Patty Guerra

University of California researchers from the USDA-funded Secure Water Future project recently found that increases in crop water demand explain half of the cumulative deficits of the agricultural water balance since 1980, exacerbating water reliance on depleting groundwater supplies and fluctuating surface water imports.

A UC Merced undergraduate student's work at NASA helped ensure the space agency will have cost-effective and efficient communications.

Tejas Bhartiya, who recently graduated from the university after only 2.5 years, also last month concluded an internship with NASA's Goddard Space Center.

The Goddard Space Flight Center, based in Greenbelt, Md., is home to the nation's largest organization of scientists, engineers and technologists who build spacecraft, instruments and new technology to study Earth, the sun, the solar system and the universe, according to its website.

Editor's note: In honor of Black History Month, the UC Merced newsroom is highlighting some of the organizations, services and people who serve or represent the Black community on campus.

An organization that was created in a time of tragedy and crisis has been a force for good for UC Merced's Black community.

A study conducted by a UC Merced researcher found that people injured through violent acts have a substantially higher risk to die by or attempt suicide.

A new study co-authored by UC Merced researchers assesses the effect of a warming climate in pushing the elevation of snow to rain higher during a storm, increasing runoff and the risk of flooding.

In a paper published in Nature Communications, UC Merced Professor Roger Bales, collaborating with an international team, found that the height of neighboring trees strongly influenced whether a given tree survived California's record 2012-15 drought.

For professors, it’s up or out when it comes to tenure and promotion: After five years on the job as assistant professors, junior professors’ promise is evaluated by their more senior colleagues.

After seven months of working for hours each weekend to design, build and fly a drone, it all came down to a nervous moment for UC Merced students taking part in a worldwide competition.

Their drone had to be suspended between two poles and held together while weight was placed inside it.

"We were a little bit nervous," said team member Alex Minton. "We didn't have the best luck with our prototypes."

But the team's drone held up, though there was some concerning creaking at one point, the team members said.

UC Merced electrical engineering and computer science Professor Ming Hsuan-Yang recently won an award for a paper he co-authored 10 years ago.

Understanding the atomic-scale mysteries of "crushing" chemistry is the goal of an expanding research center with a newly awarded $20 million investment from the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF).

Managed by Texas A&M University, NSF's Center for the Mechanical Control of Chemistry (CMCC) will conduct the most rigorous exploration yet into how the mechanical application of force can enable new advances in chemistry, with the potential to make industrial processes cheaper and more environmentally friendly.