To crack the code of whale communication, scientists rely on underwater microphones called hydrophones to gain access to the animals’ soundscapes. In aqueous environments, sound travels about five times faster than it does in air. What’s more, acoustic waves face less dissipation in water, traveling farther and differently than in air. New advances in hydrophone technology spearheaded by a UC Davis scientist are giving us an unprecedented view into the lives of whales.
For the past five years, Goabaone Jaqueline Ramatlapeng, a National Geographic Explorer and UC Davis earth and planetary sciences doctoral candidate, has studied the water chemistry of the Okavango Delta, the largest freshwater wetland in southern Africa. Recently, she received $100,000 from the National Geographic Society to further her research.
While so much of the ocean is still a mystery to us, the beauty and life within it are being affected by our choices as a species. In some ways, its' changing faster than we can study them. In the book “At Every Depth,” UC Davis scientist Tessa Hill and writer Eric Simons chronicle those changes through the eyes of the community members closest to the shores. But the book is not a passive volume. Instead, it’s a call to action.
A research team led from the UC Davis Center for Mind and Brain found that adolescent girls
who have a stronger tendency to ruminate show different patterns of brain activity when
faced with social rejection.
Created over 10 years ago by Professor of Chemistry Jared Shaw, the Davis Science Café provides an avenue for the community to learn about the current state of science across its many disciplines. Learn more about the Davis Science Café in the above video.
The meetings are held on the second Wednesday of every month at G Street WunderBar in Davis at 5:30 p.m.
In nature, organic molecules are either left- or right-handed, but synthesizing molecules with a specific handedness in a lab is hard to do. Make a drug or enzyme with the wrong “handedness” and it just won’t work. Now chemists at the College of Letters and Science at UC Davis are getting closer to mimicking nature’s chemical efficiency through computational modeling and physical experimentation.
This March, Tracy C. Dyson, who graduated from the College of Letters and Science at UC Davis with a doctorate in chemistry in 1997, will travel to the ISS as a flight engineer and member of the Expedition 70/71 crew. The journey marks her third trip to space where she has seen our planet from both inside the International Space Station (ISS) and outside of it during spacewalks.
Earlier this year, a team of researchers from the UC Davis Institute for Psychedelic and Neurotherapeutics revealed in Science that psychedelics spur cortical neuron growth by activating intracellular pools of 5-HT2A receptors. This neuroplasticity combats withering dendritic spines, a characteristic of several neuropsychiatric disorders.
Focusing on the Lake Titicaca Basin in the Andes mountains, a team of anthropologists led by UC Davis anthropology graduate student Luis Flores-Blanco, found through analysis of 1,179 projectile points that the rise of archery technology dates to around 5,000 years ago.
L&S psychology major Jeevan Mann is already working to help others with his rare genetic condition that has made completing his studies a battle. He graduates this fall having also established a charitable organization and studied for a career as a medical researcher and clinician.