Mechanical systems, such as car engines and manufacturing equipment, use petroleum-based lubricants and solvents that are considered hazardous. After use, those compounds mostly end up in the earth.
Environmentally friendly alternatives — room-temperature ionic liquids (RTILs) — that don’t need solvents and can perform better haven’t been widely used because of a lack of basic understanding about how they work.
Summertime means fun in the water, but as temperatures increase, algal blooms can grow in freshwater and marine ecosystems.
Some algae are natural and life-giving, while others are the result of life out of balance and can have harmful effects. Consisting of bacteria and tiny plankton, they arise quickly and alter the ecosystem by consuming available oxygen, killing fish.
Incoming first-year and transfer students will have a new resource for success and an introduction to research starting next summer, thanks to a four-year, $400,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
The coronavirus pandemic has upended everything, including UC Merced’s classes and research. But materials science and engineering Professor Christopher Viney and recent graduate and independent study student Jasmine Nava are working on a microscopy project, even without access to their usual lab.
As the SPACEX Crew Dragon spacecraft left Earth today to ferry two NASA astronauts to the International Space Station, many Bobcats were watching the live stream with keen anticipation.
It’s not just that the flight marks the first time a commercial aerospace company will carry humans — two NASA astronauts — into Earth's orbit. The collaborative project also has special meaning for UC Merced.
Despite the challenges of making an in-person event into a remote one, students in this year’s Innovate to Grow spring showcase displayed the determination, passion and innovation Bobcats are known for.
Innovation is nothing new at UC Merced, but this year, because of the coronavirus pandemic, everyone on campus has had to reimagine nearly everything they do.
But leave it up to the School of Engineering to wholly reinvent its annual Innovate to Grow showcase and competition on the fly.
A UC Merced researcher and her lab have unlocked one of the mysteries that could lead to treatments — or even cures — for prion diseases in mammals.
Prion diseases are a family of rare, progressive neurodegenerative disorders that affect both humans — such as with Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease or fatal familial insomnia — and animals, such as mad-cow disease. These disorders are usually rapidly progressive and always fatal, according to the Centers for Disease Control.
Most people wouldn’t think physics has anything to do with baby babble and human language development.
But most people aren’t Ritwika Vallomparambath PanikkasserySugasree.
Two projects from a UC Merced engineering lab are making interactions with mobile devices easier and quicker, especially for blind people.
Computer science Professor Ahmed Arif and his students have developed a new way for blind people to be faster and more accurate when entering text, and a new way for all users to work with numbers.
