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Accidental lab discovery reveals bed bugs are terrified of this simple thing

The Independent | April 8, 2026
UCR entomologist Dong Hwan Choe's lab accidentally discovers that bed bugs avoid water at all costs. 
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UCR in the News

Southern California teachers grapple with Cesar Chavez’s newly complicated legacy

The Press Enterprise | March 29, 2026
Miguel Zavala, an associate professor of teaching at UC Riverside, talks about how academic teachings about the farmworkers movement may shift following allegations against labor rights icon Cesar Chavez.
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UCR in the News

43 Years Ago, Scientists Dropped Gophers Onto a Volcano. Today, They’re Tiny Heroes.

Popular Mechanics | March 18, 2026
UC Riverside microbiologist Michael Allen set gophers loose on a patch of land destroyed after the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens, hoping they would kick up bacteria and fungi. It worked, and the benefits to the land can still be seen more than four decades later.
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UCR in the News

How Old Philosophers Are When Their Influence Peaks?

Daily Nous | March 16, 2026
When do philosophers exert their greatest influence? According to Eric Schwitzgebel, they peak typically in mid-to-late career.
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UCR in the News

These charcoal-eating fungi flourish after fires. Uncovering their genetic secrets could help rebuild burned ecosystems

Smithsonian Magazine | March 13, 2026
Sydney Glassman, a microbial ecologist at UCR, uncovers genetic secrets that allow some fungi to thrive in wildfire-ravaged areas when everything else dies off. These secrets could help burned areas recover. 
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UCR in the News

Wildflower bloom: Here's a checklist of Southern California favorites

The Sacramento Bee | March 13, 2026
Exequiel Ezcurra, professor emeritus of ecology at University of California, Riverside, discusses some must-see wildflowers in Southern California.  
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UCR in the News

Enrollment is flattening at most UC campuses - with this major exception

Yahoo News via The San Francisco Chronicle | March 12, 2026
Enrollment was flat this year at most University of California campuses, some of which lack the physical capacity to add students. Others wanted to increase enrollment but missed their targets. UC Riverside, however, was the exception.
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UCR in the News

China's 3,046-kilometer "Great Green Wall" has transformed its largest desert into a carbon sink

IFL Science | February 18, 2026
“This is not a rainforest. It’s a shrubland like Southern California’s chaparral. But the fact that it’s drawing down CO2, and doing it consistently, is something positive we can measure and verify from space,” King-Fai Li, study co-author and atmospheric physicist at the University of California, Riverside.
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