November

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  November 16, 2024 - Broadway World

  World Premiere of ‘Here Comes the Night’ to Open at Moving Arts Theatre

  UC Santa Cruz alumna Hailey McAfee, who graduated with a B.A. in Theater Arts, is currently directing a new play. Here Comes the Night is set to premiere in Los Angeles in January and run through mid-February.
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  November 14, 2024 - Allure

  We’re Much Closer to A Disney Princess With Type 4 Hair

  A.M. Darke, a UC Santa Cruz professor of Performance, Play, and Design, recently released a paper with a colleague from Yale focusing on their research in animating coily hair. Animation didn’t even include texture in Black hair until 2021 with Disney’s Encanto. Darke’s research is game changing in the field of animation and will lead to greater representation in film, video games, and more.
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  November 12, 2024 - San Francisco Chronicle

  A mysterious deep-sea creature appeared in Monterey Bay. Now scientists are finally telling the world

  In 2000, a team of scientists first laid eyes on what they would later call the Mystery Mollusk via a remotely operated vehicle at 8,576 feet. After 150 viewings, many rounds of measurements, some genetic studies and 24 years later, a scientific description of the animal with the scientific name Bathydevius caudactylus has been published. The description was co-written by Steven Haddock at the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at UC Santa Cruz.

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  November 12, 2024 - Modesto Bee

  S.F.’s Ocean Beach could be transformed with massive seawall. Surfers are not happy

  An upcoming scientific article about the impact of development on California beaches by geologist Gary Griggs of UC Santa Cruz and coastal engineer Bob Battalio called armoring and repeated beach nourishment solutions that are expensive and only "effective over a few decades at best."

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  November 11, 2024 - Australian Broadcasting Network

  Composing music with AI isn't new, but recent advances have serious implications for the music industry

  As AI quickly advances there are a lot of questions about its ethics. But whether it is good or bad there is no denying that AI plays a major role in the future of music making. One of the early pioneers of AI music was David Cope, a UC Santa Cruz professor emeritus of music. His work with computers starting in the 1980s laid the groundwork for the music we have today.
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  November 12, 2024 - Santa Cruz Sentinel

  UC Santa Cruz’s ‘Inspector General’ updates classic political play

  The UC Santa Cruz Arts Division is premiering a new play this week. Inspector General, which is an adaption of a Russian play by the same name, raises a conversation around political corruption in the modern day. The Santa Cruz Sentinel spoke to Michael Chemers, the chair of the department of Performance, Play, and Design who wrote the play, to break down its importance in relation to contemporary politics.
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  November 01, 2024 - Mother Jones

  Environmental Justice? Not if Project 2025 Has a Say.

  Mijin Cha, a professor of environmental studies at University of California, Santa Cruz, says Inflation Reduction Act grant programs could be improved by providing benefits more directly to underserved people. “The federal government gives money to a third party, and then that third party distributes the money,” says Cha. “Is it not more efficient to just have that be a direct investment?” Project 2025, however, would eliminate these programs entirely.

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  November 02, 2024 - BBC Wildlife Magazine

  As scientists plot to bring back the dodo, Helen Pilcher asks whether we should—and what would happen if we did

  In 2022, geneticist Beth Shapiro from the UC Santa Cruz, who is a scientific advisor to Colossal Biosciences, decoded the dodo’s genome. Scientists at Colossal are now determining the sequences which they will edit into cells collected from the dodo’s closest living relative, the Nicobar pigeon. Then, just as for the passenger pigeon, the edited cells will be used to create adult birds that create dodo sperm and eggs.
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  November 01, 2024 - Washington Post

  How to use AI to help plan your vote

  University of California, Santa Cruz Associate Professor of History Benjamin Breen was featured in a Washington Post story about using AI chatbot technology to help voters research long and complex ballots.
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  November 01, 2024 - The Atlantic

  MAGA is tripping: Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign has cemented the right’s romance with psychedelics.

  University of California, Santa Cruz Associate Professor of History Benjamin Breen, author of Tripping On Utopia: Margaret Mead, The Cold Ward, and The Troubled Birth Of Pscyhedelic Science, was featured in an Atlantic Monthly feature story about the American hard right's recent embrace of psychedelics. 

   

October

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  October 30, 2024 - The Jewish News of Northern California

  Founder of Center for Monster Studies isn’t scared when the lights go down

  Michael Chemers, the chair of the department of Performance, Play, and Design and the founder of the Center for Monster Studies, talks about his role in monsters studies. In this Q&A for The Jewish News of Northern California Chemers explores monsters through the lens of Judaism, in particular discussing the golem which comes from Jewish folklore.
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  October 28, 2024 - Santa Cruz Sentinel

  Guest Commentary | Immigrant safety at risk from election rhetoric

  Political leaders who use racist and anti-immigrant rhetoric are directly harming safety and wellbeing in our communities, write UC Santa Cruz faculty members Regina Day Langhout and Saskias Casanova. Recent research conducted in Santa Cruz County supports this assertion. In Fall 2023, youth researchers in United Way of Santa Cruz County’s Alzamos la Voz program worked with undergraduates and faculty from the University of California, Santa Cruz to analyze data from a survey of over 500 Santa Cruz County community members. Findings showed the importance of immigrant safety for the wellbeing of all community members.
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  October 25, 2024 - Financial Express

  Growth, jobs and manufacturing

  Distinguished Professor of Economics Nirvikar Singh argues that increases in productivity and wages that come from investment in human capital are going to benefit a larger slice of the population than investment in physical capital that substitutes for workers, though both kinds of investment matter.
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  October 24, 2024 - WIRED

  This App Set Out to Fight Pesticides. After VCs Stepped In, Now It Helps Sell Them

  Silicon Valley–style venture capital places enormous emphasis on scale and a startup’s ability to grow rapidly, says Madeleine Fairbairn, a sociologist at UC Santa Cruz, who studies agriculture and food systems. “Everybody’s used to this claim that we have a growing population, and they’re going to starve if we don’t feed them,” she says. For Fairbairn, this is a failure of imagination. “If the imperative for corporate and venture capital profit and rapid funder exit could be decentered from this drive for digital agriculture, it could potentially be something really amazing,” she says.

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  October 31, 2024 - Los Angeles Times

  A deadly fungus that has killed millions of bats may have arrived in Southern California

  “Those early kind of signals can be helpful for understanding the progression of the fungus, of where it’s getting to,” said Winifred Frick, chief scientist at Bat Conservation International and an adjunct professor in ecology and evolutionary biology at UC Santa Cruz.
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  October 30, 2024 - earth.com

  Weddell seals have a surprising survival strategy

  “Weddell seals live in one of the most hostile environments on the planet and need to keep their internal clock running during periods when the sun never sets or when the sun never rises,” noted Daniel Costa, professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
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  October 24, 2024 - Voices of Monterey Bay

  Monsters under the microscope

  Professors Michael Chemers and Renée Fox are featured in an article about the Center for Monster Studies, an interdisciplinary space where scholars from across the academic spectrum can come together to explore the role of monsters in culture, literature, politics, and even science and technology. The GoodTimes also featured the center.
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  October 24, 2024 - earth.com

  Military sonar does a lot more damage to dolphins than previously disclosed

  Scientists from UC Santa Cruz and their collaborators have achieved something monumental — they’ve managed to directly measure the behavioral responses of these dolphins and unraveled some surprising findings. Also covered by Study Finds, Interesting Engineering, and others.

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  October 23, 2024 - Radio New Zealand

  Our Changing World: Lead bullets – a health risk to humans and kea

  Myra Finkelstein is an adjunct professor in the microbiology and environmental toxicology department at the University of California Santa Cruz and a world-leading researcher in the detection and impacts of lead on human and animal health. Myra's pioneering work with California condor has shown that the ingestion of lead from lead-based ammunition is preventing the highly endangered species from recovering.

