AMAZE LAB - "The trend in egg sales is 'cage free,' but that doesn't necessarily mean the chickens are insect free," said UC Riverside entomologist Amy Murillo. View the video
FOOD52 - A few years ago, an Australian company called Naturo Technologies invented a machine—the Natavo Zero, aka the Avocado Time Machine. This ATM supposedly miraculously slows the avocado ripening process, keeping it from turning brown for up to 10 days without the use of chemicals—or olive oil, or lemon juice, or red onion. (Naturo...
INSIDE SCIENCE - Forget showing your true colors -- plants are green precisely because they don’t appreciate the type of energy that falls within the green spectrum. Researchers have long understood that plants use sunlight to photosynthesize carbon dioxide and water into food. But they didn’t know exactly why photosynthesizing organisms such as plants appear...
UC ANR - UC Agriculture and Natural Resources will receive $865,000 to help farmers in the Colorado River basin and the Salinas Valley integrate digital tools and artificial intelligence into their growing systems. The funds are part of a $10 million Sustainable Agricultural Systems grant from the USDA's National Institute of Food and Agriculture to...
By Jeannette E. Warnert | UC Agriculture and Natural Resources |
NATURE OUTLOOK - Biologists studying extracellular RNA (exRNA) — and the tiny spherical structures known as exosomes that shuttle this genetic information from cell to cell — typically focus on mammals. As long ago as the 1960s, however, scientists found that plant cells also generate vesicles that carry cargo out of the cell membrane. But...
By Roxanne Khamsi | Nature Outlook: Extracellular RNA |
THE PRESS-ENTERPRISE - Gov. Gavin Newsom recently announced a projected $54 billion budget deficit for California. As a result, the University of California faces budget cuts. But the UC system is already running in starvation mode from cuts made during the last recession. Now is the time to invest in research and higher education. It...
By Sydney Glassman (UCR Department of Microbiology & Plant Pathology) | The Press-Enterprise |
UCOP - As the world continues to confront the global pandemic, the University of California community has stepped up like never before, drawing on the spirit of ingenuity and service that defines us. From hospitals and labs to neighborhoods across California, UC staff, faculty, alumni and students are putting their creativity and compassion to work...
LOS ANGELES TIMES - When news of the Asian giant hornet’s arrival in the United States first broke, the public was understandably worried: First the coronavirus, now “murder hornets”? What’s next, three days of darkness? But bug experts from Washington, where the hornet was discovered in the U.S., to California agree that the 2-inch hornet...
BUSTLE - The world has been abuzz (yep, pun totally intended) about the arrival of the Asian giant hornet, otherwise known by the charming nickname "murder hornet," in North America. The New York Times reports that they've been found in Vancouver Island and Washington State, and there's a concern that scientists won't be able to...
USA TODAY - An invasive hornet species that slaughters honeybees and can be deadly to humans is sparking concern in the United States. A small number of "murder hornets," an invasive species of Asian giant hornet, have been spotted in the Pacific Northwest. While experts have been tracking the invasive species in the U.S. for...
THE PRESS-ENTERPRISE - One of the common frustrations of gardening is having to deal with creepy, crawly insects that chew up the leaves of your plants and their fruits once they eventually make them, with bugs such as aphids, snails and mealybugs being some of the notable offenders. Doug Yanega, senior museum scientist for the...
BLOOMBERG - Gilead Sciences Inc., whose Covid-19 treatment has whipsawed markets amid conflicting early reports about its efficacy, is set to report the first results from a company-sponsored study of the experimental drug. Data from the first 400 severely ill coronavirus patients being treated with Remdesivir in an open-label study are expected before the end...
LOS ANGELES TIMES - Growing citrus is a dicey business these days in Southern California, and not at all recommended if you live within a two-mile radius of a tree infected with Huanglongbing disease — a.k.a. HLB or citrus greening disease. However, if you live outside a “red zone” and you’re willing to actively fight...
ATLAS OBSCURA - When Hollis Woodard picks up the phone on a Friday afternoon in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, she has to pry her hands from the dirt. “I’m working on the yard furiously to try and soothe myself,” she says. Woodard, an entomologist at the University of California, Riverside, studies bumble bees—a...
CALMATTERS - As California officials desperately try to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus, Chris Miller is coaxing a sample of the virus to grow in a secure laboratory at UC Davis. Working in a laboratory nestled inside containment rooms and cut off from the world by filters, scientists dressed in space suit-like protective...
CNN - Evidence of a worm-like creature about the size of a grain of rice has been uncovered in South Australia, and researchers believe it is the oldest ancestor on the family tree that includes humans and most animals. The creature lived 555 million years ago. "We thought these animals should have existed during this...
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 |