We crowdsource for business startups, art projects, inventions, even families in need. So why not ask cellphone users to contribute in helping catch high-tech thieves? University of Utah School of Computing professor Sneha Kumar Kasera and his team of researchers are tasked with creating a system that allows cellphone and laptop users to help detect […]
Science & Technology
To catch a wireless thief
Size matters: Advance could increase sensitivity of liquid biopsies
The liquid biopsy, a new type of blood test for detecting and monitoring cancer, is a welcome reprieve from typical biopsies. The minimally invasive test could reduce the need for the sometimes painful and risky procedures involved in sampling tumors, particularly those that reside deep within the body. However, thus far, the utility of the […]
To save water on lawns, throw some shade
How much water does your lawn really need? A University of Utah study re-evaluated lawn watering recommendations by measuring water use by lawns in Los Angeles. The standard model of turfgrass water needs, they found, lacked precision in some common urban southern California conditions, like the Santa Ana winds, or in the shade. “The current […]
Theoretical climbing rope could brake falls
University of Utah mathematicians showed it is theoretically possible to design ideal climbing ropes to safely slow falling rock and mountain climbers like brakes decelerate a car. They hope someone develops a material to turn theory into reality. In a new study in the Journal of Sports Engineering and Technology, the mathematicians write: “We do […]
Migratory bears down in the dumps
University of Utah biologists working in Turkey discovered two surprising facts about a group of 16 brown bears: First, six of the bears seasonally migrated between feeding and breeding sites, the first known brown bears to do so. Second, and more sobering, the other 10 bears stayed in one spot all year long: the city […]
Why people help distant kin
June 15, 2016 – It’s easy to understand why natural selection favors people who help close kin at their own expense: It can increase the odds the family’s genes are passed to future generations. But why assist distant relatives? Mathematical simulations by a University of Utah anthropologist suggest “socially enforced nepotism” encourages helping far-flung kin. […]
Pitch range produced by vocal cords
Picture a singer, accompanied by a grand piano. As the singer’s voice dances through multiple octaves of range, the pianist’s fingers trip from one end of the keyboard to the other. Both the singer’s voice and the piano are dynamic instruments. But while the piano creates its music using the vibration of hundreds of strings, […]
A new way to nip AIDS in the bud
When new AIDS virus particles bud from an infected cell, an enzyme named protease activates to help the viruses mature and infect more cells. That’s why modern AIDS drugs control the disease by inhibiting protease. Now, University of Utah researchers found a way to turn protease into a double-edged sword: They showed that if they […]
How a huge landslide shaped Zion National Park
A Utah mountainside collapsed 4,800 years ago in a gargantuan landslide known as a “rock avalanche,” creating the flat floor of what is now Zion National Park by damming the Virgin River to create a lake that existed for 700 years. Those are key conclusions of a new University of Utah study that provides […]
Spring snow a no-go?
Spring snowpack, relied on by ski resorts and water managers throughout the Western United States, may be more vulnerable to a warming climate in coming decades, according to a new University of Utah study. The study, accepted for publication in Geophysical Research Letters, models the year-to-year variability in precipitation and temperature in Utah’s Wasatch Mountains […]