UC Davis Driven by Curiosity News

City-Dwelling Monarch Butterflies Stay Put

Andy Fell — May 28, 2025

Monarch butterflies are famous for their annual migrations, but not all migrate. In recent years, more and more monarchs have been living and breeding year-round in ��Ƶ’s Bay Area, thanks in part to the growing presence of non-native milkweeds in urban gardens.

How Are They Biting? High Speed Video Reveals Unexpected Jaw Movements in Reef Fish

Andy Fell — May 05, 2025

Some reef fish have the unexpected ability to move their jaws from side to side, biologists at the ��Ƶ, Davis have discovered. This ability – which is rare among vertebrate animals – allows these fish to feed rapidly and efficiently on algae growing on rocks. The work is published May 5 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

How Aggie Square Is Advancing Innovation in Sacramento

Jocelyn C Anderson — April 29, 2025

Learn how UC Davis’ Aggie Square is solving pressing challenges through collaborative research and cutting-edge technology.

Study Suggests Dance and Lullabies Aren’t Universal Human Behaviors

Andy Fell — April 29, 2025

Social singing and dance are often assumed to be hard-wired into the human condition; studies have supported the conclusion that these are common across cultures. But new research from a ��Ƶ, Davis, anthropologist challenges the idea that dance and lullabies are universal among humans.

Can Citizen Science Be Trusted? New Study of Birds Shows It Can

Andy Fell — April 15, 2025

Platforms such as iNaturalist and eBird encourage people to observe and document nature, but how accurate is the ecological data that they collect?

Fish Teeth Show How Ease of Innovation Enables Rapid Evolution

Andy Fell — February 26, 2025

It’s not what you do, it’s how readily you do it. Rapid evolutionary change might have more to do with how easily a key innovation can be gained or lost rather than with the innovation itself, according to new work by biologists at the ��Ƶ, Davis, who studied how teeth in certain fishes evolved in response to food sources and habitats.

Their work was published Feb. 26 in Nature.

Men and Women Equally Attracted to Younger Partners, UC Davis Study Suggests

Karen Michele Nikos — January 27, 2025

Men and women alike are drawn to younger partners, whether or not they realize it. The conclusion came from a ��Ƶ, Davis, study of 4,500 blind dates of people seeking a long-term partner.

International Students Boost Startup Creation, Lifting Local Jobs and Revenue, New Research Shows

Karen Michele Nikos — January 14, 2025

International graduate students created a disproportionate number of new business startups in the United States in the past decade. They also increased entrepreneurialism among their U.S.-born peers, according to new research from the ��Ƶ, Davis.

Genetics of Alternating Sexes in Walnuts

Andy Fell — January 02, 2025

The genetics behind the alternating sexes of walnut trees has been revealed by biologists at the ��Ƶ, Davis. The research, published Jan. 3 in Science, reveals a mechanism that has been stable in walnuts and their ancestors going back 40 million years — and which has some parallels to sex determination in humans and other animals.

Your Smart TV is Watching What You Watch

Andy Fell — December 18, 2024

If you’re thinking of buying a “smart” TV for the holidays, you ought to know that your new device is constantly capturing snapshots of what’s on screen and sending them back to the manufacturer — even if you are using the device as a computer monitor and not watching TV at all. The findings come from a recent study by computer scientists at the ��Ƶ, Davis; University College London; and Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, published in Proceedings of the 2024 ACM on Internet Measurement Conference.

UC Davis Joins New $285 Million CHIPS Semiconductor Research Institute

Andy Fell — December 09, 2024

The ��Ƶ, Davis will be part of a new, $285 million nationwide institute dedicated to advancing research and manufacturing of American semiconductors.

The new institute, known as SMART USA (Semiconductor Manufacturing and Advanced Research with Twins USA) will develop, validate and use digital twins to improve domestic semiconductor design, manufacturing, advanced packaging, assembly and test processes.

Christmas Trees’ Distinctive Aroma Helps Ward off Pathogens and Pests

Andy Fell — November 25, 2024

Each year, nearly 30 million Americans purchase a real tree for the holidays. Growing the perfect Christmas tree takes about seven years, during which farmers need to keep insects, fungal pathogens and hungry deer at bay. While researchers suspect the distinctive piney smell the trees emit plays a role in deterring these pests, not all trees smell the same, and which chemical blends confer resistance is unclear.

What Makes Queen Bees So Smart?

Andy Fell — November 07, 2024

A bumblebee’s brain is smaller than a sesame seed. But it can still accomplish quite a bit.

“You don’t need a big brain to learn well,” said Felicity Muth, an assistant professor in the Department of Neurobiology, Physiology and Behavior and a National Geographic Explorer who studies cognition in bees and other animals. “Bumblebees are capable of many of the same cognitive feats as many vertebrates.”

Sharks and Rays Leap Out of the Water for Many Reasons, Including Feeding, Courtship and Communication

Andy Fell — September 23, 2024

Many sharks and rays are known to breach, leaping fully or partly out of the water. In a recent study, colleagues and I reviewed research on breaching and ranked the most commonly hypothesized functions for it.

Enrollment of Undocumented Students at ��Ƶ Universities Dropped from 2016 to 2023

Karen Michele Nikos — September 19, 2024

Enrollment of low-income, undocumented students declined by half at ��Ƶ and ��Ƶ State University campuses from 2016 through the 2022-23 academic year, according to a new study by the ��Ƶ Civil Rights Project at UCLA and UC Davis School of Law.

LZ Experiment Sets New Record in Search for Dark Matter

Andy Fell — August 26, 2024

Figuring out the nature of dark matter, the invisible substance that makes up most of the mass in our universe, is one of the greatest puzzles in physics. New results from the world’s most sensitive dark matter detector, LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ), have narrowed down possibilities for one of the leading dark matter candidates: weakly interacting massive particles, or WIMPs.

How Uncertainty Builds Anxiety

Andy Fell — June 25, 2024

Alfred Hitchcock observed that “There is no terror in the bang, only in the anticipation of it.” A common way to build suspense in a movie scene is for the audience to know something bad is going to happen, but not when it is going to happen. But how does uncertainty work to ratchet up our anxiety? In a recent paper in the journal Computational Psychiatry, researchers at the ��Ƶ, Davis, Department of Psychology take a deeper look into what builds fear.

How Autocrats Control Internet Traffic Out of Sight

Andy Fell — April 10, 2024

Authoritarian regimes exert control over the internet through transit networks that operate largely out of public view, according to a recent study by researchers in the U.S. and Germany. The work, published in PNAS Nexus, also shows how more sophisticated authoritarian regimes extend their influence by providing network access in poorer but politically similar countries.

UC Davis Historian’s Research of Child Murder in Early Modern Europe Featured in Period Film

Karen Michele Nikos — February 16, 2024

Kathy Stuart, associate professor of history, delights in crime and deviance — her research specialty. The ��Ƶ, Davis, academic’s enthusiasm for blood, heinous crimes and the various ways people kill each other hovers somewhere between an obsessed prosecutor and a delighted child who takes in horror movies on Saturday afternoons.

UC Davis Establishes Bird Flight Research Center

Andy Fell — February 01, 2024

By studying birds of prey in flight, a new lab at the UC Davis ��Ƶ Raptor Center will give insight into designing drones and treating injured birds.