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The University of Utah is the top research university in the nation when it comes to commercializing technology innovations, according to the Milken Institute’s 2017 ranking of Best Universities for Technology Transfer.

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A U-led study found two ultra-compact dwarf galaxies with supermassive black holes, the second and third such galaxies found to harbor the objects. The three examples suggest that black holes lurk in most ultra-compact dwarf centers. The tiny galaxies were likely leftovers of larger galaxies stripped of their outer layers after colliding into larger galaxies.

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President Trump’s declarations that the press is the “enemy of the American people,” accompanied by overt hostile acts, are not merely different in degree but different in kind from the tensions and antagonisms with the media that have punctuated many previous presidencies, according to two Utah law professors.

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University of Utah professors Bradley R. Cairns, Ph.D., professor and chair of Oncological Sciences and senior director of Basic Science; Dana Carroll, Ph.D., distinguished professor of Biochemistry; and Christopher D. Hacon, Ph.D., distinguished professor of Mathematics, were raised to a high honor in science today with their election to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

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The University of Utah is launching a first-of-its-kind program designed to address the low enrollment of African-American doctoral students. The African-American Doctoral Scholars Initiative, which begins fall 2017, provides eligible students with annual scholarships worth up to $5,000, among other resources.

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The University of Utah and it’s nationally ranked Entertainment Arts & Engineering video game development program announced today that it is forming the U’s first college-sponsored varsity esports program.

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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.

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University of Utah bioengineering researchers have discovered that damage to collagen, the main building block of all human tissue, can occur much earlier at a molecular level from too much physical stress. This could be helpful for some who want to know earlier if they are developing diseases such as arthritis or for athletes whose bodies are taking a toll.

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With just an inexpensive micro-thin surgical needle and laser light, University of Utah engineers have discovered a minimally invasive, inexpensive way to take high-resolution pictures of an animal brain, a process that also could lead to a much less invasive method for humans.

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University of Utah engineers have discovered a new material made from a combination of the chemical elements calcium, cobalt and terbium that can create an efficient, inexpensive and bio-friendly material that can generate electricity through a thermoelectric process involving heat and cold air.

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Researchers led by University of Utah bioengineering assistant professor Robby Bowles have discovered a way to curb chronic pain by modulating genes that reduce tissue- and cell-damaging inflammation.

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Carbon emissions to the atmosphere from streams and rivers are expected to increase as warmer water temperatures stimulate faster rates of organic matter breakdown. But a new study led by University of Utah researcher Jennifer J. Follstad Shah, in collaboration with a team of 15 scientists in the U.S. and Europe, suggests these decay rates may not increase as much as expected. In fact, the study indicates average breakdown rates may increase 5 percent to 21 percent with a 1 degree to 4-degree Celsius rise in water temperature — half as much as the 10 percent to 45 percent increase predicted by metabolic theory.

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University of Utah and University of Michigan chemists, participating in a U.S. Department of Energy consortium, predict a better future for these types of batteries, called redox flow batteries. Using a predictive model of molecules and their properties, the team has developed a charge-storing molecule around 1,000 times more stable than current compounds.

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Walking on our heels, a feature that separates great apes, including humans, from other primates, confers advantages in fighting, according to a new University of Utah study published today in Biology Open. Although moving from the balls of the feet is important for quickness, standing with heels planted allows more swinging force, according to study lead author and biologist David Carrier, suggesting that aggression may have played a part in shaping our stance.

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The University of Utah announced the Consortium for Dark Sky Studies, the first academic center in the world dedicated to discovering, developing, communicating and applying knowledge of the quality of the night skies. The consortium will research light pollution and the public health, economic and environmental impacts of the disappearing dark.

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The marriage rate in the U.S. continues to decline and the view that marriage entails a “lack of freedom” is becoming more entrenched, particularly among younger men, according to researchers Nicholas H. Wolfinger and W. Bradford Wilcox.

