In the first research of its kind, a new UC Davis study suggests that for the most part, people formulate goals consistent with their personality traits — and an individual’s goals are related to how their personality subsequently changes over time.
New studies of a rare type of meteorite show that material from close to the sun reached the outer solar system even as the planet Jupiter cleared a gap in the disk of dust and gas from which the planets formed. The results, published this week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, add to an emerging understanding of how our solar system formed and how planets form around other stars.
Each spring, mountaineers from around the world make the trip to the Himalayas with the goal of summiting Mount Everest, the world’s tallest peak.
The number of climbers who successfully set foot on the summit has doubled since the 1990s, reaching as high as 60% in the past decade, according to a new study from researchers at UC Davis and the University of Washington. Meanwhile death rates have remained unchanged, despite the rise in climbers crowding the routes near the peak.
Some 240 million years ago, a dolphin-like ichthyosaur ripped to pieces and swallowed another marine reptile only a little smaller than itself. Then it almost immediately died and was fossilized, preserving the first evidence of megapredation, or a large animal preying on another large animal. The fossil, discovered in 2010 in southwestern China, is described in a paper published Aug. 20 in the journal iScience.
Assistant Professor David Olson has received the American Society for Neurochemistry’s Jordi Folch-Pi Memorial Award. The award is given to an outstanding young investigator who has demonstrated a high level of research competence and originality, has significantly advanced our knowledge of neurochemistry, and shows a high degree of potential for future accomplishments.
University of California, Davis, will be part of a new National Science Foundation Physics Frontier Center focusing on understanding the physics and astrophysical implications of matter under pressures so high that the structure of individual atoms is disrupted.
Even in these social-distanced days, we keep in our heads a map of our relationships with other people: family, friends, co-workers, and how they relate to each other. New research from the UC Davis Center for Mind and Brain shows that we put together this social map in much the same way that we assemble a map of physical places and things.
Toddlers may not be able to describe their feelings of uncertainty, but a new study from the Center for Mind and Brain at UC Davis provides evidence that toddlers may experience and deal with uncertainty in decision-making in the same way as older children and adults.
Germanium-manganese compounds can have a wide variety of structures with different electronic, magnetic or thermal properties. Scientists are interested in these materials which could have applications in next-generation technology for memory storage, sensors or electronics, among other things. But working out the properties of these materials can be challenging, especially for compounds that only exist under conditions of high heat or pressure.
When COVID-19 reached pandemic level in March, two researchers in the UC Davis College of Letters and Science rapidly switched their focus to combatting the new coronavirus.
