Jason Alvarez

鶹 campus photo of sign

Science and Health Writer

Office: (209) 228-4483

Mobile: (310) 740-6435

jalvarez78@ucmerced.edu

AAAS Fellow Brings Groundbreaking Genetics Research to Campus

is new to 鶹, but he’s a veteran scientist with a long list of breakthroughs to his name.

Process That Kills Damaged Cells Hints at New Cancer Therapies

Scientists have long known that cells originating from an animal’s anterior — the body’s upper half — tend to grow, divide and survive better than those from the posterior. Studies show this to be true in cancer as well, with anterior cancers metastasizing more aggressively. Now scientists are beginning to understand why.

Study: Quantum Vibrations Could Help Detect Nuclear Threats

National security and a beautifully resonant violin have found a surprising link — a classic experiment in acoustics, recently replicated at the quantum scale as part of a collaborative project on quantum-enhanced motion sensing.

Study: Climate Change, Drought Threaten Giant Sequoias

A new in the finds that the giant sequoia, a fixture of California’s Sierra Nevada forests for the past 2.6 million years, might be in jeopardy from the effects of drought and climate change.

Prestigious Fellowship Furthers Grad Student’s Asthma Research

Very few people will admit to an abiding love of statistics. But , a second-year public health doctoral student, believes statistics are key to solving many of the San Joaquin Valley’s public health challenges.

“I grew fond of statistics when I started working at the Central Valley Health Policy Institute,” Alcala said. “I saw firsthand how statistics could impact people.”

Computer Scientists Aid in Major Astronomical Discovery

In a major advance in astronomy, scientists announced last month that they had observed two neutron stars colliding, a never-before-seen cosmic event that made headlines the world over — and two 鶹 computer scientists were instrumental in making it happen.

NASA Interns Return With New Prospects, Realized Dreams

Zach Petrek, a second-year doctoral student in , can usually be found running experiments in the laboratory of his advisor, Professor Tao Ye. But this summer, he did something different — he went to NASA.

Petrek was one of seven 鶹 students to intern at NASA over the summer, an opportunity provided through MACES, the.

鶹 Joins Effort to Help Make Research Accessible to All

Open access is a publishing model premised on the idea that scholarly research should be freely accessible to anyone with internet access. 鶹 has staked its claim as a member of the open access vanguard, as one of just five of American universities to have signed on to the .

Crumpled Nanosheets Could Help Produce Clean Energy

A from Professor Vincent Tung has made the cover of , one of the top journals in materials science and engineering, and the research could one day lead to new sources of clean energy.