News

If you’re eating fruits, nuts, grains, or vegetables in a few years, you’ll likely owe a debt of gratitude to UC Riverside. The university has created a program to transition today’s undergraduates into professional scientists solving tomorrow’s farming challenges. The program, called Plants-3D, will train students to discover, design, and...

Of the major food crops, only rice is currently able to survive flooding. Thanks to new research, that could soon change -- good news for a world in which rains are increasing in both frequency and intensity. The research, published today in Science, studied how other crops compare to rice...

Guppies, a perennial pet store favorite, have helped a UC Riverside scientist unlock a key question about evolution: Do animals evolve in response to the risk of being eaten, or to the environment that they create in the absence of predators? Turns out, it’s the latter. David Reznick, a professor...

Groundwater is essential for growing crops, but new research shows climate change is making it harder for soil to absorb rainfall. While the idea that soil particles rearrange themselves in response to environmental conditions is not new, scientists once thought these shifts in the ground happened slowly. Not anymore. A...

They say love is blind, but if you’re a queen honeybee it could mean true loss of sight. New research finds male honeybees inject toxins during sex that cause temporary blindness. All sexual activity occurs during a brief early period in a honeybee’s life, during which males die and queens...

A new species of gigantic tumbleweed once predicted to go extinct is not only here to stay — it’s likely to expand its territory. The species, Salsola ryanii, is significantly larger than either of its parent plants, which can grow up to 6 feet tall. A new study from UC...

Abhijit Ghosh, UCR associate professor of geophysics, is racing to understand everything he can about the fault that was unknown until it produced a 7.1 magnitude earthquake on July 5. Ghosh's work could help officials prepare for the next big shake.

NASA’s newest planet-hunting satellite has discovered a type of planet missing from our own solar system. Launched in 2018, the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, or TESS, has found three new worlds around a neighboring star. Stephen Kane, a UC Riverside associate professor of planetary astrophysics, says the new star system...

Evolution is actually a Sadie Hawkins dance, as new research shows females not only determine whether male animals develop bright colors, but also how fast new species develop. Research led by David Reznick, a UC Riverside biology professor, used fish often seen in pet stores, like guppies and swordtails, to...

Australian officials signed an agreement last night allowing UC Riverside to continue its pioneering research on a government-owned goldmine for unusual fossils. Nilpena Station is a city-sized plot of land in the Australian Outback. It harbors the richest collection on Earth of animal species around 550 million years old. Some...

They outlived mammoths and saber-toothed tigers. But without dramatic action to reduce climate change, new research shows Joshua trees won’t survive much past this century.

UCR scientists have decoded the genome of black-eyed peas, offering hope for feeding Earth's expanding population, especially as the climate changes.

Scientists have finally found malaria’s Achilles’ heel, a neurotoxin that isn’t harmful to any living thing except Anopheles mosquitoes that spread malaria.

Astronomers have a new tool in their search for extraterrestrial life – a sophisticated bot that helps identify stars hosting planets similar to Jupiter and Saturn.

New UC Riverside research settles a longstanding debate about whether the most ancient animal communities were deliberately mobile. It turns out they were, because they were hungry.

UC Riverside is testing whether a sesame seed-sized wasp can control a pest that could seriously damage California crops including wine, walnuts, and avocados.

Despite how essential plants are for life on Earth, little is known about how parts of plant cells orchestrate growth and greening. By creating mutant plants, UC Riverside researchers have uncovered a cellular communication pathway sought by scientists for decades. Both plants and humans have specialized light-sensitive proteins. In humans...

In a new study, a UC Riverside–led team discovered that a buildup of toxic gases in the atmospheres of most planets makes them unfit for complex life as we know it.

A first-generation student’s journey into entomology.

Astronomers believe planets like Jupiter shield us from space objects that would otherwise slam into Earth. Now they’re closer to learning whether giant planets act as guardians of solar systems elsewhere in the galaxy. A UCR-led team has discovered two Jupiter-sized planets about 150 light years away from Earth that...