University Communication and Marketing (UCAM) annually compiles a Year-in-Review highlighting both its general and research news and feature stories across campus during the course of the calendar year. From volcanic drone research in the Canary Islands to a ghostly mirror world to dinosaur respiratory infection, greenhouse gas warming plus the impact of cannabis legalization on the stock market, scientists at The College of New Mexico conducted a wide variety of research in many areas with worldwide impact.
Below is a select list based on UCAM’s Newsroom Analytics of the top 2022 news stories highlighting a number of research accomplishments. Click on the particular headline to read the full story for each listing. The list below is in random order.
Ghostly ‘mirror world’ might be cause of cosmic controversy
New study suggests an unseen ‘mirror world’ associated with particles that interacts with our world only via gravity that might be the key to solving a major puzzle in cosmology today – typically the Hubble constant problem. Determining whether such a cosmological scenario exists is this question that will researchers, including Francis-Yan Cyr-Racine, assistant professor within the Department of Physics and Astronomy at The University or college of New Mexico.
UNM’s VolCAN team makes history within Canary Islands
When an interdisciplinary team from The College or university of Brand new Mexico was awarded a four-year, $1. 5 million grant from the National Science Foundation in 2020 , often the goal was to develop novel, bio-inspired software and drones to measure and sample volcanic gases. One year later, the Project VolCAN team got a spectacular opportunity to do just that — and make history in the process by becoming what is believed to be one of your first analysis teams to collect uncontaminated gases from an active volcanic eruption.
Researchers discover first evidence indicating ice age respiratory contamination
A group regarding researchers through around the country, including School of recent South america Research Assistant Professor Ewan Wolff, discovered the first proof of an unique respiratory illness in the exact fossilized remains of a dinosaur that lived nearly 150 million years ago. The study, “The first occurrence of an avian‑style respiratory infection in a non‑avian prehistoric, ” has been recently published in the Scientific Report .
Jupiter-like planet discovered through TESS in addition to citizen scientist collaboration
Since 2010, Tom Jacobs, a former U. S. naval officer, has participated in online volunteer projects that allow anyone who is interested — “citizen scientists” — to look through NASA telescope data for signs of planets beyond our solar system. Now, Jacobs has helped find out a giant gaseous world about 379 light-years coming from Earth, orbiting a star with the same mass as the Sun. The Visual Working Group alerted two professional man of science collaborators which includes Diana Dragomir, an assistant professor in The Higher education of Fresh Mexico and even a co-author on the particular study.
Cannabis legalization decreases the stock market value of major pharmaceutical firms
Researchers by California Polytechnic State Collage and The University involving New Mexico find of which stock market investors predict marijuana legalization will reduce conventional pharmaceutical sales by billions of dollars. In the recent study, “ U. S. Marijuana Laws Projected to Cost Generic together with Brand Pharmaceutical Firms Billions , ” published in PLOS One , Sarah Stith from the Institution of New Mexico’s Economics department and a co-author, studied how the stock exchange returns connected with publicly traded pharmaceutical firms responded to medical and recreational cannabis legalization events.
International team of scientists find many coastal cities worldwide vulnerable to sea level rise due to rapid land sinking
A group of international scientists has found that numerous densely populated coastal towns worldwide are at a high risk with extreme relative sea degree rise as land sinks because of groundwater extraction and additionally other industrial processes. The team of researchers, which included Eric Lindsey, assistant teacher in the Division of Earth and Planetary Sciences from The Higher educatoin institutions of Brand-new Mexico, processed satellite images of 48 of the largest coastal metropolitan areas worldwide via 2014 in order to 2020 to be able to measure property subsidence rates using a cloud-based processing system.
Technology: UNM researchers find Bitcoin mining is environmentally unsustainable
Taken as a new share for the market price, the climate change impacts of mining the digital cryptocurrency Bitcoin is more comparable to typically the impacts about extracting not to mention refining crude oil than mining gold, according for you to an analysis released in Scientific Reports by researchers with The Or even of New Mexico.
Explore or exploit: How our own brain helps make choices
People make countless choices every day. It may be a difficult, complex choice—whether to help take the job in some sort of new city or stay in a current position—or become as simple as choosing between visiting a new restaurant or going to an old favorite. Decision-making shapes the knowledge and also our perceptions of this world around us. But what happens inside our brain when we make one choice or the other? Jeremy Hogeveen, assistant professor within the UNM Section of Psychology, details his search with regard to answers in a new article published inside the prestigious neuroscience journal Neuron .
