Warner Transportation Museum

Tuscaloosa’s Warner Transportation Museum Closing Soon After 13 Years: Tuscaloosa Thread – June 24

The Warner Transportation Museum in Tuscaloosa will permanently close soon to make way for a new campus for the Kentuck Arts Center…The Museum, which The University of Alabama operates, opened in the space in December 2011. Since then, the museum has housed exhibits about Tuscaloosa’s history and development, and about the impact of transportation on culture.
Tuscaloosa News

Mass Shootings

Why do mass shootings happen?: WGN-AM – June 30

Dr. Adam Lankford, Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice at The University of Alabama, joins Karen Conti to talk about who becomes a mass shooter and why it is such a problem in the United States.

Artificial Intelligence

New Alabama Center for AI Research and Development launches: WVUA-TV – July 2

The University of Alabama has opened the Alabama Center for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence in the College of Engineering. The center aims to unify new and existing work across campus to expand AI research, education, and outreach activities.

Plant Poaching

These cacti are status symbols on social media. In the desert, they’re endangered: PBS NewsHour – July 3

A group of cacti species native to a remote Chilean desert has been poached to near extinction, thanks in part to social media crazes continents away…The slow growth of these cacti, in addition to their “spectacular spines,” is what makes them especially desirable to collectors, said Jared Margulies, assistant professor of political ecology at University of Alabama and author of “The Cactus Hunters: Desire and Extinction in the Illicit Succulent Trade.” He explained that this appeal leads poachers to steal fully matured plants.

Hurricane Beryl

Alabama expert: Hurricane Beryl first of many expected this season: WVUA-TV – July 8

Hurricane Beryl made landfall as a Category 1 hurricane Monday morning along the Texas coast after barrelling through the Caribbean as the earliest Category 5 hurricane on record. University of Alabama College of Arts and Sciences Department of Geography Director of Undergraduate Studies Jason Senkbeil said this year’s record-breaking hurricane season has only just begun.