Author: Public Affairs

SANTA CRUZ, CA–Acidic water and ultraviolet light damage the embryos of frogs far more seriously when acting in tandem rather than as separate factors, according to a laboratory study at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Researchers exposed the eggs of a common species of frog to various levels of acidity and UV-B radiation, the…

SANTA CRUZ, CA–It’s a common image in geology textbooks: Molten magma wells up from the planet’s bowels to the seafloor at midocean ridges, giving birth to new slabs of the earth’s crust. The magma, a fiery orange or red, ascends in teardrop-shaped blobs through what look like inverted funnels or gigantic pipes. There’s a problem…

SANTA CRUZ, CA–Six faculty members from the University of California, Santa Cruz, will be featured in a downtown lecture series presented jointly by the Humanities Division at UCSC and the Art Museum of Santa Cruz County at the McPherson Center for Art and History. The series will offer a range of lively topics of interest…

SANTA CRUZ, CA–Families are sought to host music students from Taiwan who will be visiting the area January 1 through 10 to study at the University of California, Santa Cruz. The students are undergraduates at the Ya Yun Music College in Taiwan. They are visiting the United States as part of an exchange program sponsored…

(1) Study unveils a way to probe fault zones before a quake hits Session S41A, poster #27, Thursday a.m. 12/14 A new technique may let seismologists estimate which parts of a fault are likely to rupture most severely during an earthquake, even if the fault hasn’t broken for a century or more. (2) A 5000-year…

SANTA CRUZ, CA–The University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC), has entered into a unique general agreement of cooperation with the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) in Monterey, California. Signed into effect by UCSC Chancellor Karl S. Pister and former NPS superintendent Rear Admiral T. S. Mercer, the memo of understanding paves the way for a programmatic…

SANTA CRUZ, CA–Celebrate the holidays Victorian style at the annual Dickens Holiday Evening at the University of California, Santa Cruz. The event takes place at 4 p.m. on Friday, December 15, in the McHenry Library foyer. Food, music, and a sing-along are planned. Topping the entertainment bill is a performance of Victorian caroling by Gene…

SANTA CRUZ, CA–When he launched Equinox Press in 1947, the late master poet-printer William Everson explained his desire for establishing the fine letterpress this way: "As a creative man the richest thing I can do is to write a poem, and the next is to print it." He believed that when text is transformed from…

Research News And Feature Ideas, Issued Periodically By The UCSC Public Information Office Marine toxicology DDT contamination in California sea lions plummets Amid concerns about the lingering effects of DDT along California’s coast comes this bit of good news: Sea lions carried about one hundred times less of the toxic substance in their fat a…

SANTA CRUZ, CA–Public educators at Long Marine Lab invite community members with an interest in marine science to join an upcoming training course for volunteer docents. The two-month series of classes begins on Monday, January 8. Docents spend at least six hours a month teaching the public and schoolchildren about the Monterey Bay environment and…

SANTA CRUZ, CA–A new technique may let seismologists estimate which parts of a fault are likely to rupture most severely during an earthquake, even if the fault hasn’t broken for a century or more. The technique relies upon an apparent connection between the pre-earthquake geology of a fault zone and the amount of motion that…

SANTA CRUZ, CA–Billions of barrels of oil lurk beneath the floor of the Gulf of Mexico, shrouded by twisted layers of rock and domes of salt. If Ru-Shan Wu’s group does its job well, the oil industry soon will have far better tools to find that black gold. Wu and his colleagues at the UC…