As the Hellman Fellowships celebrate their 30th year, three more researchers, one from each of UC Merced’s schools, have joined the prestigious ranks of recipients.

Electrical engineering Professor Qian Wang, sociology Professor Meredith Van Natta and Earth systems Professor Adeyemi Adebiyi will receive funding through their fellowships for projects they have proposed.

Lightning from thunderstorms rolling through Central California on Sept. 2 ignited numerous wildfires, including several large fires in the Sierra Nevada foothills that had burned more than 19 square miles by Wednesday morning. The California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services recorded more than 9,000 lightning strikes in a single day.

Lightning is a major source of wildfire ignition in the western United States every summer.

Three professors are joining UC Merced’s Agricultural Experiment Station this fall, bringing more expertise and resources to the 3-year-old research center.

More than 100 million land mines remain buried around the world, posing a threat in approximately 70 countries and territories, and killing or injuring about 5,000 people, most of them civilians, every year. 

As the world’s geopolitical landscape shifts, nine scientists studying different aspects of warfare ecology from seven countries — Poland, Ukraine, Norway, Spain, the United States, Finland and Croatia — are warning against the growing deployment of land mines as countries bordering Russia withdraw from global conventions restricting their use.

Shark Week starts Sunday and Professor Sora Kim will be featured again this year in a special airing at 9 p.m. Monday, titled “Jaws vs. Mega Croc,” and the filming allowed her to swim with a Nile crocodile.

“I flew to Florida and learned about crocodiles – their evolution, strength, physiology and behavior. More interactions are being recorded between sharks and crocodiles these days, so I also needed to learn about these situations,” she said.

San Luis Reservoir in Merced County - one of California's largest artificial lakes - not only irrigates Central Valley farmland and supplies drinking water across Silicon Valley and the South Bay, but also draws swimmers, boaters and anglers year-round.

Yet for months at a time, forest-green blankets of algae spread across the lake's surface. Despite their calm appearance, these harmful algal blooms, or HABs, can disrupt water supplies, ecosystems and recreation activities - and pose serious health risks.

With careful planning and a little luck, researchers found a surprising upside to hurricanes after a Category 4 storm disrupted their expedition off the coast of Mexico.

The team was able to sample the ocean right after the storm passed and found that the storms churn the ocean so powerfully and deeply — up to thousands of meters — that nutrient-rich, cold water is brought to the surface.

An average of more than 1 million acres of idled farmland a year is a significant contributor to a growing dust problem in California that has implications for millions of residents’ health and the state’s climate.

In California’s Kern County, nearly 925,000 people live in oppressive heat 125 days per year.

Several types of relief are offered. Residents can get breaks on energy bills bloated by air conditioning costs. Triple-digit temperatures trigger the opening of public buildings labeled “cooling centers.” Schools and businesses get tips about preventing heat-related illness.

People don't think about dust much until it's time to clean the house, but a new report by UC researchers could raise awareness of the growing threat of dust and dust storms.

Dust affects everything from cardiovascular and brain health to traffic collisions and agricultural yield. “Beyond the Haze: A UC Dust Report on the Causes, Impacts, and Future of Dust Storms in California” details the wide-ranging impacts of dust on health, public safety, the environment and California's economy.