News

UCR experts discuss the connection to the bird flu outbreak and what to expect

Two University of California, Riverside undergraduate students have been named 2024’s Mentor of the Year by Big Brothers Big Sisters, or BBBS, of the Orange County and the Inland Empire region. This annual announcement honors individuals who demonstrate how mentoring relationships help mentees — or “Littles,” achieve their biggest possible...

Huntington’s disease causes dementia, has no cure, and is fatal. UC Riverside scientists show they can slow its progression in flies and worms, opening the door to human treatments.

The Luna UCR avocado is named by TIME as one of the best inventions of the year. Therecognition comes just months after UCR released the variety to commercial growers worldwide.

What happens when you mix an undergrad, grad, and faculty mentor into one research program? You get UCR CAMP Scholars. UC Riverside’s California Alliance for Minority Participation, or CAMP, is funded by the National Science Foundation, or NSF, and serves underrepresented students majoring in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, or...

The newly release Luna UCR™ avocado offers consumers great flavor, a rind that turns a tell-tale black when ripe, while growers will benefit from a smaller tree size, allowing denser plantings for more efficient and safer harvesting.

Artificial Intelligence, beyond the hype and hysteria in headlines today, plays a growing role in daily life and business – with uses ranging from predictive text to Netflix recommendations to the detection of bank fraud. Much of that progress is thanks to researchers on the cutting edge of complex scientific...

Scientists are closer to gaining the upper hand on Huanglongbing, a disease that has wiped out citrus orchards across the globe. New models of the bacterium linked to the disease reveal control methods that were previously unavailable.

It’s likely that billions of people are unaware they have been infected with parasitic worms. A UC Riverside scientist has won $1.8 million to try and understand why. The National Institutes of Health granted an Outstanding Investigator Award to Adler Dillman, an assistant professor of parasitology, so he can shed...

Blood-feeding livestock mites can be detected with wearable sensor technology nicknamed “Fitbits for chickens.” To help farmers detect mite infestations, a team of entomologists, computer scientists, and biologists led by UC Riverside entomologist Amy Murillo has created a new insect detection system. The team’s work is detailed in the journal...

UC Riverside scientists have found the first substance capable of controlling Citrus Greening Disease, which has devastated citrus farms in Florida and also threatens California. The new treatment effectively kills the bacterium causing the disease with a naturally occurring molecule found in wild citrus relatives. This molecule, an antimicrobial peptide...

Many parts of the world are in the midst of a deadly pandemic of cholera, an extreme form of watery diarrhea. UC Riverside scientists have discovered specific gut bacteria make some people resistant to it — a finding that could save lives.

When cells don’t divide into proper copies of themselves, living things fail to grow as they should. For the first time, scientists now understand how a protein called TANGLED1 can lead to accurate cell division in plants. Inside cells are structures called microtubules, which act like highways for moving proteins...

A new film made of gold nanoparticles changes color in response to any type of movement. Its unprecedented qualities could allow robots to mimic chameleons and octopi — among other futuristic applications. Unlike other materials that try to emulate nature’s color changers, this one can respond to any type of...

UC Riverside’s herbarium, established over 60 years ago, is an irreplaceable library of plant specimens. Now, a $900,000 bequest from its founder Frank Vasek and his wife Maxine will ensure the resource remains available to many generations of future plant scientists, and that it receives needed repairs and reorganization. Vasek...

Sean Harper is the first person to admit he wasn’t the most disciplined student when he came to UC Riverside as a biomedical sciences student four decades ago. “I was still 17 for my first few weeks at UCR,” Harper said. “I knew that I wanted to study medicine but...

World Bee Day is May 20. To mark the occasion, we gathered some of UC Riverside’s top bee experts to answer questions submitted on our Instagram page. The response created, for lack of a better term, quite a buzz! We got so many questions — hundreds — that we could...

UC Riverside scientists have solved a 20-year-old genetics puzzle that could result in ways to protect wheat, barley, and other crops from a devastating infection. Ayala Rao, professor of plant pathology and microbiology, has been studying Brome Mosaic virus for decades. Unlike some viruses, the genetic material of this virus...

Though “murder hornets” are dominating recent headlines, there are no Asian Giant Hornets currently known to be living in the U.S. or Canada, according to UC Riverside Entomology Research Museum Senior Scientist Doug Yanega.

Native bees that boost food crops are in decline but changing fire management policies could help them. Most flowering plant farms employ honeybees, a non-native species originally imported from Europe and managed by beekeepers. However, research shows that farms surrounded by natural bee habitat have higher crop yields. UC Riverside...