UC Merced opened Sept. 5, 2005, as the 10th campus in the University of California system and the first American research university of the 21st century. Situated near Yosemite National Park, the campus significantly expands access to the UC system for students throughout the state, with a special mission to increase college-going rates among students in the San Joaquin Valley. It also serves as a major base of advanced research, a model of sustainable design and construction, and a stimulus to economic growth and diversification throughout the region.
Building solar panels over water sources is one way to both provide power and reduce evaporation in drought-troubled regions.
Robin Raj, Citizen Group & Solar Aquagrid
From pulling carbon dioxide out of the air to turning water into fuel, innovators are developing new technologies and pairing existing ones to help slow global warming.
An artist’s rendering of a solar canal.
Robin Raj, Citizen Group & Solar Aquagrid
Covering the state’s canals with solar panels would reduce evaporation of precious water and help meet renewable energy goals – all while saving money.
Banana plantation workers in Panama find shade under a vehicle during a break.
Jan Sochor/Latincontent/Getty Images
The risk from heat waves is about more than intensity – being able to cool off is essential, and that’s hard to find in many low-income areas of the world.
If you ever feel like you can’t stop eating sugar, you are responding precisely as programmed by natural selection. What was once an evolutionary advantage has a different effect today.
Several of California’s reservoirs were at less than one-third of their capacity in early December 2021.
Martha Conklin
As the risk of fires rises in areas once considered too wet to burn, it creates hazards for mountain communities and for downstream water supplies.
Dry conditions across the West follow a hot, dry year of record-setting wildfires in 2020. Communities were left with scenes like this, from California’s Creek Fire.
Amir Aghakouchak/University of California Irvine
Drought conditions are so bad, fish hatcheries are trucking their salmon to the ocean and ranchers are worried about having enough water for their livestock.
The California Aqueduct, which carries water more than 400 miles south from the Sierra Nevada, splits as it enters Southern California at the border of Kern and Los Angeles counties.
California DWR
Roger Bales, University of California, Merced and Brandi McKuin, University of California, Santa Cruz
Installing solar panels over California’s 4,000 miles of canals could generate less expensive, renewable energy, save water, fight climate change – and offer a solution for the thirsty American West.
The sequoias that live on the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada in California are the largest trees in the world by volume.
Erin Donalson/EyeEm via Getty Images
Restoring western forests – thinning out small trees and dead wood – is an important strategy for reducing the risk of massive wildfires. But these projects aren’t fast, easy or cheap.
Hindu cremation being performed on the banks of the River Ganges in Varanasi, India.
Photo by Tim Graham/Getty Images
Hindu philosophy believes the soul to be immortal. Death is considered to be the end of only physical incarnation, as the soul continues its journey of multiple births until its final liberation.
Many Americans find comfort in familiar fast-food meals, but they undercut local food security.
Getty Images
Fast-food restaurants can be comforting places, but when they saturate communities, they crowd out healthy food sources and leave residents less nourished.
A coronavirus vaccine is coming, but when?
Francesco Carta fotografo/Moment via Getty Images
Vaccine development is usually a long process. The coronavirus pandemic is forcing researchers to innovate and test potential vaccines faster than ever before.
A rendering of the coronavirus.
Getty Images / 4x-image
Masting is what biologists call the pattern of trees for miles around synchronizing to all produce lots of seeds – or very few. Why and how do they get on schedule?
Is a bottle of morning milk at night the equivalent of turning on all the lights at bedtime?
comzeal images/Shutterstock.com
Breast milk contains ingredients in concentrations that change over the course of the day. Researchers think milk is chrononutrition, carrying molecular messages to help set a baby’s internal clock.