HOUSE DIGEST - Have you ever noticed that many hummingbird feeders are bright red? Have you ever wondered why? Well, science indicates that the vibrant color attracts hummingbirds, which is also likely why nectars have long been colored red. Although the little birds have a penchant for red, it has been less obvious whether or...
STUDYFINDS - For scientists, mice often serve as stand-ins for humans. So, what happens when these tiny test subjects are bred to be Olympic-level athletes? Researchers from the University of California-Riverside are shedding light on how exceptionally active animals respond to food and calorie restrictions, with surprising implications for our understanding of diet, exercise, and...
POPULAR SCIENCE - A giant spike in ocean temperatures about 93 million years ago may have helped sharks grow from stubby bottom dwellers into bigger predators. This surge in ocean heat in the Cretaceous period came from a gush of volcanic lava that sent carbon dioxide levels skyrocketing. This created a greenhouse effect that raised...
THE NEW YORK TIMES - It sounds like something out of a Hollywood film script, but it really happened: Shark-evolution researchers say that increased ocean temperatures more than 100 million years ago may have caused sharks to grow bigger, swim faster and become the powerful predators we know today. In a paper published last month...
ZME SCIENCE - Modern sharks, those apex predators of the open ocean, might have actually evolved from bottom-dwellers during a significant episode of global warming millions of years ago. A new University of California, Riverside (UCR) study published in Current Biology has unveiled the adaptive fin morphology of sharks in response to historical climate changes...
NEWSWEEK - Ancient underwater volcanic eruptions may have made modern day sharks more fierce then their predecessors, a new study has found. The infamous shark species we know of today evolved from stubby bottom dwellers around 93 million years ago when a spew of lava poured into the ocean, the study reported. This caused carbon...
EARTH.COM - Medium-sized dog breeds are more prone to cancer than both the smallest and the largest breeds, according to a recent study led by the University of California, Riverside. These findings challenge the multistage model of cancer, which associates increased size within a single species to a heightened risk of cancer due to more...
ABC NEWS - Researchers have discovered which dog breeds are more likely to get cancer, and the results disprove the notion that the largest dogs have a higher risk of the disease. It turns out that large -- but not the largest -- dog breeds generally have the highest cancer risk, according to the study...
NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC - For as much time and money as people have spent studying and filming great white sharks, no one has ever witnessed one being born. But new footage out of California might be the next best thing. On July 9, 2023, filmmaker Carlos Gauna and organismal biologist Phillip Sternes were following sharks with...
USA TODAY - A wildlife filmmaker and a biology student believe they may have captured the first-ever footage of a newborn great white shark. Carlos Gauna, a wildlife filmmaker, and Phillip Sternes, a UC Riverside biology doctoral student, used a drone to film a 5-foot-long white shark swimming 1,300 feet off the coast of Carpinteria...