Science & Technology

A new partnership formed by the UC Davis Cancer Center and the Jackson Laboratory Cancer Center (JAX) could help find better and more effective cures to cancer. This recent consortium will allow for a greater array of testing, as researchers from both institutes will have larger quantities of mice and tumors to test.

When we hear Smashmouth’s “All Star,” our minds become flooded with memories from that awkward middle school dance or those Friday nights hanging out with friends. A particular song can take individuals back to their past almost instantly. But how does our brain form this connection between music and memory?

David Lavine

You know that city-mouse/country-mouse story? Well, I feel like country-mouse right now. I’ve been interning this quarter in Washington, D.C. – a bustling city 2,388 miles from dear old Davis. Traveling across this city has made me realize that I take a huge part of modern life for granted. There’s a great invention that makes it possible for me to travel underground on the subway and take an elevator 20 floors above street-level. This technology is concrete. It’s the gray, coarse, wonderful material we build our lives on.

Rebecca Skloot, journalist and author, will be speaking and signing copies of her new book, “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” on Friday at 4 p.m. Held in the Activities and Recreation Center Ballroom, her bestselling book discusses the life of Henrietta Lacks, a Southern tobacco farmer who died more than 50 years ago, and how cells taken from her body proved to be the first human cells grown in a culture to be “immortal.”

Researchers at UC Davis are developing new ways to aid those that are disabled. New studies are bringing forth revelations that could potentially make transportation and social independence much easier for both disabled children and adults. These studies could prove vital in convenience, reliability and affordability for the disabled. If successfully implemented, researchers Sanjay Joshi and Anthony Wexler feel that it could drastically help the severely disabled – generally quadriplegics – operate wheelchairs, be more independent and allow for them to be more comfortable with their required machinery.

UC Davis researchers have affirmed an essential hypothesis in a 26-year-old DNA repair model – new evidence paving the way for further study into the molecular mechanisms that can affect cancer predisposition and developmental defects. Before this work, the 1983 double-strand-break repair model’s key hypothesis had not been physically demonstrated in cells, said Wolf-Dietrich Heyer, professor of microbiology. “This research is a really big step,” Heyer said.

Eyjafjallajokull volcano ash causes more airline uncertainty A new cloud of ash from the Eyjafjallajokull volcano in Iceland is continuing to add air traffic issues to parts of Europe, particularly to the United Kingdom.

A recent discovery at the United States Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York has physicists excited.

New research at UC Davis is revealing new ways to extend both plant and fruit life.

Hormones related to diabetes may also be related to fertility: The hormones leptin and insulin appear to work together to not only regulate blood sugar levels but also, surprisingly to researchers, regulate female fertility, a new study in the journal Cell Metabolism suggests.

Early ecologists thought plants were wimps. Sure, some plants have toxins or thorns, but most just sit there like wild salad bars. Plant passivity is the dark side of The Very Hungry Caterpillar. In a conflict between plant and herbivore, the caterpillar gets fat and the plant gets dead. Researchers at UC Davis, however, are studying plant responses to enemies like viruses and insects. It turns out plants are far from defenseless. They can fight off disease and even call in reinforcements. In the struggle for survival, every leaf is a battlefield.