A new film is in the works with more than one UC Davis connection.

Weeping Rocks, a feature-length documentary that focuses on the role of insects in our ecosystem, spotlights the work of Professor Art Shapiro in the College of Biological Sciences and is produced by Jackii Chun ’10. The film is in production now and raising funds on Kickstarter.

Plants aren't passive. Though we step on grass, brush against branches and pick petals, plants aren't just immobile organisms. And no one knows this better than Tim Metcalf, the director emeritus of the UC Davis Botanical Conservatory.

"They have their own personality," said Metcalf, who was initially hired as a laboratory assistant at the conservatory back in 1971. "Plants do crazy things and they surprise you." 

Sharon Strauss, a Distinguished Professor emerita in the Department of Evolution and Ecology, was among the three UC Davis faculty who have been elected as members of the National Academy of Sciences. They are among 120 new members and 30 international members announced by the academy on Tuesday, May 3.

Less than a week ago I was in the University Credit Union Center for the Dean’s Circle Undergraduate Research Conference. In the image above, you can see what a success the event was. Over 200 CBS undergraduates attended the conference and shared their research posters with peers, visitors and CBS faculty. And each student received a certificate in recognition of their hard work. My congratulations to all of them.

Tetrahymena, a tiny single celled-organism, turns out to be hiding a surprising secret: it’s doing respiration – using oxygen to generate cellular energy – differently from other organisms such as plants, animals or yeasts. The discovery, published March 31 in Science, highlights the power of new techniques in structural biology and reveals gaps in our knowledge of a major branch of the tree of life.