Earth & Space
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The Hunt for a Fundamental Theory of Quantum Gravity
For mathematical convenience, Bousso assumed that there’s an unlimited variety of particles—an unrealistic assumption that makes some physicists wonder whether this third layer matches reality (with its 17 or so known particles) any better than the second layer does. “We don’t have an infinite number of quantum fields,” said Edgar Shaghoulian, a physicist at the…
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Astronomers discover strange solar system body dancing in sync with Neptune: ‘Like finding a hidden rhythm in a song’
“This new motion is like finding a hidden rhythm in a song we thought we knew,” team member and University of California, Santa Cruz scientist Ruth Murray-Clay said. “It could change how we think about the way distant objects move.” Additional coverage in IFL Science.
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‘It’s just a weird, weird bird’: Why we got the dodo so absurdly wrong
“The dodo laid a single egg in a nest on the ground, which made these eggs particularly vulnerable to predation by introduced species like rats and pigs, which arrived on Mauritius at the same time as people,” says Beth Shapiro, an evolutionary biologist at the University of California-Santa Cruz.
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Astronomers discover a pulsar and a helium star orbiting each other
“There’s a physical law that if a binary system loses more than half its mass, the system will become unbound,” says Enrico Ramirez-Ruiz, a professor of astronomy and astrophysics at the University of California, Santa Cruz, who was not involved in the study. When the more massive star exploded and became a neutron star, Ramirez-Ruiz…
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How did these class rings stay put for decades? Santa Cruz County beach mystery delights ocean expert
UC Santa Cruz coastal scientist Gary Griggs sees a scientific mystery in two lost-and-found class rings — including one buried for 44 years at Main Beach. Griggs says the stories challenge assumptions about coastal sand movement, raising new questions about how objects can remain so close to where they were lost despite decades of shifting…
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Vera Rubin Scientists Reveal Telescope’s First Images
“You’ve not seen the whole thing, all captured at once at this depth with so many objects there,” said Steven Ritz, a physicist at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and the project scientist for Rubin construction. “That, I would point out, is new. And just how pretty it is.” Additional coverage by the BBC,…
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How changing ocean colors could impact California
Earth’s oceans have been getting greener at the poles and becoming bluer closer to the equator, according to a study published Thursday in Science. The shift reflects changes in marine ecosystems, which experts say could affect fish populations and create problems for fisheries, including in California. “It has lots of potential implications for the way…
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The Mysterious Inner Workings of Io, Jupiter’s Volcanic Moon
Researchers disagree on the best interpretation of the Galileo data. The magnetic signals “were taken as probably the best evidence for a magma ocean, but really they weren’t that strong,” said Francis Nimmo, a planetary scientist at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and a coauthor of the new study. The induction data couldn’t distinguish…
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Pluto’s hazy skies are making the dwarf planet even colder, James Webb Space Telescope finds
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has discovered that a hazy sky over frozen Pluto is helping to cool the dwarf planet’s atmosphere. The discovery of the haze was predicted back in 2017 by planetary scientist Xi Zhang of the University of California, Santa Cruz, to explain why Pluto’s thin atmosphere is so leaky. Additional…
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Webb confirms Pluto’s atmosphere cools with haze
After New Horizons’ Pluto flyby, UC Santa Cruz‘s Xi Zhang proposed in 2017 that Pluto’s atmosphere is dominated by haze particles, making it unlike any other in the solar system. He suggested that these particles heat up and cool down, controlling Pluto’s entire energy balance.
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Genome BC backs DNA-based environmental monitoring in rural and Indigenous communities
This project, led by Caren Helbing (University of Victoria) and Rachel Meyer (University of California Santa Cruz), adapts a U.S.-based tool for Canadian use. The platform allows users to view and share biodiversity data from eDNA samples. It builds on previous work from the iTrackDNA initiative, which helped establish Canada’s national eDNA standards.
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This seagull took an 80-mile truck ride twice to find food
“It was surprising and comical, so much so that we wanted to look closely into this one individual’s behavior to understand how this happened,” Megan Cimino, a researcher at the Institute of Marine Sciences at UC Santa Cruz and lead author of the study, told Axios. Additional coverage by SFGate and Smithsonian Magazine.