Social Sciences
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Fact check: Trump falsely claims ‘I invaded Los Angeles.’ His water releases didn’t go to LA
President Donald Trump continues to claim that he sent fire-plagued Los Angeles the critical water he says California’s leaders refused to provide. In reality, the water was directed to a dry lake basin elsewhere in the Central Valley – more than 100 miles north of Los Angeles. “The only way that water got to LA is if an Angeleno…
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Toxic Waste Cleanups Take Longer in Marginalized Communities
Lindsey Dillon, an associate professor of sociology at the University of California, Santa Cruz, who studies the impact of toxic sites on surrounding communities, said the Public Press’ findings are consistent with academic literature on environmental justice. “Marginalized groups get fewer resources,” Dillon said.
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The problem with dating? Your standards might be too high.
Campbell Leaper, a distinguished professor of psychology at the University of California, Santa Cruz commented on how dating expectations can clash with shifting gender norms and increased levels of education and employment for women. “A lot of these men who are not going on to college are often having trouble finding jobs and then resenting…
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Republicans want corporate oligarchy. We need economic democracy
Michael A McCarthy, director of the Community Studies Program at UC Santa Cruz, coauthored an opinion article with U.S. representative Rashida Harbi Tlaib about how to build an economic system that works for all Americans by advancing collective ownership models across sectors.
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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.