UC Riverside’s 46th Writers Week returns with live and virtual sessions in February

After two pandemic years with online programs only, Writers Week returns with a hybrid schedule this year. The late creative writing professor Mike Davis will receive a lifetime achievement award when the 46th annual Writers Week takes place at UCR, Feb. 13-17.
Los Angeles Daily News | January 13, 2023

California ERs report 1800% rise in pot-related visits for senior citizens

Asma Jafri, chair of family medicine at UCR, said she’s treated elderly patients who reported feeling extremely paranoid or agitated after smoking, vaping or ingesting marijuana. Others spoke incoherently or made unseemly statements, prompting immediate medical care, she said.
New York Post | January 12, 2023

There Is A New Vaccine For Bees, Which Matters For Us Too

Hollis Woodard, associate professor of entomology and wild bee biologist, joined Larry Mantle to discuss a new vaccine for honey bees. It could help prevent American foulbrood disease, which is a bacterial disease that can spread quickly between hives. 
KPCC Air Talk | January 9, 2023

How This Chemist Is Turning Agricultural Waste Into Water Filters

Science Friday interview with Kandis Leslie Abdul-Aziz, a UCR assistant professor of chemical and environmental engineering, on using corn waste to activated make water filters.
Science Friday | January 6, 2023

El papel de la música y la ayahuasca en el tratamiento del consumo de sustancias en los hombres

Owain J. Graham, doctoral ethnomusicology student, led research on how Perú’s traditional songs, known as icaros, are part of a treatment process for men rehabilitating from drug and alcohol addictions. Combined with traditional Amazonian medicine and psychotherapy, these icaros are used during ayahuasca healing ceremonies at rehabilitation centers in Tarapoto, Perú.   
LA Times en Español | December 23, 2022

Getting Answers: spirituality’s impact on heart health

Heart disease is the number one killer in the United States and the risk of getting heart disease is even higher for African Americans. Public health professor Mario Sims led a study showing spirituality may help people avoid this killer.  
Western Mass News | December 22, 2022

Researchers just figured out how to filter indestructible "forever chemical" pollutants

Haizhou Liu led a team of researchers at UCR who discovered the most efficient photochemical process so far to destruct PFAS while not introducing undesirable byproducts.
Salon | December 21, 2022

Calls for humans to stop having children, go extinct grow in media circles: ‘To breed or not to breed?’

Several media outlets and talking heads, including UCR professor of gender and sexuality studies Jade Sasser, have encouraged parents to think seriously about having children because human beings risk polluting the world and causing global climate destruction.
MSN / Fox | December 20, 2022

Ancient Mexico's solar calendar in the mountains identified

Exequiel Ezcurra, an ecologist at the University of California, Riverside, discovered that the Mexica, or Aztecs, used the mountains located in the Basin of Mexico, now known as Mexico City, as a solar observatory. By keeping track of the sunrise against the peaks of the Sierra Nevada mountains, they achieved incredible accuracy in monitoring seasonal variations in weather, like dry springs and summer monsoons, and even accounting for leap years.
Space | December 19, 2022

Argh! New Research Revisiting How Long COVID Stays on Surfaces is Bringing Us Straight Back to March 2020

New research shows the COVID virus can stay on some grocery surfaces for days. Roger Seheult, associate clinical professor at the UCR School of Medicine, weighs in on how COVID lingering on surfaces can infect a body.
MSN | December 17, 2022

Bighorn sheep to get drinking stations as drought becomes new normal

James Cornett, a Palm Springs-based ecologist and who’s taught a course on bighorn sheep at UCR, says habitat destruction and climate change have been particularly hard on bighorn sheep and other native animals with dwindling populations. 
The News & Observer | December 15, 2022

Light can destroy cancer-causing ‘forever chemicals’ in drinking water, study finds

Researchers at UCR, led by chemical engineer Haizhou Liu, say they have developed a method of breaking up harmful PFAs, which are found in drinking water, into smaller compounds that are essentially harmless.
The Independent UK | December 13, 2022

How 2022 Became the Year of Gossip

UC Riverside psychology researcher and gossip expert Megan Robbins weighs in on 2022, a year resplendent with (largely manufactured) celebrity scandal. 
Time magazine | December 13, 2022

An Ancient ‘Horizon Calendar’ Comes Into View Over Mexico City

Exequiel Ezcurra, distinguished professor of ecology at UCR, led a study showing how the Indigenous peoples in the valley where Mexico City would later arise followed a natural solar calendar that was so accurate it accounted for leap years.
The New York Times | December 13, 2022

Citrus Psyllids Bribe Ants with Strings of Candy Poop

Asian citrus psyllids transmit a disease that can ruin oranges. Even worse, Argentine ants protect them in exchange for the psyllids' delicate ribbons of sugary poop, called honeydew. By studying the ants’ behavior, UCR's Mark Hoddle, found a way to fight the ants leaving the psyllids more exposed to a natural enemy.
KQED Science | December 13, 2022

The Aztecs’ solar calendar helped grow food for millions of people

Exequiel Ezcurra, UCR ecology professor, led a study showing how the Aztecs, or Mexica people, used the Basin of Mexico as a solar observatory to accurately track the seasons and account for leap years. This in turn enabled them to be highly productive farmers.     
Popular Science | December 12, 2022

Air pollution rising in some communities after quality boost during pandemic

KCBS Radio news anchor Holly Quan spoke with Francesca Hopkins, assistant professor of climate change and sustainability at UC Riverside, about how the pollution that has come back after COVID lockdowns is hitting some communities harder than others
KCBS Radio | December 6, 2022

Bay Area air pollution has stayed low while it’s rebounded in L.A. Here’s why

Francesca Hopkins, assistant professor of climate change at UCR, co-led a study showing that some areas have continued to benefit from improvements in air quality that began during the pandemic. Those that benefitted are generally wealthier places, while other spots have lost most of the gains, or even gotten slightly worse than they were before. 
The San Francisco Chronicle | December 6, 2022

School principals say culture wars made last year 'rough as hell'

High school principals reported substantial conflict at their schools over issues like the teaching of race and racism, LGBTQ+ rights and the use of social emotional learning strategies in the classroom, according to “Educating for a Diverse Democracy,” coauthored by the Civic Engagement Research Group at UC Riverside.
NPR | December 1, 2022

“Something Needs to Change or Else We Will All Quit”

Researchers John Rogers from UCLA and UCR’s Joseph Kahne found that high school educators are refraining from teaching topics that could be perceived as controversial. They also found that many considered quitting the profession, and that one-quarter of principals reported an increasing number of incidents of students verbally harassing LGBTQ classmates.  
Mother Jones | November 30, 2022