Northern Arizona University economics professor Julie Mueller is a principal investigator on a grant from the National Science Foundation aimed at increasing knowledge and solutions around the unique problems pandemics present to rural areas.
Mueller, who has an 80 percent appointment in the Franke College of Business and a 20 percent appointment in the School of Earth and Sustainability, is researching “Build and… Read more
Access the full Festival of Science program of events here.
Now in its 31st year, the award-winning annual Festival of Science—the longest-running event of its kind in the Western Hemisphere—continues to be a cornerstone event for the Flagstaff community, with Northern Arizona University playing a key role in the festival’s success. Through active participation by NAU scientists, artists and educators, as well as through a robust sponsorship commitment, the university contributes to the Flagstaff community through the festival in… Read more
For years, researchers have been trying to harness the crop-growing benefits of the symbiotic relationship between plants and fungi. Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF), for example, can deliver water and nutrients to the roots of plants like sorghum, a grain used to produce biofuels. The US Department of Energy (DOE) is particularly interested in producing sorghum more efficiently to reduce the need for irrigation and fertilizer, and… Read more
Over the past 150 years, global warming has more than undone the global cooling that occurred over the past six millennia, according to a major study published June 30 in Nature Research’s Scientific Data, “Holocene global mean surface temperature, a multi-method reconstruction approach.” The findings show that the millennial-scale global cooling began approximately 6,500 years ago when the long-term average global… Read more
Given the tremendous ability of forests to absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, some governments are counting on planted forests as offsets for greenhouse gas emissions—a sort of climate investment. As with any investment, however, it’s important to understand the risks. If a forest goes bust—through severe droughts or wildfires, researchers say—much of that stored carbon could go up in smoke.
Professor Scott Goetz of Northern Arizona University’s
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… Read more