Lynn Sweet, a UCR research ecologist, talks about the resilience of desert plant and animal species, and how they might survive increasingly severe bouts of drought and storms.
UCR microbiology professor Shou-wei Ding and virologist Rong Hai have pioneered a live, attenuated vaccine strategy that can target the part of a genome that all virus variants share.
Karthick Ramakrishnan, a public policy professor at UCR, and founder of AAPI Data, said the richness and detail of the data shows environmental groups need to consider reaching out to AAPI populations.
Genetics-based "one-and-done" vaccines for the flu and COVID-19 could prove more effective and easier to craft than current jabs, researchers from UC Riverside report. Professor Shou-wei Ding and researcher Rong Hai have innovated a new vaccine method that targets viruses using a different response to infection than what is prompted by current vaccines.
Instead of teaching the immune system to create antibodies to fight off a specific virus, the new vaccine would instead teach the body to create small signaling RNA proteins that will shut down harmful viral spread.
UCR virologist Rong Hai and microbiology professor Shou-wei Ding created a new vaccine strategy. Instead of teaching the immune system to create antibodies to fight a virus, their vaccine would teach the body to create small RNA proteins to shut down viral spread.
UCR scientists Rong Hai and Shou-Wei Ding have developed a new method of creating vaccines that they believe are effective against all strains of a virus, and safe even for babies because the method does not rely on traditional immunity.
Danielle Stevenson, a researcher with the environmental toxicology department at the University of California, Riverside, is investigating how native California plants and fungi could be used to clean up contaminated brownfields: land abandoned or underutilized due to industrial pollution. She's leading a team of volunteers to help with the research.
The Rancho Cucamonga Quakes introduced their new Copa de La Diversión team name, the Chaquetas, The name Chaquetas — which means “jackets” in Spanish — is a tribute to Dodgers pitcher Joe Kelly, who has donned a mariachi jacket from time to time, including during a 2021 trip to the White House. Some fans were not too supportive because chaqueta can be associated with a sexual act. UCR English Professor Richard T. Rodríguez said the word’s second meaning is “definitely a colloquialism.”
UCR professor Eddie Comeaux talks about being both a college and professional athlete, the goals of higher education, and changing the current NCAA model.
UCR entomologist Tim Paine studies pest management in forests. He said treating trees with insecticides in campgrounds and areas used by people is part of the Forest Service’s policy. "The western pine beetle is a natural part of the forest," he said. "They're a vital part of that ecosystem — a problem from our perspective when they get to really high populations because they can kill large numbers of trees."
Bd is a deadly fungus causing a global pandemic that has either contributed to or caused the probable extinction of 90 amphibian species. UCR microbiologists Mark Yacoub and Jason Stajich have discovered a virus that infects Bd, and they think it can be genetically engineered to control or destroy the fungal disease.
A proposal by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to kill roughly half a million barred owls to protect the spotted owl has animal welfare advocates debating the moral issue of killing one species to protect another. Cameron Barrows, a retired emeritus researcher at UCR's Center for Conservation Biology, says that without a barred owl management strategy, spotted owls will disappear.
According to UCR's Eddie Schwieterman, there were no trees on Earth for most of the history of life on Earth and for most of the history of photosynthesis.
UCR's Vasileios Christopoulos and his colleagues are using functional ultrasound imaging (fUSI) to visualize the spinal cord and map its response to electrical stimulation in real time, an approach that could improve treatments of chronic back pain.
UCR astrophysicist Stephen Kane comments on a new study that suggests gravitational perturbations—perhaps from rogue passing stars or by migrating gas giants—can routinely launch rocky worlds into the maws of their star, even in mature planetary systems.