Assistant professor Jesús Velázquez, a material chemist in the UC Davis College of Letters and Science, is one of 18 faculty in the U.S. selected as Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholars for 2022. These faculty are within the first five years of their academic careers, have each created an outstanding independent body of scholarship and are deeply committed to education. Each Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar receives an unrestricted research grant of $100,000.
Three faculty members from the University of California, Davis, have been elected as members of the National Academy of Sciences. They are among 120 new members and 30 international members announced by the academy May 3.
A new study describes a period of rapid global climate change in an ice-capped world much like the present — but 304 million years ago. Although several other “hyperthermal,” or rapid warming events, are known in Earth’s history, this is the first identified in an icehouse Earth, when the planet had ice caps and glaciers, comparable to the present day.
People have practiced various forms of meditation for thousands of years, usually in a religious context. But only recently has meditation been the subject of scientific study. In the latest episode of The Backdrop podcast, Clifford Saron, a neuroscientist at the UC Davis Center for Mind and Brain who directs the Shamatha Project meditation study, discusses how mindfulness can affect our physical, mental and emotional health.
Three researchers from UC Davis have been awarded a total $1.2 million grant over four years from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to generate high-quality synthetic data using artificial intelligence and machine learning that may potentially help physicians predict, diagnose and treat diseases.
For the past decade, genetic researchers from the Henn Lab have worked among the Khoe-San and self-identified “Coloured” communities in South Africa, requesting DNA and generating genetic data to help unravel the history and prehistory of southern Africans and their relationship to populations around the world. However, the researchers have been unable to fulfill a common request: providing them their individual genetic ancestry results. What they found is that there is no easy answer.
The multiverse, long a topic of science fiction and fantasy, seems to be popping up in narratives everywhere, notes Maya Phillips, cultural critic for The New York Times. Phillips will explore “Storytelling in the Multiverse of Madness” in a talk on May 5 at 4:10 p.m. at the Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art at UC Davis — one day before “Dr. Strange” opens in theaters nationwide.
An unseen "mirror world" of particles that interact with our world only via gravity might be the key to solving a major puzzle in cosmology today — the Hubble constant problem.
The next time you feel your heart racing and your blood pressure rising, try this: Go outside and gaze at a body of water. Research by a UC Davis psychologist suggests that contemplating water — even if it’s a swimming pool — may be good for psychological well-being.
“You can do it quickly, you can do it cheaply, or you can do it right. We did it right.” These were some of the opening remarks from David Toback, leader of the Collider Detector at Fermilab, as he announced the results of a decadelong experiment to measure the mass of a particle called the W boson.
A UC Davis psychology major who hopes to someday work as a clinical psychologist with clients on the autism spectrum has been awarded a Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship, the nation’s leading scholarship for undergraduates pursuing research careers in the natural sciences, mathematics and engineering. Lynnette Hersh is one of two UC Davis students and among 417 sophomores and juniors nationwide selected from a pool of more than 5,000 applicants to receive the prestigious STEM scholarship
UC Davis researchers studying mycelium, the white filament-like root structure of mushrooms, are making strides towards creating a more sustainable planet. Researchers found that by growing mycelium with a biomass, such as coffee grounds or left-over agricultural waste, they can create sustainable structures that can be turned into everything from biodegradable plastics and circuit boards to filters that remove harmful antibiotic and pesticide residues from water.
In the past several years, California has endured the most extreme fires in its recorded history.
2018’s Camp Fire grew into the state’s deadliest and most destructive fire on record, devastating the towns of Paradise and Concow. Last year the state suffered the Dixie Fire, raging for months through five Northern California counties on its way to becoming the single-largest blaze in state history.
The face already plays an important role in communication, but a group of UC Davis computer scientists led by doctoral student Shuyi Sun is taking this to the next level. The team is designing facial jewelry that can use signals from a person’s facial muscles to send wireless commands to at-home devices like Alexa and Google Home.
UC Davis College of Letters and Science graduate programs in psychology, statistics and earth science rank in the top 20 in the U.S. News & World Report’s 2023 Best Graduate Schools rankings.
