A new graduate-level online certificate program at Arizona State University introduces soldiers and civilians in the United States Army, Army National Guard and Army Reserve to major principles in sustainability science.
More than half of the 19,232 species newly known to science in 2009, the most recent calendar year of compilation, were insects – 9,738 or 50.6 percent – according to the 2011 State of Observed Species (SOS) report released Jan. 18 by the International Institute for Species Exploration at Arizona State University.
Kenneth H. Buetow, a human geneticist and former director of the Center for Biomedical Informatics and Information Technology at the National Cancer Institute, is joining Arizona State University as director of computational sciences and informatics in the Complex Adaptive Systems Initiative.
Freeman Dyson, who has been variously described as a Renaissance scientist, a heretic and a storyteller, will deliver the annual signature lecture presented by Arizona State University's BEYOND Center for Fundamental Concepts in Science on March 29.
Some 32 social scientists and researchers from around the world, including a Senior Sustainability Scholar at Arizona State University, have concluded that fundamental reforms of global environmental governance are needed to avoid dangerous changes in the Earth system. The scientists argued in the March 16 edition of the journal Science that the time is now for a “constitutional moment” in world politics.
The future of the oceans, poverty alleviation, global trade, biodiversity and food security are among research areas that will be at the core of the “Planet under Pressure” (PUP) conference this month with more than 2,500 participants, including several scientists from Arizona State University’s Global Institute of Sustainability.
The Rob and Melani Walton Fund of the Walton Family Foundation is providing $27.5 million to Arizona State University’s Global Institute of Sustainability (GIOS) to develop and deploy promising solutions to sustainability challenges.
An ambitious goal to describe 10 million species in less than 50 years is achievable and necessary to sustain Earth’s biodiversity, according to an international group of 39 scientists, scholars and engineers who provided a detailed plan, including measures to build public support, in the March 30 issue of the journal Systematics and Biodiversity.
Research universities – and their students – were singled out by administrators from the EPA and the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy during an American Innovation for Sustainability forum. Among the speakers at the forum was Arizona State University President Michael Crow.
The International Institute for Species Exploration at Arizona State University released the top 10 new species list on May 23; includes teensy attack wasp, night-blooming orchid, underworld worm, ancient “walking cactus” creature, blue tarantula, Nepalese poppy, giant millipede, sneezing monkey, fungus named for cartoon character and beautiful jellyfish.
Scientists at Arizona State University and NASA are developing a new approach to the medical challenge of detecting bone loss by applying a technique that originated in the Earth sciences. Their findings are presented in a paper published in the online Early Edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) the week of May 28, 2012.
Sander van der Leeuw, the dean of the School of Sustainability at Arizona State University, is among the six winners of the 2012 United Nations Champions of the Earth award. Professor van der Leeuw, an archaeologist and historian by training, was recognized in the science and innovation category.
Arizona State University has been awarded a four-year contract from the Defense Threat Reduction Agency of the U.S. Department of Defense to develop a novel diagnostic technology called immunosignaturing for rapid detection of exposure to infectious disease agents before symptoms occur.
Sustainability is a human decision — a responsibility that relies on good information and how we choose to use it — according to George Basile, a senior sustainability scientist at Arizona State University, who made that point in this month’s cover story in Sustainability: The Journal of Record.
A new analysis of complex interactions between humans and the environment preceding the 9th century collapse and abandonment of the Central Maya Lowlands in the Yucatán Peninsula points to a series of events that have lessons for contemporary decision-makers and sustainability scientists.
The U.S. patenting rate is higher than ever since the Industrial Revolution, according to a new report issued by the Brookings Institution Metropolitan Policy Program, in collaboration with Arizona State University (ASU). Those cities that saw high patent levels within the last thirty years also yielded the largest increase in gross domestic product (GDP) per worker. Patent growth tends to intensify competition among industries. Authors of the Brookings report recommend streamlining existing programs and increasing federal support of innovation to improve the patenting process.
A research team led by Arizona State University (ASU) senior sustainability scientist Ann Kinzig argues for an novel approach to climate change alleviation: target public values and behavior.
Climate science researchers from Arizona State University are launching a first-of-its-kind website to better understand and track greenhouse gas emissions from global power plants.
'Carbon Nation' producer and director Peter Byck will teach sustainability and film production at Arizona State University this fall. His class will analyze sustainability concepts through storytelling and students will create their own documentary on local Arizona sustainability challenges.
Arizona State University scientists are joining global stakeholders and researchers investigating sustainable sources of phosphorus--a nutrient that is getting harder to find and is the basis of our global food system. In developing nations, farmers are unable to afford increasing phosphorus prices while in industrialized nations, phosphorus waste pollutes drinking water and kills marine life. At the first meeting in Washington, D.C., scientists identified sustainable solutions that provide a secure food supply, protect fisheries, and maintain clean drinking water.
