Blog

Do you do research at UC Davis, and are you interested in sharing your work with the broader Davis community? If your answer to those questions is an enthusiastic "yes," then Posters for the Public is the event for you!

What is the event?

Our future looks delicious... Or does it? The technology surrounding developing new food products is evolving quickly and hurdling us towards a world of cell-based meat and beanless coffee. As consumer interest in sustainable food production and products continues to grow, several companies have risen to the challenge of developing climate-conscious (but still palatable!) consumables. But how will these new products be perceived? Can a coffee lover be convinced to try out beanless coffee made from date pits?

We often think of soil as “just dirt”—something to be cleaned or discarded, but the truth is soil plays a crucial role in our food system. Soil is made up of microorganisms and nutrients that are required for crops to grow. Despite its importance, however, soil health has historically been disregarded in favor of prioritizing agricultural productivity. Fortunately, a new trend focusing on maintaining soil health has the potential to usher in a New Green Revolution.

From the fields at Standing Rock Native American Reservation, the chant “Mní wičhóni” could be heard reverberating through the gathered crowd of protestors. This Lakota phrase, meaning “Water is life,” was taken up as a unifying message grounding the demonstrators’ mission.

Dr.

It was a privilege for UC Berkeley CLEAR to host Niba Nirmal (@NotesByNiba) for the #UCSciCommSeries. Niba is a Multimedia Producer and Digital Strategist at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab (LBL). She received a bachelor’s in Genetics and Genomics from UC Davis, completed a master’s in Genetics at Duke University and earned a Science Communication Certificate from Northwestern University.

Chapter four, “Travelogue: Journeying Underground,” takes the reader through Pollan’s personal experiences with three different psychedelic compounds. Once psychedelics were categorized as class one substances, the use of psychedelics went underground. Many people were, and still are, interested in using psychedelics and seek to undertake psychedelic experiences under the watchful eye of an underground guide. Despite not being formally regulated, many underground guides adhere to strict standards when assisting individuals under the influence of psychedelics.

Megan Varvais, Communications Specialist and Administrator for the California Initiative to Advance Precision Medicine at the Governor’s Office of Planning and Research, talked to us about her journey from legislative advocacy to her current position. She started her career working in non-profit legislative advocacy and organization for various political groups.

Now in her sixties, Willena Scott-White nostalgically reminisced about the family farm she grew up on, surrounded by other African American-owned farms. Such communities have a long and tortuous history. In the decades after the Civil War, Black sharecroppers cultivated their leased land (where they were often exploited as undervalued laborers).

Our second speaker in our #UCSciCommSeries focused on Dr. Brittany Anderton, the Associate Director of Research Talks at iBiology. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the work of iBiology, their content consists of educational videos for all sorts of crowds. Some of their videos contain content for students trying to learn more about a particular topic, and some are about special-interest topics from high-profile researchers.