Research Breakthroughs and Announcements

Marilyn Raphael, a geography professor and director of UCLA’s Institute of the Environment and Sustainability, studies how and why Antarctica’s sea ice levels vary from season to season. Raphael has been studying Antarctica’s sea ice and the complex set of atmospheric factors that influence it — and are influenced by it — for more than two decades.

A new UCLA study published in the journal Nutrients finds that diets centered on plants and unprocessed foods benefit the health of both people and the planet. The study analyzed six diets: standard American, Mediterranean, vegan, paleo and keto, as well as “climatarian” — a diet that minimizes the consumption of red meats and other foods, such as out-of-season produce, that have large carbon footprints.

A new report by the UCLA Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies found that only 26% of Los Angeles Metro bus stops have shelters that provide shade.

Previous research has shown that the residents who are most likely to use public transportation will be among the populations who have the highest risks for death from heat-related causes. Further studies have also demonstrated that bus shelters are a proven way to help mitigate these impacts of extreme heat.

Distinguished professor Robert Wayne, a renowned evolutionary and conservation geneticist whose research helped explain the history and evolution of domestic dogs, died on Dec. 26 of pancreatic cancer, at age 66.

Wayne was a faculty member in UCLA’s department of ecology and evolutionary biology for over 30 years. His genetics research aided in the conservation and management of canid species around the globe. He was also the first to establish a conservation genetics lab at UCLA.

A new UCLA research study found that the amount of desert dust has grown roughly 55% since the mid-1800s, which increased the dust’s cooling effect. The study is the first to demonstrate the overall cooling effect of atmospheric desert dust.

Some effects of atmospheric dust warm the planet, but because other effects of dust actually counteract warming — for example by scattering sunlight back into space and dissipating high clouds that warm the planet — the study calculated that dust’s overall effect is a cooling one.

A new paper by UCLA ecologists explores how the disturbances to Earth’s magnetic field can lead birds astray — a phenomenon scientists call “vagrancy” — even in perfect weather, and especially during fall migration. 

“There’s increasing evidence that birds can actually see geomagnetic fields,” said Morgan Tingley, the paper's corresponding author and a UCLA associate professor of ecology and evolutionary biology. “In familiar areas, birds may navigate by geography, but in some situations it’s easier to use geomagnetism.”

Common desalination methods demand a great deal of energy and are not cost-effective. To address those challenges, UCLA materials scientists have developed a novel solution using radiative cooling — a natural phenomenon that dissipates heat as thermal radiation into the night sky and outer space, which reduced salt concentration by as much as 96%.

Researchers from UCLA, UC Santa Cruz and the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles have created a way for non-scientists to use a complex DNA test to help track marine animal populations. Working with staff at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, they were able to identify which species live in a body of water just by analyzing one-liter water samples. The pilot program demonstrated that environmental DNA, or eDNA, can supplement traditional survey methods that are less efficient and more invasive.

The fate of Owens Valley, which was transformed from pasture to desert in just 13 years, became a fable that was enshrined in the public imagination, most notably through the 1974 film Chinatown. Almost 50 years after, Mono County tribal leaders and ranchers are fighting L.A. water authorities to prevent the repeating of history in Long Valley, 50 miles north of Owens Valley. 

Wildlife bridges and tunnels protect animals from vehicle collisions and help prevent inbreeding among small and vulnerable populations hemmed in by human development. But whether animals feel safe using these crossings is another story, say UCLA researchers and colleagues who studied the reactions of deer and elk around a wildlife tunnel beneath a four-lane highway.