CALMATTERS - California still does not have enough capacity to test for coronavirus, Gov. Gavin Newsom said Sunday, despite furious efforts by private, university and government laboratories to scale up to handle thousands of more patients. “The PCR is the really easy part,” said Frances Sladek, a professor of cell biology and toxicology as well...
IN FOCUS - The bee population is declining and experts say that’s a serious issue because they provide us with a very important service … pollination. Professor Boris Baer of UC Riverside talks about how 1/3 of the food grown in the U.S. is pollinated by bees, a process necessary for plants to reproduce. Baer...
INVERSE - Timothy Lyons, a distinguished professor of biogeochemistry, discusses his new research to better understand the history of the atmosphere on Mars. Scientists have developed a new model to better understand whether Mars once hosted water — and maybe even life. The Martian surface is an inhospitable place: It is too cold for humans...
NEWS-MEDICAL - Researchers at the University of California, Riverside, have completed a cross-sectional human study that compares biomarkers and metal concentrations in the urine of e-cigarette users, nonsmokers, and cigarette smokers. They found that the biomarkers, which reflect exposure, effect, and potential harm, are both elevated in e-cigarette users compared to the other groups and...
By Reviewed by Kate Anderton, B.Sc. (Editor) | News-Medical |
LOS ANGELES TIMES - It has been described as a Noah’s Ark for citrus: two of every kind. Spread over 22 acres, UC Riverside’s 113-year-old Givaudan Citrus Variety Collection was founded as a place to gather and study as many citrus specimens as possible — right now, the inventory numbers at over 1,000. It’s an...
LOS ANGELES MAGAZINE - “Super blooms”–seasons in which unusually high numbers of wildflowers blossom in California’s deserts–can only occur if very specific conditions are met. We saw the phenomenon last year and in 2017, but before that, there had not been one since 2008. And, it seems, there is no reason to expect a super...
NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION - NSF's National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics (NCSES), ranked UCR #3 in Hispanic STEM graduates in the nation, in its 2019 Report, Women, Minorities, and Persons with Disabilities in Science and Engineering. The report provides statistical information about the participation of underrepresented groups in science and engineering education and employment...
INDEPENDENT, UK - Scientists have been left puzzled by a vast "monster" galaxy that mysteriously went dark. The web of stars, known as XMM-2599, existed about 12 billion years ago, in the early days of the universe, when it was only about 1.8 billion years old. It spewed out a vast number of stars in...
SMITHSONIAN MAGAZINE - Tim Gottwald will never forget the sight: the mottled yellow leaves, the withered branches, the small, misshapen fruits, tinged with sickly green. These were the signs he’d learned to associate with huanglongbing, or citrus greening—a devastating and wildly infectious bacterial infection that slashed the United States’ orange juice yields by more than...
SPACE.COM - A pair of Harvard astrophysicists have proposed a wild theory of how life might have spread through the universe. Stephen Kane, an astrophysicist at the University of California, Riverside, told Live Science that he was deeply skeptical of the suggestion that microbes from Earth might have actually turned up alive on alien planets...
THE PRESS-ENTERPRISE - A public garden in Riverside offers an oasis of nature to escape the hustle and bustle of the city. Located in the foothills of Box Springs Mountain, the 40-acre UCR Botanic Gardens features about 25 acres of gardens nestled against natural habitat. Over 4 miles of scenic trails wander through the gardens...
By Rebecca K. O'Connor | The Community Foundation | PE |
AAAS - Exequiel Ezcurra has been named the recipient of the 2020 Award for Science Diplomacy by the American Association for the Advancement of Science for his leadership in bringing together research, education, outreach and policy in service of environmental protection, particularly at the United States-Mexico border. A professor of ecology in the Department of...
DESERT SUN - Wildflowers are fickle. Ample rain is needed each winter month, especially in January and February, in order for the plants to blossom at the proportions that create a superbloom, flower enthusiasts say. Following that rule, this year’s wildflower season might not be as bright as last year’s, when an epic bloom blanketed...
UC NRS - The world’s largest university-administered reserve system will hold a symposium this fall to commemorate 55 years of field research and teaching. The UC Natural Reserve System Symposium, to be held in Berkeley from November 12–13, 2020, will feature more than three dozen talks showcasing research, immersive field education, and public service conducted...
CNN - The search for oxygen on other planets outside of our solar system, called exoplanets, is thought to be an aid in the search for life outside of Earth. Now, astronomers have developed a new method for detecting oxygen on exoplanets, according to a new study published Monday. The scientists believe their new method...
THE PRESS-ENTERPRISE - The discovery of a dozen diseased fruit trees in Corona has fanned fears that citrus greening disease may soon ravage commercial orchards in Riverside County. Thus far, said Georgios Vidalakis, a UC Riverside professor and director of the university’s citrus clonal protection program, the historic navel orange tree has escaped infection and...
THE NEW YORK TIMES - [Research by Stephen Kane, an associate professor of planetary astrophysics, is featured in an article about Earth's orbit around the sun, as well as the orbits of neighboring exoplanets.] In the wee hours of Sunday (2:47 a.m. Eastern time, to be exact), Earth will make its closest approach to the...
MARKETPLACE - American Public Media's Marketplace, broadcast on National Public Radio affiliates around the U.S., features Givaudan Citrus Variety Collection curator Tracy Kahn in a segment about tangerines, also know as mandarins or clementines. Marketplace listener Rick Peters is 73, retired, and lives in Frederick, Maryland. He shared this memory: “When I was growing up...
THE MERCURY NEWS - In a nondescript industrial complex in western Riverside County, a British company is planning to put billions of black flies and maggots to work on a unique task: upcycling food waste. AgriProtein is building a plant in Jurupa Valley that will collect throw-away food typically sent to landfills. The waste becomes...
THE SCIENCE TIMES - To understand how life came to be, it is important to note the atmospheric history of the planet, which allowed life to succeed. One of the important events in atmospheric history is the Great Oxidation Event, wherein the Earth's shallow oceans experienced a dramatic increase in oxygen. Millions of years, later...