Author: Public Affairs

SANTA CRUZ, CA–The conventional wisdom that a machine is only as good as its parts may no longer apply to cameras and other imaging devices. An engineer at the University of California, Santa Cruz, has found a fast way to take blurry, imprecise pictures and turn them into crisp, clear images by using software to…

SANTA CRUZ, CA–America is a fragmented society. A multitude of contradictory agendas. A dizzy kaleidoscope of protean demographics. World War II may have been the last war that will ever have anything resembling popular support, but even then, when those clean-cut soldiers came marching home with every confidence they had set the world right, there…

SANTA CRUZ, CA–The silence is almost suffocating–not a leaf-rattle or even the hiss of wind in the scorched mountain grass. Below, on the valley floor, feeble lights strangle in the low creeping haze of now faraway everyday. Beyond, the black buffalo ridgeline humps up in the clear air against the last smoldering banner of daylight.…

Which Came First, Minorities Or Toxics? New Study Documents Siting Of Hazards In Established Minority Neighborhoods Of Los Angeles SANTA CRUZ, CA–Which came first, minority neighborhoods or toxic storage facilities? A new study of metropolitan Los Angeles documents that neighborhoods that were selected to house toxic storage and disposal facilities (TSDFs) were more minority, poorer,…

SANTA CRUZ, CA–The Baskin School of Engineering at the University of California, Santa Cruz, has launched a new major in bioinformatics leading to a bachelor of science (B.S.) degree. The school will begin admitting students to the new major in fall 2001. Bioinformatics, also called computational biology, is an interdisciplinary field that brings the power…

SANTA CRUZ, CA–The UC Santa Cruz Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry will host the first annual Joseph. F. Bunnett Research Organic Chemistry Lecture at 4 p.m. on Friday, May 4. The lecture, which is supported by an endowment fund of private contributions, is in honor of Professor Emeritus Joseph Bunnett. This year’s lecture will be…

SANTA CRUZ, CA–If you’ve ever approached total synaptic stultification under the relentless fatuity of TV network programming, or felt like you were going to claw through the wallpaper if you heard one more inane sitcom laugh track, you’ve probably gotten on your remote and surfed some of those esoteric, double-digit cable combers. You may have…

SANTA CRUZ, CA–The enormous popularity of films like _Titanic, The Bridges of Madison County, and Pretty Woman _reveals the universal appeal of a good love story. As in real life, though, the stories told in these three blockbusters don’t always end happily. Sociologist Marcia Millman, a professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz, believes…

Scholar And Activist Frances Fox Piven Speaks April 30 At Uc Santa Cruz SANTA CRUZ, CA–Internationally known scholar and political activist Frances Fox Piven sees "signs of stirring" on college campuses around the country, where issues of economic justice and democracy are unifying audiences and energizing activists in ways she hasn’t seen since the 1960s.…

SANTA CRUZ, CA–Face it, Friday nights are a disaster. The music scene is so stale you couldn’t feed it to the downtown pigeons, and the latest drivel from Hollywood is so formulaic it would embarrass an industrial chemist. How do you avoid slipping into a boredom-induced coma, or convince that hot date you’re not an…

Practice, Practice, Practice. . . And It Doesn’t Hurt To Be In The Ucsc Wind Ensemble SANTA CRUZ, CA–That tired old joke is based on an even older truism in the world of classical music: Carnegie Hall is, and always has been, the quintessential venue in America. To perform at Carnegie is to have arrived…

SANTA CRUZ, CA–Doug Peacock is an avatar of wilderness, or at least a feral human being. If he moved in next door to you, your lawn would start to sprout grizzly grass; before long, you might find yourself staring at the distant blue mountains with a longing to trade in your suffocating comforts for an…