In addition to being used recreationally, marijuana and cannabidiol, or CBD, one of the cannabinoids produced by the marijuana plant, are thought to have medical benefits such as helping with chemotherapy-induced nausea, treating epilepsy, relieving pain and helping with a variety of mental health issues.
Department of Molecular and Cell Biology Professor Chris Amemiya has been honored by the Pan American Society for Evolutionary Developmental Biology (PASEDB) with the Service Award.
This prestigious award celebrates a society member who has made exceptional contributions to PASEDB and evolutionary developmental biology through research, teaching, education, outreach, service to PASEDB as well as serving the scientific community.
More than 100 million land mines remain buried around the world, posing a threat in approximately 70 countries and territories, and killing or injuring about 5,000 people, most of them civilians, every year.
As the world’s geopolitical landscape shifts, nine scientists studying different aspects of warfare ecology from seven countries — Poland, Ukraine, Norway, Spain, the United States, Finland and Croatia — are warning against the growing deployment of land mines as countries bordering Russia withdraw from global conventions restricting their use.
Professor Andy LiWang knows what makes us tick, at least at a cellular level.
His research into the mechanisms of the oldest biological clock known to humankind has led him to understand how proteins — and hence cells — can tell time.
It has also led the UC Merced biochemist to become this year's recipient of the prestigious Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin award, sponsored by the Rigaku Corporation and given by The Protein Society (TPS).
Shark Week starts Sunday and Professor Sora Kim will be featured again this year in a special airing at 9 p.m. Monday, titled “Jaws vs. Mega Croc,” and the filming allowed her to swim with a Nile crocodile.
“I flew to Florida and learned about crocodiles – their evolution, strength, physiology and behavior. More interactions are being recorded between sharks and crocodiles these days, so I also needed to learn about these situations,” she said.
The National Institutes of Health are backing Professor Clarissa Nobile ’s mission to understand the mechanisms by which microbes form biofilms, specifically those that can be hazardous to human health.
With careful planning and a little luck, researchers found a surprising upside to hurricanes after a Category 4 storm disrupted their expedition off the coast of Mexico.
The team was able to sample the ocean right after the storm passed and found that the storms churn the ocean so powerfully and deeply — up to thousands of meters — that nutrient-rich, cold water is brought to the surface.
An average of more than 1 million acres of idled farmland a year is a significant contributor to a growing dust problem in California that has implications for millions of residents’ health and the state’s climate.
California’s Central Valley, famous for producing much of the food Americans eat, is also infamous for its inferior air quality and its high rates of poverty, housing insecurity and at-risk workers.
Increasing epidemiological evidence has shown a correlation between long-term exposure to fine particulate matter (PM2.5) and the incidence of Alzheimer's disease and related dementias (ADRD).
Areas with severe PM2.5 pollution — including the Central Valley — are often inhabited by low-income residents who are disproportionately affected by these environmental hazards.
A group of researchers at UC Merced has found that climate change means it takes about three months longer for California to recover from drought, and probably longer.
“Climate change has fundamentally changed the odds of getting out of drought. It has weighted the dice,” said Emily Williams, a postdoctoral scholar with the Sierra Nevada Research Institute. “This is happening because of warming in summer months, and a good portion of it is because of human-caused climate change.”
