Archaeologist Jaime Awe kicks off 10-day community festival; other events highlight NAU scientists, artists and educators
Locally known as “The Best 10 Days of the Year,” the Festival of Science continues to be a cornerstone event for the Flagstaff community, with Northern Arizona University playing a key role in the festival’s success.
Now in its 32nd… Read more
New strain of deadly disease caused by Yersinia pestis emerged in an outbreak in rural Madagascar
Although the world is focused on the COVID-19 pandemic, there are many other dangerous pathogens still out there, like Yersinia pestis, which causes plague – the deadly disease that killed tens of millions of people during the infamous Black Death in the 14th century. Although plague has been largely eradicated in the developed world, it still… Read more
Scientists at Northern Arizona University, Arizona State University, the Arizona Geological Survey at the University of Arizona and the National Snow and Ice Data Center at the University of Colorado Boulder have been awarded almost $2 million from the National Science Foundation to develop a virtual reality teaching tool called Polar Explorer. In this… Read more
As the Arctic endures another summer of record-breaking surface air temperatures, a team from NAU, led by Ecoss’ assistant research professor Christina Schädel, has been awarded a three-year, $764,000 grant from the Department of Energy to help improve models that predict what will happen to permafrost carbon as the Arctic continues to warm. The team, which includes Ecoss Regent’s Professor Ted Schuur, School of… Read more
Drought—even in a single year—can leave aspen more vulnerable to insect infestation and other stressors decades later, a new study by NAU researchers found. Aspen trees that were not resilient to drought stayed smaller than others, growing more slowly and succumbing to an outbreak of insects known as aspen leaf miners that have plagued interior Alaska for more than two decades.
The findings, led by research specialist Melissa Boyd and Regents’ professor Michelle Mack of the Center for Ecosystem Science… Read more
Just a few bacterial taxa found in ecosystems across the planet are responsible for more than half of carbon cycling in soils. These new findings, made by researchers at Northern Arizona University and published in Nature Communications this week, suggest that despite the diversity of microbial taxa found in wild soils… Read more