UC Davis Professor Hugh Safford was hiking for pleasure in California’s High Sierra when he stumbled upon a new elevation record for the Jeffrey pine, which may now be the state’s highest-altitude tree. His serendipitous finding is published in Madroño, a journal of the California Botanical Society.

How small mountain lakes spend their winters is largely unknown to scientists, despite winter representing nearly half the year in such environments. A study by the University of California, Davis, helps demystify what happens above and below the ice.