Research & Academics

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

April 4, 2019

The misuse of and addiction to opioids, including prescription analgesics and street drugs such as heroin and fentanyl, is a serious national crisis affecting public health as well as the country’s social and economic welfare. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), in 2017, more than 47,000 Americans died as a result of an opioid overdose. The CDC estimates the total economic burden of prescription opioid misuse in the United States is $78.5 billion a… Read more

Taking a human’s temperature is a good way to determine if their body is under stress or getting sick.

The same is true of places on Earth that are prone to drought stress in a warming climate. That’s the idea behind Drought Eye, a new tool developed by Bijan Seyednasrollah of Northern Arizona University’s Center for Ecosystem Science and Society (Ecoss) and School of Informatics, Computing, and Cyber Systems (SICCS). By taking the temperature of a given… Read more