Cave Study Links Climate Change to Centuries-long California Droughts

California experienced centuries-long droughts in the past 20,000 years that coincided with the thawing of ice caps in the Arctic, according to a new study by UC Davis doctoral student Jessica Oster and geology professor Isabel Montañez.

Researchers Identify Dominant Chemical That Attracts Mosquitoes to Humans

Scientists at the University of California, Davis, have identified the dominant odor naturally produced in humans and birds that attracts the blood-feeding Culex mosquitoes, which transmit West Nile virus and other life-threatening diseases.

Bugs in Boxes Shed Light on Biological Invasions

Bugs in boxes are helping Alan Hastings, a researcher at UC Davis, improve scientific tools used to predict the spread of invasive plants and animals.

The Cult of the Professional

It was probably only a matter of time before Andrew Keen, author of The Cult of the Amateur, would get around to taking a long hard look at the future of creative artists in the world the Internet has made. He has now done so on the Web site of the London...

Scientists Capture Image of Lightning Flowing 40 Miles Upward From Storm

With a very lucky shot, scientists have managed to capture a one-second image and the electrical fingerprint of huge lightning that flowed 40 miles upward from the top of a storm.

Neural Pathway May be Missing in Tone-deaf People

Nerve fibers that link perception and motor regions of the brain are disconnected in tone-deaf people, according to new research in the August 19 issue of The Journal of Neuroscience. Experts estimate that at least 10 percent of the population may be...

Capture of Nanomagnetic ‘Fingerprints’ Could be a Boost for Next-Generation Information Storage Media

In the race to develop the next generation of storage and recording media, a major hurdle has been the difficulty of studying the tiny magnetic structures that will serve as their building blocks. Now a team of physicists at the University of California,...

Billion-Point Computing Tool for Computers

A powerful computing tool that allows scientists to extract features and patterns from enormously large and complex sets of raw data has been developed by scientists at the University of California, Davis, and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. The...

Previously Unidentified Nearby Source of High-energy Cosmic Rays Discovered

Scientists announced Wednesday the discovery of a previously unidentified nearby source of high-energy cosmic rays. The finding was made with a NASA-funded balloon-borne instrument high over Antarctica.