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  October 18, 2024 - New York Times

  Gaming’s Uneven Progress Toward Diverse Female Figures

  Soraya Murray, a professor of Film and Digital Media here at UC Santa Cruz, was interviewed about female representation in video games. Women are often overtly sexualized in video games, and there have been calls for more diversity in the gaming industry.
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  October 17, 2024 - Mongabay

  Largest dam removal ever, driven by Tribes, kicks off Klamath River recovery

  Environmental studies Ph.D. student, artist, and Yurok Tribe restoration engineer Brooke Thompson celebrated dam removal on the Klamath River. “This has been 20-plus years in the making, my entire life, and why I went to university, why I’m doing the degrees I’m doing now,” she said. “I feel amazing. I feel like the weight of all that concrete is lifted off my shoulders.”

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  October 16, 2024 - Lookout Santa Cruz

  Building brighter futures in Santa Cruz County: Join us in building homes, communities, and hope!

  Habitat for Humanity Monterey Bay shared findings from a collaborative study with UC Santa Cruz's Center for Economic Justice and Action on the improvements in economic stability, mental and physical well-being, family relationships, and community involvement that come from receiving housing. 
• 
  October 11, 2024 - High Country News

  Migrating birds find refuge in pop-up habitats

  A program that pays rice farmers to create wetland habitats is a rare conservation win, and UC Santa Cruz conservation ecologist Natalia Ocampo-Peñuela explains why. “We thought we could rely on protected areas to conserve habitat globally, and we now know that’s not enough, and we need to complement that with a suite of different conservation strategies,” she said. While market-based solutions shouldn’t be the only answer, she said, they are “a piece of the puzzle.”

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  October 09, 2024 - AFP/France 24

  British skull auction sparks Indian demand for return

  UC Santa Cruz Anthropologist and Director of the Center for South Asian Studies Dolly Kikon recently helped stop the sale of Indigenous remains and demanded repatriation. Kikon is a member of the Recover Restore and Decolonise (RRaD) initiative, which works to return ancestor remains to their rightful communities.
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  October 07, 2024 - KQED

  Uber and Lyft’s Appeal in California Labor Case Won’t Be Heard by Supreme Court

  The Supreme Court's decision to kick a case on pay and benefits for gig workers back to state courts means there’s a continuing lack of clarity, according to UC Santa Cruz Sociology Professor Steve McKay, who directs the university’s Center for Labor and Community. “When we have a system where employers pay for a lot of the benefits, who’s covered and how?" McKay said. "That’s actually falling more and more to the state to provide that then, if employers aren’t doing it.” 

• 
  October 06, 2024 - Seattle Times

  Two WA men were arrested in mental health crises. Only one survived

  Across the country, jails have become “the default placement” for people in mental crisis, said Craig Haney, a University of California, Santa Cruz, psychology professor. “In worst-case scenarios, that can have fatal consequences,” because mentally ill people “oftentimes react badly to the oppressive nature” of jail environments, Haney said.

• 
  October 18, 2024 - The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education

  New faculty appointments for six black scholars

  New art and photography professor Jonathan Jackson included in a list honoring black faculty in higher education. Jonathan Jackson has joined the faculty at the University of California, Santa Cruz as an assistant professor of photography.
• 
  October 20, 2024 - CBS News

  Scientists say they've made a breakthrough in efforts to bring back the extinct Tasmanian tiger

  Colossal Biosciences in a Thursday press release said its reconstructed thylacine genome is about 99.9% complete, with 45 gaps that they'll work to close through additional sequencing in the coming months. ... "The thylacine samples used for our new reference genome are among the best preserved ancient specimens my team has worked with," said Beth Shapiro, Colossal's chief science officer and the director of the UCSC Paleogenomics Lab, where the samples were processed. "It's rare to have a sample that allows you to push the envelope in ancient DNA methods to such an extent."
• 
  October 15, 2024 - Daily Mail

  Global warming is NOT surging, scientists say

  The team stress that a surge in global warming may be happening – just that it's not detectable yet. "Of course, it is still possible that an acceleration in global warming is occurring," said lead author Claudie Beaulieu, a professor of ocean sciences at UC Santa Cruz. "But we found that the magnitude of the acceleration is either statistically too small, or there isn’t enough data yet to robustly detect it." Also covered by AFP Fact Check, Carbon Brief, NY Breaking, and other outlets.

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  October 15, 2024 - Yahoo News

  Incredible discovery on deep ocean floor: 'Could not believe our eyes'

  Andrew Fisher, a hydrogeologist at the University of California, Santa Cruz wasn't involved in the study, but he explained why the incredible breakthrough has important implications when it comes to cosmic exploration such as that on Europa, Jupiter's moon. "Where there is space, life often finds a place to take hold," Fisher said. "When probes finally land on Europa and burn through the ice to explore the underlying ocean, I would not be surprised if they find hydrothermal flow, but [finding] life is a bigger challenge." Also covered by the Austrialian Broadcasting Co.
• 
  October 10, 2024 - Los Angeles Times

  Opinion: When Trump talks 'bad genes' and 'racehorse theory,' he is telling us who he is

  Among those aghast at this pseudo-science was Beth Shapiro, professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at UC Santa Cruz: “This is eugenics,” she tweeted. “As President of the American Genetics Association and a human, I reject this. We are better than this.” Also quoted in Scientific American.

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  October 18, 2024 - Jacobin

  You Know About the KKK, but What About the Black Legion?

  Description
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  January 01, 2020 - Alta

  Trekking to Delta

  Alta Journal is publishing a five-part serialization of “Trekking to Delta,” a historical essay by acclaimed novelist Karen Tei Yamashita, University of California, Santa Cruz Emerita Professor of Literature.
• 
  October 08, 2024 - KBPS

  Scientist looks for DNA evidence to trace the migration of his Polynesian ancestors

  Assistant Professor of Biomolecular Engineering Alex Ioannidis was quoted in a KPBS story about research he is working on to trace genetic evidence of the migration of ancient Polynesian people.
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  October 09, 2024 - Tech Xplore

  Study addresses challenges in digital animation of coiled hair

  A. M. Darke, a UC Santa Cruz professor of Digital Arts and New Media, participated in a project to help animate coily hair. This research aims to help created animated characters who are Black with more realistic hair patterns. Previous animation work made curls go all in one direction, but this new research created an algorithm for a curling pattern with switchbacks that more closely resembles real-life coily hair.
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  October 10, 2024 - People

  How Netflix’s “Rez Ball” Spotlights Indigenous Sports

  Netflix's new movie, "Rez Ball", which premiered late in September highlights indigenous people in sports. The movie stars UC Santa Cruz student, Kauchani Bratt, who is also the nephew of the popular actor Benjamin Bratt. In the article Kauchani talks about his heritage and how he ended up in the movie.
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  October 10, 2024 - Los Angeles Times

  Opinion: Trump says he'll expel a million immigrants. Believe him. It's happened before.

  Dana Frank, University of California, Santa Cruz Research Professor and History Professor Emerita wrote an opinion piece showing "a chilling precedent'' for Donald Trump's threats of mass expulsions if elected president. "During the Great Depression, when many falsely blamed Mexican immigrants and Mexican Americans for the economic crisis, as many as a million were forced out of the country, a majority of whom were U.S. citizens," she wrote.
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  October 10, 2024 - New York Times

  When Harlem Was ‘as Gay as It Was Black’

  Sir Isaac Julien, University of California, Santa Cruz Distinguished Professor of the Arts and Humanities, was featured prominently in a New York Times feature story, "When Harlem Was 'as Gay as It Was Black,' mapping the people, homes and hot spots that transformed the neighborhood during its Renaissance. Julien is an acclaimed filmmaker and artist.
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  October 09, 2024 - Lookout Santa Cruz

  Festival of Monsters brings insight, scholarship to Halloween season

  Lookout highlights the UC Santa Cruz Center for Monster Studies and professor Michael Chemers, the director of the program. October's annual Festival of Monsters highlights monster storytelling on stage, on screen, and more. This years festival is done in collaboration with the Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History.
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  October 08, 2024 - Santa Cruz Sentinel

  Circus performance, silent film screening among Festival of Monsters highlights

  Every year the Center for Monster studies, a multidisciplinary program in the Arts Division, hosts The Festival of Monsters. Through various performances, movies, and collaborations with outside organizations UC Santa Cruz celebrates the history of monsters and what they mean to our culture. Culminating in a monster ball, the next few weeks will be filled with exciting events that are open to the public.
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  October 07, 2024 - Tech and Science Post

  Ending jet lag: Scientists discover secret to regulating our body clock

  “Our findings pinpoint to three specific sites on CK1δ’s tail where phosphate groups can attach, and these sites are crucial for controlling the protein’s activity. When these spots get tagged with a phosphate group, CK1δ becomes less active, which means it doesn’t influence our circadian rhythms as effectively," said Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator Carrie Partch, a professor of chemistry at the University of California, Santa Cruz and corresponding author of the study. "Using high-resolution analysis, we were able to pinpoint the exact sites involved—and that’s really exciting.”