Scientists find greenhouse gasoline warming likely cause in industrial-era sea level rise
An international staff of experts has developed an accurate record of preindustrial sea stage utilizing precisely dated phreatic overgrowths on speleothems the fact that provide a detailed history from Late Holocene sea-level change in Mallorca, Spain, an island inside the western Mediterranean Sea. The results provide an unprecedented picture of sea levels over the past 4, 000 many years, putting often the preindustrial as well as modern global mean ocean level (GMSL) histories throughout context. The particular collaboration involves several U. S. and international professionals, including University or of recent South america scientists Yemane Asmerom plus Victor Polyak.
New research suggests using Cannabis can make you a nicer person
Investigators on The Or perhaps of Brand new Mexico analyzed the psychological functioning associated with healthy college students with varying levels of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) in their urine. Compared to nonusers, young adults with recent exposure to hashish scored significantly higher upon standardized measurements of prosocial behaviors, empathy, and moral decision-making founded on principles of ensuring harmlessness in addition to sense regarding fairness.
UNM biologists use zebrafish while model to understand loss of smell caused by COVID
The COVID-19 pandemic offers prompted your search regarding animal models that demonstrate the symptoms observed in humans infected along with SARS-CoV-2. Fresh research out of University of New Mexico Biology Ph. D. student Aurora Kraus and even associate mentor of The field of biology Irene Salinas have begun using zebrafish as a model intended for COVID-19 together with emphasis about the loss of smell many people have reported as a symptom of the exact virus.
PAÍS Visualization Lab brings big data to life
Typically the University of recent Mexico (UNM) completed construction on its new Physics & Astronomy and Interdisciplinary Science (PAÍS) building, a good $67 million project that is already changing the way research is carried out on campus. A project over 20 yrs in the making, the particular PAÍS facility houses typically the Department involving Physics & Astronomy along with this new Interdisciplinary Science Cooperative (IS Co-op). Every detail within the 137, 000-square-foot facility—from collaborative meeting spaces in order to labs using open floor plans—is dedicated to encouraging interdisciplinary education together with research.
UNM research in Ancestral Pueblo fishing spotlighted in archaeological journal
There will be a common misconception that Ancestral Poblado people rarely ate fish. Research right from Jonathan Dombrosky, adjunct associate professor at The University of New Mexico Office of Anthropology, shows that will not only did fish become a more common part of their own diet but , like anyone who enjoys fishing, the bigger the seafood, the better. This article recently chosen for the editor’s spotlight in the Journal of Archaeological Science is usually titled Body Size with Unconventional Specimens: A 3D Geometric Morphometrics Approach to be able to Fishes as a result of Ancestral Nación Contexts .
Native American student looks at research through traditional lens
Finding her niche because of her conventional background for you to success provides sometimes been a rocky road to get Raven Longwolf Alcott. But now your senior looking forward to graduation next spring, she has negotiated often the obstacles and found success in the University of recent Mexico like a researcher and additionally environmental activist.
UNM group designs rock-tapping remote control robot to help detect potential slides
The As well as college of New Mexico’s Smart Management of Infrastructure Laboratory (SMILab) has created some remote-controlled (RC) robot designed to detect potential rockslide danger. Often the robot, affectionately nicknamed “Brutus, ” pinpoints damaged not to mention unstable rocks for roadside safety inspectors, keeping them safely out of harm’s method during inspections.
Who to blame: UNM tutor researches AI harm and also culpability
Imagine your identity gets stolen or misconfigured on the internet, resulting in serious personal damages. Your cause has been an error rooted inside Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology, equipment having no face or name. So , who’s at fault? Is it the company of which hosts your technology, the exact state who commissioned this, the worker who created a certain piece of code, or someone else altogether. This game connected with Clue is definitely something the fact that has had as well as will continue to have monumental consequences and questions for years to come. UNM Law Professor Sonia Gipson Rankin, however , is one step closer to finding out the answers.
New study by UNM scientists provides possible insights into the formation with Earth
A new study, conducted simply by scientists during The Grounds of Brand-new Mexico, found ancient, primordial helium-3 leaking from your Earth’s core, suggesting the planet formed inside a solar nebula, stirring further debate among scientists. Now, scientific models of volatile exchange during Earth’s formation and evolution implicate the particular metallic core as a leaky reservoir that supplies the rest of typically the Earth by using helium-3. The exact results also suggest that will other volatiles may be seeping through the core into the mantle.
