Scientists aren’t usually able to measure the size of gigantic planets, like Jupiter or Saturn, which are far from the stars they orbit. But a UC Riverside-led team has done it.

A hot, rocky “super Earth,” near one of the oldest stars in the galaxy has taken a team of planet-hunting scientists by surprise.

The University of California, Riverside, is leading a new effort to stop and reverse a worldwide decline in honeybees, which threatens food security and prices. 

UC Riverside scientists are betting an ancient solution will solve citrus growers’ biggest problem by breeding new fruits with natural resistance to a deadly tree disease. The hybrid fruits will ideally share the best of their parents’ attributes: the tastiness of the best citrus, and the resistance to Huanglongbing, or HLB, displayed by some Australian relatives of citrus. 

A UC Riverside-led team is looking at tiny underground microorganisms for a way to prevent a huge problem — Huanglongbing, a disease with no cure that has decimated citrus orchards worldwide. The National Institute of Food and Agriculture has awarded the team $10 million to investigate the role of soil and root microbes in the disease.  

Open-source code developed at UC Riverside is free, versatile, and easy to use

New UC Riverside research shows the same proteins that enable human senses such as smell also allow certain fungi to sense something they can eat. The study offers new avenues for protecting people from starvation due to pathogenic fungus-induced food shortages. Understanding how fungi sense and digest plants can also help scientists engineer fungal strains that are more efficient at producing biofuels.

New grants totaling $6.3 million will help UC Riverside solve problems facing American avocado orchards, including a lethal fungal disease called Laurel Wilt. The disease can destroy an entire avocado orchard in a couple of weeks once symptoms develop. It is already present in Florida. Without effective treatments, it will inevitably spread to California, the nation’s leading producer of avocados. 

Host campus UC Riverside will be joined by UC Davis and UC Merced

UC Riverside is leading one of the NASA Astrobiology Program’s eight new research teams tackling questions about the evolution and origins of life on Earth and the possibility of life beyond our solar system.

A new study reveals how bacteria control the chemicals produced from consuming ‘food.’ The insight could lead to organisms that are more efficient at converting plants into biofuels.  The study, authored by scientists at UC Riverside and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, has been published in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface.

UC Riverside study focused on how HIV mutates to escape the immune system

Exercise motivation could be linked to certain smells, UC Riverside mouse study finds

Though regional studies have tracked the decline of native bees, there hasn’t been a coordinated nationwide effort to monitor these pollinators — until now. UC Riverside entomologist Hollis Woodard and bee researchers at 11 other institutions are now gathering data that will help governments and land managers justify new protective regulations.

Humans must reduce carbon dioxide and aerosol pollution simultaneously to avoid weakening the ocean’s ability to keep the planet cool, new UC Riverside research shows.

A new UC Riverside study shows flame retardants found in nearly every American home cause mice to give birth to offspring that become diabetic.