• 
  October 05, 2024 - Popular Science

  Are you my baby? The clever ways that brood parasites trick other birds

  “There’s always something new — it’s like, ‘Oh, man, this group of birds went down a slightly different pathway,’” says behavioral ecologist Bruce Lyon of the University of California, Santa Cruz, who studies the black-headed duck, the sole obligate parasitic duck species.

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  October 03, 2024 - Oceanographic

  Exploring California's enchanting kelp forests

  According to the a study from the University of California, Santa Cruz, led by adjunct professor of ecology and evolutionary biology Tim Tinker, satellite imagery has shown a dramatic reduction in kelp forest coverage, plummeting by over 95% in certain areas of the state. In Northern California, only isolated patches of healthy bull kelp remain. The decimated areas have been overtaken by what scientists refer to as "urchin barrens," where purple sea urchins dominate rocky reefs that were once vibrant with kelp and other algae.

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  October 02, 2024 - National Geographic

  Europa is an icy ocean world—and NASA is finally going to explore it

  Hubble images from around a decade ago hinted that such plumes could be erupting. But “all the detections have been at the detection limits,” says planetary scientist Francis Nimmo of the University of California, Santa Cruz. “If [the plumes] exist, then they're pretty intermittent, and they may not actually be there at all.”

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  October 02, 2024 - Mongabay

  Across reforestation organizations, best practices claims abound, but details are scarce

  Mongabay covered prior research by Environmental Studies Professor Karen Holl on the practices of tree-planting organizations and shared news about a new phase of the research, starting this month, in which the team plans to investigate links between reported practices and reforestation outcomes.
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  October 02, 2024 - Science

  To slow global warming, could methane be stripped from the air

  Science interviewed Environmental Studies Professor Sikina Jinnah about a new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine that recommends a two-phase approach for studying the need and potential for methane removal technology in the United States. Jinnah was a member of a special committee formed by the organization to help develop a research agenda on methane removal. 

September

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  September 25, 2024 - NPR

  How can we bring extinct species back from the dead?

  “It's the icon of how awful we can be,” says Beth Shapiro, a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at UC Santa Cruz. “They went extinct within just a few decades of people first appearing on Mauritius, which is the only place that dodos ever lived.” Shapiro is also a MacArthur Fellow, which scientists commonly refer to as the “Genius Award.”
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  September 26, 2024 - CNA

  Explainer: What sparked Sudan’s civil war and humanitarian crisis

  Politics Professor Mark Fathi Massoud gave a 15-minute interview about the ongoing conflict in Sudan, including the history that led to the current civil war.
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  September 26, 2024 - Los Angeles Times

  Opinion: Imperial County residents deserve to benefit from a potential lithium boom

  Environmental Studies and Sociology Professor Chris Benner, who is the faculty director for the Institute for Social Transformation, co-wrote an opinion article about the need for local communities to benefit from lithium extraction in the Salton Sea region. More detailed coverage is available in The Conversation.
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  September 25, 2024 - The New York Times

  Silicon Valley Renegades Pollute the Sky to Save the Planet

  Environmental Studies Professor Sikina Jinnah explained the harms of unregulated and uninformed solar geoengineering efforts, like the group Make Sunsets. “They are a couple of tech bros who have no expertise in doing what they’re claiming to do,” she said. “They’re not scientists and they’re making claims about cooling credits that nobody has validated.”
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  September 17, 2024 - Financial Express

  Deficits, debt and India’s growth prospects

  Distinguished Professor of Economics Nirvikar Singh wrote an opinion article for Financial Express about the fiscal architecture necessary to managing public debt and deficits in India. 
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  September 17, 2024 - Space.com

  A 'primordial' black hole may zoom through our solar system every decade

  "The black holes we consider in our work are at least 10 billion times lighter than the sun, and are barely larger in size than a hydrogen atom," said study co-author Sarah Geller, a theoretical physicist at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Additional coverage in the Earth.com, Futurism, Gizmodo, Los Angeles Times, Newsweek, and Popular Mechanics.

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  September 18, 2024 - The 19th

  Trump’s claims about Haitians draw from a centuries-long narrative. These women explain why.

  Haitian-American anthropologist Gina Athena Ulysse, a professor of Humanities at the University of California, Santa Cruz, was quoted in detail in a news story by The 19th about former president Donald Trump's debunked comments about Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio. Ulysse said that she's tired of defending her personhood and identity. Following the 2010 Haiti earthquake, Ulysse wrote a book called “Why Haiti Needs New Narratives: A Post-Quake Chronicle” because she found the dehumanizing remarks about Haitians then disturbing.
• 
  September 13, 2024 - WIRED

  The Bird Flu Outbreak Takes a Mysterious Turn

  “Regardless of the source, it’s concerning, because it suggests that there’s a lot of the virus out there,” says David Boyd, a virologist at UC Santa Cruz who studies influenza. “This indicates that there is widespread transmission among animal sources.”

• 
  September 10, 2024 - The Scientist

  A Neural Circuit That Helps Flies Stay on Course

  “These behaviors that they're looking at, goal-directed steering, are universal to animals that navigate,” said Daniel Turner-Evans, a neuroscientist at the University of California, Santa Cruz, who was not involved in the studies. “It's just beautiful to see how these behaviors unfold across these different layers and different neurons in the brain, and how you can create these really nice conceptual and quantitative models that really match the anatomy and the biology.”
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  September 08, 2024 - Forbes

  Oxygen-Poor Rocky Planets May Offer Shortcut To Microbial Life

  Simple life emerged on earth within the first billion years of its habitable window, according to UC Santa Cruz astrophysicist Piero Madau. But finding life in the habitable zones of solar type stars will ultimately require statistical analyses of the population of habitable systems, in-depth studies of the climates of individual planets, and searches for chemical biomarkers, Madau writes.

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  September 08, 2024 - New York Post

  How AI is helping scientists finally predict earthquakes

  Researchers at the UC Berkeley and UC Santa Cruz, including Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences Emily Brodsky, are developing a new model, dubbed RECAST— short for “Recurrent Earthquake foreCAST” — that provides deep learning for earthquake forecasting.
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  September 07, 2024 - CNN

  Landslides are destroying multimillion-dollar homes in California, and they’re getting worse

  Rancho Palos Verdes sits on top of a volcanic ash bed, laid down about 10 to 15 million years ago, that slopes down to the Pacific shoreline. “It has weathered to a type of clay mineral that can expand and get slippery when it gets wet,” said Gary Griggs, distinguished professor of earth and planetary sciences at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

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  September 02, 2024 - Grist

  As ‘doomsday’ glacier melts, can an artificial barrier save it?

  There are other glacier-protecting strategies that avoid the need for curtains or other barriers. Slawek Tulaczyk, a glaciologist at the University of California, Santa Cruz, has proposed stabilizing the two imperiled glaciers by draining the meltwaters that currently seep to their base, lubricating the pinning points and accelerating the glaciers’ seaward flow. By drilling holes through the glaciers and inserting pumps, engineers could dry up the lubricant and bring that flow to a halt. The extracted water could then be sprayed across the glacier surface, where it would freeze, helping to rebuild the glacier.