Migrants from south carrying maize were early Maya ancestors
New exploration published this week by simply University of recent Mexico archaeologist Keith Prufer shows of which a site around Belize had been critical on studying this origins for the ancient Maya people and often the spread about maize like a staple food. According to the paper South-to-north migration preceded your advent in intensive farming inside Cyber region , published this particular week in Nature Communications plus co-led by means of Prufer, excavations in Belize, along through ancient DNA analysis, indicate a previously unknown immigration of people–carrying maize–from an area from South America northward to the Internet region.
UNM continental-scale helium study probes the deep structure of the Tibetan Plateau and the exact Himalayan plate collision
The Tibetan Plateau is a region about twice the elevation of the Colorado Level that was uplifted during the collision of the Indian and the Asian continental plates which is forming the Himalayan Mountains. Together they form the planet’s highest height region in addition to an archetypal example of the processes associated with continent-continent dish collision. Using geochemical data gathered over nearly a decade, through 225 hot springs, researchers, including UNM Department regarding Earth and even Planetary Sciences (E& PS) Professors Laura Crossey together with Karl Karlstrom, have now mapped the subsurface boundary between the Indian and Asian continental plates.
UNM scientists’ part involving NASA crew to open Apollo-era lunar samples
Scientists on the University of New Mexico recently took part found in the opening of ANGSA 73001, a fabulous drive tube lunar sample collected by way of NASA’s Apollo 17 mission that may allow experts to research any gas that may reside in the particular container as well as lunar soil samples in the 50-year-old test preserved inside a core test vacuum container (CSVC). UNM Research Scientist Charles “Chip” Shearer, science co-lead pertaining to ANGSA and additionally research science tecnistions at UNM’s Institute connected with Meteoritics (IOM) and an important research lecturer from the Team of Planet & Planetary Sciences, features led this specific effort for the past 10 decades.
NOTABLE NEWSMAKERS
UNM turns challenges into opportunities utilizing 10 new research teams
Child abuse, mental health, food and housing insecurity, not to mention language endangerment — the issues facing New Mexicans everyday can be seen from streets with Las Cruces to typically the doorways for Raton. Yet 10 analysis teams for The College of Brand new Mexico are turning those challenges in to opportunities, by just pursuing long-term, sustainable solutions.
UNM prof, explains initial James Webb Space Telescope images
Recently, this James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), NASA’s largest and also most powerful space technology telescope, began transmitting incredible, never before seen pictures of distant stars, galaxies and exoplanets down to Earth in order to the wonder and amazement of JWST mission officials, stargazers as well as astronomy buffs around often the world. To learn more, UNM Unit of Physics and Astronomy Professor Kevin Cahill discussed the photos, the bending of light and the images people are usually seeing coming from the James Webb Space Telescope.
UNM doctoral candidate develops open-source GPU-capable fluid dynamics code
When Brian Romero began their doctoral exploration in your Advanced Fluids Lab, led by Professor Svetlana Poroseva with the University or college of recent Mexico’s Mechanical Engineering Department, he quickly realized that the exact tool this individual needed to be able to complete his / her work had not yet been created. He needed a computational fluid dynamics solver capable of simulating supersonic flows with the help of shock waves but couldn’t find one that he liked. That’s when Romero turned to UNM’s Center meant for Advanced Research Computing (CARC) and set out to construct the necessary tool.
Undergrad researchers search for solutions in Neural Diversity Laboratory
Mubarak Hussain Syed, an helper professor about Biology located at The College or university of New Mexico, plus his students, many in them undergraduates, are investigating the genetic and molecular mechanics regulating neural diversity ̶ by stem cells to neural circuits. The findings will help understand the fundamental concepts of nervous system development and potentially to understand and treat neurodevelopmental disorders such as epilepsy, schizophrenia, ADHD, and autism.
UNM poised to become an epicenter for fossil collection with opening from Natural History Science Center
One of UNM’s several historical buildings has already been given brand new life again – and it will serve because an educational resource for you to future professionals throughout each of our community. Situated at the southern edge of main grounds, the Natural History Science Center (NHSC) is a collaborative space dedicated to introducing and researching the rich history associated with our Earth.