Brain Food

Finding a path to college can be especially tough for children of undocumented immigrants. They might not know who to talk to or if they should share their immigration status with teachers. Now, a group of students at Northern Arizona University has put together a training course to help local teachers guide DACA students through the college application process. Leah Mundell, an anthropology lecturer, heads up the Community University Public Inquiry Initiative. 

Physicists have found a way to transfer information faster and in larger volumes than ever before through the use of light and sound. 

Twin Arrows Navajo Casino Resort has deployed a unique security officer—nearly five tall, 400 pounds, and fully automated. The Knightscope K5 ADM or Autonomous Data Machine is the first security robot in Arizona. It looks like a taller version of “Star Wars’” R2 D2, and makes space music sounds as it rolls around the parking lot at three miles per hour.

Mars Rover Curiosity has dug up organic material in rocks just below the surface of what’s believed to be an ancient Martian lake bed.

Astronomers at Lowell Observatory have one of the first instruments capable of detecting Earth-sized exoplanets outside our solar system.

A biologist from Flagstaff recently discovered eight new invertebrate species while investigating tropical caves in southeastern China near the Vietnam border. 

The fiery eruption of Mount Kilauea in Hawaii has devastated local communities. But it’s also helped researchers understand more about how volcanoes work. 

One of Flagstaff’s oldest and most beautiful churches is the Gothic Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary Chapel. 

About 30 miles northeast of Flagstaff in a remote area of high desert, is a set of manmade craters blasted into an ancient lava flow. They were put there 50 years ago as a training site for astronauts preparing to walk and drive on the moon. 

Sixteen-year-old Isaac Bynar Calley of Flagstaff was fascinated with honey pot ants before his untimely death from a seizure last year. Isaac’s mom Charlie says he loved the social community of ant colonies and entertained her every day with ant trivia.