What if you could solve two of Earth’s biggest problems in one stroke? UC Riverside engineers have developed a way to recycle plastic waste, such as soda or water bottles, into a nanomaterial useful for energy storage. Mihri and Cengiz Ozkan and their students have been working for years on creating improved energy storage materials...
Scientists are closer to gaining the upper hand on a disease that has wiped out citrus orchards across the globe. New models of the bacterium linked to the disease reveal control methods that were previously unavailable. Metabolic models of organisms are like road maps of cities. “They show you all the biological processes, and how...
The National Science Foundation, or NSF, announced today that it has awarded a $26 million Engineering Research Center grant to the University of Minnesota and Massachusetts General Hospital, in collaboration with UC Riverside and UC Berkeley. The center, called Advanced Technologies for the Preservation of Biological Systems, or ATP-Bio, aims to develop and deploy breakthrough...
Following a decade-long effort, scientists have mapped out the genome of an aphid-like pest capable of decimating vineyards. In so doing, they have discovered how it spreads — and potentially how to stop it. The research team’s work on the genome was published this past week in a BMC Biology paper. In it, they identified...
For many years, a federal ban on growing hemp, a nonpsychoactive type of cannabis, dimmed the promise it holds for sustainable construction materials, textiles, and many other products. While the 2018 Agricultural Act legalized industrial hemp, methods for processing hemp stalks are stuck in the past. Pulping, the process of extracting valuable cellulose fibers from...
UC Riverside scientists have found the first substance capable of controlling Citrus Greening Disease, which has devastated citrus farms in Florida and also threatens California. The new treatment effectively kills the bacterium causing the disease with a naturally occurring molecule found in wild citrus relatives. This molecule, an antimicrobial peptide, offers numerous advantages over the...
Many parts of the world are in the midst of a deadly pandemic of cholera, an extreme form of watery diarrhea. UC Riverside scientists have discovered specific gut bacteria make some people resistant to it — a finding that could save lives. Cholera can kill within hours if left untreated, and it sickens as many...
When sunlight shining on a leaf changes rapidly, plants must protect themselves from the ensuing sudden surges of solar energy. To cope with these changes, photosynthetic organisms — from plants to bacteria — have developed numerous tactics. Scientists have been unable, however, to identify the underlying design principle. An international team of scientists, led by...
When cells don’t divide into proper copies of themselves, living things fail to grow as they should. For the first time, scientists now understand how a protein called TANGLED1 can lead to accurate cell division in plants. Inside cells are structures called microtubules, which act like highways for moving proteins and organelles. They’re also critical...
The University of California, Riverside, has won a $10 million grant to develop artificial intelligence that will increase the environmental and economic stability of agriculture in the Western U.S. This Sustainable Agricultural Systems grant is one of nine given by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture, or NIFA, annually to...
UC Riverside has entered into a $2.25 million partnership with Spain-based Eurosemillas S.A., a global leader in the commercialization of agriculture innovations, to help the university bring to market the most promising and advanced avocado scions and rootstocks in its collection. If successful, these varieties would meet diverse regional growing requirements, exhibit better post-harvest characteristics...
World Bee Day is May 20. To mark the occasion, we gathered some of UC Riverside’s top bee experts to answer questions submitted on our Instagram page. The response created, for lack of a better term, quite a buzz! We got so many questions — hundreds — that we could not answer them all on...
Managed grazing of drylands is the most extensive form of land use on the planet, which has led to widespread efforts to reverse this trend and restore grass cover due to the belief that it results in less water entering streams and groundwater aquifers. A new study led by Adam Schreiner-McGraw, a postdoctoral hydrology researcher...
By Holly Ober, article from Adam Schreiner-McGraw |
Early humans lived in South African river valleys with deep, fertile soils filled with grasslands, floodplains, woodlands, and wetlands that abounded with hippos, zebras, antelopes, and many other animals, some extinct for millennia. In contrast to ice age environments elsewhere on Earth, it was a lush environment with a mild climate that disappeared under rising...
UC Riverside scientists have solved a 20-year-old genetics puzzle that could result in ways to protect wheat, barley, and other crops from a devastating infection. Ayala Rao, professor of plant pathology and microbiology, has been studying Brome Mosaic virus for decades. Unlike some viruses, the genetic material of this virus is divided into three particles...
Insect populations around the world are plunging precipitously, and scientists are scrambling to understand why. The threat to pollinating insects is particularly dire because much of the food people eat depends on them. Lauren Ponisio, an assistant professor of entomology at UC Riverside, has embarked on a project to figure out how habitat destruction has...
Though “murder hornets” are dominating recent headlines, there are no Asian Giant Hornets currently known to be living in the U.S. or Canada, according to UC Riverside Entomology Research Museum Senior Scientist Doug Yanega. To read more on this issue, click here.
By Jules Bernstein, review from Senior Scientist Doug Yanega |
Native bees that boost food crops are in decline but changing fire management policies could help them. Research shows that farms surrounded by natural bee habitat have higher crop yields. UC Riverside entomologist Lauren Ponisio explains that native bees are increasingly important to food growers. They pollinate crops on the fringes of a farm and...
protein called phytochrome B, which can sense light and temperature, triggers plant growth and controls flowering time. How it does so is not fully understood. In a paper published in Nature Communications, a group of cell biologists led by Meng Chen, a professor of botany and plant sciences at the University of California, Riverside, reveal...
While domestication of plants has yielded bigger crops, the process has often had a negative effect on plant microbiomes, making domesticated plants more dependent on fertilizer and other soil amendments than their wild relatives. In an effort to make crops more productive and sustainable, researchers recommend reintroduction of genes from the wild relatives of commercial...
By HOLLY OBER Article from S.Porter, Joel L.Sachs |
