Science
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Steam Worlds Have Atmospheres Like a Sweltering Sauna, Made Entirely of Hot Water Vapor
“The interiors of planets are natural ‘laboratories’ for studying conditions that are difficult to reproduce in a university laboratory on Earth. What we learn could have unforeseen applications we haven’t even considered. The water worlds are especially exotic in this sense,” said co-author Natalie Batalha, a professor of astronomy and astrophysics at the University of…
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These Lizards Have So Much Lead in Their Blood, They Should Be Dead. Instead, They’re Thriving
“The fact that they show no measurable signs of toxicity is surprising, because in other vertebrates I’m familiar with, blood lead above 500 micrograms per deciliter is associated with obvious illness or even death,” says Donald Smith, a microbiologist at the University of California Santa Cruz who was not involved with the research, to the…
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How RNA Unseated DNA as the Most Important Molecule in Your Body
Some of these molecules might get transcribed only in particular types of cells or at a particular stage in embryonic development, so it would be easy to miss their moment of action. “They are incredibly cell-type specific,” says molecular biologist Susan Carpenter of the University of California, Santa Cruz. But because of that, she says,…
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A world-renowned California scientist’s career is defined by chance
The minutes pass into hours as the swell rises and falls like craggy rock formations, lulling me into a meditative state. But the man at the helm, Ari Friedlaender, is on high alert. With a ball cap and sunglasses shielding his bearded face, and a pair of flip-flops on his feet, the world-renowned ecologist and…
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Five Astounding Ways Humans Are Driving Animal Evolution, Including Causing Lizards to Grow Longer Legs and Leading Moth Populations to Become Darker
Eric Palkovacs, an ecologist and evolutionary biologist from the University of California, Santa Cruz, says that fishermen often have a financial incentive to target and catch the largest fish.“That’s a direct selective pressure against large size,” he says, “and because fish get larger when they get older it’s also a selection against old age.”
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A Surprising Twist Puts Desalination Plants at the Bottom of the Ocean. Here’s Why
Although proponents of subsea desalination technology say it would have little effect on undersea life, others urge further research to gauge its impact on marine ecosystems. The twilight zone is “extremely important for many ocean processes such as the carbon cycle and nutrient cycling,” says Adina Paytan, a professor affiliated with the Institute of Marine…
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Mirror universe on the wall, is this where dark matter comes from after all?
A physicist at the University of California, Santa Cruz has published 2 studies which put forward a new approach to explain where dark matter comes from. Professor Stefano Profumo has drawn from the well-established quantum chromodynamics. Additional coverage in Yahoo News, The Debrief, Science News Today, and IFL Science.
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How beaches are affected by climate change
“We know sea-level rise is happening in response to this warming. It’s widely understood through the observational evidence of what is happening,” said Patrick Barnard, research director for the UC Santa Cruz Center for Coastal Climate Resilience. “And now, we really need to move to thinking about solutions as a global community–and not arguing about…
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Mysterious killer of sea stars finally identified
It seemed to come without warning. In 2013, divers and marine researchers began to notice sea stars dying in droves in the waters off Washington state. The deaths were gruesome—arms became twisted and fell off, bodies disintegrated. “It was creepy,” says Peter Raimondi, a marine ecologist at the University of California Santa Cruz who followed…
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Parts of Bay Area could experience longer earthquake shaking than previously expected
Emily Brodsky, a professor of earth and planetary sciences at UC Santa Cruz who was not involved with the study, commented on the importance of new findings about where earthquakes resulted in longer periods of shaking than expected. “When you actually have to build a building, you don’t want to just know, in general, it…
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‘Hibernation genes’ help control metabolism and feeding – and could hold untapped benefit for humans
Professor of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology Joanna Kelley commented on the potential applications of a new study. “It’s definitely not as simple as introducing the same changes in human DNA,” she said. “Humans are not capable of fasting-induced torpor, which is the reason why mice are used in these studies.”
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Meet the 24-armed sea star, a kelp forest’s bodyguard
“We show that the sea stars create a ‘landscape of fear’ among red sea urchins in degraded urchins barrens that reduces grazing on kelp,” study co-author and UC Santa Cruz ecologist Kristy Kroeker said in a statement. “These are very hungry urchins that are dissuaded enough by the scent of a sea star to deter…