Fallis, a philosopher who studies social processes and information exchanges, the presence of disinformation – intentional lying, not honest mistakes or misinformation – allows for an important analysis of human tendencies, in fictional form or not. (more…)
Researchers at the UA are studying resistance in pink bollworm in China and working to develop strategies against it.
University of Arizona 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 in the UA College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, and Bruce Tabashnik, head of the department of entomology, both members of the UA BIO5 Institute, are partnering with Chinese scientists to combat insect resistance to genetically engineered cotton plants. (more…)
