School of Natural Sciences

Professor Dives with Crocs, Displays Megalodon Expertise During Shark Week

July 17, 2025

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.

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 with a Nile crocodile. “I flew to Florida and learned about crocodiles – their evolution...

Local Students Gain Lab Experience in Summer Program

As a high school student in Merced, Ana Arteaga didn’t know which academic path she would choose in college. But her route became clear after she spent two summers in a chemistry lab at UC Merced. In...

NIH Grant Charts Path to UC Merced Ph.D. for Fresno State Students

A new grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) will create a pipeline to doctoral degrees in biomedical and behavioral sciences at the University of California, Merced, for underrepresented...

Science and Engineering Researchers Stay Busy in Summer

The summer might mean an extended break for some in the campus community, but UC Merced researchers are busier than ever. Whether here or abroad, many professors and students are taking advantage of...

Researchers Win CITRIS Grants for Four New Technology Projects

UC Merced researchers won four of only 11 seed grants given out by the Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society (CITRIS) for the year. CITRIS received 24 highly...

Researcher to Study Nuances of Neurons in the Brain

Neurobiologists have identified different types of neurons in the brain, but have struggled to put that knowledge into a useful context because they don't yet fully understand what makes one neuron...

Scientists Decipher the Tick-Tock of Biological Clocks

Researchers at the University of California, Merced, have taken another step toward unlocking the mysteries of the biological clock. In a study published online today (June 25) in Science Express —...

Biomedical Researcher Named Campus's First Pew Scholar

Professor Clarissa J. Nobile of the University of California, Merced, is one of 22 researchers named today as a Pew Biomedical Scholar for her work exploring how communities of microbes conspire to...

Campus to Mark Milestone with 10th Graduating Class

When students walk across the stage at this weekend’s commencement ceremonies at the University of California, Merced, they will join the nearly 4,000 scholars who have earned degrees from the...

Future of Humanity Linked to Soil Health in New 'Science' Article

Most people don’t spend a lot of time thinking about the dirt under their feet. But a new article co-authored by UC Merced Professor Asmeret Asefaw Berhe and published this week in the prestigious...