Not spending money on gas, oil changes, and tune-ups and not producing harmful greenhouse gas emissions is enough to sell many people on plug-in electric cars.

But many consumers won’t bite until they’re assured that electric cars can go the distance before needing a charge.

It’s a situation familiar to many UC Merced students: Having to translate for parents and other, older relatives who speak little or no English.

It can be especially challenging when what you have to translate is almost a language in itself — medical jargon.

Even a little forest management significantly increases water runoff in the Central Sierra Nevada and other semi-arid regions, while drier forests need more extensive treatments, according to a new study published recently in the journal Ecohydrology.

“The result is more runoff to downstream water users,” said UC Merced Professor Martha Conklin , who led the study.

When Alyssa Young returned to Long Beach after earning her bachelor’s degree in psychology from UC Merced in 2017, she didn’t imagine she would be back in Merced just one year later.

Harvesting is said to be one of the most costly and labor-intensive operations in strawberry production.

But a UC Merced engineering researcher is looking for ways to make it easier and cheaper. As part of a four-year project, Professor Reza Ehsani will explore the possibilities and benefits of people and robots picking the fruit together.

Six faculty members have been named this year’s Hellman Fellows — two from each of UC Merced’s schools.

The 2019-20 winners are:

• Professor Anna E. Beaudin, Department of Molecular and Cell Biology, School of Natural Sciences;

• Professor Chih-Wen Ni, Department of Bioengineering, School of Engineering;

Two simple words, “Leland Legacy,” captured the significance of Wednesday’s opening event for the second phase of the Merced 2020 Project, an event that doubled as a goodbye and thank you to outgoing Chancellor Dorothy Leland.

The message graced a wall of the new Sustainability Research and Engineering Building in large white block letters, a nod to Leland’s tireless effort and motivation to lead the award-winning expansion project.

The American media lends too much weight to people who dismiss climate change, giving them legitimacy they haven’t earned, posing serious danger to efforts aimed at raising public awareness and motivating rapid action, a new study shows.

While it is not uncommon for media outlets to interview climate change scientists and climate change deniers in the same interviews, the effort to offer a 360-degree view is creating a false balance between trained climate scientists and those who lack scientific training, such as politicians.

The most extreme drought event in hundreds of years caused a catastrophic die-off of the Sierra Nevada’s mature trees in 2015-2016.

A study published today in Nature Geoscience details how UC Merced Professor Roger Bales and his colleague Professor Michael Goulden from UC Irvine tracked the progress of the devastation caused by years of dry conditions combined with abnormally warm temperatures.

The opportunity to participate in cutting-edge scientific research as an undergraduate is one of the most exciting aspects of a UC Merced education.

One of the best preparation opportunities for graduate school is to engage in research as an undergraduate, but at many universities, it’s not until you’re in graduate school that you conduct research.