A new project at Northern Arizona University aims to provide a flexible set of eyes in dense forest canopy, offering value both to U.S. defense systems and wildfire management in northern Arizona. Glasswing is an autonomous unoccupied aircraft system (UAS) that can fly beneath forest canopies, where dense vegetation, unreliable GPS and complex obstacles render conventional drones useless. It builds on work led…

Every year at Grand Canyon National Park, millions of visitors from all over the world stop at one of a dozen water spigots. Most people are on a rim, seeing the canyon’s majesty for the first time, when they step off the trail to refill a water bottle. Others are deep in the belly of…

College students are uniquely vulnerable to a wide array of stressors. When every second, dime and spare thought you have is going toward earning your college degree, it can be difficult to find the time to properly decompress and meet new friends. To remedy this issue, Campus Health Promotion developed an on-campus space where NAU…

Humans have lived alongside animals for tens of thousands of years—hunting them, taming them, worshipping them and, more recently, dressing them in sweaters and giving them Instagram accounts. Anthropologists have been turning their attention to this relationship—not just how humans have shaped animals, but how animals have shaped what it means to be human. Department of Anthropology teaching professor Chrissina Burke teaches the ANT…

For National Girls and Women in Sport Day on Feb. 4, hear from student-athletes across NAU Athletics about the first time they picked up a ball or club or laced on running shoes, their best moments wearing blue and gold and how their athletic careers are helping prepare them for their professional careers, in their sport or in an…

Fungi are the hidden architects of our ecosystems, acting as everything from helpful partners for plants to aggressive decomposers that recycle dead wood. However, many fungi don’t stick to just one job; they can switch lifestyles depending on their environment. Understanding this flexibility is vital for predicting how forests and farms will react to climate change. Unfortunately, the…