UC Davis
environmental discoveries

We have made the world a better, more sustainable place. Our research helped to take the lead out of gasoline and preserve majestic Lake Tahoe.

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Getting lead
out of gasoline

Thomas Cahill and colleagues at the Crocker Nuclear Lab used the lab’s cyclotron to study air quality, among other things. In the 1970s, Cahill’s team provided evidence showing how lead pollution spread from freeways over neighborhoods, leading then-Gov. Jerry Brown to introduce the first controls on lead as a gasoline additive.

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Keeping
Tahoe blue

UC physicist John Le Conte took the first scientific measurements of Lake Tahoe’s clear blue waters in 1868. A century later, the Tahoe Research Group, founded by UC Davis Professor Charles Goldman, began regular monitoring of the lake.

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A research boat floats on Lake Tahoe
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