Graduate Group

• Skeletal muscles decay with age, a natural process known as sarcopenia 
• During his time at UC Davis, alum Arik Davidyan investigated testosterone's role in muscle mass gain, maintenance and decay
• Today, Davidyan is a postdoctoral fellow at the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation, where he investigates the role mitochondrial dysfunction plays in aging

Your muscles ensure your survival.

To function daily, your body gleans energy from three food-derived macronutrients: carbohydrates, fats and proteins. How you divvy up those macronutrients in your diet is a matter of personal preference.

But what if you could train your brain to prefer one macronutrient over the other?

• Researchers observed the effects of imidacloprid, a pesticide, on bumblebee behaviors within the hive
• To study this hidden world, they outfitted bumblebees with tiny QR code tags and tracked individuals with video
• They found imidacloprid disrupts nest behavior, causing reduced growth in exposed colonies 

A pesticide banned in the European Union but still in use in the United States is proving to have detrimental effects on pollinators.