Research & Academics

April 17, 2019

Studying the patterns and behaviors of illegal drug smugglers, predicting where new trafficking routes are being created throughout vast Central American landscape and understanding how this complex system adapts to the interdiction efforts to keep drugs from entering the United States: surely, this sounds like a job that only huge government agencies would dream of tackling, right?

Actually, the expansion of illegal drug trafficking in Central America is a problem that associate professor of environmental science and policy… Read more

April 16, 2019

As the climate changes, extreme weather and flooding are intensifying and occurring more frequently worldwide. Scientists believe that by studying warming events in Earth’s past, they can better understand how the current warming trend is triggering other changes to the environment.

As part of a large, multidisciplinary study involving eight institutions and a multimillion-dollar National Science Foundation grant, assistant professor Michael Elliot Smith of NAU’s School of Earth and Sustainability’s Division of Geosciences recently received a $190,000… Read more

April 10, 2019

Tinnitus, more commonly known as ringing in the ears, is a serious audiological and neurological condition affecting nearly 50 million Americans. Noise and music exposure are the predominant environmental risk factors for tinnitus. There is no known cure, and there are no FDA-approved medications developed specifically to treat it. The fact is, tinnitus is very common but not well understood. A better understanding of its causes could eventually improve the lives of millions of people throughout the… Read more

April 8, 2019

Cryptocurrency, or digital currency, was introduced in 2009 by Bitcoin, and the market has since expanded to include many other brands such as Ethereum, Ripple, Litecoin and Zcash.

Because it is based on unique blockchain technology, a decentralized network that doesn’t require a third party to process transactions, cryptocurrency operates independently from the global banking system. Data stored in a blockchain is permanent and cannot be modified, and it has been adapted for a wide variety of uses… Read more

April 4, 2019

On the Hawaiian island of Oahu, it is possible to stand in a lush tropical forest that doesn’t contain a single native plant. The birds that once dispersed native seeds are entirely gone, leaving a brand-new ecological community composed largely of introduced plants and birds. In a first-of-its-kind study published in Science, researchers demonstrate that these novel communities are organized in much the same way as native communities worldwide.

The discovery comes after an exhaustive examination of bird… Read more