Editor's note: This story is republished from the Spring/Summer 2026 issue of UC Merced Magazine.
Walk across UC Merced’s campus on any weekday, and you might hear laughter spilling from a classroom, feel the thrum of a wind tunnel or spot students crouched in a field searching for...
School of Natural Sciences
Dark matter and the life cycles of star clusters will come into focus as UC Merced’s astrophysicists get resources from the two space telescopes soon to be exploring the universe.
NASA...
Daily cycles in virtually every aspect of our physiology are driven by biological clocks (also called circadian clocks) in our cells. The cyclical interactions of clock proteins keep the biological...
UC Merced’s largest research grant in its 16-year history aims to improve agricultural and environmental water resilience. The new $10 million collaborative focuses on water banking, trading...
Cartilaginous fishes such as sharks and skates have a sixth sense, but it’s not ESP — it’s electrosense. Such fishes use hundreds or thousands of specialized organs to sense prey...
Shortly before the fall semester kicked off in person, 11 students were wrapping up their first summer on campus as part of the FACTS summer bridge program.
FACTS stands for San Joaquin Valley...
Like many people this summer, Professor Shahar Sukenik has dehydration on his mind.
But it’s not the soaring outside temperatures prompting this focus. Dehydration has been a theme of his...
More than a few students have probably asked themselves why they have to take calculus — the course is notoriously difficult for some.
“People haven’t been taught math the way it...
While the campus remained quieter than usual this summer, a group of new graduate students began their UC Merced journey earlier than the rest of their cohort.
On July 6, 19 incoming grad students...
The over the counter, “safe,” organic-compliant insecticides people purchase at home-improvement stores could be causing a problem that goes far beyond the vegetable garden or farm field...
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