Science
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Our moon may have once been as hellish as Jupiter’s super volcanic moon Io
“The moon gets sort of confused,” planetary scientist Francis Nimmo, of the University of California, Santa Cruz, told Space.com. “It doesn’t know exactly what orbit it should be adopting, and so it can develop kind of a weird orbit.”
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Bay Area universities reel from cuts in research funding from National Institutes of Health
“I think the big concern is, if this goes on too long, then we’re just going to lose a generation of researchers who are going to have to go find other jobs,” UC Santa Cruz biology professor Grant Hartzog said. “I’ve got a 21-year-old son who’s a biochemistry major and has been thinking about whether…
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Scientists once thought only humans could bob to music. Ronan the sea lion helped prove them wrong
Not many animals show a clear ability to identify and move to a beat aside from humans, parrots and some primates. But then there’s Ronan, a bright-eyed sea lion that has scientists rethinking the meaning of music. Ronan has been a resident at UC Santa Cruz’s Long Marine Laboratory, where UC Santa Cruz researchers have…
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Plastic is harming seabirds even more than we realized
A new study co-led by researchers at UC Santa Cruz shows that ingested plastic can release hormone-altering chemicals in northern fulmars, a species of seabird that inhabits the North Atlantic and North Pacific.
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Trump’s escalating attacks on research and education are hurting UC Santa Cruz – the public needs to act now
The Trump administration’s attack on scientific research will deeply affect UC Santa Cruz, write three eminent UC Santa Cruz professors: Needhi Bhalla, Susan Carpenter, and Carol Greider. Since Donald Trump took office, the campus has lost 10 NIH grants worth $6 million, they write. In the past two weeks, the professors have lost $2.8 million…
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Surprise atmospheric rivers, toxic seafood: How NOAA cuts could impact California
“Collaborations between universities and NOAA are powerful partnerships,” said Eric Palkovacs, professor and director of the Fisheries Collaborative Program at UC Santa Cruz. “They leverage the expertise and resources on both sides to do cutting-edge research.”
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Santa Cruz museums concerned over recent federal budget cuts
“Community spaces are so essential; community spaces that encourage something positive like appreciating art, appreciating cultures other than what you’re familiar with,” said Kelso Cochran, a biology researcher at UC Santa Cruz.
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Berkeley’s famous falcons are missing as bird flu spreads
Down in Santa Cruz, Dr. Zeka Glucs has been noticing the absence of peregrines as well. She explains what brings us to the coast today. “We’re going to take a look at a nest that has been occupied for about two, three years.” Zeka is the director of the Predatory Bird Research Group at UC…
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Ghostly galaxy without dark matter baffles astronomers
A team, led by astronomer Yimeng Tang at the University of California, Santa Cruz, compared FCC 224’s properties to other galaxies that seemingly lack dark matter, focusing on two ghostly objects within the NGC 1052 group about 65 million light-years away in the constellation Cetus. Tang and his colleagues propose that FCC 224, like those…
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Game of clones: Colossal’s new wolves are cute, but are they dire?
Beth Shapiro, an expert on ancient DNA who is now on a three-year sabbatical from the University of California, Santa Cruz, as the company’s CSO, acknowledged in an interview that other scientists would bristle at the claim. “What we’re going to have here is a philosophical argument about whether we should call it a dire…
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Odd-Looking Blue Creatures Are Washing Up in Large Groups on California’s Beaches Once Again
Velellas typically wash ashore in Northern California in spring or early summer, because “in the spring is when we have upwelling,” explains Raphael Kudela, a marine scientist at University of California, Santa Cruz, to KQED’s Danielle Venton and Sarah Mohamad. “Upwelling brings lots of nutrients, and lots of nutrients bring phytoplankton and zooplankton.”
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Environmental advocates line up against Trump administration marine policy
Anne Kapuscinski, professor of environmental studies and director of the new Coastal Science and Policy Program, was quoted in a Santa Cruz Sentinel story about local opposition to an executive order signed by President Trump that revokes numerous ocean protections.