Sulfur applied to sugarcane crops in South Florida is flowing into wetlands upgradient of Everglades National Park, triggering a chemical reaction that converts mercury into toxic methylmercury, which accumulates in fish, new research from University of California, Davis finds.

The adult spotted lanternfly is a majestic blend of red, yellow, black, white and tan, but this invasive insect from Asia has a voracious appetite for crops and is wreaking havoc in the mid-Atlantic.

The insects haven’t been found in great numbers in the Golden State but researchers at the University of California, Davis, are on the forefront of finding ways to control the tiny eggs of spotted lanternflies in hopes of protecting key international trade relationships and crops. 

Dozens of Alaska’s most remote streams and rivers are turning from a crystal clear blue into a cloudy orange, and the staining could be the result of minerals exposed by thawing permafrost, new research in the Nature journal Communications: Earth and Environment finds. 

Environmental toxicologist Christina Pasparakis, who is an assistant professor based at Bodega Marine Laboratory, is the winner of the 2024 UC Early Career Faculty Award for Creativity and Innovation.

The prize supports outstanding non-tenured early career faculty. It comes with a $40,000 research award that Pasparakis plans to use to launch a long-term community-based microplastic monitoring program in the Bodega Marine Reserve. 

Three staff members with the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences (CA&ES) are being recognized for their exceptional efforts to help incoming and current students thrive. Thanks to their tireless dedication and guidance, they have ensured a brighter future for those they serve.

Congratulations to the following recipients of the UC Davis Outstanding Advising Awards:

UC Davis Professors Joanna Chiu and Andrew Whitehead have been appointed as the new chairs of the Departments of Entomology and Nematology and Environmental Toxicology, respectively. Mary Delany has also been appointed as interim chair for the Department of Human Ecology. As the academic year gets underway, these visionary leaders are set to steer their departments toward groundbreaking research, interdisciplinary collaborations and exceptional experiences for students.

The Arboretum and Public Garden at UC Davis is about to get a fresh set of water quality data after students fanned out earlier this month along the Arboretum Waterway to measure salinity and fecal coliform levels.

The three-hour session began with a lecture, then moved to the Arboretum for sampling and back to a lab to analyze what students collected. The information will be shared with Arboretum management to help provide a glimpse into the health of the creek.

Aerosols carried in wildfire smoke plumes that are hundreds of hours old can still affect climate, according to a study out of the University of California, Davis. 

The research, published in the journal Environmental Science and Technology, suggests that wildfire emissions even 10 days old can affect the properties of aerosols — suspended liquid or particles that are key to cloud formation. 

Chris Vogel, a research professor in the Department of Environmental Toxicology, is a 2020 laboratory safety award winner for his oversight of a laboratory focused on environmental and molecular toxicology.

Vogel was selected for the exceptional management of his lab, which is part of the Center for Health and the Environment (CHE). The Safety Services Lab Safety Awards are endorsed by the faculty-led Chemical and Lab Safety Committee and are given to scientists in individual units throughout UC Davis.

A new method for estimating the biological sex of human remains based on reading protein sequences rather than DNA has been used to study an archaeological site in Northern California. The protein-based technique gave superior results to DNA analysis in studying 55 sets of human remains between 300 and 2,300 years old. The work is published July 17 in Scientific Reports.