The American Heart Association (AHA) awarded investigators at University of Utah Health $3.7 million to conduct collaborative research to prevent and treat congenital heart disease. U of U Health is one of four groups across the country to join the AHA’s Strategically Focused Research Network (SFRN) for children. Martin Tristani-Firouzi, a clinican-scientist at U of […]

Scientists have solved decades long puzzle about lithium, an essential metal in cellphone and computer batteries. Using extreme pressure experiments and powerful supercomputing, the international team has unraveled the mystery of a fundamental property of lithium. Its atoms are arranged in a simple structure, and may be the first direct evidence of a quantum solid […]

“Yarraman flu is a virus quickly infecting the U.S. …” The mock announcement was enough to make readers worry. But when the name of the hypothetical illness was changed to “horse flu,” the news elicited a different reaction. Readers were not as concerned, and reported being less motivated to get a vaccine that would prevent […]

Antibiotics were the wonder drug of the 20th century, but persistent use and over-prescription have opened the door that has allowed bacteria to evolve resistance. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than two million people in the United States develop bacterial infections that are resistant to multiple antibiotics every year. Previous […]

  Erhu Cao, assistant professor of biochemistry at University of Utah Health, was named a 2017 Pew Scholar for his exploration of atomic-scale mechanisms to understand how cell membrane proteins function under normal and diseased states. Cao is one of 22 scientists nationwide to receive the honor from the Pew Charitable Trusts. The Pew Scholars Program in […]

The University of Utah’s nationally-ranked Entertainment Arts & Engineering (EAE) video game design program announced today that Blizzard Entertainment’s wildly popular multiplayer titles “Overwatch” and “Hearthstone” will be official varsity games in Utah’s new collegiate esports program. Varsity esports at the University of Utah is the first college-sponsored varsity esports program from any school in […]

A University of Utah-led team has discovered that a class of “miracle materials” called organic-inorganic hybrid perovskites could be a game changer for future spintronic devices. Spintronics uses the direction of the electron spin — either up or down — to carry information in ones and zeros. A spintronic device can process exponentially more data […]

In summer 2010, Los Angeles was losing about 100 gallons of water per person per day to the atmosphere through the evaporation and plant uptake of lawns and trees. Lawns accounted for 70 percent of the water loss, while trees accounted for 30 percent, according to a University of Utah study published in Water Resources […]

On May 13, 2017, Patrick Wiggins, public outreach educator for the University of Utah’s Department of Physics & Astronomy, and NASA solar system ambassador to Utah, spotted something unusual in the sky. He was looking at the spiral galaxy NGC 6946, known as the Fireworks Galaxy, in the Cygnus constellation over 22 million light-years away […]

Distinguished professor of biochemistry Dana Carroll, who has devoted much of his career to developing precise genome editing platforms, received one of the highest honors in science today when he was elected to the prestigious National Academy of Sciences. Carroll is among 84 U.S. scientist-scholars and 21 foreign associates elected by the academy in 2017, […]