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Environment

Hurricanes Create Powerful Changes Deep in the Ocean, Study Reveals

June 6, 2025

Hurricane Bud left some surprising changes in its wake, UC Merced researchers found.
With careful planning and a little luck, researchers found a surprising upside to hurricanes after a Category 4 storm disrupted their expedition off the coast of Mexico. The team was able to sample the ocean right after the storm passed and found that the storms churn the ocean so powerfully and...

Merced River Helps Explain How Soils Capture and Store Planet-Warming Carbon

Soils are carbon sinks, storing more planet-warming carbon than the atmosphere and all animal and plant life combined. But they can also release massive amounts of stored carbon into the...

Following a Devastating Pandemic, California’s Sea Stars are Evolving

In 2012, Environmental Systems graduate student Lauren Schiebelhut was collecting DNA from ochre sea stars living along the Northern California coast — part of an effort to study genetic...
Headshot of a woman in glasses in front of a shiny glass wall.

Berhe Selected by National Academies to Serve as “New Voice” for Science

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine (NASEM) just announced that they’ve selected Professor Asmeret Asefaw Berhe to serve as an inaugural member of the Academies’...

Students Discover Cannibal Lizards on Remote Aegean Island

It reads like a mashup of Greek mythology and H.G. Wells. “The Odyssey of Doctor Moreau,” perhaps. Explorers find their way to a remote Aegean island and discover it’s inhabited by...
Man and woman kneel in grassy field with others in the background.

Calling All Citizen Scientists!

Local community members are invited to serve as citizen scientists at UC Merced’s next CALeDNA BioBlitz, scheduled for Sunday, May 20, from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. at the Merced Vernal Pools and...

Engineering Students Get an Inside Look at Wastewater Treatment

Three field trips this semester gave Professor Marc Beutel’s students an up-close understanding of biological wastewater processes used in treatment plants across the country. Most recently...
Sierra Nevada forest tree trunks in a mechanically-thinned forest.

Billions of Gallons of Water Saved by Thinning Sierra Forests

There are too many trees in Sierra Nevada forests, say experts from UC Merced, UC Irvine and the National Park Service working at the National Science Foundation Southern Sierra Critical Zone...

Sustainable California Video Highlights UC Water Academy Experience

April is Earth Month. It’s also when UC Water Academy — an intensive course aimed at training the next generation of California water experts — starts its second year. To mark...

Feeling a Little Puckish? Get Thee to Yosemite for ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’

Desperate lovers, a fairy king and queen, a woman with a donkey’s head and a scamp with Cupid’s arrow in flower form are taking over Yosemite National Park on Earth Day weekend....

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