A hot, rocky “super Earth,” near one of the oldest stars in the galaxy has taken a team of planet-hunting scientists by surprise.

Scientists aren’t usually able to measure the size of gigantic planets, like Jupiter or Saturn, which are far from the stars they orbit. But a UC Riverside-led team has done it.

The University of California, Riverside, is leading a new effort to stop and reverse a worldwide decline in honeybees, which threatens food security and prices.

UC Riverside scientists are betting an ancient solution will solve citrus growers’ biggest problem by breeding new fruits with natural resistance to a deadly tree disease. The hybrid fruits will ideally share the best of their parents’ attributes: the tastiness of the best citrus, and the resistance to Huanglongbing, or...

A UC Riverside-led team is looking at tiny underground microorganisms for a way to prevent a huge problem — Huanglongbing, a disease with no cure that has decimated citrus orchards worldwide. The National Institute of Food and Agriculture has awarded the team $10 million to investigate the role of soil...

New UC Riverside research shows the same proteins that enable human senses such as smell also allow certain fungi to sense something they can eat. The study offers new avenues for protecting people from starvation due to pathogenic fungus-induced food shortages. Understanding how fungi sense and digest plants can also...

New grants totaling $6.3 million will help UC Riverside solve problems facing American avocado orchards, including a lethal fungal disease called Laurel Wilt. The disease can destroy an entire avocado orchard in a couple of weeks once symptoms develop. It is already present in Florida. Without effective treatments, it will...

UC Riverside is leading one of the NASA Astrobiology Program’s eight new research teams tackling questions about the evolution and origins of life on Earth and the possibility of life beyond our solar system.

A new study reveals how bacteria control the chemicals produced from consuming ‘food.’ The insight could lead to organisms that are more efficient at converting plants into biofuels. The study, authored by scientists at UC Riverside and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, has been published in the Journal of the Royal...

Though regional studies have tracked the decline of native bees, there hasn’t been a coordinated nationwide effort to monitor these pollinators — until now. UC Riverside entomologist Hollis Woodard and bee researchers at 11 other institutions are now gathering data that will help governments and land managers justify new protective...

Humans must reduce carbon dioxide and aerosol pollution simultaneously to avoid weakening the ocean’s ability to keep the planet cool, new UC Riverside research shows.

A new UC Riverside study shows flame retardants found in nearly every American home cause mice to give birth to offspring that become diabetic.

Tiny, seemingly harmless ocean plants survived the darkness of the asteroid strike that killed the dinosaurs by learning a ghoulish behavior — eating other living creatures.

Wildfires don’t stop being dangerous after the flames go out. Even one modest rainfall after a fire can cause a deadly landslide, according to new UC Riverside research. “When fire moves through a watershed, it creates waxy seals that don’t allow water to penetrate the soil anymore,” explained environmental science...

Though some believe prehistoric humans lived in harmony with nature, a new UC Riverside analysis of fossils shows human arrival in the Bahamas caused some birds to be lost from the islands and other species to be completely wiped out.

Strictly speaking, humans cannot digest complex carbohydrates — that’s the job of bacteria in our large intestines. UC Riverside scientists have just discovered a new group of viruses that attack these bacteria.

Venus might not be a sweltering, waterless hellscape today if Jupiter hadn’t altered its orbit around the sun, according to new UC Riverside research.

People who research insects for a living are just like us — totally creeped out by spiders. This is the finding of a paper that earned retired UC Riverside spider expert Richard Vetter a 2020 Ig Nobel Award.

UC Riverside is leading an effort that could help ensure food security and improve the worst effects of climate change — by studying rock-eating bacteria and fungi.

Elizabeth Hann, a doctoral student in plant biology at UC Riverside, is using a two-year, $60,000 fellowship from the Link Foundation to test whether she can grow algae for biofuels completely in the dark using solar-generated electricity.