uga research

The peak of the Atlantic hurricane season is approaching and researchers at the University of Georgia in partnership with NASA Goddard Space Flight Center have been awarded a grant to study how wet soils may strengthen tropical storms over land.

The research funding totaling nearly $1 million will allow the scientists to build on an idea first advanced in two UGA-based studies suggesting that wet soils could sustain or intensify hurricanes, typhoons and other tropical cyclones as they move over land. The UGA researchers called this the "brown ocean" effect.

Research and development expenditures have significantly increased for the fourth consecutive year at the University of Georgia.

The total represents a 31 percent increase in research and development expenditures since the 2013 fiscal year. For fiscal year 2017, R&D expenditures are at an all time high of $458 million.

In the recent movie “War for the Planet of the Apes, University of Georgia Professor Roberta Salmi provided gorilla vocal recordings to enhance the movie.

Professor Salmi, an assistant professor in the UGA Anthropology Department, was contacted in October of 2016 by the movie sound director, Douglas Murray. Murray had learned about her from a Wired Magazine article describing her research on vocal communication of wild western gorillas. Salmi explained that the research she conducted allowed her to do close work with gorilla communities.