A protein involved in cognition and storing long-term memories looks and acts like a protein from viruses. The protein, called Arc, has properties similar to those that viruses use for infecting host cells, and originated from a chance evolutionary event that occurred hundreds of millions of years ago. The prospect that virus-like proteins could be […]

On April 20, 2016, University of Utah historical architect Charles Shepherd found something unexpected at an excavation site on Presidents Circle. At first glance in the morning light, he thought it might have been a rock. Closer inspection made it clear, though, that it was a human skull. The skull was just one of more […]

Older married women shoulder more housework than their husbands do even when neither of them are in the labor force — and health problems she may have don’t change that arrangement unless they are significant. A new study from the University of Utah that examined gender, health and housework among married, heterosexual couples who are […]

In 1870, explorer Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld, trekking across the barren and remote ice cap of Greenland, saw something most people wouldn’t expect in such an empty, inhospitable landscape: haze. Nordenskiöld’s record of the haze was among the first evidence that air pollution around the northern hemisphere can travel toward the pole and degrade air quality […]

When viruses infect the body’s cells, those cells face a difficult problem. How can they destroy viruses without harming themselves? Scientists at University of Utah Health have found an answer by visualizing a tiny cellular machine that chops the viruses’ genetic material into bits. Their research shows how the machine detects the intruders and processes […]

For inexperienced social workers, the first home visits could result in important decisions tainted with bias. But practice makes perfect, and students and faculty at the University of Utah’s Therapeutic Games and Apps Lab (The GApp Lab) are developing a virtual reality simulation for social work students that recreates a home environment so they can […]

Christopher Hacon, University of Utah mathematician, was awarded the 2018 Breakthrough Prize in Mathematics at a ceremony in Silicon Valley on Dec. 3. The awards ceremony, hosted by Morgan Freeman, was held at NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, CA. The $3 million prize, shared with James McKernan of the University of California, San […]

What does a marine snail’s ability to kill prey with two shots of venom have to do with the opioid epidemic ravaging the United States? More than you could imagine. A multi-disciplinary team of researchers with expertise in biology, anesthesiology, pharmacology, and medicinal chemistry at U of U Health received a grant from the Department […]

The next generation of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-V), will move forward with mapping the entire sky following a $16 million grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. The grant will kickstart a groundbreaking all-sky spectroscopic survey for a next wave of discovery, anticipated to start in 2020. The University of Utah has been […]

A six-foot-wide snowblower mounted on a tractor makes a lot of sense when you live on the Tug Hill plateau. Tug Hill, in upstate New York, is one of the snowiest places in the eastern U.S. and experiences some of the most intense snowstorms in the world.  This largely rural region, just east of Lake […]