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How much water does your lawn really need? A University of Utah study re-evaluated lawn watering recommendations by measuring water use by lawns in Los Angeles. The standard model of turfgrass water needs, they found, lacked precision in some common urban southern California conditions, like the Santa Ana winds, or in the shade.

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University of Utah mathematicians showed it is theoretically possible to design ideal climbing ropes to safely slow falling rock and mountain climbers like brakes decelerate a car. They hope someone develops a material to turn theory into reality.

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University of Utah biologists working in Turkey discovered two surprising facts about a group of 16 brown bears: First, six of the bears seasonally migrated between feeding and breeding sites, the first known brown bears to do so. Second, and more sobering, the other 10 bears stayed in one spot all year long: the city dump.

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Vocal cords are able to produce a wide range of sound frequencies because of the larynx’s ability to stretch vocal cords and the cords’ molecular composition.

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University of Utah materials science and engineering associate professor Mike Scarpulla and senior scientist Kirstin Alberi of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory have developed a theory that adding light during the manufacturing of semiconductors — the materials that make up the essential parts of computer chips, solar cells and light emitting diodes (LEDs) — can reduce defects and potentially make more efficient solar cells or brighter LEDs.

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Natural selection favors people who help close kin at their own expense: It can increase the odds the family’s genes are passed to future generations. But why assist distant relatives? Mathematical simulations by a University of Utah anthropologist suggest “socially enforced nepotism” encourages helping far-flung kin.

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When new HIV particles bud from an infected cell, the enzyme protease activates to help the viruses infect more cells. Modern AIDS drugs control the disease by inhibiting protease. Now, University of Utah researchers showed that if they delay the budding of new HIV particles, protease itself will destroy the virus instead of helping it spread. That that might lead to new AIDS drugs in a decade.

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New research from University of Utah researcher Nicholas H. Wolfinger explores counterintuitive trends in the link between premarital sex and marital stability.

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On Wednesday, June 8 and Thursday, June 9 U Honors College Dean Sylvia Torti will be in Southern California for two alumni gathering and student recruitment events. Torti can be reached by media to discuss the value of a college degree, deeply-engaged learning experiences for undergraduates and providing students with unique, hands-on experiences through Praxis Labs, which are year-long, project-based courses at the U's Honors College.

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A Utah mountainside collapsed 4,800 years ago in a gargantuan landslide known as a “rock avalanche,” creating the flat floor of what is now Zion National Park by damming the Virgin River to create a lake that existed for 700 years.

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Spring snowpack, relied on by ski resorts and water managers throughout the Western United States, may be more vulnerable to a warming climate in coming decades, according to a new University of Utah study.

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Older Americans with some hearing loss shouldn’t feel alone if they have trouble understanding British TV sagas like “Downton Abbey.” A small study from the University of Utah suggests hearing-impaired senior citizens have more trouble than young people comprehending British accents when there is background noise.

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Women talk more than men, texting makes you dumb, sign language is pantomime. These are just a few of the myths Abby Kaplan, professor of linguistics at the University of Utah, debunks in her recently published book, “Women Talk More Than Men…And Other Myths about Language Explained.”

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University of Utah law and philosophy professor Leslie Francis makes a mark in the field of applied ethics

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A new study by University of Utah S.J. Quinney College of Law professor Christopher L. Peterson analyzes the U.S. government’s effort to create an effective consumer financial protection agency.

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Nubia Peña is one of 122 students who will graduate from the University of Utah S.J. Quinney College of Law on Friday. She was selected as one of the top 25 law students in the country by National Jurist magazine for her commitment to social justice, empowering marginalized communities, and developing new young leaders of color.

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The primary threat to vultures is the presence of toxins in the carrion they consume. Losses of vultures can allow other scavengers to flourish. Proliferation of such scavengers could bring bacteria and viruses from carcasses into human cities.

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The new president should use her or his critical first year to reframe inequality as the crucial macroeconomic issue.

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A team of researchers led by University of Utah civil and environmental engineering professor Chris Pantelides has developed a new process of fixing damaged bridge columns that takes as little as a few days.

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William Anderegg and his colleagues looked for patterns in previous studies of tree mortality and found some common traits that characterized which species lived and which died during drought. The results, published today in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, can help chart the future of forests.

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By showing that a phenomenon dubbed the “inverse spin Hall effect” works in several organic semiconductors – including carbon-60 buckyballs – University of Utah physicists changed magnetic “spin current” into electric current. The efficiency of this new power conversion method isn’t yet known, but it might find use in future electronic devices including batteries, solar cells and computers.

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The western United States relies on mountain snow for its water supply. Water stored as snow in the mountains during winter replenishes groundwater and drives river runoff in spring, filling reservoirs for use later in summer. But how could a warming globe and a changing climate interrupt this process?