The Ecological Society of America has named Osvaldo Sala, an Arizona State University professor of life sciences and sustainability, as a 2013 Fellow. Sala is also a Distinguished Sustainability Scientist in ASU's Global Institute of Sustainability, where he researches human-environment interactions. He is an expert in biodiversity scenarios and his work appears in more than 180 peer-reviewed publications.
Arizona State University and the U.S. Department of Energy's Algae Testbed Public-Private Partnership (ATP3) will host a hands-on, interactive algae workshop at University of Texas at Austin’s campus on Aug. 19-23. Participants can learn algae sampling methods, cultivation techniques, culture density measurement, contaminant monitoring, and biomass analysis.
Arizona State University student Phillip Carrier is using tiny algae plants as inspiration for an art installation project as a Master of Fine Arts student from the Herberger Institute School of Art. Carrier will blend art and science together throughout two summer semesters on the ASU Polytechnic campus as the inaugural artist in residence at the Arizona Center for Algae Technology and Innovation (AzCATI).
In recognition of Julie Ann Wrigley's leadership in conservation, Arizona State University is renaming its Global Institute of Sustainability in her honor.
Due to climate change, "impacts in the Southwest will especially be felt in terms of water scarcity and more days of extreme heat," says Nancy Grimm, ASU life sciences professor and author of two chapters in the new National Climate Assessment report.
An Arizona State University research team found that releasing excess heat from air conditioners running during the night resulted in higher outside temperatures, worsening the urban heat island effect and increasing cooling demands.
Researchers have developed a first-of-its-kind, interdisciplinary equation to measure the monetary value of natural resources. Equation uses principles commonly used to value other capital assets.
Arizona State University experts in global climate policy, international environmental law and climate science will participate in UNFCCC international climate negotiations.
Deserts are often thought of as barren places that are left exposed to the extremes of heat and cold and where not much is afoot. But that view is being altered as new research keeps revealing the intricate ecological dynamics of deserts as they change responding to the elements.
Computer simulations help ASU researchers see what works and what doesn’t for farming and ranching in the Mediterranean — and apply that to other regions in the future.
If you just flubbed a big work project, you might be feeling down on yourself. Maybe you’ll head to the mall to indulge in a little retail therapy.
Buying products is a common way to make yourself feel better, with half of all Americans reporting that they do it.
Living systems rely on a dizzying variety of chemical reactions essential to development and survival. Most of these involve a specialized class of protein molecules--the enzymes. In a new study, Hao Yan, director of the Center for Molecular Design and Biomimetics at ASU's Biodesign Institute presents a clever means of localizing and confining enzymes and the substrate molecules they bind with, speeding up reactions essential for life processes.
It turns out that the rigid "line in the sand" over which the human sex chromosomes---the Y and X--- go to avoid crossing over is a bit blurrier than previously thought. Contrary to the current scientific consensus, Arizona State University assistant professor Melissa Wilson Sayres has led a research team that has shown that X and Y DNA swapping may occur much more often. And this promiscuous swapping, may in turn, aid in our understanding of human history and diversity, health and disease, as well as blur rigid chromosomal interpretations of sexual identity.
NASA has selected an Arizona State University undergraduate student team for a $200,000 grant to conduct hands-on flight research, through its NASA Space Grant Undergraduate Student Instrument Program (USIP).
Evolution can be an emotionally charged topic in education, given a wide range of perspectives on it. Two researchers from Arizona State University are taking an in-depth look at how college professors handle it.
Symptoms of illness are not inevitably tied to an underlying disease --rather, many organisms, including humans, adapt their symptom expression to suit their needs. That's the finding of Arizona State University's Leonid Tiokhin, whose research appears in the Quarterly Review of Biology.
Among the valuable holdings in London's Wellcome Library is a rough pencil sketch made in 1953 by Francis Crick. The drawing is one of the first to show the double-helix structure of DNA--Nature's blueprint for the design of sea snails, human beings, and every other living form on earth.
Male students in undergraduate introductory biology courses are outperforming females at test time, but it may be due to how exams are designed rather than academic ability. In addition, high socioeconomic status students are performing better than lower-status students on those same tests.
Once inside the human body, infectious microbes like Salmonella face a fluid situation. They live in a watery world, surrounded by liquid continually flowing over and abrading their cell surfaces--a property known as fluid shear.
Two massive blob-like structures lie deep within the Earth, roughly on opposite sides of the planet. The two structures, each the size of a continent and 100 times taller than Mount Everest, sit on the core, 1,800 miles deep, and about halfway to the center of the Earth.