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  September 11, 2024 - Science Magazine

  Famed Polynesian island did not succumb to ‘ecological suicide,’ new evidence reveals

  Anthropology Professor Lars Fehren-Schmitz, an anthropological geneticist, commented on a new first-of-its-kind study of the genomes of ancient Rapanui, which demonstrates that Rapa Nui, or "Easter Island," did not experience a population crash caused by overexploitation of natural resources. The new results “deliver solid data that the ‘ecocide’ hypothesis is not supported,” said Fehren-Schmitz.
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  September 10, 2024 - KQED

  Kamala Harris Embraced Reparations 5 Years Ago. Her SF Pastor Says Criticism Is Unjust

  Nolan Higdon, a lecturer of history and media studies at UC Santa Cruz, said the strategy of cherry-picking quotes to spread hate is antithetical to democracy. He added that Republicans over the last 50 years have used race-baiting to scare white people into voting for their candidates. “To amplify fear, division and hate, that’s something that all too often politicians do, and it may be good in the short term for their party or election, but it’s really bad in the long term for the country,” Higdon said.

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  September 10, 2024 - KQED

  Fire-Weary Lake County Again Faces a Tough Recovery and Questions Over Rebuilding

  UC Santa Cruz professor Miriam Greenberg, who studies the interconnections between lack of affordable housing and climate catastrophes like fires, cautioned the city and its residents to think about whether rebuilding in Clearlake is a good idea. “It’s a question that should be asked sensitively because a fire may have already displaced them from an affordable housing community,” she said. “We haven’t had these conversations about fire-prone areas, but it’s beginning to happen.”

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  September 09, 2024 - Mongabay

  Association for Tropical Biology and Conservation at 60: A look back and forward

  Colombian ecologist Natalia Ocampo-Peñuela, an assistant professor of environmental studies at UC Santa Cruz, discussed the impact of the Association for Tropical Biology and Conservation. “When you bring conservation in—because conservation is a crisis discipline that deals with imperfect and incomplete data sets—there’s a tension,” she said. “But I’ve seen that tension dissolve at ATBC over the years as basic science is being used to ask conservation questions that could never be asked before.”

• 
  September 09, 2024 - CalMatters

  Hate crimes rise against Indian Americans in California, deepening a divide between Hindus and Sikhs

  Distinguished Professor of Economics Nirvikar Singh, co-author of The Other One Percent: Indians in America, spoke with CalMatters about how issues from India are spilling over into hate crimes against Indian Americans. “The citizens themselves are in some sense all victims of this phenomenon, whether Sikh, Muslim or Hindu or any other religious tradition," he said. "Democracy allows us to work through differences in nonviolent and equalizing ways, but we’re seeing a lot of disruption.”
• 
  September 04, 2024 - Quartz

  Banks seem to be falling totally flat on climate commitments

  Quartz covered a new working paper for the National Bureau of Economic Research by Economics Professor Galina Hale and her collaborators, which found that, while "all banks have reduced their loan-emission exposures over the last 8 years" banks that made public sustainability commitments didn't perform any better in these efforts than those that didn't.
  
  

• 
  September 16, 2024 - Lookout Santa Cruz

  Santa Cruz Symphony launches new season feeling the momentum of last season’s successes

  Former astrophysics professor Martin Gaskell spends his free time writing and playing music. One of his works has been selected as part of the opening concert for the Santa Cruz Symphony. 
• 
  September 12, 2024 - Lookout Santa Cruz

  Santa Cruz plays a key role in Eugene Rodriguez’s road to Mexican American musical tradition

  UC Santa Cruz Alumni Eugene Rodriguez has become widely influential in Mexican American music, especially around the Bay. Along with founding the Los Cenzontles Mexican Art Center in San Pablo, Rodriguez recently released a book, "Bird of Four Hundred Voices." This Saturday Rodriguez will be at Bookshop Santa Cruz to discuss his new book.
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  September 10, 2024 - New York Times

  The Origin Story of Astro Bot’s Likable Little Guy

  Professor of Computational Media Katherine Isbister spoke to the New York Times about what makes a cute video game character.
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  September 11, 2024 - New York Times

  Europeans Used Cocaine Much Earlier Than Previously Thought, Study Finds

  University of California, Santa Cruz Associate Professor of History Benjamin Breen was quoted in detail in a New York Times story about Europeans using cocaine as early as the 17th century, much earlier than previously thought.
• 
  September 05, 2024 - Santa Cruz Sentinel

  UC Santa Cruz researchers awarded National Science Foundation funding

  The Santa Cruz Sentinel reported on UC Santa Cruz Assistant Professor of Applied Mathematics Ashesh Chattopadhyay and Distinguished Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics J. Xavier Prochaska new NSF funded projects to leverage AI and geophysics to address climate change.
• 
  September 08, 2024 - Yahoo News

  Awe and trepidation as AI comes for smartphones

  Assistant Professor of Computer Science and Engineering Leilani Gilpin comments on some of the potential issues with AI on smartphones.

August

• 
  August 29, 2024 - National Geographic

  What would the world look like without mosquitoes?

  Winifred Frick, a bat biologist at the University of California, Santa Cruz, says most bats are actually generalist predators, meaning they eat whatever they can catch—mosquito, beetle, or otherwise.

• 
  August 07, 2024 - Fast Company

  Fake meat's false promise

  Fast Company published an excerpt from Professor Julie Guthman's new book The Problem with Solutions: Why Silicon Valley Can’t Hack the Future of Food. The article takes a critical look at efforts to develop alternative protein sources. 
• 
  August 30, 2024 - Financial Express

  The politics of pensions and savings

  Distinguished Professor of Economics Nirvikar Singh wrote an opinion article for Financial Express recommending that government policy in India should take a comprehensive look at the institutional landscape for pensions and savings. 
• 
  August 29, 2024 - Forbes

  You Might Have Perfect Pitch And Not Even Know It, Study Suggests

  “What this shows is that a surprisingly large portion of the population has a type of automatic, hidden ‘perfect pitch’ ability,” said Matt Evans, a Ph.D. student at UC Santa Cruz who led the study, alongside Psychology Profesor Nicolas Davidenko. Forbes also featured this study in their daily news quiz.

• 
  August 27, 2024 - The New York Times

  With Dams Removed, Salmon Will Have the Run of a Western River

  Environmental Studies Ph.D. student Brook Thompson, who grew up on the Yurok reservation, explained the importance of restoring salmon in the Klamath River to historical levels. “My grandpa said that there were so many salmon when he was younger that you could walk across their backs to the other side,” Thompson said. “It’s just so hard to express to people who are so used to fishing for sport or fun that salmon is really everything for us. The health of the river is literally our health.” Additional coverage in the Los Angeles Times.
• 
  August 27, 2024 - Ed Source

  Let’s ensure ‘Recess for All’ law really does apply to all

  Rebecca London, a professor of sociology and faculty director of Campus + Community at the University of California, Santa Cruz, co-wrote this opinion piece that highlights healthier learning environments California students can expect this fall thanks to the landmark Senate Bill 291. Known as "Recess for All," the bill requires elementary schools to provide students with at least 30 minutes of daily recess, while also prohibiting withholding recess as punishment.
• 
  August 27, 2024 - The Mercury News

  ‘Brutal’ trade-offs keep some South Bay farmworkers laboring in dangerous heat

  Global and Community Health Program co-director Matt Sparke, who is currently studying the impacts of climate change on farmworker health, spoke with The Mercury News about the risks of rising temperatures and the barriers and incentives that keep workers from taking advantage of state-mandated heat protections. 
  “The trade-offs are brutal, and the risks are compounding on so many levels,” Sparke said. 
• 
  August 22, 2024 - The Economist

  America’s recession signals are flashing red. Don’t believe them

  An early-warning system for recessions would be worth trillions of dollars. Governments could dole out stimulus at just the right time; investors could turn a nice profit. Unfortunately, the process for calling a recession is too slow to be useful. America’s arbiter, the National Bureau of Economic Research, can take months to decide. Other countries simply look at gdp data, which emerge with a lag. A new paper by Pascal Michaillat of the University of California, Santa Cruz, adds a second indicator: changes in the job-openings rate.

