School of Natural Sciences

Open Arms, Open Skies: Students Welcomed at Spirited, Soggy Scholars Bridge Crossing

August 26, 2025

Spirits were high and futures bright while all else was soaked in a summer storm that made Tuesday morning’s Scholars Bridge Crossing, UC Merced’s traditional greeting to new students, a welcome unlike any before. Call them Thunder ‘Cats. The ceremony embraced about 2,000...

Cal-Bridge Scholar Rolando Ortega Wants to Build the Future

This is part of a series of profiles of new UC Merced Bobcats enrolled for the fall 2025 semester. Rolando Ortega is closing in on his dream of earning a Ph.D. This fall, the Cal-Bridge...

Anne and David Kelley, third and fourth from left, with a group of graduate students.

A New Adventure for Two Founding Faculty Chemists: Retirement

Starting a university from scratch isn’t for the faint of heart — or the slow of foot. Lucky for UC Merced, Anne Myers Kelley and David Kelley are neither. Anne, a former Olympic...

Vaping Produces a Chemical that Destroys Human Tissue, Research Shows

In addition to being used recreationally, marijuana and cannabidiol, or CBD, one of the cannabinoids produced by the marijuana plant, are thought to have medical benefits such as helping with...

Professor Amemiya, right, with Past President Leslie Pick, left, and President Karen Crow.

Amemiya Awarded for Research, Teaching, Outreach and Service

Department of Molecular and Cell Biology Professor Chris Amemiya, former interim director of the Health Sciences Research Institute, has been honored by the Pan American Society for Evolutionary...

A graphic depicts a clock and dots connected by a wavy line

Tiny Artificial Cells Can Keep Time, Study Finds

A team of UC Merced researchers has shown that tiny artificial cells can accurately keep time, mimicking the daily rhythms found in living organisms. Their findings shed light on how biological...

A sign posted on a tree in Eastern Europe warns of active land mines.

UC Merced’s Berhe Joins Scientists in Warning of Global Land Mine Crisis

More than 100 million land mines remain buried around the world, posing a threat in approximately 70 countries and territories, and killing or injuring about 5,000 people, most of them civilians,...

LiWang’s Research into Biological Clocks Earns Protein Society Honors

Professor Andy LiWang knows what makes us tick, at least at a cellular level. His research into the mechanisms of the oldest biological clock known to humankind has led him to understand how...

Professor Sora Kim swam with a Nile crocodile for this year's Shark Week special, which focuses of sharks versus prehistoric reptiles. Photo courtesy of Kruger National Park, South Africa.

Professor Dives with Crocs, Displays Megalodon Expertise During Shark Week

Shark Week starts Sunday and Professor Sora Kim will be featured again this year in a special airing at 9 p.m. Monday, titled “Jaws vs. Mega Croc,” and the filming allowed her to swim...

Professor Clarissa Nobile investigates the mechanisms of biofilm infections that affect human health.

NIH Grant Enables Outstanding Investigator to Advance Knowledge of Microbial Infections

The National Institutes of Health are backing Professor Clarissa Nobile ’s mission to understand the mechanisms by which microbes form biofilms, specifically those that can be hazardous to...