Access more multimedia files here. A few years ago, Scott Villa of Emory University had a problem. Then a graduate student at the University of Utah, he was stumped with an issue never addressed in school: How does one film lice having sex? Villa and University of Utah biologists had demonstrated real-time adaptation in their […]
[This is adapted from an original release from Oakland University.] A study that brought together data from around the world has led to new findings on the effect of climatic factors on river ecosystems. The study, published in the latest issue of the journal Science Advances, found that climatic factors such as temperature and moisture […]
William Anderegg, an assistant professor of biology, has received one of 18 Packard Fellowship for Science and Engineering from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation for his research on the effects of climate change and drought on forests. Packard Fellows receive a five-year, $875,000 grant to pursue research directions of their choosing. The Packard Foundation […]
As long as there have been birdwatchers, there have been lists. Birders keep detailed records of the species they’ve seen and compare these lists with each other as evidence of their accomplishments. Now those lists, submitted and aggregated to birding site eBird, can help scientists track bird populations and identify conservation issues before it’s too […]
Utah’s early residents would be surprised to see the canopy of trees that covers the Salt Lake Valley today. Few trees are native to the valley, which means that most of the trees present there today are imported. It’s a much different situation from a natural forest, which is shaped by climate, water availability and […]
On July 22, 1847, a scouting party from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints stood above the Great Salt Lake Valley in modern-day Utah; by 1870, more than 18,000 followers had colonized the valley and surrounding region, displacing Native American populations to establish dispersed farming communities. While historians continue to debate the drivers […]
While studying scavenger behavior in Utah’s Great Basin Desert, University of Utah biologists observed an American badger do something that no other scientists had documented before: bury an entire calf carcass by itself. Watch a video of the badger here. While badgers and their relatives are known to cache food stores, this is the first […]
Unfortunately, loss of plant and animal habitat leads to local species extinctions and a loss of diversity from ecosystems. Fortunately, not all of the extinctions occur at once. Conservation actions may still be able to save threatened species, according to William Newmark, a vertebrate zoologist at the Natural History Museum of Utah at the University […]
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 […]
Vultures. Cartoon characters in parched deserts often wish them to disappear, since circling vultures are a stereotypical harbinger of death. But, joking aside, vultures in some parts of the world are in danger of disappearing. And according to a new report from University of Utah biologists, such a loss would have serious consequences for ecosystems […]