• 
  August 28, 2024 - Billboard

  UC Santa Cruz’s Quarry Amphitheater gears up for first concert since extensive renovation

  Billboard teases the upcoming return to concerts this fall at the Quarry Amphitheater. The amphitheater officially reopens as a music venue on October 12 with Kevin Morby. This reopening comes after years of being closed due to COVID-19 and rennovations.
• 
  August 22, 2024 - KTVU

  UC Santa Cruz begins DNA study to save endangered brown bears

  It's a race against time to save one of the nation's most iconic animals: the brown bear. As their numbers continue to plummet nationwide, UC Santa Cruz is stepping in with groundbreaking research to unlock the secrets hidden in their DNA by creating a 23andMe concept for bears. Joanna Kelley, an ecology and evolutionary biology professor at UC Santa Cruz and the project's lead investigator, discussed the project.

  Additional coverage by KING5 news.

• 
  August 20, 2024 - Entertainment Weekly

  Alicia Silverstone worries fans after eating potentially poisonous fruit

  Rachel Meyer, an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at UC Santa Cruz, was able to confirm the identity of the plant to Entertainment Weekly as Solanum pseudocapsicum. She noted that the plant "is mildly poisonous but a couple of fruits won't hurt—worst is it could make you vomit."
• 
  August 18, 2024 - KUOW

  San Juans’ sea stars start long crawl back from near-extinction

  “Such a large number were impacted over such a large area that captive rearing probably isn’t realistic for restoring populations,” said Bellingham-based researcher Melissa Miner with University of California, Santa Cruz. “Raising them to sub-adult size takes a lot of time and resources.” Additional coverage in Canadian Geographic.

• 
  August 14, 2024 - Science

  Will regulators OK controversial effort to supercharge ocean’s ability to absorb carbon?

  Given the controversy surrounding geoengineering experiments, it’s important for scientists to do public outreach before experiments happen, Environmental Studies Professor Sikina Jinnah told Science. Although scientists might be inclined to stay in the lab and focus on the technical questions, they need to engage with the public, she says. “Until scientists take this seriously, we’re going to continue being in a holding pattern.”
• 
  August 15, 2024 - Popular Science

  You can (probably) sing better than you think

  Popular Science covered research by cognitive science Ph.D. Candidate Matt Evans and Psychology Professor Nicholas Davidenko that shows a surprisingly large portion of the population has a type of automatic, hidden 'perfect pitch' ability. Additional coverage in Earth, Cosmos, and Yahoo News.
• 
  August 12, 2024 - Business Insider

  There's a 40% chance the US economy is already in a recession, according to a new indicator

  Business Insider covered a new paper coauthored by Associate Professor of Economics Pascal Michaillat that presents a new recession indicator method that uses data on both the unemployment rate and the vacancy rate for jobs.
• 
  August 12, 2024 - The Verge

  A controversial experiment to artificially cool Earth was canceled — what we know about why

  Environmental Studies Professor Sikina Jinnah, who co-chaired the advisory committee for Harvard University's SCoPEX solar geoengineering experiment, talked to The Verge about some of the lessons learned from that process. “One of the core messages that comes out of this is that public engagement is necessary even when you don’t think that the impact of the experiment is going to be felt in a real way, in a concrete way, in real time," she said. "This issue has such a long tail, and it has such deeper meaning for so many people.” 

• 
  August 13, 2024 - CNN

  Fact check: Trump made at least 20 false claims in his conversation with Elon Musk

  Gary Griggs, a University of California, Santa Cruz professor of earth and planetary sciences who studies sea-level rise, said last year that Trump’s similar claims “can only be described as totally out of touch with reality” and that Trump “has no idea what he is talking about.”

• 
  August 12, 2024 - East Bay Times

  A new plan seeks to protect California's coast against a rising ocean. And it doesn't require sea walls.

  “This is the biggest dilemma human civilization has had to face,” said Gary Griggs, a distinguished professor of Earth Sciences at UC Santa Cruz, in an interview earlier this year. “Many of the biggest cities in the world are at sea level. Our options are very few. We have to face it. There is absolutely nothing we can do over the long term to hold back the Pacific Ocean.”

• 
  August 11, 2024 - Los Angeles Times

  Outbreak of neurotoxin killing unprecedented number of sea lions along California coast

  Raphe Kudela, a professor of ocean science at UC Santa Cruz, said there might also be a connection to heat and runoff from inland rivers. He said in the last few years, really wet winters have contributed to an increase in river runoff — and a resulting dump of nutrients into California’s coastal waters. “So you get a pulse of upwelling, which brought some cool water with even more nutrients to the surface, and then everything warmed up. That’s just absolutely perfect conditions for a bloom like this,” he said.

• 
  August 07, 2024 - Scientific American

  Moon ‘Spiders’ Suggest Extensive Underground Lunar Caves

  The researchers spotted the first four spiders hiding almost imperceptibly in a photograph from the powerful cameras on NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter: “The spider legs are almost at the edge of resolution,” says the study’s lead author, Mikhail A. Kreslavsky, a planetary scientist at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

• 
  August 06, 2024 - SF Gate

  Pack of coyotes surround, kill dog on popular San Francisco beach

  A family group of coyotes have dwelled in the Presidio for decades, and the canines visit and occupy beach habitats year-round, which can be important areas for feeding and denning in the same way green spaces and parks are in a highly developed city like San Francisco, said Frankie Gerraty, a Ph.D. student at UC Santa Cruz who has been studying coyotes hunting harbor seal pups along the California coastline.

  “I love dogs and think that dogs should be allowed on some beaches, but I do think that dog owners need to recognize that their dogs can strongly influence beach ecosystems and wildlife in a variety of direct and indirect ways,” Gerraty said.

• 
  August 01, 2024 - The Washington Post

  As India ages, a secret shame emerges: Elders abandoned by their children

  Annapurna Devi Pandey, an anthropologist at the University of California, Santa Cruz, whose research has taken her to homes for the abandoned in her native India, says respect for elders remains ingrained in society, but some must make a difficult choice between caring for their children or their parents. “The sense of duty,” she says, “becomes kind of an existential issue.”

• 
  August 01, 2024 - Thrillist

  Up Close and Personal With the Secret Elephant Seals of Año Nuevo State Park

  University of California, Santa Cruz lecturer Patrick Robinson, who has been studying the pinnipeds for over 20 years, and other scientists affix satellite tracking devices on elephant seals to determine how they migrate with such pinpoint precision. “Better understanding how elephant seals migrate will help us learn more about other deep-ocean-dwelling mammals, such as elusive beaked whales that have experienced mass stranding events,” Robinson explains.

July

• 
  July 30, 2024 - The Hill

  California’s housing crisis could be raising risk of climate disasters, researchers fear

  The Hill covered research being led by Sociology Professor Miriam Greenberg and Associate Professor of Sociology Hillary Angelo, which is testing the theory that lack of affordable housing in California’s urban centers may be fueling increased development in adjacent wildlands—exacerbating the impacts of climate change.
• 
  July 26, 2024 - Financial Express

  The Budget and the end of ‘reform’

  Distinguished Professor of Economics Nirvikar Singh wrote an opinion article for Financial Express arguing that the complex nature of modern manufacturing makes tariff policy difficult to implement perfectly in India, but minimal attempts at fine-tuning are a good sign.
• 
  July 22, 2024 - Los Angeles Times

  Could AI robots with lasers make herbicides — and farm workers — obsolete?

