SAN BERNARDINO SUN - Driving west Friday morning on Riverside’s Arlington Avenue, I see the two-story boxy shape, a peak at the top, from a block away. Momentarily I think it’s a church. Then I recognize what I’m seeing. It’s not a church, but in a sense it’s still holy ground. California’s citrus industry started...
EARTH.COM - Forest soils are constantly talking – not in words but through quiet chemical exchanges between microbes, roots, and the air above them. For years, scientists had assumed that warming temperatures would speed up this underground chatter and release more nitrogen gases into the atmosphere. But long-term fieldwork is now revealing something different. Heat...
KNOWABLE MAGAZINE - n warm, shallow waters, a spiny, slug-like creature grazes on bacterial sludge on the seafloor, while sponges nearby filter clouds of suspended particles. A shell-encased Odaraia swims past, picking smaller life forms out of the water, while a giant Anomalocaris, with its formidable grasping appendages, prowls for soft-bodied critters. It’s a scene...
UNILAD TECH - A recent study has revealed a little-known oil hidden in everyday foods may be causing a life-threatening condition. Scientists are constantly uncovering hidden health connections that we didn't previously understand. From discovering health conditions that can accelerate Alzheimer's development by a third, to revealing extreme side effects of weight-loss drugs like Ozempic...
NEWSWEEK - Scientists at University of California, Riverside, found that soybean oil contributes to obesity in a study involving mice. The oil creates specific fat-derived molecules—oxylipins—that alter liver metabolism and increase fat accumulation, the study, which was published in the Journal of Lipid Research last month, concluded. Researchers observed that mice fed a high-fat diet...
EARTH.COM - Soybean oil is so common that it often goes unnoticed, appearing in home kitchens, restaurant meals, and countless ultra-processed foods. But new research finds that this everyday ingredient does far more than contribute calories – it can nudge the body’s metabolism in unexpected ways. A long series of studies from UC Riverside (UCR)...
POPULAR MECHANICS - Like all of us, the Earth goes through phases. Over the course of its existence, the planet’s climactic processes have relied on certain mechanisms to regulate its temperature—mechanisms that can have profound impacts on the surface of the planet and, in turn, the life that inhabits that surface. During the Jurassic period...
POPULAR MECHANICS - For the past three decades, scientists have been bad-mouthing a sizable chunk of Earth’s history (roughly 1.8 billion years ago to 800 million years ago) by giving it nicknames like the “Barren Billion,” the “Boring Billion,” or the Earth’s “Middle Ages.” At first glance, the monikers may be warranted—compared to more dynamic...
STUDY FINDS - Common sense tells us that when the body is dehydrated, physical performance declines. Athletes and coaches have long known that even modest fluid loss can hurt endurance and speed. However, research focusing on laboratory mice has uncovered a puzzling exception. The fittest animals actually ran more, not less, when deprived of water...
THE GUARDIAN - Chemical-laden dust from southern California’s drying Salton Sea is probably harming the lungs of people around the shrinking body of water, and the effects are especially pronounced in children, new peer-reviewed research from the University of California, Irvine, shows. A separate peer-reviewed study from the University of California, Riverside, also found the...
PHYSICS WORLD - Future versions of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO) will be able to run at much higher laser powers thanks to a sophisticated new system that compensates for temperature changes in optical components. Known as FROSTI (for FROnt Surface Type Irradiator) and developed by physicists at the University of California Riverside...
DISCOVER MAGAZINE - When it comes to the microbiome, researchers have extensive knowledge of the microbial community living in our guts. The lungs, however, are a different story. While it may sound odd, microbes do live in our lungs, and breathing in certain substances, like certain dust, can cause harm to the lung microbiome. A...
LIVE SCIENCE - The Arctic Ocean was once an important source of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere — and it could become one again, researchers warn. Methane (CH4) is second only to carbon dioxide (CO2) in trapping heat in Earth's atmosphere. Since 2020, human-driven greenhouse gas emissions have increased atmospheric methane by about 10 parts...
DAILY GALAXY - Earth’s familiar green landscape might not have always been so. According to new scientific research published in the journal International Journal of Astrobiology, our planet may have once shimmered in shades of purple, driven by a completely different form of life than we know today. This striking idea doesn’t just reshape our...
LIVE SCIENCE - Earth may respond to the huge quantities of carbon dioxide (CO2) that humans are pumping into the atmosphere by "overcorrecting" the imbalance, which could result in the next ice age arriving on time instead of being delayed by tens of thousands of years, as had previously been predicted. This is due to...
POLITICO - BLOWING STEAM: Will California remain king of U.S. geothermal energy production? Or will other states snatch the crown? That was the decision before Gov. Gavin Newsom, according to the geothermal industry and its allies, as he weighed signing their two top-priority bills of this session. Newsom signed one and vetoed the other on...
SMITHSONIAN MAGAZINE - The biological history of leeches is difficult to study: Their tissue decomposes almost immediately, and their boneless bodies rarely fossilize. But a geological formation in Wisconsin preserved a leech fossil for 437 million years, a new study finds. It’s the first-ever discovery of its kind—and an analysis of the preserved leech suggests...
ZME SCIENCE - Leeches are some of the most hated creatures in the world, even though most people rarely (if ever) see one. We even use the word as an insult. A leech is a parasite, someone who lives only to suck the blood from others. But leeches deserve more respect. A newly described fossil...
INTERESTING ENGINEERING - A new study has provided fresh insights into how Earth recycles its carbon. Rock weathering acts as the slow, reliable mechanism that stabilizes Earth’s climate. The easy explanation is that rain, rocks, and carbon burial keep the climate in check, but new research shows this account may be incomplete. The University of...
DISCOVER MAGAZINE - It’s the beginning of the spooky season, which means ghouls, ghosts, and bloodsuckers abound. One of the most famous bloodsuckers in nature is, of course, the leech. These parasites feed on blood and have been used throughout history to treat a whole host of medical problems in humans. Now, for the first...