Social Sciences
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Where were enslaved Africans taken from? The answer could be hidden in their bones.
Anthropology Professor Vicky Oelze's groundbreaking map of strontium isotopes found across sub-Saharan Africa could help descendants of enslaved people reconstruct their family histories. By comparing strontium values found in a person's remains to strontium values across a landscape, scientists can gauge where that person is most likely from. "Individual histories are completely erased" by the slave trade, says…
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California’s effort to streamline wildfire prevention could have long-term consequences
Karen Holl, a distinguished professor of environmental studies at UC Santa Cruz, spoke with the San Francisco Chronicle about the potential pitfalls Governor Newsom's executive order and emergency proclamation to suspend the California Environmental Quality Act, the Coastal Act and other longstanding regulations in order to remove red tape from projects to reduce fuels from…
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Why You Can’t Get That Song Out of Your Head
Scientific American spoke with UC Santa Cruz Psychology Professor Nick Davidenko and Ph.D. student Matt Evans about “earworms,” the types of songs that get stuck in your head and play automatically on a loop. Davidenko and Evans have studied earworms together, finding that when people sing out their earworms, they have a remarkable ability to perfectly match…
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Title 42 Isn’t About Public Health — It’s About Keeping Immigrants Out
Associate Professor of Sociology Juan Pedroza says erroneously linking immigrant communities to the spread of infectious diseases has been a common anti-immigration strategy throughout U.S. History. “You can find in the United States plenty of evidence of people saying that immigrants are bringing disease and will be contaminating the nation, including public health,” he said.
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UC Santa Cruz Ph.D. candidate writes environmental children’s book
Brook Thompson, a Ph.D. student in environmental studies at UC Santa Cruz, shared some of her life experiences in her new children’s book, “I Love Salmon and Lampreys: A Native Story of Resilience,” which will be published March 4.
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Beyond staying the course
In this op-ed, Nirvikar Singh, a distinguished professor of economics at the University of California, Santa Cruz, argues that many policies available to the Centre (and potentially states), none radical, can even lead to faster growth in the short run while India’s demographics are still favorable.
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Strontium: the metal with remarkable powers to help track ancestral roots
A new strontium isotope map of Sub-Saharan Africa developed by Anthropology Professor Vicky Oelze could help descendants of the transatlantic slave trade to finally trace their roots. So far, the map has been used to precisely trace the origins of two people found in the Anson Street African Burial Ground: Kuto and Banza (both named…
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What's Next for Lithium Valley
Politico’s California climate reporter Blanca Begert hosted a panel discussion with Chris Benner of the University of California, Santa Cruz, and Manuel Pastor of the University of Southern California, two experts with a new book out about the Salton Sea region. The event was on Feb. 19 at 12pm at the UC Student and Policy Center.
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We thought these places were useless. They may help save the world.
Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies Scott Winton explained how the soggy, anoxic environment of peatlands make them ideal for sequestering carbon from organic matter. “Those organisms that would break down organic matter and decompose it and recycle it back into nutrients and CO2, they can’t work efficiently. And so the organic matter tends to pile up.”
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Debunking myths perpetuated by Donald Trump about undocumented immigrants
Lucinda Pease-Alvarez, a professor emerita of education at UC Santa Cruz who has worked extensively with immigrant children and their families, co-authored this op-ed debunking a variety of myths the current president relies on when targeting undocumented immigrants.
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UC Santa Cruz report details socioeconomic challenges for Black populations in Monterey, San Benito counties
Compared to other racial groups, Black residents of Monterey and San Benito counties face higher rent burdens, higher incarceration rates and lower levels of education, among other findings, according to a report published last month by UC Santa Cruz researchers. The researchers, Professor Chris Benner and Gabriella Alvarez, say this report underlines the need for implementing programs and…
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Pinpointing the origins of people taken from Africa for the slave trade
Anthropology Professor Vicky Oelze explained that, in the past, archaeologists who worked on ‘slave cemeteries’ in the African Diaspora could only use isotope ratios and genetic analysis to identify that an individual must have been born and raised somewhere on the African continent. “Now, with strontium isotopes being mapped for most of sub-Saharan Africa, we…