Social Sciences
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Rare Mountain Lion Standoff in San Francisco Ends Peacefully After a 30-Hour Search
“Males will often travel far out,” says Chris Wilmers, an ecologist at UC Santa Cruz and the lead researcher of the Santa Cruz Puma Project. “They’re essentially trying to find a vacant territory, and the Santa Cruz Mountains are pretty trapped in by development on all sides. They wander, and they keep going, and they…
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Immigration Enforcement in Minnesota: Not Just a Political, also a Public Health Crisis
Politics Ph.D. student Lucia Vitale argues that immigration enforcement in Minnesota is leading to deteriorating access to health care, widespread psychological distress, and the displacement of protective responsibilities from the state onto communities themselves.
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Manufactured Borders, Manufactured Intelligence
Education department lecturer and political analyst Nolan Higdon dissects some recent news, focusing especially on AI: what can history tell us about the unintelligence of artificial intelligence, how deep fakes are crowbarring the political divide even further and deeper, the corporate capture of the classroom, and more.
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What Trump’s $100,000 Visa Fee Could Mean for Schools
Education Department Chair Lora Bartlett wrote an opinion article explaining how new visa fees could affect school districts struggling with teacher shortages.
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Ancient bacterium’s genome could rewrite the history of syphilis
The discovery of the microorganism’s DNA in the man’s bones was made “totally by chance,” says Lars Fehren-Schmitz, one of the study’s co-authors and an anthropologist at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
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Donald Trump thanks you for your attention to these matters in his second term
“The social media we’re talking about in Trump’s second term is not the social media of Trump’s first term,” said Nolan Higdon, a lecturer at the University of California, Santa Cruz, where he focuses on critical media literacy. For now, there are few brakes on Trump’s impulses.
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‘Abolish ICE’ messaging is back. Is it any more likely this time?
Cinthya Martinez, a UC Santa Cruz professor who has studied the movement to abolish ICE, noted that it stems from the movement to abolish prisons. The abolition part, she said, is watered down by mainstream politicians. “A lot of folks forget that prison abolition is to completely abolish carceral systems. It comes from a Black…
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Americans must understand the historic context of Venezuela invasion
UC Santa Cruz Professors Lily Balloffet and Jeff Erbig wrote an opinion article about the importance of learning Latin American History and how this perspective can inform the way Americans understand and respond to the Trump Administration’s invasion of Venezuela.
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We can stop ICE terror: It’s time to organize
The Trump administration governs through fear, particularly in the way it handles immigration, writes UC Santa Cruz researcher Veronica Hamilton at the Center for Labor and Community. Labor unions and organized workers have the power and experience to resist ICE intimidation and protect communities.
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Making Sense of the U.S. Invasion of Venezuela
Sara Niedzwieck is a professor of politics at UC Santa Cruz and studies South American politics. She offers her analysis of what is currently happening in Venezuela, a developing story.
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Some Dogs Learn New Words Just Like Toddlers Do
The new research offers proof that some dogs can learn some words even when they are not addressed directly by their owners, says Nameera Akhtar, a psychology professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz, who was also not involved in the study.
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How can nature protect us from the effects of climate change
UC Santa Cruz economics professor Galina Hale hosts Center for Coastal Climate Resilience Director Mike Beck on the radio show “Cutting Edge,” to discuss their new study on nature-based solutions for climate adaptation.