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USDA Grant Supports Diverse Ag-related Learning and Training for Students

November 18, 2021
Students at UC Merced and those who might someday become Bobcats are the focus of FARMERS, Professor Rudy M. Ortiz’s training program funded again for $1 million by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). FARMERS stands for Facilitating Agriculture-Related Mentoring for Emerging Research...

Researcher Studies Cloud Formation as a Key to Climate Change Modeling

November 15, 2021
Lots of people look at clouds and think about flying, floating or the shapes they see. When atmospheric chemistry Professor Xuan Zhang looks at clouds, she thinks about tiny particles in the air. With her first grant from the National Science Foundation, Zhang is studying how pine tree emissions...

Research is Clarifying Benefits of Transforming Human Waste into Useable Resources

November 8, 2021
Human waste isn’t a topic most people want to talk about. But environmental systems Professor Rebecca Ryals embraces the subject, especially when it comes to mitigating climate change, improving public health and creating sustainable food systems. In a recent publication in Frontiers in...

NSF Grant to Help Grad Students Find Solutions to Environmental Challenges

November 1, 2021
Graduate students and a convergence of physics, engineering and environmental science could result in not only the next generation of solutions to pressing environmental challenges, but a new group of diverse and globally competitive nano-engineers, as well. A nearly $2 million grant from the...

HIV Preventative Developed in LiWang Lab Takes One Big Step Forward

October 20, 2021
An HIV-inhibiting silk film designed to advance prevention and help end the AIDS epidemic in countries in Africa, developed by UC Merced Professor Patti LiWang, has met recent success at the California National Primate Research Center at UC Davis. “They show complete protection,” LiWang said. “The...

Scientists Assemble a Biological Clock in a Test Tube to Study How It Works

October 7, 2021
Daily cycles in virtually every aspect of our physiology are driven by biological clocks (also called circadian clocks) in our cells. The cyclical interactions of clock proteins keep the biological rhythms of life in tune with the daily cycle of night and day, and this happens not only in humans...

Researchers Unraveling Mysteries of Electrosensory Gel in Sharks, Skates

September 28, 2021
Cartilaginous fishes such as sharks and skates have a sixth sense, but it’s not ESP — it’s electrosense. Such fishes use hundreds or thousands of specialized organs to sense prey and mates and to navigate the oceans. A cross-disciplinary group of researchers at UC Merced is making new discoveries...

Graduate Student Karina Guadalupe Wins IDPoster Competition!

September 20, 2021
Graduate student Karina Guadalupe from the Sukenik Lab has won the best poster award in the online IDPoster competition. Karina's work on understanding how disordered proteins respond to cellular volume change was chosen out of 50 participants from top tier international institutions.

Chemistry Lab Receives NSF Funding to Study How Proteins Protect from Dehydration

August 26, 2021
Like many people this summer, Professor Shahar Sukenik has dehydration on his mind. But it’s not the soaring outside temperatures prompting this focus. Dehydration has been a theme of his lab’s work for the past year, from understanding how seeds know when to germinate to a new grant to further...

Antibiotic Resistance Found in Insecticides Commonly Used in California

August 18, 2021
The over the counter, “safe,” organic-compliant insecticides people purchase at home-improvement stores could be causing a problem that goes far beyond the vegetable garden or farm field — antibiotic resistance. A new study from evolutionary geneticist Professor Mark Sistrom, postdoctoral...

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