  Chris Benner, professor of sociology and environmental studies and director of the Institute for Social Transformation, likened the disruptive potential of new agricultural tools. “We need more efficiencies in agriculture to improve profit margins and be able to pay workers in the field more, but that’s ultimately going to displace some people,” Benner said. “What do we do, in that context, to support people who need new training into other types of jobs? The social challenges are much harder than the technical training challenges.”
• 
  July 17, 2024 - Sierra

  Prisoners Are Uniquely Vulnerable to Extreme Heat and Flooding

  Several options exist for dealing with climate hazards in California prisons, explains Abby Cunniff, a PhD candidate at the University of California, Santa Cruz, who studies environmental injustice and California prisons. One is to make prisons more durable to climate effects. 

• 
  July 31, 2024 - Santa Cruz Sentinel

  UC Santa Cruz awarded portion of federal coastal resiliency grant

  UC Santa Cruz will receive more than $2 million in federal grant funding from the total $71.1 million recently awarded to the California Marine Sanctuary Foundation to boost the resiliency of coastal communities threatened by sea level rise and extreme weather.

• 
  July 31, 2024 - San Jose Mercury News

  Peregrine falcons mount a comeback in Yosemite, thanks to rock climbers

  The Santa Cruz Predatory Bird Research Group hired climbers to gather egg shell samples from the nest ledges for testing. Then the group launched a bold plan: take the thin-walled eggs from nests, incubate and hatch them in the safety of a laboratory, and return the young to the nests.

• 
  July 31, 2024 - The Guardian

  Scientists propose lunar biorepository as ‘backup’ for life on Earth

  “In order for cloning to be an option, one needs cells that are alive,” said Beth Shapiro, a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at UC Santa Cruz and chief science officer of the de-extinction company Colossal Biosciences, who was not involved in the lunar biorepository proposal. This means it is not possible to clone a woolly mammoth from DNA fragments, she explained, but de-extinction is possible if tissue samples are collected and stored in a way that ensures the cells stay alive.
• 
  July 24, 2024 - KneeDeep Times

  Letting the Cliff Crumble

  Which is exactly why fellow UCSC Professor Mike Beck, director of the Center for Coastal Climate Resilience, believes “moving back,” also called planned relocation or managed retreat, also isn’t a viable solution for West Cliff despite the fact it’s another key strategy of the 50-Year Vision. “To me, it’s simply an easy way to kick the can down the road and pretend like it’s actually a strategy.”
• 
  July 24, 2024 - SF Gate

  What it's like to live in a Calif. tourist attraction being swallowed by the sea

  The flooding along the Capitola coastline is only likely to get worse as climate change progresses, according to Gary Griggs, a professor of Earth and planetary sciences at UC Santa Cruz, who has been working in the area for more than 50 years.

• 
  July 18, 2024 - Santa Cruz Sentinel

  UC Santa Cruz workshop explores brain-inspired computing

  “This workshop is just as much about workforce development as it is about the future of semiconductors,” said assistant professor of physics Aiming Yan. “Being so close to Silicon Valley, we want to help students across the region realize that this is a promising area to pursue a career in.”

• 
  July 17, 2024 - New Atlas

  Our brains take naps while we're awake – and wake when we're asleep

  A study on brain waves from Distinguished Professor of Biomolecular Engineering David Haussler's lab was featured in New Atlas. Additional coverage in Earth.com.
• 
  July 16, 2024 - KQED

  Algal Blooms Love Heat Waves. When is Bay Area Swimming Dangerous for Humans and Pets?

  Not every algal bloom is toxic to humans and animals, but the bright green bloom currently floating on the surface of Discovery Bay definitely could be, said Raphael Kudela, a phytoplankton ecologist at UC Santa Cruz. This bloom is caused by cyanobacteria, which Kudela describes as “harmful algae that produces really nasty toxins.”

• 
  July 16, 2024 - Santa Cruz Sentinel

  Guest Commentary | Unions benefit workers — and employers

  Veronica Hamilton, a graduate student researcher for the Center for Labor and Community, and Teresa Ghilarducci, a researcher collaborating with the center, wrote an opinion article for the Santa Cruz Sentinel about the importance of labor unions. They write that union activity creates a "ripple effect" that ultimately "lifts living standards and promotes dignity in work across the economy."
• 
  July 11, 2024 - Rest of World

  The Northeast Indian YouTubers challenging cultural stereotypes through mukbang

  Anthropology Professor Dolly Kikon says viral mukbang videos from Northeast India show an intimate relationship between tribal communities, their land, and natural resources. “In these videos, food from the source to the table is being emphasized," she told Rest of World. "There is [an] assertion of indigeneity, there is an element of ecology.  In a few minutes, they [the creators] are bringing the entire landscape in, and telling their own story.” 

• 
  July 10, 2024 - Canadian Geographic

  Melting away: The fight against Sea Star Wasting Disease

  Carrie Melissa Miner, an Academic Specialist with UC Santa Cruz and researcher at MARINe, says that instances of Sea Star Wasting Disease are difficult to study due to the limited stress responses that sea stars exhibit. “When sea stars are observed with lesions or tissue necrosis, particularly when there are just a handful of individuals, we cannot be sure whether symptoms are a result of disease or from another cause such as injury incurred from a predation attempt that exposed tissue to bacteria/infection,” she says.

• 
  July 12, 2024 - Scientific American

  How Antarctic Scientists Think about the Future of Our Planet

  Another episode of Scientific American's Science Quickly podcast featured UC Santa Cruz chemical oceanographers Carl Lamborg and Phoebe Lam and doctoral student Marissa Despins. The three discussed how the climate crisis intertwines with their work. Listen to the previous episodes on June 14 and June 28.
• 
  July 12, 2024 - Washington Post

  Webb space telescope keeps delivering cosmic surprises

  Garth Illingworth, an astronomer at the University of California at Santa Cruz who was among the people who dreamed up the Webb in the late 1980s, said the telescope has assembled a vast amount of data on exoplanets — the worlds that orbit distant stars. That data still needs to be assembled into a coherent picture, he added. “It is a little like an alien walking through an earthly zoo, looking at the vast range of animals and then trying to assemble the relationships and common aspects,” he said.

• 
  July 15, 2024 - San Francisco Chronicle: Datebook

  In ‘Seeing Through Stone,’ artists imagine a world without prisons

  Highlights from 'Seeing Through Stone,' an exhibition co-created with the Institute of Arts and Science and the San Jose Museum of Art. The UC Santa Cruz sponsored show includes artists from all over the country reflecting on incarceration and prison abolition.
• 
  July 12, 2024 - The Santa Cruz Sentinel

  Filmmakers of ‘You Will Not Replace Us’ attend screening, discussion in Capitola

  This week, the Santa Cruz Sentinel covered a panel discussion moderated by University of California, Santa Cruz Continuing Lecturer in History and Literature Bruce Thompson, who spoke with the filmmakers of “You Will Not Replace Us,"which confronts the complex relationship between Black and Jewish Americans and the common struggle to fight hate.
• 
  July 05, 2024 - The Pajaronian

  Going forth for beach cleanup

  UC Santa Cruz chemistry professor Rebecca Braslau, whose team is working on methods to break down post-consumer plastic and turn it into something useful, was collecting trash to get a boots-on-the-ground view of the scope of plastic waste. “We try to raise awareness about single-use plastic items in general, and this is part of that,” she said.

• 
  July 05, 2024 - East Bay Times

  Fremont blames heat for massive Lake Elizabeth fish die-off

  Mark Carr, a professor of marine ecology at the University of California, Santa Cruz, said the fish are suffocating because they are competing with the lake’s ecosystem over the limited oxygen and losing ... “You can get phytoplankton blooms, algal blooms, at night that the phytoplankton respires, which means it consumes oxygen, so then it too will reduce the oxygen levels in the water – especially in the shallow water that is more vulnerable to the heat.”
• 
  July 02, 2024 - Santa Cruz Sentinel

  UC Santa Cruz community archivist named Watsonville Film Festival board president

  UC Santa Cruz's first community archivists, Rebecca Hernandez, will be taking over as the President of the Watsonville Film Festival. She was on the board for the festival and is excited to be taking over from former president Yazmin Herrera. Hernandez hopes to expand the organization, bringing in more filmmakers and more voices.
• 
  June 26, 2024 - Santa Cruz Sentinel

  Talking Heads fans rejoice: Jerry Harrison, ‘Stop Making Sense’ coming to UC Santa Cruz

  UC Santa Cruz's Quarry Amphitheater is hosting a one of a kind showing on the 1984 concert movie 'Stop Making Sense.'

