Research

Astronomers Reveal Hidden Activity in the Early Universe’s Most Massive Galaxies

January 5, 2026

Spectroscopy at the UC's W. M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii helped the researchers interpret complex data about ultramassive galaxies. Photo courtesy of the W.M. Keck Observatory.

An international team of astronomers has studied ultramassive galaxies - galaxies containing more than 100 billion stars - as they existed when the universe was less than 2 billion years old. The results show that while some of these ultramassive galaxies, or UMGs, had already shut down star...

Innovate to Grow Coming to a Zoom Room Near You

UC Merced’s premier experiential learning expo, Innovate to Grow (I2G), is providing students, faculty and staff with a new set of experiences to learn from this year, as the event continues in...

Breast Milk Shows Promise for Treating COVID-19 and Protecting Babies

Health psychology Professor Jennifer Hahn-Holbrook and incoming grad student Jessica Marino have a new study suggesting that the breastmilk of mothers who have recovered from COVID-19 contains...

Physicist Liu Receives NSF CAREER Award to Create ‘Bacteria Treadmill’

Physics Professor Bin Liu has received a CAREER award for his research into a new micromanipulation technique to virtually hold freely moving microorganisms, essentially creating a “bacterial...

Q&A: How People Decide Whether to Comply with Public Health Orders

How do people decide whether to comply with public health directives around the COVID-19 pandemic, such as wearing masks, social distancing and staying at home? Whether to take such preventative...

Pandemic Inspires Chemist to Open New Avenues of Research

Professor Michael Thompson doesn’t usually work in immunology or drug development. But his use of X-ray crystallography — research that visualizes the structures of protein molecules to...

New Book Details Best Practices in Research Among Vulnerable Populations

Rosa D. Manzo, Ph.D., associate director of medical education and a project research scientist, has co-authored a new book on community-based and community-engaged research. “Cultura y...

Researcher Examining CBD Effects on Metabolic Syndrome

About 35 percent of Americans have metabolic syndrome, a group of risk factors that raises the risk of cardiovascular disease — the leading cause of death in the United States. If you have...

Professors Nancy Burke and Whitney Pirtle are the two newest MacArthur Foundation chairs at UC Merced.

Two MacArthur Foundation Chairs Awarded to Female SSHA Faculty

Two female faculty members of UC Merced’s School of Social Sciences, Humanities and Arts (SSHA) have been named the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation chairs, making four prestigious...

New Precision Ag Project Would Help Farmers Measure Plant Moisture

One of the biggest challenges in managing crops, especially in large fields, is knowing how much water each section of a field needs. Determining that accurately is a cumbersome process that requires...