Language is a powerful tool that can be used to both isolate and unite. Even more impactful is the reclamation or creation of terminology to embody a notion or rallying cause. “The word ‘queero’ was a joking combination of ‘queer heroes,’” Pride Week co-chair Taylor Anderson (she/her) laughed. “But the name stuck.” This practice is […]

For more than 30 years, University of Utah entomologist Jack Longino has been watching the ground. Whether he’s deep in a tropical jungle or scanning the sidewalks of a Central American city, Longino is always looking for ants. “Ants rule!” he says. Recently, Longino compiled those decades of work into a monograph, detailing 234 species […]

Everyone is a mutant but some are prone to diverge more than others, report scientists at University of Utah Health. At birth, children typically have 70 new genetic mutations compared to their parents (out of the 6 billion letters that make both parental copies of DNA sequence). A new study published in eLife shows that […]

In a year that celebrates the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 lunar landing and mankind’s first steps on the moon, U.S. explorers have once again brought home pieces of the moon for study- but this time from Antarctica, not Mare Tranquillitatis. Five meteorites, all pieces of a previously unknown lunar breccia (a sedimentary rock made of broken […]

John A. Moran Eye Center physician-researcher Paul S. Bernstein and his patients at the University of Utah played a key role in the recent discovery of the first genetic cause for a rare eye disease. Macular telangiectasia type 2 (MacTel) affects about one in 5,000 people, causing a gradual loss of central vision, typically after […]

Smoke from a summer wildfire is more than just an eye-stinging plume of nuisance. It’s a poison to the lungs and hearts of the people who breathe it in and a dense blanket that hampers firefighting operations. There’s an atmospheric feedback loop, says University of Utah atmospheric scientist Adam Kochanski, that can lock smoke in […]

In partnership with Mormons Building Bridges, the Tanner Humanities Center at the University of Utah will host “A Spiritual Home: Building Bridges for Sexual and Gender Minorities in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,” Sept. 27-28 at the Salt Lake City Main Library. “In the established tradition of the Tanner Humanities Center and […]

Doctors have identified a previously unrecognized characteristic of the vaping-related respiratory illness that has been emerging in clusters across the U.S. in recent months. Within the lungs of these patients are large immune cells containing numerous oily droplets, called lipid-laden macrophages. The finding may allow doctors to definitively diagnose the nascent syndrome more quickly and provide the right treatment sooner. It could also provide clues into the causes of the new and mysterious condition. Investigators at University […]

Sept. 9, 2019 — As Rodolfo Martinez-Mota well knows, from the cactus spines in his clothes and skin, white-throated woodrats love to eat prickly pear cactus (from the Opuntia genus). They like the cactus so much that their gut microorganism community, or microbiome, is specially equipped to break down toxins in the cactus. But Martinez-Mota and […]

The Genetic Science Learning Center (GSLC) at University of Utah has been awarded $1.7 million for the first year of a partnership award from the All of Us Research Program, part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The award may total up to $8.7 million over the anticipated five-year project period. With this funding […]