Water in California’s Central Valley contains enough manganese to cause cognitive disabilities and motor control issues in children, and Parkinson’s-like symptoms in adults. A naturally occurring metal, manganese is found in water supplies throughout the world. It is regulated as a primary contaminant in many Southeast Asian countries where the climate causes it to leach […]
UC Riverside
Posted inSci/Tech
Health impact of chemicals in plastics is handed down two generations
January 26, 2023 – Fathers exposed to chemicals in plastics can affect the metabolic health of their offspring for two generations, a University of California, Riverside, mouse study reports. Plastics, which are now ubiquitous, contain endocrine disrupting chemicals, or EDCs, that have been linked to increased risk of many chronic diseases; parental exposure to EDCs, for example, […]
Posted inCalifornia
Study: Landscaping for drought: we’re doing it wrong
January 11, 2023 – Despite recent, torrential rains, most of Southern California remains in a drought. Accordingly, many residents plant trees prized for drought tolerance, but a new UC Riverside-led study shows these trees lose this tolerance once they’re watered. One goal of the study was to understand how artificial irrigation affects the trees’ carbon […]
Posted inRegional
Drought increases microbe-laden dust landing in the Sierra
Dust from all over the world is landing in the Sierra Nevada mountains carrying microbes that are toxic to both plants and humans. Research from UC Riverside shows higher concentrations of the dust are landing at lower elevations, where people are more likely to be hiking. “Pathogenic dust is becoming more of a threat as […]
Posted inCalifornia
Scientists fail to locate once-common CA bumble bees
Several species of California bumble bees have gone missing in the first statewide census of the fuzzy pollinators in 40 years. If they can be found, a recent court ruling could help save them. Smaller-scale studies have documented significant declines in bumble bee populations around the world due to climate change, development of wild habitat, […]
Posted inCalifornia
Salton Sea restoration efforts could fail without science
There are finally efforts under way to improve the environmental health disaster that is the Salton Sea — California’s largest and most polluted lake. However, a group of UC Riverside scientists, engineers, medical experts, and economists has published a new report warning that these efforts may not succeed. The report warns that the scientific assumptions informing current […]
Posted inCalifornia
California’s worst wildfires are helping improve air quality prediction
UC Riverside engineers are developing methods to estimate the impact of California’s destructive wildfires on air quality in neighborhoods affected by the smoke from these fires. Their research, funded by NASA and the results published in Atmospheric Pollution Research, fills in the gaps in current methods by providing air quality information at the neighborhood scales required […]
Posted inSci/Tech
Monuments that matter
April 8, 2021 – When most Americans imagine an archaeologist, they picture someone who looks like Indiana Jones. Or, perhaps, Lara Croft, from the Tomb Raider game. White, usually male but occasionally female, digging up the spoils of a vanished culture in colonized lands. Depictions of archaeologists in popular culture mirror reality. Many scholars have […]
Posted inLife
Books: ‘The Cost of Free Shipping’ lifts curtain on Amazon
November 9, 2020 – A new book edited by UC Riverside sociology professor Ellen Reese and Cal State Long Beach professor of sociology Jake Alimahomed-Wilson examines Amazon as an architect of “surveillance capitalism” and how workers and communities in the Inland Empire and around the world resist the online commerce juggernaut. “The Cost of Free Shipping: Amazon in the […]
Posted inCalifornia
Water contaminant could have neurotoxic effects on children
August 20, 2020 – Manganese isn’t considered a major water contaminant in America, but a new study is taking a closer look at whether it should be. A naturally occurring metal, manganese can be found in water supplies throughout the world. Over time, excessive ingestion of manganese can produce cognitive disabilities in children and symptoms […]
Posted inSci/Tech
Removing the novel coronavirus from the water cycle
April 6, 2020 – Scientists know that coronaviruses, including the SARS-CoV-19 virus responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic, can remain infectious for days — or even longer — in sewage and drinking water. Two researchers, Haizhou Liu, an associate professor of chemical and environmental engineering at the University of California, Riverside; and Professor Vincenzo Naddeo, director of the […]
Posted inCalifornia
Monster tumbleweed: Invasive new species is here to stay
Aug. 26, 2019 – A new species of gigantic tumbleweed once predicted to go extinct is not only here to stay — it’s likely to expand its territory. The species, Salsola ryanii, is significantly larger than either of its parent plants, which can grow up to 6 feet tall. A new study from UC Riverside […]
Posted inSci/Tech
Looming insect invasion threatens California wine and avocados
June 18, 2019 – UC Riverside is testing whether a sesame seed-sized wasp can control a pest that could seriously damage California crops including wine, walnuts, and avocados. The pest, a sap-sucking spotted lantern fly, is originally from China and was first detected five years ago in Pennsylvania. Since then, large populations have spread rapidly […]
Posted inSci/Tech
New study dramatically narrows the search for advanced life in the universe
RIVERSIDE, CA June 10, 2019 – Scientists may need to rethink their estimates for how many planets outside our solar system could host a rich diversity of life. In a new study, a UC Riverside–led team discovered that a buildup of toxic gases in the atmospheres of most planets makes them unfit for complex life […]
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A warming world increases air pollution
Feb. 5, 2019 – Climate change is warming the ocean, but it’s warming land faster and that’s really bad news for air quality all over the world, says a new University of California, Riverside study. The study, published February 4 in Nature Climate Change, shows that the contrast in warming between the continents and sea, […]
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Oldest evidence for animals found by UCR researchers
Oct. 15, 2018 – Researchers at the University of California, Riverside, have found the oldest clue yet of animal life, dating back at least 100 million years before the famous Cambrian explosion of animal fossils. The study, led by Gordon Love, a professor in UCR’s Department of Earth Sciences, was published today in Nature Ecology […]
Posted inCalifornia
New dust sources from a shrinking Salton Sea have negative ecological and health impacts
RIVERSIDE, CA, Aug. 3, 2017 – Scientists at the University of California, Riverside investigating the composition of particulate matter (PM) and its sources at the Salton Sea have found that this shrinking lake in Southern California is exposing large areas of dry lakebed, called playa, that are acting as new dust sources with the potential to impact human health. […]
Posted inCalifornia
UC Riverside Researchers: California projected to get wetter through this century
RIVERSIDE, Calif. July 6, 2017 – Under business-as-usual greenhouse gas emissions, climate models predict California will get warmer during the rest of the century and most also predict the state will get drier. But, new research, published today in the journal Nature Communications, predicts that California will actually get wetter. The scientists from the University […]
Posted inSci/Tech
Asian dust providing key nutrients for California’s giant sequoias
Researchers made this device with a bundt pan and marbles to capture dust. Credit: Chelsea Carey. RIVERSIDE, CA, March 28, 2017- Dust from as far away as the Gobi Desert in Asia is providing more nutrients than previously thought for plants, including giant sequoias, in California’s Sierra Nevada mountains, a team of scientists, including several […]
Posted inLife
Are You a Jerk?
RIVERSIDE, CA, Sept. 26, 2016 – Are you a jerk? How do you know? Jerk self-knowledge is hard to come by, says Eric Schwitzgebel, a professor of philosophy at the University of California, Riverside. Schwitzgebel posited a Theory of Jerks in Aeon Magazine in 2014 and has revisited the topic a few times in his […]