AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY - Electronic cigarettes — or vapes — can release puffs of vapor in aromatic clouds. The health risks of breathing in this secondhand or passive vapor aren’t fully understood. So, researchers reporting in ACS’ Environmental Science & Technology conducted a preliminary study on lingering vape plumes in indoor environments. They found that...
NEW SCIENTIST - Compared with Earth, Mars is tiny, yet it seems to have an outsized effect on our planet’s climate cycles. Similar small planets could affect the climates of worlds beyond our solar system, which we must begin to take into account when evaluating their potential habitability. Stephen Kane at the University of California...
For many Val Verde Unified School District students, stepping onto the UC Riverside campus on Friday, Jan. 23, marked their first time visiting a major research university. By the end of the day, they weren’t just visitors — they were scientists. Val Verde USD students gathered at UCR for the district’s first-ever science fair hosted...
On January 22, 2026, REACH Leadership STEAM Academy in Riverside hosted its annual science fair, welcoming students, educators, and community partners for a late-afternoon event that highlighted curiosity, experimentation, and discovery. UC Riverside’s College of Natural & Agricultural Sciences (CNAS) participated by sending graduate students to serve as judges and mentors, reinforcing the college’s commitment...
UC Riverside’s College of Natural & Agricultural Sciences (CNAS) will welcome hundreds of young scientists, educators, and families to campus as it hosts two regional Science and Engineering Fairs in partnership with the Riverside Unified School District (RUSD) and, for the first time, the Val Verde Unified School District (VVUSD). Bringing together elementary, middle, and...
THE WEEK - Small but mighty, the red planet — our celestial neighbor — has made Earth’s climate what it is today. Mars’ gravitational pull serves as a stabilizing force for our home’s orbit, tilt and position from the sun. Without it, life could potentially have been a lot different from what we know today...
ZME SCIENCE - Mars is about half Earth’s size and roughly a tenth its mass — not really the sort of planet you’d expect to leave fingerprints on Earth’s climate history. Yet a new set of simulations by an international group of researchers suggests the Red Planet helps shape some of the slow, repeating orbital...
DAILY GALAXY - Mars, long admired for its rusty hue and alien deserts, may play a far greater role in shaping life on Earth than once believed. A new study published in the Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific reveals that Mars’ gravitational influence subtly but significantly affects Earth’s climate cycles, planetary tilt...
EARTH.COM - New simulations suggest Mars helps set a 2.4 million-year rhythm in Earth’s orbit that can steer the timing of ice-ages. Scientists recently tested whether a small planet could leave a detectable trace in deep-time climate records. Testing a planetary hunch Computer runs allowed the experts to switch planets on and off, turning the...
STUDYFINDS - Earth would certainly be different without its rusty red neighbor. No Mars in the night sky, no target for future human exploration. Now, however, scientists say this scenario would result in much bigger changes than simply depriving humanity of a nearby planet to study. According to the research, this scenario would fundamentally alter...
BBC SKY AT NIGHT MAGAZINE - You might think that Earth's influence on your life is minimal at best. Beyond often appearing like a bright red 'star' in the sky, what has Mars ever done for us? Quite a lot, it turns out. In fact, Mars could play a huge role in shaping the tilt...
W.M. KECK OBSERVATORY - Maunakea, Hawaiʻi – An international team of astronomers has uncovered multiple evolutionary paths for the universe’s most massive galaxies. Observations of ultramassive galaxies, each containing more than 100 billion stars, show that less than two billion years after the Big Bang, some had already stopped forming stars and lost their dust...
THE COOL DOWN - Rising global temperatures are still a major concern for scientists, but new research found that warmer and drier conditions might actually lower the amount of pollution released into the atmosphere in certain forests. What's happening? Researchers from the University of California, Riverside, found that rising global temperatures may be reducing nitrogen...
NEWSNATION - During the late 1800s and well into the 1900s, the New World screwworm invaded the U.S., devastating livestock and requiring a decades-long eradication campaign. During that time, the fly could be found from California to Florida. Eventually, scientists discovered that by releasing sterile male flies into the air, they could all but eliminate...
SMITHSONIAN MAGAZINE - Roughly 60 years ago, the United States eradicated the New World screwworm, an insect that feeds on living tissue. But now, the flesh-eating creature appears to be creeping closer to a comeback. New World screwworm is the name given to the larval, or maggot, stage of the Cochliomyia hominivorax blowfly. Loosely translated...
BBC WILDLIFE MAGAZINE - Researchers in California are preparing for the possible return of a parasitic flesh-eating fly which once decimated livestock. The New World screwworm is the larval (or maggot) stage of a blowfly known as Cochliomyia hominivorax. While most blowflies are harmless and feed on decaying carcasses, the screwworm feeds on living tissue...
Three students in Professor Elia Scudiero’s Digital Agronomy Lab at UC Riverside's College of Natural & Agricultural Sciences (CNAS) teamed up to win a Best Poster Award at the American Society of Agronomy (ASA) annual meeting held November 9-12 in Salt Lake City, UT. Bhawana Acharya attended the event in Salt Lake City and co-authored...
SAN BERNARDINO SUN - Driving west Friday morning on Riverside’s Arlington Avenue, I see the two-story boxy shape, a peak at the top, from a block away. Momentarily I think it’s a church. Then I recognize what I’m seeing. It’s not a church, but in a sense it’s still holy ground. California’s citrus industry started...
EARTH.COM - Forest soils are constantly talking – not in words but through quiet chemical exchanges between microbes, roots, and the air above them. For years, scientists had assumed that warming temperatures would speed up this underground chatter and release more nitrogen gases into the atmosphere. But long-term fieldwork is now revealing something different. Heat...
KNOWABLE MAGAZINE - n warm, shallow waters, a spiny, slug-like creature grazes on bacterial sludge on the seafloor, while sponges nearby filter clouds of suspended particles. A shell-encased Odaraia swims past, picking smaller life forms out of the water, while a giant Anomalocaris, with its formidable grasping appendages, prowls for soft-bodied critters. It’s a scene...
