Ongoing research

So, hurry down the chimney, tonight! So goes a line from "Santa Baby." The songwriters (J. Javits, P. Springer and T. Springer) listed all the good presents they wanted Santa to bring: a sable, a '54 convertible (light blue, please!), a yacht, a duplex and a deed to a platinum mine.

We can help save the monarch butterflies by saving the "sacred" trees in central Mexico where most of the migrating population overwinters. Science journalist Janet Marinelli, writing in Yalee360, said it well in her Dec. 21st piece, "To Protect Monarch: a Plan to Save the Sacred Firs.

UC Davis, UC Cooperative Extension, the California Cattlemen's Association, and the California Wool Growers Association are all partnering to conduct a survey of California ranchers.

Bee scientists and bee enthusiasts are among those looking forward to the UC Davis Chancellor's Colloquium on Monday, Feb. 22. That's when eminent honey bee scientist Gene E.

UCCE Watershed Advisor Royce Larsen put on a workshop in Creston (San Luis Obispo County) yesterday to demonstrate use of the Yeomans Plow, which was developed in Australia.

Lots of seeds; thick, coarse skin; not big, not small; thorns; sour; but fragrant, cold tolerant and selling for good prices. A cross between one of the original citrus parents papeda and a mandarin. It's got some pretty ancestral properties with something of a lemony flavor and a grapefruit odor.

Our nation's wild bees--which include bumble bees, squash bees and leafcutter bees--are in trouble. A newly published study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reveals just how much trouble.

Panel of mapping innovators @ GIS Day 2015 The GIF began in November 2015 on a wave of excitement around geospatial technology. In the months leading up to our first GIS Day in 2005, Google Maps launched, then went mobile; Google Earth launched in the summer; and NASA Blue Marble arrived.

Here are some evocative words about mapping from an unlikely source: in her astounding and engrossing book Wolf Hall, Hilary Mantel has Thomas Cromwell say: But the trouble is, maps are always last year's.

It seems the world is attacked on all sides, including the iconic citrus and avocado industries in California. Aside from the other agricultural issues all growers have of water, labor, costs, weather, family, you name it, citrus and avocado growers have particular problems.