Patty Guerra

Sometimes, a hummingbird is more than a hummingbird.

Bill Leonard was at work in a cabinet shop several years ago when a hummingbird entered and paused directly in front of his forehead. A moment later, the bird turned and flew out of the shop.

"I knew he was trying to tell me something," Leonard, an elder of the Southern Sierra Miwuk tribe, told an audience in the UC Merced Conference Center. "I don't know what it was, but he took something from me and my life changed for the better."

Researchers from UC Merced and UC Davis are putting into practice work aimed at helping older adults maintain independence where they live while providing loved ones and caretakers with real-time updates on their health .

A four-year, $1.1 million R01 award from the National Institutes of Health will help fund "SCH: HOME: Health-Oriented Monitoring Empowered by Multimodal Cyber-Physical Systems for Geriatric Care."

California's grasslands are a vital part of a healthy ecosystem, supporting native plants and endangered animal species. Yet the vast majority of them - more than 90 percent - have been lost to development and invasive non-native plants.

The California Department of Food and Agriculture, the California Natural Resources Agency, UC Merced, the California Rangeland Trust, Audubon California, and Point Blue Conservation Science jointly hosted a summit at the university that focused on nature‑based solutions (NBS) for California's grasslands.

An automatic vehicle delivered by tractor-trailer to UC Merced recently will be the focus of a two-year effort to improve travel options for people with disabilities.

The wheelchair-accessible, all-electric General Motors Cruise Origin is the focus of the Civic Progress Challenge, a student design competition developed by the car maker and SAE International, a nonprofit organization that develops and publishes standards used for the aerospace, automotive and commercial-vehicle industries

A new agreement will provide a seamless transition for community college students across the state to continue their education at UC Merced - with money to help pay for it.

The California Community Colleges Chancellor's Office, in partnership with UC Merced, announced the university is now participating in the Associate Degree for Transfer (ADT) program.

Joshua Edmon-Macias spent two weeks trying to figure out what was wrong with a small 3D-printed aerospace part.

"They didn't tell us what they are used for," said Edmon-Macias, a recent graduate of UC Merced. "We just know that on the inside they're not solid and there's a repeated pattern on the inside. … They are asking us to define the systems to see the defects that are inside the part."

A five-year, $4.5 million T32 institutional training grant from the National Institutes of Health will establish a new doctoral training program at UC Merced for students pursuing careers in biomedical research.

Areesha Tariq didn't intend to fly through college in two years.

As a student at El Capitan High School in Merced, Tariq enjoyed taking math and science classes. When she ran out of options there, she took courses through dual enrollment at Merced College. She earned associate's degrees in chemistry and biology.

She enrolled at UC Merced as a freshman, but the university had news for her: she would enter as a third-year student.

Recently, the university and the U.S. Green Building Council Central California hosted a tour showcasing the university's leadership in sustainable design and green business practices throughout the Central Valley.