June

• 
  June 27, 2024 - Miami Herald

  Harsh Florida law sees more Black kids tried as adults than white kids

  The Miami Herald interviewed Psychology Professor Craig Haney about the possible impacts of a Florida law that has seen more juveniles tried as adults. “For young people who are in the process of development and haven’t fully learned social skills … this is an experience that damages their maturation,” Haney said.
• 
  June 18, 2024 - Grist

  Chicago teachers demand climate solutions in their next contract

  As heat and extreme weather become more prevalent because of the climate crisis, J. Mijin Cha, an environmental studies professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz, said it makes sense that climate demands are turning up in union negotiations. “If you want a green school, you have to really think about what the challenges of the climate crisis will bring to students who are trying to study,” said Cha. “Things like heat and other things that will intensify from the climate crisis are then educational issues.”

• 
  June 26, 2024 - Sky & Telescope

  New Observatory Opens in the Young Country of Kosovo

  Pranvera Hyseni is a force of nature when it comes to pursuing her passion. Currently a PhD student at the University of California, Santa Cruz, Pranvera studies the composition of meteorites. Nevertheless, she found the time and energy to not only engage in cutting-edge research but also to establish her country’s premier astronomical facility. Additional coverage by Radio Free Europe.
• 
  June 28, 2024 - Scientific American

  Life for Researchers on This Icebreaker Is Cold and Fulfilling

  Scientific American interviewed UC Santa Cruz chemical oceanographers Carl Lamborg and Phoebe Lam and doctoral student Marissa Despins about how researchers live and work on a U.S. icebreaker making its way through the waters of West Antarctica.
• 
  June 28, 2024 - CNN

  Fact check: Sea levels are already rising faster per year than Trump claims they might rise over ‘next 497 years’

  Gary Griggs, a University of California, Santa Cruz professor of earth and planetary sciences who studies sea level rise, said last year that Trump’s similar claims "can only be described as totally out of touch with reality" and that Trump "has no idea what he is talking about."

  Additional coverage by Yahoo News and KTEN-TV.

• 
  June 24, 2024 - Smithsonian Magazine

  These Supercorals Are Causing Problems

  Despite how placid corals appear, in reality they’re constantly competing with each other, explains Giacomo Bernardi, a molecular ecologist at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and the lead author of the new study. Once one species has an advantage—for instance, being more resilient against warming water, acidification or different fishing practices—it will outcompete other species, Bernardi says. “It’s going to overgrow the other ones.”

• 
  June 25, 2024 - earth.com

  Hydrothermal vents could support life on Jupiter's moons

  “This study suggests that low temperature hydrothermal systems could have been sustained on ocean worlds beyond Earth over timescales comparable to that required for life to take hold on Earth,” said Andrew Fisher, the study’s lead author and a distinguished professor of Earth and planetary sciences at UC Santa Cruz.

  Additional coverage in Space.com, Live Science and Yahoo.

• 
  June 25, 2024 - Ars Technica

  Researchers upend AI status quo by eliminating matrix multiplication in LLMs

  Assistant Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering Jason Eshraghian's research on energy effecient large language models was featured in Ars Tecnica, with additional coverage in Venture Beat, The Register, and Tech Xplore.
• 
  June 20, 2024 - NBC Miami

  UM develops artificial reef as coral restoration efforts put on hold

  “We’re facing increasing risks on our coastline, that’s because of enhanced coastal development but also loss of our coastal habitats," said Dr. Mike Beck, the director of the Center for Coastal Resilience at the University of California at Santa Cruz. "Those habitats are our first line of coastal defense, coral reefs, mangroves and other wetlands, and without those reefs the cost of storms could double, so what we’re trying to do is restore those reefs, enhance those protections and reduce our risks overall."
• 
  June 14, 2024 - BBC

  Antarctic whale 'acrobatics' revealed in drone footage

  As BBC News filmed with scientists in the Antarctic Peninsula, one whale used its four-metre-long fin to sweep a net of bubbles around its prey and trap them, known as "bubble-netting". "The flick of that of that flipper really shows how adaptable, how creative, these animals can be," said Dr Ari Friedlaender from the University of California, Santa Cruz. Humpbacks are "much more acrobatic" than other similarly sized whales, Dr Friedlaender said.

• 
  June 14, 2024 - Scientific American

  Glacial Melting Could Change the Chemistry of Antarctic Seawater

  Phoebe Lam, a chemical oceanographer at the University of California, Santa Cruz, is featured in Scientific American's Science Quickly podcast episode on how an iron infusion from glacial meltwater might change Antarctica’s seas and the climate.

• 
  June 12, 2024 - The Atlantic

  A Wild Plan to Avert Catastrophic Sea-Level Rise

  An audacious plan to avert sea-level rise was dreamed up by a member of the older guard, a 57-year-old glaciologist at UC Santa Cruz named Slawek Tulaczyk.

• 
  June 14, 2024 - ABC News

  Extra moisture on West Coast allowing climate-sensitive Joshua trees to recover: Experts

  The obligate mutualism between the moth and the Joshua tree is limited to a narrow belt where the trees grow best, as neither can survive at high elevations, but the tree cannot reproduce in low elevations either, according to research led by UC Santa Cruz professor of environmental studies Gregory Gilbert.

• 
  June 10, 2024 - Deadline

  Sundance Institute sets Producers Lab Fellows for 2024

  The Sundance Institute selected UC Santa Cruz Alumna, Brenda Avila-Hanna (2013, M.F.A. Social Documentary) as one of their producing fellows for the upcoming season.
• 
  June 09, 2024 - Times of San Diego

  UCSD-UCSC Coastal Project Highlights Importance of Building Local Resilience to Climate Change

  The University of California at Santa Cruz’s Center for Coastal Climate Resilience is working on a project to explore local mitigations along with UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography and the San Diego Supercomputer Center, using cutting-edge technology and natural structures to model climate solutions. “A great deal of risk is driven by our coastal development choices,” said Michael Beck, a UC Santa Cruz marine sciences professor and the Center for Coastal Climate Resilience director.
• 
  June 07, 2024 - BBC

  Following Antarctic whales for climate change clues

  Natalia Botero Acosta, a postdoctoral researcher at UC Santa Cruz, takes samples of whale blubber with a crossbow, and tests them in her lab to look for signs of hunger, stress or pregnancy, using chemical signals, or hormones, that build up in its blubber.
• 
  June 10, 2024 - American Council Of Learned Societies

  Experiential learning at the University of California, Santa Cruz: How one dean collaborated with others to recenter the humanities and expand experiential learning

  Heather Hewett of the The American Councll Of Learned Societies wrote a feature story for the ACLS focusing on Employing Humanities and Experiential Learning in the Humanities Division at UC Santa Cruz, and Humanities Dean Jasmine Alinder's work to center Humanities and expand Experiential Learning on campus.
• 
  June 08, 2024 - Financial Express

  Restating status as largest democracy

  Distinguished Professor of Economics Nirvikar Singh wrote an opinion article for Financial Express analyzing outcomes from India's recent elections and their potential economic impacts. 
• 
  June 07, 2024 - KSQD

  Sowing Seeds: Stories of Filipino Immigrants in Pajaro Valley

  A look into the Sowing Seeds exhibition at the Santa Cruz Museum of Art History, which was curated by PhD candidate Christina Alyson Plank. The work examines the lives of Filipino Americans in the Pajaro Valley over the last century. The podcast intervews Grace McCarty, one of the members of Watsonville is in the Heart, one of the organizations that help establish this exhibition.

