Driven by Curiosity Content

Looking Inside Icy Moons

Andy Fell — November 24, 2025 - 10:43am

The outer planets of the Solar System are swarmed by ice-wrapped moons. Some of these, such as Saturn’s moon Enceladus, are known to have oceans of liquid water between the ice shell and the rocky core and could be the best places in our solar system to look for extraterrestrial life. A new study published Nov. 24 in Nature Astronomy sheds light on what could be going on beneath the surface of these worlds and provides insights into how their diverse geologic features may have formed.

How Earth’s Greatest Extinction Really Happened

Andy Fell — November 21, 2025 - 1:18pm

Around 252 million years ago, the Earth experienced its largest mass extinction. Known as the “Great Dying,” this cataclysmic event wiped out more than 81% of marine species and 70% of life on land.

Rocks on Faults Can Heal Following Seismic Movement

Andy Fell — November 19, 2025 - 12:05pm

Earthquake faults deep in the Earth can glue themselves back together following a seismic event, according to a new study led by researchers at the University of California, Davis. The work, published Nov. 19 in Science Advances and supported by grants from the National Science Foundation, adds a new factor to our understanding of the behavior of faults that can give rise to major earthquakes.

What’s at Stake with Federal Research Funding Cuts

Jocelyn C Anderson — October 15, 2025 - 9:00am

Federal research funding cuts threaten UC Davis discoveries in health, agriculture and technology that improve lives worldwide.

Astronomers Find Mystery Dark Object in Distant Universe

Andy Fell — October 09, 2025 - 2:40pm

Using a global network of telescopes, astronomers have detected the lowest-mass dark object yet found in the universe. Finding more such objects and understanding their nature could rule out some theories about the nature of dark matter, the mystery substance that makes up about a quarter of the universe. The work is described in two papers published Oct. 9 in Nature Astronomy and Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

UC Davis Researchers Look at How the Brain Prioritizes What We See

Karen Michele Nikos-Rose — September 23, 2025 - 8:00am

How we focus our attention before we even see an object matters. For example, when we look for something moving in the sky, our expectation would be very different if the object is a bird flying past or a baseball coming straight at us.

But it’s unclear whether our brain’s attention focuses first on a broad characteristic of the anticipated object, such as movement, or a specific feature — such as the direction of movement up or down.

Hayabusa-2 Sample Return Mission Suggests Protracted Wetter Asteroids

Andy Fell — September 16, 2025 - 4:36pm

New results from the Hayabusa-2 space probe show that asteroids formed at the very beginnings of our Solar System retained substantial amounts of water for hundreds of millions of years, potentially delivering water to Earth and other planets for much longer than previously thought. The work by a large international team, including Professor Qing-Zhu Yin at the UC Davis Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, was published Sept. 10 in Nature.

How Did Animals Eat Before Mouths?

Andy Fell — September 12, 2025 - 11:09am

More than half a billion years ago, during the Ediacaran Period, animal life looked nothing like today. Strange cup- and disk-shaped creatures sat and crawled along an ocean floor covered in thick microbial mats made of bacteria and algae. The only clues these organisms left to their lifestyles exist in the fossil record.

UC Davis Study Reveals Alarming Browser Tracking by GenAI Assistants

Andy Fell — August 18, 2025 - 12:09pm

A new study led by computer scientists at the University of California, Davis, reveals that generative AI browser assistants collect and share sensitive data without users’ knowledge. Stronger safeguards, transparency and awareness are needed to protect user privacy online, the researchers said.

A new brand of generative AI, or GenAI, browser extensions act as your personal assistant as you surf the web, making browsing easier and more personalized. They can summarize web pages, answer questions, translate text and take notes.

Nowcasting and the Kamchatka Earthquake

Andy Fell — August 07, 2025 - 9:54am

The July 29 earthquake on Russia's Kamchatka peninsula was among the most powerful recorded by modern instruments, setting off tsunami warnings around the Pacific rim. The magnitude 8.8 earthquake caused part of the peninsula to sink by about six feet and set off volcanic eruptions, according to the Unified Geophysical Service of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Fortunately, there do not appear to have been any fatalities or major damage.