CSA NEWS - Commercial markets are embracing traditionally ethnic vegetable crops, adding diversity to the food system. Long beans (Vigna unguiculata subsp. sesquipedalis), which originated in Africa and have been refined through domestication in Southeast Asia, have an export value of $80 million. The edible pods are a symbol of luck and longevity, but more...
THE PRESS-ENTERPRISE - UC Riverside and a Riverside-based sod company have teamed up to sell a new drought-resistant bermuda grass. The grass, called Coachella, is a less thirsty, greener-longer hybrid of bermuda grass. The university’s Office of Technology Partnerships and West Coast Turf hope to initially target golf courses and sports stadiums that need large...
PEOPLE - Celebrities can be found throughout the animal kingdom — if you know where to look. Occasionally, when a new species is discovered, pop culture-loving scientists decide to name the creature after their favorite star. There are bugs named after Oscar winners, lemurs sharing names with comedians and spiders with the same titles as...
STUDY FINDS - A simple yogurt supplement could help protect people from the hidden dangers lurking in everyday household items. A groundbreaking study from the University of California-Riverside is offering hope for those worried about our exposure to pervasive fire-retardant chemicals. Polybrominated diphenyl ethers, or PBDEs, are everywhere. They’re in your couch, a child’s car...
LIVE SCIENCE - Your skin color may influence how safe and effective a given drug is for you, a new analysis suggests. In a recent think piece, published Oct. 9 in the journal Human Genomics, scientists examined a plethora of studies, revealing that melanin — the pigment that gives our skin, hair and eyes their...
THE WEEK - Spiders are some of the most diverse creatures on Earth. While they can be frightening, most of them are harmless and skittish. However, some spiders are dangerous — or deadly. Several species have venom that is toxic to humans and can have long-lasting, even fatal, consequences. Here are some of the scariest...
SCIENCE MAGAZINE - Some of Ian Hughes’s earliest memories are of playing in the dust and digging holes while his mom and her colleagues searched for fossils in South Australia. His mother, University of California, Riverside, paleoecologist Mary Droser, was searching for fossilized remnants of animals from the Ediacaran era, stretching from approximately 635 million...
INTERESTING ENGINEERING - Over 500 million years ago, the ancestors of a diverse group of animals known as Ecdysozoans existed. This group includes various species of insects, arachnids, and nematode worms. For a long time, the group’s early history was a blank page until now. A team of researchers has identified the earliest known ecdysozoan...
STUDY FINDS - Like something straight out of a Disney movie, a study finds that gophers worked to save an entire mountain. These little critters dug up bacteria and fungi that helped restore lost plant and animal life to the devastated mountain landscape. Forty years later, the 24-hour gopher experiment continues to yield results. In...
POPULAR MECHANICS - It would probably pretty alarming to learn that, in the early 1980s, scientists decided to drop off a bunch of gophers at the site of a volcanic eruption. But don’t worry, it’s not as bad as it sounds. In fact, according to a new report from the University of California, this particular...
SMITHSONIAN MAGAZINE - In May 1980, a magnitude-5.1 earthquake accompanied by an avalanche flipped the switch on a volcano in Washington state. With pressure suddenly removed from the magma below, Mount St. Helens spewed lava, ash and debris in the southwestern part of the state. It became the most destructive eruption in United States history...
STUDY INTERNATIONAL - Born in Colombia and raised in Costa Rica and San Diego, Danilo has harbored a lifelong fascination with plants. His interest in flora, particularly epiphytic plants — those that grow on the surface of other plants — inspired him to pursue a career in plant biology. This led him to choose the...
ASBMB TODAY - Scientists explore genetic and biochemical innovations fueling future-proofing agriculture. Adapting to changing temperatures Many people think of higher temperatures and heat waves when they think of climate change, but cool seasons are also affected. According to the U.S. Climate Program Office, the expanding Arctic polar vortex —a strong band of winds in...
FORBES - It was a bright, warm and nearly cloudless morning on 18 May 1980, when all hell broke loose throughout much of Washington State. This was when Mount St. Helens, a dormant volcano, roared to life, sending hot lava cascading down her slopes and incinerating every living thing for miles around. Thick clouds of...
LIVE SCIENCE - A new superconductor material could greatly improve the reliability of quantum computers, scientists say. The electrical resistance of materials typically decreases as they are cooled. But some materials, called superconductors, maintain a gradually declining electrical resistance until they are cooled to their critical cut-off temperature, at which point their resistance becomes zero...
IFLSCIENCE - When Mount St Helens erupted in 1980, the resulting lava, ash, and debris turned the landscape barren for miles around. It was clear the land would take a long time to recover from the eruption. But one team of scientists had an idea about how they could help speed up the process; sending...
GIZMODO - In the wake of the most disastrous volcanic eruption in the history of the United States, scientists enlisted the help of an unlikely ally to regenerate life on Mount St. Helens’ barren slopes: gophers. Over four decades later, they were shocked to see that the burrowing rodents’ positive impact remains visible to this...
COSMOS MAGAZINE - In 1980, Mount St Helens erupted in the western USA, killing 57 people and destroying 350km2 of forest. In 1983, scientists captured 2 wild gophers, and put each of them on a small, fenced enclosure on the ruined volcanic plain. They let the gophers dig for 24 hours, then removed them. According...
POPULAR SCIENCE - On May 18, 1980, the eruption of Mount St. Helens emitted 1.5 million metric tons of sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere while its pyroclastic lava flow incinerated virtually everything within a 230-square-mile radius. Three years later, wildlife experts enlisted a team of local helpers for just 24 hours to speed up the...
EARTH.COM - The day that Mount St. Helens erupted in 1980 is forever seared into the collective memory of the world. An unstoppable surge of lava effectively reduced surrounding life forms to ash within a matter of miles. In an unlikely twist of fate, an experiment involving some resilient gophers triggered a chain of events...