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.
Sudipta Sen, a professor of history and Middle East/South Asian studies, was recently awarded a Sir Williams Jones Memorial Medal from the Asiatic Society of India for his influential work on the history of South Asia. Sen is a historian of the late Mughal and early British India and the British Empire, and of the environment.
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.
When Wayne Thiebaud arrived at UC Davis in 1961, the university had been an independent campus for only two years. The art department was in an embryonic stage. Then in 1962, Thiebaud had a groundbreaking exhibition in New York and, during the decades that followed, his reputation only grew. Along the way he was joined by other art faculty who soon developed national reputations as well, and UC Davis became nearly as well-known for art as for agriculture.
Beth Rose Middleton Manning recalls being elated watching the Eklutna River in Alaska flowing freely after a dam was removed. The UC Davis Department of Native American studies professor had a similar feeling upon learning she received a 2022 Andrew Carnegie Fellowship for her research on dam removal and land restoration. She is one of 28 scholars, journalists and authors awarded the fellowship, which carries a $200,000 stipend.
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.
Wangechi Mutu will give the Betty Jean and Wayne Thiebaud Endowed Lecture on May 12 at UC Davis. The 4:30 p.m. free talk at the Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art is presented by the Department of Art and Art History.
In recent years, self-esteem has fallen out of favor in the scientific literature and in the popular media as an important factor for life outcomes. But a new large research review conducted by psychologists at UC Davis and the University of Bern suggests that high self-esteem can have a positive influence in many areas of people’s lives.
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 40-foot-tall buckeye — among the first trees to be planted in the UC Davis Arboretum 85 years ago — broke apart. Juan Ávila Hernandez, a member of the Committee to Honor the Patwin and Native Americans, noticed and set in motion a replacement project culminating in a tree-planting ceremony on March 4, 2022. Three saplings will vie to be the buckeye that takes over the spot overlooking the Native American Contemplative Garden.
Rhesus macaques are able to perceive their own heartbeats, according to a new study from the California National Primate Research Center at the University of California, Davis, and Royal Holloway, University of London. The research, published April 11 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, creates a first-of-its-kind animal model of interoception.