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University of Utah chemists publish a new method for ammonia production, using enzymes derived from nature, that generates ammonia at room temperature. As a bonus, the reaction generates a small electrical current.

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This study’s findings show there was a 75 percent reduction in suicide attempts among participants who engaged in crisis response planning versus a contract for safety. Crisis response planning also was associated with a significantly faster decline in suicidal thoughts and fewer inpatient hospitalization days.

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University of Utah engineers have created “smart glasses” with liquid-based lenses that can automatically adjust the focus on what a person is seeing, whether it is far away or close up.

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In “The Power of Community Action: Anti-Payday Loan Ordinances in Three Metropolitan Areas,” researchers Robert N. Mayer and Nathalie Martin document how local communities positively organize to control payday lending in their jurisdictions and thereby create important legal change.

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The study, published Jan. 24, 2017, in Pediatrics, is the first to assess how implementation of a state-wide screening can pick up hearing loss in infants due to congenital cytomegalovirus.

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A team including University of Utah mathematician Kenneth Golden has determined how Arctic melt ponds form, solving a paradoxical mystery of how a pool of water actually sits atop highly porous ice.

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Conrad Anker was featured in the 2015 Sundance film, “Meru,” which chronicles his attempt to lead the first team to summit the notoriously difficult Shark’s Fin on Mount Meru in northern India. Anker was a founding member of The North Face Climbing Team and began his relationship with the outdoor company as a retail employee while he was a student at the University of Utah. He graduated in 1988 with a degree in recreation and leisure.

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The University of Utah joins the Reducing Embodied-Energy and Decreasing Emissions (REMADE) Institute, a national coalition that aims to drive down the cost of technologies essential to reuse, recycle and remanufacture metals and other materials.

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University of Utah atmospheric scientist Gannet Hallar and colleagues find a correlation between the severity of drought in the Intermountain West and the summertime air quality, particularly the concentration of aerosol particles, in remote mountain wilderness regions.

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The study is the first to draw a link between RBC size and microscopic traces of blood vessels and bone cells inside bones. They found that extinct mammal and bird relatives had smaller RBCs and were likely better athletes than earlier terrestrial vertebrates. The timing of RBC-size reduction coincided with Earth's greatest mass extinction 252 mya.

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University of Utah researchers will be among the approximately 24,000 scientists convening in San Francisco for the annual Fall Meeting of the American Geophysical Union Dec. 12-16. Below are summaries of select presentations at the meeting, along with the time and date of the presentation and primary contact information. All times are in Pacific Standard Time.

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A newly created school at the University of Utah aims to provide an intellectual foundation for understanding and addressing some of the most pressing issues surrounding race and gender in American society. That goal is reflected in its name: School for Cultural and Social Transformation—the first school in the Intermountain West to make the intersection of race, gender and social justice its focus.

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A University of Utah electrical and computer engineering associate professor Rajesh Menon and his team have developed a cloaking device for microscopic photonics integrated devices in an effort to make future processing chips smaller, faster and consume less power.

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More than 90 percent of ivory in large seized shipments came from elephants that died less than three years before, according to a new University of Utah study.

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Computer scientists from the University of Utah’s College of Engineering have developed what they call “sentiment analysis” software that can automatically determine how someone feels based on what they write or say. To test out the accuracy of this software’s machine-learning model, the team used it to analyze the individual sentiments of more than 1.6 million (and counting) geo-tagged tweets about the U.S. presidential election over the last five months.

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Engineers from the University of Utah are launching a $1.6 million project to research cost-effective, carbon-friendly methods of turning coal-derived pitch into carbon-fiber composite material, and whether it can help revitalize threatened coal communities.

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Biologists at the University of Utah recently used light-weight geolocation technology to follow a species of songbird on its 10,000-kilometer migration from the Middle East to sub-Saharan Africa.

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National Institutes of Health and Department of Defense grants will be used to investigate Mindfulness-Oriented Recovery Enhancement treatment for chronic pain

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