What drives species to move into such a different habitat? Two paleontologists at UC Davis, Geerat Vermeij and Ryosuke Motani, set out to test these ideas by compiling a list of all the groups of mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibians that have re-occupied marine environments and comparing their time of return to the ocean with known mass-extinction events.
Lena Korkeila, a UC Davis undergraduate from Placerville, California, is gaining real-world experience through physics research while helping to improve monitoring of nuclear reactors.
Come celebrate with us and experience the richness of diversity and achievement at UC Davis and the surrounding community in the areas of research, teaching, service and campus life. More than 200 events will take place throughout campus and will include exhibits, shows, competitions, demonstrations, entertainment, animal and athletic events, the Student Organization Fair, the Children’s Discovery Fair, the Parade and much more.
Deep inside the Earth are two huge blobs of dense rock splayed across the core-mantle boundary. A computer model from UC Davis project scientists Juliane Dannberg and Rene Gassmoeller, members of the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences in the College of Letters and Science, offers new insights into the relationship between the mantle blobs and the lava erupted at some Pacific islands.
Susette Min, an associate professor of Asian American studies, is also an experienced art exhibition curator. She brought expertise in both areas to the table for the exhibition “¿Welcome?” at the Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art. She’s the first UC Davis faculty member to curate an exhibition at the museum since it opened in November 2016.
As the first anniversary of the March for Science approaches, researchers continue to reflect on the relationship between science and society. Four scientists with strong UC Davis connections discuss whether society is witnessing a fundamental change in how scientific researchers perceive their interaction with the public and policymakers. Read more in The Conversation.
When he retires at the end of this academic year, UC Davis music professor Christopher Reynolds will leave a rich legacy. After 33 years of scholarship, service and artistry in the College of Letters and Science’s Department of Music, his accomplishments abound:
7-Year Follow-Up Shows Lasting Cognitive Gains From Meditation
Gains in the ability to sustain attention developed through intensive meditation training are maintained up to seven years later, according to a new study published in the Journal of Cognitive Enhancement. The study is based on the Shamatha Project, a major investigation of the cognitive, psychological and biological effects of meditation led by researchers at the UC Davis Center for Mind and Brain.
Lorraine Daston, executive director of the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin and professor in the Committee of Social Thought at the University of Chicago, will give this year’s Lunn Lecture, “The Strange Modernity of Science,” on Thursday, April 12.
New Research Brief: Penalties for Poverty Risks Drive High Poverty in the United States
The UC Davis Center for Poverty Research released a brief by faculty affiliate Ryan Finnigan, which examines the relationship between poverty risks, prevalences and penalties in 29 industrialized, democratic countries. Finnigan, an assistant professor of sociology, finds that the relatively high poverty rate in the United States is due to high penalties for poverty risks. Download “Penalties for Poverty Risks Drive High Poverty in the United States.”
Through a lucky quirk of nature, astronomers have used the Hubble Space Telescope to view a single star halfway across the universe. Nine billion light years from Earth, the giant blue-white star, nicknamed “Icarus” by the team, is by far the most distant individual star ever seen. Marusa Bradac, a physics professor and astronomer at UC Davis and graduate student Austin Hoag are part of the team describing Icarus and another distant, magnified star in two papers published April 2 in the journal Nature Astronomy.
Physicists from the University of California, Davis, are taking a leading role in a new joint program between the United States and United Kingdom developing tools to help prevent proliferation of nuclear weapons.
Graduate students Carina Fish and Jeanelle Hope, from the UC Davis College of Letters and Sciences, are among 26 Ph.D. and master’s students who will visit with state lawmakers and give them first-hand insight into their work and why it merits more state investment.
In Memoriam: P.K. BhattacharyaBecky OskinMarch 16, 2018
