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Cosmic ray observatory to expand

June 15, 2015 – Physicists plan a $6.4 million expansion of the $25 million Telescope Array observatory in Utah so they can zero in on a “hotspot” that seems to be a source of the most powerful particles in the universe: ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays. Japan will contribute $4.6 million and University of Utah scientists will […]

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New tool to save salmon: isotope tracking

May 15, 2015 – Salmon carry a strontium chemical signature in their “ear bones” that lets scientists identify specific streams where the fish hatched and lived before they were caught at sea. The new tool may help pinpoint critical habitats for fish threatened by climate change, industrial development and overfishing. “Using this method, we can […]

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Calculating how the Pacific was settled

April 22, 2015 – Using statistics that describe how an infectious disease spreads, a University of Utah anthropologist analyzed different theories of how people first settled islands of the vast Pacific between 3,500 and 900 years ago. Adrian Bell found the two most likely strategies were to travel mostly against prevailing winds and seek easily […]

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U pistol team wins four events at national college championships

March 26, 2015 – University of Utah students won two individual events, two team events and placed fourth overall at this year’s National Inter-Collegiate Pistol Championships at Fort Benning, Georgia. Wyatt Brown, a sophomore majoring in film and theater studies, won the open air pistol and free pistol competitions. He also brought home all-American honors […]

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Earthlike ‘Star Wars’ Tatooines may be common

March 30, 2015 – Luke Skywalker’s home in “Star Wars” is the desert planet Tatooine, with twin sunsets because it orbits two stars. So far, only uninhabitable gas-giant planets have been identified circling such binary stars, and many researchers believe rocky planets cannot form there. Now, mathematical simulations show that Earthlike, solid planets such as […]

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A stiff new layer in Earth’s mantle

March 23, 2015 – By crushing minerals between diamonds, a University of Utah study suggests the existence of an unknown layer inside Earth: part of the lower mantle where the rock gets three times stiffer. The discovery may explain a mystery: why slabs of Earth’s sinking tectonic plates sometimes stall and thicken 930 miles underground. […]

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