Politics, smolitics. Forget causes like budget cuts and education spending. Nominate your favorite microorganism for California's state microbe and you could make history! Microbes are itsy-bitsy organisms, like bacteria or fungi, which can only be seen under a microscope. They are usually unicellular and live everywhere - from your swimming pool to your small intestine. Microbes may not be the cuddliest mascots, but they are the biggest gang of living things on Earth.
Earlier this month, four undergraduates, one grad student and a professor, all from the atmospheric science department, launched a weather balloon 65,000 feet into the air to take pictures and receive weather data. The team not only sent up a camera but a radiosonde - a device that records temperature, pressure and dew point. With this, the team was able to gather a profile of the atmosphere as well as images - a first for this kind of experiment.
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?
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.
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.
A group of American and Russian scientists has discovered a new element that is a missing link to developing some of the heaviest bits of atomic mass ever produced. The element, still nameless, was produced by smashing together an isotope of calcium with the radioactive element berkelium in a particle accelerator near Moscow. Published in the journal Physical Review Letters, the data supports the theory that as elements become heavier, they also become more stable and live longer than other atomic structures produced before. In order for the element to gain an official name, the discovery has to be confirmed at another location. Once confirmed, the element will take its place on the periodic table.
