Robert Zierenberg, professor emeritus in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, has studied seafloor vents since the first ones were discovered in the eastern Pacific Ocean in 1977.

The Earth formed relatively quickly from the cloud of dust and gas around the sun, trapping water and gases in the planet’s mantle, according to research published Dec. 5 in the journal Nature. Apart from settling Earth’s origins, the work could help in identifying extrasolar systems that could support habitable planets. 

Concerned that recent climate reports might not receive the public attention they deserved, scientists began using the #ClimateFriday hashtag on Twitter to highlight findings of the reports.

Jellyfish undergo an amazing metamorphosis, from tiny polyps growing on the seafloor to swimming medusae with stinging tentacles. The first in-depth look at the genome of a jellyfish — the moon jelly Aurelia aurita — reveals the origins of this successful survival strategy.

You’ve felt the heat before — the smartphone that warms while running a navigation app or the laptop that gets too hot for your lap.

The heat produced by electronic devices does more than annoy users. Heat-induced voids and cracking can cause chips and circuits to fail.

Schematic of the experimental thermal transistor. A slice of molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) sits on a piece of silicon dioxide, bathed in a solution of lithium ions. (Sood et al, Nature Communications)

Veronica Vriesman is a doctoral student at UC Davis with bachelor's degrees in geology and Spanish from Colgate University in New York. She divides her time between the Davis campus and Bodega Marine Laboratory. In this interview, Vriesman shares her experiences in science and her goals for the future.

As a kid, planetary scientist Sarah Stewart spent her free time reading science fiction novels. Now, much like her favorite sci-fi authors, she is a world-builder — pursuing research that helps us better understand our own planet.

An international team of astronomers has discovered a titanic structure in the early universe, just 2 billion years after the Big Bang. This galaxy proto-supercluster, nicknamed Hyperion, is the largest and most massive structure yet found at such a remote time and distance.

The American Ceramic Society has a new award to recognize innovative contributions to experimental thermodynamics of solids technical literature. The Navrotsky Award for Experimental Thermodynamics of Solids was established through a gift from Alexandra Navrotsky, Interdisciplinary Professor of Ceramic, Earth, and Environmental Materials Chemistry at UC Davis.

The U.S. Department of Energy recently announced $218 million in new grants for “Quantum Information Science” and researchers with the Center for Quantum Mathematics and Physics (QMAP) at UC Davis are among the recipients.

The QMAP initiative at UC Davis is aimed at fundamental research in theoretical and mathematical physics.