All air-breathing vertebrates have a larynx—a structure of muscles and folds that protects the trachea and, in many animals, vibrates and modulates to produce a stunning array of sounds. But birds, although they have larynges (plural of larynx), use a different organ to sing. It’s low in the airway, down where the trachea branches to […]

When Ivan Pavlov was measuring dog slobber at the turn of the 20th century, he could not have imagined all the ways his classical conditioning research would shape the future of scientific discovery. Today, there is substantial research suggesting that conditioned behaviors—such as smoking after a meal—sustain unhealthy habits.  It follows that by preventing the […]

The University of Utah’s commitment to undergraduate involvement in research will be on full display on Tuesday, April 9, as more than 500 undergraduate students, representing every college and more than 70 academic departments and schools, present their research projects in the 2019 Undergraduate Research Symposium. “The U strongly supports undergraduate research, with programs supported […]

The Federal Bureau of Investigation is responsible for tracking hate crimes across the country, but the data are notoriously unreliable. Low reporting from victims to police and inconsistent reporting from police to federal authorities have created a massive gap in how we understand hate in America.  Researchers from the University of Utah want to fill that […]

Have you ever been running on a sidewalk making pretty good time, then hit a hill and slowed way down? If so, you’ve experienced how slope affects travel rates. For most of us, understanding how slope steepness impacts our speed is a matter of fitness. For others, such as wildland firefighters retreating from the fire […]

If a city experiences a major power outage due to a natural disaster or a cyberattack, it is vital to bring back power as soon as possible for first responders and critical infrastructure. University of Utah electrical and computer engineering assistant professor Masood Parvania and his team at his Utah Smart Energy Laboratory (U-Smart) have […]

Bring science to people where they are. That’s the driving philosophy that propels U biology professor Nalini Nadkarni to stretch the possibilities of science communication and bring the beauty of science to people and places that others have overlooked. Building public trust in science is about more than just providing information and improving science literacy, […]

A team of worldwide researchers including engineers from the University of Utah have received a $9.7-million grant to design and develop a new implantable device and surgical procedure for the deaf that hopefully will cut through the noise and produce much more detailed sound than traditional hearing-loss treatments. This new procedure involves the use of […]

Researchers have been baffled by tropical rainforest diversity for over a century; 650 different tree species can exist in an area covering two football fields, yet similar species never grow next to each other. It seems like it’s good to be different than your neighbors, but why? To grow in a tropical rainforest is to […]

When naturalist Charles Darwin stepped onto the Galapagos Islands in 1835, he encountered a bird that sparked a revolutionary theory on how new species originate. From island to island, finches had wildly varied beak designs that reflected their varied diets. The so-called Darwin’s finches are an emblem of adaptive radiation, which describes when organisms from […]