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Study: Critical Sierra Meadows Being Overtaken by Forest

July 5, 2017
Subalpine meadows are among the Sierra Nevada’s most enchantingly picturesque landscapes. These sparsely wooded, grassy expanses are home to plants and animals found nowhere else, and they play an important role in regulating the flow of water from the Sierra snowpack to the rest of the ...

Biologists Attend Prestigious Summer Teaching Institutes

June 30, 2017
UC Merced Professor Marcos Garcia-Ojeda and lecturer Kamal Dulai have received Macmillan Travel Awards to learn how to bring more effective teaching into the STEM classroom. The $500 awards cover lodging and travel to one of the Summer Institutes on Scientific Teaching’s multi-day regional teaching...

Immigration Status Has Health Implications for Young Latinos, Study Shows

June 28, 2017
Young undocumented Latinos who gain legal status, even on a temporary basis, experience significant positive effects on their psychological well-being, according to a new study published in the journal Social Science & Medicine. UC Merced Professor Whitney Pirtle and UC Davis Professor Caitlin...

Researchers Eye Social Media’s Influence on Relationships, Stress

June 23, 2017
Nearly 70 percent of Americans use some form of social media, according to a Pew Research Center survey. There is little doubt it affects our daily lives — but how? UC Merced Ph.D. graduate Holly Rus recently defended her dissertation on social media and well-being. She and her...

Researcher Continues Progress Toward Effective HIV Inhibitor

June 19, 2017
Patricia LiWang was at an impasse. It was 2011 and the UC Merced professor’s research group had figured out how to make some of the most potent HIV inhibitors even more powerful. LiWang was thrilled by these findings; funding agencies like the National Institutes of Health (NIH) weren’t. “Our...

Study: Wildfires, Climate Change Could Make Sierra a Polluter

June 14, 2017
What if nature were to become a polluter, discharging millions of tons of planet-warming carbon into the atmosphere in much the same way as diesel-fueled trucks or coal-fired power plants? This nature-as-polluter scenario might seem far-fetched, but it’s well on its way to becoming reality,...

Blum Center Announces 2017 Seed Grant Recipients

June 7, 2017
UC Merced’s branch of the Blum Center for Developing Economies rebooted this spring with a faculty-led effort to spend two years working on becoming the hub for all food-security-related research and outreach on and off campus. Part of that effort includes seed grants for UC Merced...

New Study Finds Link Between Unconscious Movement and Reading

June 7, 2017
Right now, while you are reading these typewritten words, your hand muscles are moving imperceptibly, but measurably. These movements would be even greater if the words were handwritten. That’s because your motor system strongly contributes to your perception of language, in part by...

‘Swarmathon’ Robotics Team Competes at Cape Canaveral

June 1, 2017
Manuel Meraz transferred to UC Merced with a mission: to revive what had once been an award-winning, student-led robotics scene on campus. Meraz had just completed a robotics internship at the University of New Mexico, where his advisor introduced him to Stefano Carpin, professor of...

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