Professor of Cooperative Extension shares career story, appreciation for UC Davis

After growing up in northern British Columbia, in a remote smelter town called Kitimat (“an 8-hour drive from the nearest McDonald's”), University of California Professor of Cooperative Extension Linda J. Harris embarked on an academic journey that crisscrossed North America and eventually led to her election as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

AAAS, the world's largest multidisciplinary scientific society and...

Harvest time in California is almost a year-round affair in one area or another: winter lettuce and spinach in Salinas, early spring strawberries along the South Coast, summer squashes, herbs, and tomatoes galore, hays and grains as long as the dry season lasts, and countless other food and fiber crops through the year.

Like grapes, walnuts, apples and olives, the almonds get their turn in autumn. On the right day, you can watch as a Rube Goldberg-like machine rolls through a local nut orchard, grabbing hold of tree trunks one by one and shaking them so hard it'll rattle your bones, but just hard enough to knock loose practically every nut on the tree without damaging its trunk. A sweeper follows next, gathering up nuts in their...

Two free publications on nuts have recently been published by ANR — Nuts:  Safe Methods for Consumers to Handle, Store, and Enjoy and Nuts:  Safe Methods for Home Gardeners to Harvest, Store, and Enjoy.

Both publications outline the nutritional benefits of eating nuts, including information from the FDA affirming that:

• Including nuts in a diet low in saturated fat and cholesterol may help reduce the risk of heart disease.
  
  
• Almonds, pecans, pistachios, and walnuts contribute to health through their protein, dietary...