Office of Research
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Two new books published by UC Santa Cruz poet, lecturer, and alumnus Gary Young
UC Santa Cruz literature lecturer Gary Young has just released “That’s What I Thought,” a new poetry collection which has been honored with the Lexi Rudnitsky Editor’s Choice Award from Persea Books in New York City.
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Ocean fertilization by unusual microbes extends to frigid waters of Arctic Ocean
Researchers have documented nitrogen fixation by an unusual type of cyanobacteria in the cold waters of the Bering and Chukchi Seas.
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Environmental, social changes shift how elephant seals communicate
UC Santa Cruz Ph.D. candidate Caroline Casey retraced biologist Burney Le Boeuf’s scientific footsteps and discovered the seals’ threat calls no longer had geographic distinctions. Instead, as the northern elephant seal population had increased, the males’ calls had grown more individualized and complex.
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Kepler telescope captures extraordinary observations of a star’s death throes
Kepler’s observations of the supernova known as SN 2018oh showed an unexpected fast rise in brightness that may be an important clue to understanding the progenitors of Type Ia supernovae, which cosmologists use to study the expansion of the universe and dark energy.
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UC Santa Cruz receives significant Hunter S. Thompson collection
An 800-volume collection of works by famed author and journalist Hunter S. Thompson has been donated to Special Collections & Archives at UC Santa Cruz.
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Ocean scientist Jonathan Zehr elected 2018 AAAS Fellow
Jonathan Zehr, professor of ocean sciences at UC Santa Cruz, has been awarded the distinction of AAAS Fellow by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).
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Grassland expansion—not human hunting—drove ancient African extinctions
A new study revealed ecological changes in the African savanna, not the emergence of our hominin ancestors, led to the extinction of African ‘megaherbivores’ millions of years ago.
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Planet discovered orbiting the second closest stellar system to the Earth
Measurements from high-precision instruments, including Keck’s HIRES and Lick’s Automated Planet Finder, reveal a cold super-Earth around Barnard’s star.
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Escape responses of coral reef fish obey simple behavioral rules
Loom-sensitive neural circuits characterized in previous lab studies are shown to underlie complex evasive behaviors observed in a natural environment.
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Lit prof offers true love and dreams of miraculous escape
The latest book by UC Santa Cruz literature professor Micah Perks, is a unique anthology of her short stories that sometimes reads like a novel. Written over the past 15 years, it’s a linked collection of engaging tales about the same people–all set in Santa Cruz, California.

