This Saturday morning, San Diego boaters are invited to attend a UC Cooperative Extension Boat Hull Invasive Species & Water Quality Seminar. Experts will share information about research on boat hull coatings that don't pollute the bay.

According to a "UC Delivers" article by Leigh Taylor Johnson of the Sea Grant Extension Program, boat owners have been using copper paints to control "hull fouling," the buildup of aquatic plants and animals on the hull. Hull fouling slows sailboats and increases powerboat fuel consumption. Copper leached from the paints into the bay, however, harms marine life. Johnson and program...

Madera County organic farmer Tom Willey weighed in yesterday with what I would describe as cautious appreciation for the decision to dedicate 10 acres at the UC Kearney Research and Extension Center to research on organic farming. Willey’s comments were published in the weekly newsletter “What’s Growin’ On,” which accompanies the boxes of fruit and vegetables that go to his farm’s “subscribers.”

Willey runs a Community Supported Agriculture program, in which consumers pay a monthly subscription to receive a weekly box of fruit and vegetables. Here's a link to his farm's Web site. Since I am a subscriber, I receive the delicious fresh produce and the...

The news media can't resist a great story. That tenant was confirmed this weekend when fascinating results of a UC Riverside research project were shared with the media and then published widely.

UC Riverside environmental microbiologist David Crowley and postdoctoral researcher Jong-Shik Kim discovered bacteria in the La Brea tar pits that are uniquely adapted to the harsh environment and contain three previously undiscovered classes of enzymes that can naturally break down petroleum products, according to a news release by Iqbal Pittalwala of UC Riverside news service.

Call it a sign of the times. As I drive around Fresno and Clovis, in the heart of the world’s No. 1 ag county, I see homemade signs posted on power polls and street signs with stark, bright red lettering imploring: “BEE SWARMS WANTED CALL ASAP."

The recent dwindling of honey bees has been well...