Recent CALS Spotlights

  • UA Experts Collaborate to Reduce Disease-Triggering Inflammation

    Stress – we all face it in this super-charged society we live in.

    Left unchecked, stress can cause inflammation in the body, which can bring on depression, heart disease, cancer and a host of physical and emotional ailments.

    Experts in medical, behavioral and family sciences at the University of Arizona are teaming up to better understand the effects of inflammation – and how to manage it.

    Among the leaders in this collaboration is Charles Raison. Raison is an associate professor of psychiatry in the UA College of Medicine with a joint appointment as the Barry and Janet Lang Associate Professor of Integrative Mental Health in the Norton School of Family and Consumer Sciences in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. He also is a member of the UA's BIO5 Institute.

  • CALS Science Keeps Fairways Green With Less Water

    Arizona's parched desert is home to the University of Arizona's Karsten Turfgrass Research Facility – where scientists study every means possible to grow heat- and salt-tolerant recreational turf using less and less reclaimed water.

    Turfgrass is considered a commodity. Each year the golf industry alone contributes more than $3.4 million to Arizona's economy, provides nearly 20,000 jobs and attracts thousands of tourists, according to the state's Golf Industry Association.

    Yet population growth in arid Arizona is exponentially increasing demand for scarce water resources. Arizona was the second fastest growing state in the nation between 2000 and 2009, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. As of 2010, the population totaled 6.6 million residents – more than triple the 1970 census population of 1.8 million.

  • Something fishy is afoot at old wastewater plant

    There's something fishy going on at the old Roger Road sewage treatment plant, or at least there could be if Pima County and UA can agree on a deal that would net taxpayers millions of dollars.

    A proposal from researchers in the University of Arizona's College of Agriculture and Life Sciences suggests transforming the decommissioned wastewater treatment plant into a state-of-the-art research station that would become a fish hatchery, farming tilapia, striped bass and eels.

    The county currently has $32 million budgeted for the demolition of the treatment plant, which was built in the 1950s.

  • Let's rethink how we deal with forest fires

    This year is shaping up to be another year of dangerous, destructive fires in the West. As we read the news of scorched landscapes, destroyed homes and loss of life, we naturally think of immediate actions that are needed: suppressing today’s fire and getting ready for what may happen tomorrow.

    But it must occur to many of us: Should we be doing something altogether different about wildfire?

    We now spend more than $1.5 billion every year in fighting wildland fire, which consumes one-third of the entire budget of the U.S. Forest Service. The annual area burned by wildfire in the West is four times what it was in the 1980s, as is the average fire size. In the 1960s, a fire that reached 5,000 acres was newsworthy, and a 10,000-acre fire was considered extraordinary. In 2011, the Las Conchas Fire in New Mexico burned 43,000 acres in its first 12 hours. Fires of a half million acres are no longer rare.

  • Rain Gods in a Desert Sea: New Book Celebrates Southern Arizona's Mountains

    University of Arizona scientists Wendy Moore and Richard Brusca have published an illustrated book to celebrate and share the rich and unique natural history of southern Arizona's mountains – the "sky islands" – with a general, non-scientific audience.

    Moore, assistant professor in the department of entomology in the UA College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and curator of the UA Insect Collection, said the book came about through field research she began two years ago when she founded the Arizona Sky Island Arthropod Project (ASAP). For her field research, Moore enlisted the help of Brusca, who is her husband as well as executive director emeritus of the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum and an adjunct research scientist in the UA's department of ecology and evolutionary biology.

  • Bike Program Provides Kids With Wheels, Maintenance Lessons

    The UA's Cochise County Cooperative Extension is working with Douglas schoolchildren on a program to repair and refurbish donated bicycles, culminating with a July 4 bicycle rodeo and giveaway.

    The program teaches important skills not only in dealing with the bicycles, but in terms of leadership and healthy lifestyles, says Darcy Tessman, the 4-H Youth Development associate agent heading up the program.

    "We did this program many, many years ago in Douglas. Those young people have grown up and graduated and moved on," Tessman says. "But it was such a success in this community, it's something I suggested to this group of young mentors and since they had this emphasis on healthy lifestyles, they were very interested in it."

  • Helping Low-Income Families Eat Healthier

    More than 1 million adults and children in Arizona do not have enough money for groceries. They shop with food stamps. They buy staples like bread, beans and milk. Fresh fruits and veggies seem like a luxury they cannot afford.

    Through a program known as SNAP-Ed, they learn how to buy healthier foods on a limited budget. They're learning to choose low-fat dairy products, whole-grain breads and tortillas, fresh in-season produce – and to cook with easy healthy recipes. They're also encouraged to increase physical activity.

    The goal is to help low-income people buy the food they need for good health – and ultimately reduce obesity – the gateway to diabetes, heart disease and cancer. In Maricopa County 22.9 percent of adults are obese and 30 percent of children between the ages of 10 and 17 are either overweight or obese.

  • High School Students Discover Biodiversity Treasure Trove

    Imagine jump-starting a career in science by discovering new species while still a teenager.

    That’s exactly what Tucson High Magnet School students have done, in a science course University of Arizona associate professor Betsy Arnold developed with science teacher Margaret Wilch.

    Students took their learning out of the classroom and applied it to collecting and genetically analyzing endophytes, which are symbiotic, non-harmful bacteria or fungi that live within a plant for part of its lifetime.

    Their work was related to investigations Arnold and her team currently manage at the UA.

  • Fast forward for veterinary school

    Eight years. Four hundred sixteen weeks. Two thousand, nine hundred and twenty days. That’s the average time it takes a student to make the journey from high school graduate to doctor of veterinary medicine. Now imagine taking that trip in roughly half the time. Would it work?

     The University of Arizona thinks so, and it’s asking its state to fund an initial $250,000 study to find out. Shane Burgess, BVSc, PhD, is a veterinarian, vice provost and dean of the University of Arizona’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. He’s taken the university’s plan to House and Senate committees. If the Legislature includes money for the study in this year’s budget, Burgess would like to complete the economic study in time for the next legislative session.

     “We’re looking at a model that will decrease the cost of a degree dramatically and also be a positive economic stimulus to the state’s economy. So everybody wins,” Burgess says. “If the study shows our plan works and makes sound business sense, we’ll pursue it, and if not, we won’t.”

  • ¿Quién es el culpable de la muerte masiva de camarones en Asia?

    En un descubrimiento de enorme trascendencia, investigadores de la Universidad de Arizona (EEUU) han identificado el agente causante de una misteriosa enfermedad que ha diezmado las explotaciones de camarón en Asia.

    La enfermedad, conocida como síndrome de mortalidad temprana del camarón (EMS, por sus siglas en inglés) o síndrome de necrosis hepatopancreática aguda (AHPNS, siglas en inglés), ha provocado en los dos últimos años la mortandad masiva en las explotaciones acuícolas en varios países de Asia, en donde un millón de personas depende del cultivo de camarones para su sustento.

    En 2011 se produjeron en la región asiática 3 millones de toneladas de camarón, con un valor de 13.300 millones de dólares EEUU.