USDA — University of California Riverside (UCR) scientists are betting an ancient solution will solve citrus growers’ biggest problem by breeding new fruits with natural resistance to a deadly tree disease. The hybrid fruits will ideally share the best of their parents’ attributes: the tastiness of the best citrus, and the resistance to Huanglongbing, or...
By USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture |
LAIST.COM - Researchers at UC Riverside are launching a multi-campus project to save the declining honey bee population. Honey bees play a critical role in growing about one-third of the world's food, and they pollinate more than 80 types of agricultural crops. Dwindling populations mean those crops lessen, and become more expensive. Experts at the...
KVCR — UC Riverside announced Thursday that it is leading one of the nation’s largest research initiatives to reverse a decline in honeybees which threatens food crops and prices. With a 900,000 dollar grant, U.C. Riverside will help lead a group of researchers from U.C. Davis, San Diego and Merced campuses looking for solutions to...
THE PRESS-ENTERPRISE — Tucked behind twists and turns of dusty roads and acres of groves at UC Riverside’s agriculture research station are hybrid trees with golf-ball-size fruit that offer hope in the fight against a disease threatening California’s iconic citrus industry. Since 2013, UCR scientists have been trying to breed citrus varieties that resist Huanglongbing...
CHEMICAL & ENGINEERING NEWS - As an unpredictable year ends, many of us still turn to a predictable resolution for the new year: to get more exercise. But what if your sense of smell could move you to move more? Researchers at the University of California, Riverside, think that might be the case, if you’ve...
By Leigh Krietsch Boerner | Chemical and Engineering News |
EURKALERT! - The most-visited news release on EurekAlert! in 2020 racked up just under 1 million hits - the most in the site's near 25-year history. The University of California, Riverside release is one of three about brain health on the 2020 Trending list in a year when COVID-19 dominated headlines across the globe. It...
VOGUE — In a wilderness area at the northwest corner of Joshua Tree National Park, ecologist Lynn Sweet treks across the high desert as raucous pinyon jays swoop overhead. She navigates carefully across the landscape of blackbrush and fragrant junipers to inspect the stump of a Joshua tree. Much of the tree’s trunk, branches, and...
UC NEWS - 2020’s news cycle was dominated by COVID-19 stories, and for good reason: It’s been a year like no other. However, there were plenty of groundbreaking discoveries in 2020 that didn’t get the spotlight they deserved. These stories would have been big news in any other year, but were often overshadowed by the...
By Rana Freedman | University of California News |
KESQ - UC Riverside received more than $4 million in federal funds to research methods of shielding avocados from a fungus that can be devastating to crops in California and elsewhere, it was announced today. The U.S. Department of Agriculture awarded the university a $4.4 million grant as part of its National Institute of Food...
NEW YORK TIMES - In the last 20 years, the rusty patched bumblebee population declined by 87 percent because of habitat loss, use of pesticides and disease. This fuzzy bee, native to the continental United States, gets its name from the rusty patch on its back. “While regional studies have tracked the decline of native...
GREEN CAR CONGRESS - Researchers at UC Riverside and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory have used mathematical and computational modeling, artificial intelligence algorithms and experiments showing that bacteria have failsafe mechanisms preventing them from producing too many metabolic intermediates. Metabolic intermediates are the chemicals that couple each reaction to one another in metabolism. Key to these...
BBC SCIENCE FOCUS - A whiff of your gym bag might make you wince, but your nose could be the key to getting fit. New research in mice suggests there is a link between doing voluntary exercise and the expression of genes that relate to scent perception. Rodents are used in scientific research for various...
SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTE - Millions of years ago, monstrously sized sharks named megalodons dominated the ocean. These giants grew larger than modern day humpback whales, casually snacked on animals like dolphins and seals, had the strongest bite force of any creature to ever exist— yes, including T. rex. But despite being fierce predators, a new study...
PSYCHOLOGY TODAY - Olfaction may play an important role in the motivation to seek voluntary exercise, according to a new study. The University of California, Riverside (UCR) researchers speculate that "individual differences of exercise habit may be accounted for by a differentiated perception of specific smells." READ THE article
IFL SCIENCE - Chemicals commonly used in flame retardants can lead to diabetes in the offspring of female mice exposed to them, according to a study published in Scientific Reports. The substances are known as polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs). For the study, the scientists exposed mice to low levels of PBDEs during their pregnancy and...
THE SCIENTIST - Mycelium is the fabric of fungal populations: fungi produce thread-like roots called hyphae, which branch and fuse with one another to form a vast, interconnected network—the mycelium. It allows fungi to grow rapidly, transport nutrients, and even share information about the local environment over long distances. The network is also vulnerable; a...
AG NET WEST - Ants can be a compounding issue for growers. Although the pest doesn’t always directly impact the crop or quality, they do hinder protective measures. UC Riverside Biological Control Specialist Dr. Mark Hoddle said ants quickly became a big problem in their citrus research when releasing the parasitic wasp tamarixia radiata. Hoddle...
SCIENCE FRIDAY - Sixty-six million years ago when an asteroid slammed into what is now the Yucatan peninsula, it set off a period of near global darkness for almost two years. Scientists think a majority of land species went extinct during that time, but what was going on in the planet’s oceans? And how were...
UCNRS - August wildfires incinerated tens of thousands of acres across seven UC Natural Reserves and affected parkland adjacent to two more reserves. This fall, the UC Natural Reserve System (NRS) will deploy rapid response teams to characterize the extent and intensity of the burns, as well as the effects of wildfire on a wide...
SCIENCE DIRECT - Xuemei Chen grew up in the northeastern city of Harbin in China and received her BS degree in Biology from Peking University in Beijing. She came to the USA in 1989 to pursue her PhD at Cornell University. Under the supervision of David Stern at the Boyce Thompson Institute, she used molecular...