News

Supporting the Success of Student Organization Programs

February 9, 2017
During the last academic year, American Medical Student Association (AMSA) at UC Merced was able to purchase CPR Mannequins with the financial support of the School of Natural Sciences. Vice President of Membership, Andrew Betancourt said that this investment has been beneficial for not only AMSA...

Raindrops, Red Wine Inspire Solar Tech Advancements

February 6, 2017
In recent publications, Professor Vincent Tung proves that inspiration for advancements in materials science can come from anywhere — even the merging of raindrops on a windshield or the sheeting of red wine down the inside of a glass. Through those liquid movements, Tung...

New UC Grant Enables Deeper, Broader Valley Fever Research

February 1, 2017
Researchers at UC Merced are playing key roles in the new UC Valley Fever Research Initiative, studying how the Valley fever fungus, Coccidioides immitis, causes disease in its mammalian hosts, and identifying the genes involved in this process. School of Natural SciencesOpens a New Window....

Genetic Changes Made Native Americans Susceptible to Smallpox, Study Shows

January 18, 2017
A new study identifies genetic changes in Native Americans that came about when Europeans settled in the Pacific Northwest and might have played a major role in why so many natives died of infectious disease. In a new paper in Nature Communications, “A Time Transect of Exomes from a...

Study: Warming Could Slow Upslope Migration of Trees

January 15, 2017
Scientists expect subalpine trees to advance upslope as global temperatures increase, following their climate up the mountains. But new research publishedOpens a New Window. Dec. 15 in the journal Global Change Biology suggests this might not hold true for two subalpine tree species...

Researchers Enlist Hospital in Fight Against Antibiotic Resistance

December 9, 2016
There are 1.7 million multidrug-resistant, hospital-acquired infections that extend hospital stays, increase medical expenses and decrease quality of life. The United States alone reports at least 120,000 deaths annually from resistant infections that are improperly treated because of a scarcity of...

Picking Over the Past Provides Clues to the Future

November 30, 2016
UC Merced professors Jessica Blois and Justin Yeakel and their graduate students are sifting through time, picking out tiny clues that will give them a mouse’s eye view of the ecosystem that surrounded what is now the La Brea Tar Pits in the middle of Los Angeles. ...

Spring 2017 Dean's Distinguished Scholars Fellowship Awardees

November 17, 2016
Congratulations to the following graduate students for being awarded the Spring 2017 School of Natural Sciences Dean's Distinguished Scholars Fellowship! These individuals are being recognized for their contributions in research, engagement in the STEM community, outstanding academic record,...

People in Eurasia are Genetic Hybrids with Evolutionary Advantages, Study Shows

November 16, 2016
It’s not just luck or practice that gets Sherpa mountaineers up the slopes of Mt. Everest each year. Functioning so well at extreme elevations is in the Sherpa and Tibetan DNA — literally. A new study by UC Merced Professor Emilia Huerta-Sánchez — ...

The Real Horror of ‘Frankenstein:’ Human Extinction

October 28, 2016
If fictional scientist Victor Frankenstein had created a mate for his nameless Creature, humans would have gone extinct in about 4,000 years, according to a new study co-authored by a UC Merced professor. Two hundred years ago this year, 18-year-old author Mary Shelley began writing her now-...

Pages