Campus & Community

Houseplant aficionados, start your engines! More than 60 species of tropical plants—including some rare species, carnivorous plants, succulents, and more—will be on offer on Saturday, April 19 from 10:00am until 2:00pm at bargain prices, as the UC Davis Botanical Conservatory resumes its highly popular plant sales.

Spring quarter just started, and the trees outside Green Hall are in bloom. There’s pollen in the air (and on the cars — a quintessentially Davis occurrence) and our students are back. It’s always a welcome and comforting sight to see our CBS Aggies on their bikes and scooters, in the classroom and lab, and studying in our lobby. It helps us remember that things continue to move forward.

Meet the eight faculty members who comprise the newest class of Chancellor’s Fellows, given to early career academics doing exemplary work in their fields. One of the new fellows, Kassandra Ori-McKenney, is a an associate professor in the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, and four others are affiliated with the college's interdisciplinary graduate groups. 

Our nation is reckoning with unprecedented threats to the future of discovery, advancement, and innovation. But we are not without hope. 

Though the scientific and research landscape has weathered significant upheavals lately, scientists persevere. Necessity is the mother of invention, after all, and with changing circumstances comes the need to innovate in new and different ways. And that’s just what researchers in the college have been doing. 

Sadly, as of this writing, there is much turmoil here in California. Many here on campus have been affected by the fires ravaging the southern parts of our state, and the scenes of devastation are heartrending. But we’re remaining strong, and we’re supporting those in need.

As ever, Aggies help Aggies.

Graduate student Nathaniel (Nate) Herrera has used his last year at UC Davis to springboard a career in STEM teaching. Herrera, who joined UC Davis in 2021, studies sex differences in cardiac physiology within the Molecular, Cellular and Integrative Physiology Graduate Group.

Well, we’ve come to the end of the year—and it feels sudden. That’s what happens on campus. Summer is hot, then fall arrives with the return of our students, and as soon as we’re done welcoming them, it’s midterms and then finals, which just concluded last week.

It’s not an exaggeration to say that this fall has seen a great many things come to pass. Whether events on the national stage, or advances in the life sciences, you’ve no doubt had a lot to watch.

If you’ve ever walked by tables of College of Biological Sciences apparel, including soft hoodies, baseball caps, t-shirts, and quarter-zips, chances are you’ve just passed by BioBoosters. The longstanding and popular student club responsible for pop-up swag sales of CBS apparel is back for the 2024-25 year with a slate of student activities, including, of course, more swag sales. 

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.”