News

A UC Riverside paper has opened the door to understanding more about early life on Earth, and to framing the search for life beyond this planet.

Unchecked carbon emissions will force tropical rains to shift northward in the coming decades, which would profoundly impact agriculture and economies near the Earth's equator, a new UCR study predicts.

If aliens modified a planet in their solar system to make it warmer, we’d be able to tell. A new UC Riverside study identifies the artificial greenhouse gases that would be giveaways of a terraformed planet.

A new UC Riverside study shows soot from large wildfires in California traps sunlight, making days warmer and drier than they ought to be. Many studies look at the effect of climate change on wildfires. However, this study sought to understand the reverse — whether large fires are also changing...

A UC Riverside study shows how extreme heat in Earth’s past caused the exchange of waters from the surface to the deep ocean to decline. A similar slowdown, which would cause climate chaos, will happen at the end of this century if carbon emissions do not abate.

UC Riverside-led research has potential to unlock terahertz processing power

Crater 2, located approximately 380,000 light years from Earth, is one of the largest satellite galaxies of the Milky Way. Extremely cold and with slow-moving stars, Crater 2 has low surface brightness. How this galaxy originated remains unclear. “Since its discovery in 2016, there have been many attempts to reproduce...

Advanced technologies enable the controlled release of medicine to specific cells in the body. Scientists argue these same technologies must be applied to agriculture if growers are to meet increasing global food demands.

The sharks we know today as the open ocean’s top predators evolved from stubby bottom dwellers during a dramatic episode of global warming millions of years ago. A massive outpouring of volcanic lava about 93 million years ago sent carbon dioxide levels soaring, creating a greenhouse climate that pushed ocean...

Rewind four years ago when most of this graduating class of collegians were seniors in high school and you’ll be reminded of bittersweet Zoom commencement ceremonies where graduates huddled around a screen to not get their diplomas or shake hands with their principals or hug their classmates. Instead, they sat...

UC Riverside scientists have discovered a highly effective, nontoxic, and less expensive way to lure hungry termites to their doom.

If we want cleaner air, fewer forest fires, and less severe climate change, a new UC Riverside study shows we must reduce aerosol pollution and greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide at the same time.

A NASA catalog featuring 126 exotic, newly discovered worlds includes detailed measurements that allow for comparisons with our own solar system.

If fruit fly wings do not develop into the right shape, the flies will die. UC Riverside researchers have learned how fly embryo cells develop as they need to, opening a window into human development and possible treatments for birth defects.

UC Riverside astrophysicist Stephen Kane had to double check his calculations. He wasn’t sure the planet he was studying could be as extreme as it seemed. He saw a planet in this faraway star system covered with so many active volcanoes that seen from a distance it would take on...

Plants’ ability to sense light and temperature, and their ability to adapt to climate change, hinges on free-forming structures in their cells whose function was, until now, a mystery.

Recent reports of NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope finding signs of life on a distant planet understandably sparked excitement. A new study challenges this finding, but also outlines how the telescope might verify the presence of the life-produced gas.

Medium-sized dogs have a higher risk of developing cancer than the very largest or smallest breeds, according to a UC Riverside study.

Despite surface temperatures hot enough to melt lead, lava-spewing volcanoes, and puffy clouds of sulfuric acid, uninhabitable Venus offers vital lessons about the potential for life on other planets, a new paper argues.

To study how parasites evolve to break the defenses of their hosts, the National Institutes of Health has granted UC Riverside nematologist Simon “Niels” Groen a $1.9 million Outstanding Investigator Award.