Mind & Body

Certain aspects of children's social cognition ripple throughout their lives, including whether small children can understand that other people’s minds are different than their own.

That understanding plays a critical role in relationships, cooperation with other people and even in academic performance.

For the past 20 years, developmental psychologists have operated under the belief that children from low-income backgrounds are severely delayed in developing this skill.

All complex life evolves in alliance with, in defense of or in reaction to bacteria.

A new paper by UC Merced Professor Gordon Bennett demonstrates one of the novel ways the relationship can evolve and begins to repaint a picture that humans have only begun to understand.

Psychology Professor Eric Walle ’s Interpersonal Development Lab will recruit local infants and mothers as an important and unique part of a large-scale study focusing on the development of young children.

Led by scientists at New York University and Pennsylvania State University, the Play and Learning Across a Year (PLAY) project involves 65 researchers across the United States and Canada and is funded by a $6 million grant from the National Institutes of Health.

If you’re an American with Internet access, you’ve probably done it. You get a headache, a sniffle or a mystery bruise, and instead of seeing your doctor, you consult “Dr. Google.”

According to some studies, more than 80 percent of Americans have used the Internet to “self-diagnose” health issues. UC Merced public health communication Professor Susana Ramirez’s new partnership with an eHealth startup aims to help people get quality information and find out what they do with it once they have it.

Jaapna Dhillon had no idea that studying how almonds affect health would win her a huge advantage in securing a tenure-track position.

But Dhillon just became UC Merced’s first postdoctoral researcher to receive a Pathway to Independence Award from the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

Even if some members of a goal-driven group don’t seem to work well with others — even if the whole group is extremely frustrated — the group can still compromise and find new ways to produce a successful outcome.

Independence: It’s what many students value most about the transition to college life. But the freedom to make decisions without interference from parents can lead to unhealthy eating habits.

According to a recent Forbes magazine article, tech companies throughout the U.S. have discovered something universities have known since they began: Liberal arts thinking makes employees stronger.

Students who choose the new philosophy major at UC Merced — officially launched in the spring— will emerge with the broad foundations employers are seeking, including critical thinking and data analysis skills.

UC Merced has been awarded a $3.8 million grant to establish the UC Nicotine and Cannabis Policy Center (NCPC), positioning UC Merced and the San Joaquin Valley region as a leading center for the study of public health and policy matters related to tobacco and marijuana.

“Awarding of this center grant to UC Merced and its partners is a clear sign of the commitment, expertise and leadership of our faculty in addressing issues critical to both the Valley and the world,” Vice Chancellor for Research and Economic Development Sam Traina said.

UC Merced’s efforts to make science education more inclusive were recently given a huge boost after the campus was awarded its first Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) grant, an impressive mark of distinction that reflects the strong upward trajectory of the campus’s research and teaching efforts.