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Fire, a tool broadly used for cooking, constructing, hunting and even communicating, was arguably one of the earliest discoveries in human history. But when, how and why it came to be used is hotly debated among scientists. A new scenario crafted by University of Utah anthropologists proposes that human ancestors became dependent on fire as a result of Africa’s increasingly fire-prone environment 2-3 million years ago.

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In the April 6 issue of the journal Nature Communications, a new study used fossils and mercury isotopes from volcanic gas deposited in ancient proto-Pacific Ocean sediment deposits in Nevada to determine when life recovered following the end-Triassic mass extinction 201.5 million years ago.

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A team of international paleontologists demonstrate that ancient mammal relatives known as therapsids were suited to the drastic climate change by having shorter life expectancies and would have had a better chance of success by breeding at younger ages than their predecessors.

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Alkane fuel is a key ingredient in combustible material such as gasoline, airplane fuel, oil — even a homemade bomb. Yet it’s difficult to detect and there are no portable scanners available that can sniff out the odorless and colorless vapor. But University of Utah engineers have developed a new type of fiber material for a handheld scanner that can detect small traces of alkane fuel vapor, a valuable advancement that could be an early-warning signal for leaks in an oil pipeline, an airliner, or for locating a terrorist’s explosive.

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University of Utah S.J. Quinney College of Law receives $250,000 gift and new $5 million endowment to top-ranked environmental law program

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University of Utah S.J. Quinney College of Law hosts 'Green Infrastructure, Resilient Cities: New Challenges, New Solutions'

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University of Utah S.J. Quinney College of Law Professor Michael Teter is available to discuss the merits of Merrick Garland as a U.S. Supreme Court Justice —as well as how Garland's appointment will change the court's make-up and political considerations that factor into the process.

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The Entertainment Arts & Engineering (EAE) program at the University of Utah is the No. 1 undergraduate school for studying game design, according to the Princeton Review, which released the rankings today. The EAE graduate program is ranked No. 3.

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University of Utah scientists identified two genes that make some pigeon breeds develop feathered feet known as muffs, while others have scaled feet. The same or similar genes might explain scaled feet in chickens and other birds, and provide insight into how some dinosaurs got feathers before they evolved into birds.

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For humans to understand speech and for other animals to know each other’s calls, the brain must distinguish short sounds from longer sounds. By studying frogs, University of Utah researchers figured out how certain brain cells compute the length of sounds and detect short ones.

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New report from the S.J. Quinney College of Law focuses on remedies to help protect migrant women from domestic violence and sexual assault. The research is part of a broader initiative at the law school focused on drawing attention to empowering people through human rights education.

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The University of Utah’s No.1- ranked video game program, Entertainment Arts & Engineering (EAE), and the David Eccles School of Business announce the creation of the nation’s first dual master’s degree combining a Master of Business Administration with a Master in EAE in game development. This unique degree for graduate students is designed to prepare them for all facets of the growing $91 billion video game industry, from designing and producing games to publishing them in a competitive market.

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University of Utah engineers have discovered a new kind of 2D semiconducting material for electronics that opens the door for much speedier computers and smartphones that also consume a lot less power.

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Researchers have always thought that flat, ultrathin optical lenses for cameras or other devices were impossible because of the way all the colors of light must bend through them. But University of Utah electrical and computer engineering professor Rajesh Menon and his team have developed a new method of creating optics that are flat and thin yet can still perform the function of bending light to a single point, the basic step in producing an image.

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The first study of its kind, “The contributions of maternal sensitivity and maternal depressive symptoms to epigenetic processes and neuroendocrine functioning,” led by University of Utah assistant professor Elisabeth Conradt in the Department of Psychology, found that certain parenting strategies can combat the negative impacts of maternal depression on an infant.

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In letter to White House, Cassell, a former federal judge, cites “unjust” 55-year mandatory minimum sentence he was forced to hand down in 2004 to Angelos, then a 24-year-old music producer.

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Erwin Chemerinsky, a controversial critic of the U.S. Supreme Court, will speak at the S.J. Quinney College of Law on Feb. 4 as part of the 50th Annual Leary Lecture. The lecture will explore how changes in society and in the court’s ideology have produced major shifts in some constitutional areas, while others have remained remarkably unchanged.

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Mackenzie Simper, Salt Lake City native and senior in mathematics at the University of Utah, has received the prestigious Churchill Scholarship to study at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom. Simper becomes one of only 15 students nationally to receive this award and is the first Churchill Scholar for the University of Utah.

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Moths sniff out others of their own species using specific pheromone blends. So if you transplant an antenna – the nose, essentially – from one species to another, which blend of pheromones does the moth respond to? The donor species’, or the recipients’? The answer is neither.

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A recent study by University of Utah Department of City & Metropolitan Planning professor Reid Ewing and his colleagues in Utah, Texas and Louisiana, tested the relationship between urban sprawl and upward mobility for metropolitan areas in the United States. The study examined potential pathways through which sprawl may have an effect on mobility and uses mathematical models to account for both direct and indirect effects of sprawl on upward mobility.

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