LOS ANGELES TIMES - Where many people might see a plant-eating bug with light yellow coloration and a splash of red accents, Sarah Schroeder sees, in a way, Taylor Swift. At least, that’s the scientist’s reasoning for why the names she chose for four newly described Australian insect species were inspired by her favorite world-famous...
VARIETY - Taylor Swift, the award-winning billionaire singer and songwriter, is getting a new honor: The megastar is the namesake of several recently discovered species of plant-feeding insects from Australia. Researchers at the University of California, Riverside have named the new species of insect after Swift. A paper describing the 12 new species was published...
PEOPLE - Taylor Swift has received an unlikely new honor recognizing her prolific career. She has become the namesake of a recently discovered insect species. On Wednesday, Sept. 9, the Insect Systematics and Evolution journal released a new study, “New genera and species of Australian sheoak-associated plant bugs,” announcing the discovery of 12 new plant-eating...
EARTH.COM - Nobody can tell you exactly when an earthquake will hit. But a team of scientists has gotten remarkably good at answering a different question: where. Their new method, developed at the University of California, Riverside (UCR), flags the specific stretches of major earthquake faults where stress has been quietly piling up for years...
GIZMODO - Earthquakes may strike without warning, but the ground beneath us is rarely completely still. Current systems can measure these tiny movements with remarkable precision, but until now, they have been used mainly to understand how faults behave rather than to predict where an earthquake might strike. Now, a new approach is challenging that...
USA TODAY - Meet the newest members of the Swiftie universe. They're blonde, accented in red and have names like "Lover," "Fearless" and "Poets." They've also been hiding out in Australia for decades. Scientists have named a newly discovered genus of plant-feeding insects "Swiftiephylus" in honor of Taylor Swift. Sarah Schroeder , a doctoral student...
HUFFPOST - Hopefully, Taylor Swift won’t be bugged by this news, but a doctoral student in entomology at UC Riverside has just named a new genus of plant-feeding insects from Australia after the singer. Sarah Schroeder just co-authored a paper in the journal Insect Systematics and Evolution where she describes 12 new species of insects...
KTLA 5 LOS ANGELES - Scientists at the University of California-Riverside have developed a way to identify where the biggest earthquakes are likely to occur. UC Riverside researchers say that their methodology identifies where stress has been building along major faults, so scientists can determine where a rupture will take place. It does not predict...
ZME SCIENCE - Venus has no moon today. But it may not always have been alone. A new study suggests that if a giant impact gave early Venus a substantial moon, tidal forces could eventually have reversed the satellite’s path and dragged it back toward the planet. Venus would then have torn the moon apart...
ZME SCIENCE - Whether you’re a human or a mouse, staying physically active is good for you. But one of the central ideas in evolutionary biology is that everything comes with trade-offs. If you dedicate too much energy to becoming stronger or faster, that’s energy that can’t be spent on repairing the body or living...
THE HEALTHY - Researchers specializing in behavioral science and bioinformatics at the University of Colorado, Boulder, and the University of California, Riverside reports: “We used 2016–2020 data where traditional grocery store and dollar store locations across the contiguous US were geocoded and assigned as standard quality (SQ) and low-quality (LQ) respectively.” The ratings have to...
LOS ANGELES TIMES - For a couple of months, Norco resident John Baynes desperately searched for answers. His 10-year-old male Labrador named Colt dropped a quarter of his weight from his normally robust 80 pounds and no one knew why. “We were told by the vet that he was in liver failure and that an...
STUDY FINDS - For decades, scientists have assumed that being highly active comes at a price. Push a body harder, burn more energy, and something else must suffer, whether that’s the immune system, reproduction, or lifespan. It’s a tidy idea rooted in basic biology: resources are finite, so spending more on one thing means spending...
STUDY FINDS - Walk into almost any dollar store in America and the shelves usually tell a similar story: rows of shelf-stable snacks, sodium-heavy canned goods, and very little fresh fruit, vegetables, or lean protein. For Americans stretching grocery budgets, dollar stores have become an increasingly important food source, particularly in lower-income communities and places...
NEWSWEEK - The quality of dollar store groceries may contribute to serious health issues, a new study has warned. While consumers may choose cheaper outlets for their food, the quality of food from dollar stores has been linked to higher rates of obesity, high blood pressure, cholesterol and type 2 diabetes. That's according to research...
EARTH.COM - Ant bait does not erase an infestation the moment workers find it. The chemical must spread through a social colony, and that process takes time. That delay can make the first few days hard to read. A drop in food searching may look like success, while a burst of roaming ants may look...
ASSOCIATED PRESS - Bedbugs are sometimes called the vampires of the insect world — hiding during the day and coming out at night to feast on human blood. Generations of children have been told: “Sleep tight. Don’t let the bedbugs bite.” Well, bad news: Bedbug infestations are increasing. This is the time of year when...
STUDY FINDS - The vanilla flavoring found in over half of tested e-cigarette products may be capable of disrupting cells at the earliest, most fragile stage of pregnancy. A new study published in Human Reproduction found that vanillin, the chemical behind that flavor, pushed early human embryonic stem cells off course at concentrations a model...
AOL - A chemical commonly found in vapes could harm unborn babies, scientists have warned. Researchers at the University of California, Riverside (UCR) have urged the NHS to warn pregnant women after finding that vanillin, a common flavouring in e-cigarettes, could impair foetal development. They examined the impact of the chemical on embryonic stem cells...
ZME SCIENCE - Discovering Venus-like conditions beyond our Solar System could reveal why some rocky worlds remain havens for life while others become scorching greenhouse infernos. Before solving that mystery, however, astronomers must determine how quickly those distant planets are truly spinning. Slower rotations can cause hellish conditions astronomers see on Venus, but new research...