Research – Page 10 – UNews Archive

8,000-Year-Old Mutation Key to Human Life at High Altitudes

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In an environment where others struggle to survive, Tibetans thrive in the thin air on the Tibetan Plateau, with an average elevation of 14,800 feet. A University of Utah led discovery that hinged as much on strides in cultural diplomacy as on scientific advancements, is the first to identify a genetic variation, or mutation, that contributes to the adaptation, and to reveal how it works. The research appears online in the journal Nature Genetics on Aug. 17, 2014.

August 18, 2014

3-D Microscope Method to Look inside Brains

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A University of Utah team discovered a method for turning a small, $40 needle into a 3-D microscope capable of taking images up to 70 times smaller than the width of a human hair. This new method not only produces high-quality images comparable to expensive microscopes, but may be implanted into the brains of living mice for imaging at the cellular level.

August 13, 2014

Upcoming Symposium Inspires Protection of Wildlife and Western Lands

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The 2014 Reimagine Western Landscapes Symposium, “A Place for Wildlife,” will take place Aug. 22 – 23, 2014, at the University of Utah’s Taft-Nicholson Center for Environmental Humanities Education in Centennial Valley, Montana. The symposium will challenge the humanities to become leaders in wildlife conservation with a reimagined approach for respecting, preserving and protecting wildlife and western landscapes.

August 12, 2014

County-Wide Tourism Remained Strong in 2013

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Whether enjoying the arches in Grand County, boating the turquoise waters of Bear Lake in Rich County, exploring the sandstone kingdoms of Washington County or skiing the powdery slopes of Summit County, tourists visited every county in Utah in 2013. Those visits propelled economic activity, according to research recently published by the Bureau of Economic and Business Research, or BEBR, at the University of Utah’s David Eccles School of Business.

August 6, 2014

Kangaroos Win When Aborigines Hunt with Fire

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Australia’s Aboriginal Martu people hunt kangaroos and set small grass fires to catch lizards, as they have for at least 2,000 years. A University of Utah researcher found such man-made disruption boosts kangaroo populations – showing how co-evolution helped marsupials and made Aborigines into unintentional conservationists.

August 4, 2014

Did Lower Testosterone Help Civilize Humanity?

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A study of 1,400 ancient and modern human skulls suggests that a reduction in testosterone hormone levels accompanied the development of cooperation, complex communication and modern culture some 50,000 years ago.

August 1, 2014

Fecal Transplants Let Packrats Eat Poison

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Woodrats lost their ability to eat toxic creosote bushes after antibiotics killed their gut microbes. Woodrats that never ate the plants were able to do so after receiving fecal transplants with microbes from creosote-eaters, University of Utah biologists found.

July 21, 2014

New View of Rainier’s Volcanic Plumbing

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By measuring how fast Earth conducts electricity and seismic waves, a University of Utah researcher and colleagues made a detailed picture of Mount Rainier’s deep volcanic plumbing and partly molten rock that will erupt again someday.

July 17, 2014

New Plant Species from the Heart of Texas

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Collectors found the first two specimens of the prickly plant in 1974 and 1990 in west Texas. Then, for two decades, the 14-inch-tall plant was identified wrongly as one species, then another and then a third.

July 9, 2014

A Hotspot for Powerful Cosmic Rays

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An observatory run by the University of Utah found a “hotspot” beneath the Big Dipper emitting a disproportionate number of the highest-energy cosmic rays. The discovery moves physics another step toward identifying the mysterious sources of the most energetic particles in the universe.

July 8, 2014