Research & Academics

July 11, 2019

Evolutionary biologists have long puzzled over how new traits emerge in nature, largely because much of the evolutionary information available is from the distant past. To learn more about how genes influence evolution, these researchers study organism phenotypes—the observable characteristics of an organism that are influenced by genetics and environment—and how they change.

Identifying and studying novel traits, such as new patterns seen in turtle shells, butterflies and flowers, may help biologists solve one of the most challenging problems in evolutionary biology: how these traits originate and… Read more

June 26, 2019

In the desert, it’s good to know where your water is and where it’s going.

That information is actually far more complex than most of us realize, but a team of scientists led by geochemist Kimberly Samuels-Crow is taking on one piece of the puzzle—evapotranspiration, or the process of water moving from soil or plants into the atmosphere. Samuels-Crow, an assistant research professor in the School of Informatics, Computing, and Cyber Systems at Northern Arizona University, is the principal… Read more

June 25, 2019

Scientists have discovered nearly all “extinction-scale” near-Earth objects, or NEOs (asteroids larger than one kilometer in diameter) and determined they pose no risk of impact in the near future. But there are still thousands of smaller NEOs that pose a potential danger.

NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office (PDCO) coordinates the detection of potentially hazardous objects, characterization of those objects and response planning in the event of an actual impact threat. Michael Kelley, program scientist with PDCO, and Vishnu Reddy of the University of Arizona’s Lunar and… Read more

June 20, 2019

One of the biggest and most complex challenges facing Arizona’s institutions of higher education is the need to produce a more interdisciplinary workforce for STEM fields that is inclusive and representative of the state’s diverse populations. A new multicultural research center at Northern Arizona University built on the field of materials science promises to help meet that challenge on both fronts.

The NAU Center for Materials Interfaces in Research and Applications (¡MIRA!) will develop advanced functional materials through the exploration of materials interfaces.… Read more

June 10, 2019

On a planet that just hit an atmospheric carbon concentration of 415 ppm, accurately predicting where the carbon is going in the future has never been more important.

Much of what we know about where carbon will be on the globe in 12, 25 or 100 years is due to innovative predictive modeling tools like the ones researcher Yiqi Luo develops at Northern Arizona University’s Center for Ecosystem Science and Society (Ecoss). Many carbon cycle models, or computer programs that run equations to… Read more