News

Graduate Student Bringing UC Merced to Western Pacific

February 13, 2013
Graduate student Sharon Patris likes spending time at a lake in the middle of the forest on an uninhabited island in the western Pacific. The marine lake named Ongiem’l Tketau and informally known as Jellyfish Lake, is home to the golden jellyfish, a species Patris studies as part of her...

Professor Looks Inside Trees for Answers

December 12, 2012
Professor Carolin Frank is concerned with the inner lives of trees. She looks inside them to see whether microbes are part of – and perhaps even critical to – life functions such as growth. “It’s a pretty new field,” Frank said. “Most people think of bacteria...

UC Merced Researcher, Graduate Student, Contribute to Inventory of All Marine Life

November 27, 2012
Counting the number of species that live in the Earth’s oceans sounds as impossible as counting the grains of sand on a beach. But a global collaboration involving a UC Merced researcher and a graduate student is doing just that, and found that about a third of all the oceans’ species...

National Science Foundation Grant Supports Biodiversity Research

September 25, 2012
MERCED, Calif. — A $1.9 million grant from the National Science Foundation will support a five-year investigation by University of California, Merced, researchers into environmental changes in marine lakes, including why some species adapt while others go extinct. The grant also is helping...

Continued Smoking Can Spread Cancer, Research Shows

March 27, 2012
Cigarette smoke cannot only cause cancer, but it's also responsible for the spread of it, according to research by UC Merced biochemistry Professor Henry Jay Forman. Forman discovered tobacco smoke activates an enzyme — called Src — that causes cancer cells to spread to other parts...

Soil Scientist's Work Keeps Her Grounded

July 31, 2009
When Asmeret Asefaw Berhestarted college, her initial goal was to become a medical doctor. But over time, she diverted her attention to research, focusing on the applied aspects of natural science. She left medicine behind and chose another career that is a bit more "grounded." She is a...

UC Professor Sweats the Small Stuff Studying Microbes

January 12, 2009
Carolin Frank recalled one of her earliest exposures to the world of science. She was about 10 years old and lived in a rural area of Sweden. While she enjoyed reading comics and Pippi Longstocking books, there were other topics she found just as interesting, namely genetics and DNA. "...

Professor Henry Forman Appointed to San Joaquin Valley AirDistrict

November 5, 2008
UC Merced Professor Henry Forman has been appointed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to the San Joaquin Valley Unified Air Pollution Control District, the board that oversees air quality in the eight-county region. Forman, a founding faculty member and professor of chemistry and biochemistry in...

Evolutionary Biology Professor Combines Global Research, Local Teaching

March 28, 2007
A few places on Earth are known as nature's best laboratories for studying evolution - the Galapagos Islands, the Antilles, and the freshwater lakes of British Columbia, for example. For Professor Michael N. Dawson of UC Merced's School of Natural Sciences, seawater lakes in Palau, New...

UC Merced Professor Receives Prop. 99 Grant Money to StudyTobacco Effects

June 20, 2005
In 1988, California voters approved Proposition 99, an initiative specifying that five percent of cigarette tax revenue be appropriated for research on tobacco-related disease. UC Merced professor Henry Jay Forman is now bringing $420,000 of that money to Merced to study how human bronchial...

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