May

• 
  May 31, 2024 - National Geographic

  Don't cut them down: Letting dead trees rot can help make new life

  “Wood-decay basidiomycetes are unusual in that they can break down a major compound of the wood called lignin,” says Gregory Gilbert, a professor of environmental studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz. “Once that is broken down, the easier-to-eat cellulose is available for other fungi, insects, and bacteria.”

• 
  May 30, 2024 - Financial Express

  Put food and water on the policy table

  In this opinion piece, Nirvikar Singh, a professor of economics, argues that redesigning agriculture policy around ideas of growing food and preserving water resources, and starting with farmers, makes political and economic sense.

• 
  May 29, 2024 - Internationale Politik Quarterly

  How to Help Build Peace in Sudan

  Politics Professor and Legal Studies Program Director Mark Fathi Massoud wrote for Internationale Politik Quarterly about the steps EU policymakers must take to support Sudanese civil society, cut off weapons supplies to militias, and prevent a catastrophic humanitarian crisis.
• 
  May 30, 2024 - The Guardian

  James Webb space telescope photographs most distant known galaxy

  Prof Brant Robertson, of the University of California-Santa Cruz, said: “We could have detected this galaxy even if it were 10 times fainter, which means that we could see other examples yet earlier in the universe – probably into the first 200m years. The early universe has so much more to offer.”

  Additional coverage in Scientific American.

• 
  May 29, 2024 - Martha's Vineyard Times

  Herring runs depleted across the Island

  A study by researchers at the University of California Santa Cruz has concluded that “bycatch was an important source of mortality” for river herring “originating from rivers within the Mid-Atlantic and Southern New England.”

• 
  May 29, 2024 - The Atlantic

  ‘La Niña Really Can’t Come Soon Enough’

  "California loves El Niño because that rescued us last year from the drought," Alexa Fredston, a quantitative ecologist at UC Santa Cruz, told me. The climate phenomenon should cool the world. But first, we have to make it through another sweltering summer.

• 
  May 30, 2024 - Yahoo News

  TV's teen love stories are getting the 'grid treatment' on social media.

  Associate Professor L. S. Kim comments on modern teen shows and their iconography, focusing on the similar moments between teen shows throughout the past 25 years.
• 
  May 23, 2024 - Gizmodo

  NASA Releases Catalog Packed With the Most Bizarre Alien Worlds

  “Planets similar in size typically have a mass between roughly 6 and 12 times the mass of Earth,” explained Joseph Murphy, a graduate student at UC Santa Cruz and co-author of the study. This “exoplanet oddity” as Murphy refers to it, may have an Earth-like core surrounded by an unusually thin, hydrogen-dominated atmosphere, or it could have a water-rich core beneath a steam atmosphere. Additional coverage by CNN Brasil.

• 
  May 23, 2024 - Forbes

  Russia’s Stationing A Nuclear ASAT In Orbit Could Spark Next World War

  Astrophysicist Joel Primack, Distinguished Professor of Physics Emeritus at the University of California, Santa Cruz, said: “If ~1000 Starlink satellites were explosively destroyed, a debris chain reaction would create a lethal debris field” - a giant and deathly halo of “tiny missiles” that circles the Earth for generations into the future.

• 
  May 29, 2024 - Santa Cruz Sentinel

  Museum of Art & History exhibit highlights Filipino American stories

  The Santa Cruz Sentinel ran a feature story about "Sowing Seeds," an ongoing Museum of Art & History exhibit highlighting Filipino American history in the Pajaro Valley. The exhibition is the result of a prestigious $75,000 Public Humanities Projects: Exhibitions Planning grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to Watsonville Is In The Heart (WIITH), housed in The Humanities Institute at UC Santa Cruz. 
• 
  May 27, 2024 - Phys.org

  Camera tags capture social flexibility of Antarctic minke whales

  The study was led by Dr. Jenny Allen as a Griffith University Research Associate in collaboration with the University of California Santa Cruz (UCSC). Data were collected in 2018 and 2019 around the Western Antarctic Peninsula as part of a research grant from the National Science Foundation's Office of Polar Programs to Dr. Ari Friedlaender, a Professor in UCSC's Ocean Sciences Department.
• 
  May 24, 2024 - Newsweek

  Dead Baby Sea Lions Suddenly Found on California Islands Spark Concerns

  According to a report by the Los Angeles Times on Thursday, Patrick Robinson, director at the University of California Santa Cruz Año Nuevo Reserve, said it is not uncommon to see "some" dead baby sea lions around this time of year; however, he said the number observed this month is "alarming."

  Additional coverage by KSBW, Newsweek, SFGate, SFist, and other outlets.

• 
  May 23, 2024 - Eos

  Confined at Sea at the End of the World

  Embedded on a research cruise in the Antarctic, a journalist joins a scientists’ “summer camp” led by UC Santa Cruz researchers.
• 
  May 23, 2024 - KPBS

  As lithium emerges in Imperial County, what will it take for residents to benefit?

  KPBS spoke with Chris Benner, faculty director of the Institute for Social Transformation, about findings from a report he recently coauthored on equitable economic development opportunities for lithium in California's Imperial Valley. 
• 
  May 21, 2024 - Santa Cruz Sentinel

  Mountain lion prompts brief lockdown at Aptos High School

  Environmental Studies Professor Chris Wilmers, founder of the Santa Cruz Puma Project, spoke with the Santa Cruz Sentinel about local mountain lion behavior. 
• 
  May 22, 2024 - The Good Times

  Turning Pages: UC Santa Cruz keeps Santa Cruz County reading

  The Good Times ran a detailed feature story celebrating The Humanities Institute's Deep Read Program, now in its fifth year. This year's edition featured Hernan Diaz’s bestselling and Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Trust. 
• 
  May 16, 2024 - The Conversation

  You should call House members ‘representatives,’ because that’s what they are − not ‘congressmen’ or ‘congresswomen’

  Politics Department Professor and Chair Daniel Wirls wrote an article for The Conversation explaining that the gender-neutral term "representative" is actually the most constitutionally correct way to refer to members of the U.S. House of Representatives.
• 
  May 19, 2024 - The Verge

  Two students find security bug that could let millions do laundry for free

  The Verge reports that two UCSC engineering students discovered a security vulnerability in internet-connected laundry machines that could allow millions to do laundry for free. Additional coverage in Tech Crunch.
• 
  May 21, 2024 - EarthSky

  Scientists discover a nitroplast, the 1st of its kind

  The discovery of the organelle involved a bit of luck and decades of work. In 1998, Jonathan Zehr, a UC Santa Cruz distinguished professor of marine sciences, found a short DNA sequence of what appeared to be from an unknown nitrogen-fixing cyanobacterium in Pacific Ocean seawater. Zehr and colleagues spent years studying the mystery organism, which they called UCYN-A.
• 
  May 16, 2024 - Reuters

  Sea otters get more prey and reduce tooth damage using tools

  The frequency of tool-use behavior varies, with some otters doing it more than 90% of the time when feeding and others rarely or never, according to study co-author Rita Mehta, a University of California, Santa Cruz functional and comparative biologist. "Females need the calories. They are smaller than males, and pregnant or nursing females have elevated caloric demands. Tool-using females were shown to consume a greater proportion of very large prey to help them meet their caloric needs," Mehta said.

  Additional coverage by FOX Weather, Popular Science, Science Magazine, KXAN, and many other outlets.

• 
  May 18, 2024 - Mercury News

  Capitola Wharf, wrecked in huge winter storms, set to reopen after $10 million upgrade

  "There’s been a long history of construction and destruction at the Capitola Wharf," said Gary Griggs, a professor of Earth sciences at UC Santa Cruz. "It’s sort of like the Big Sur Highway."
• 
  May 14, 2024 - Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News

  Platelet Pathway More Traveled with Age, Leads to Excessive Clotting

  Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology News covered Camilla Forsberg's lab's discovery of a secondary population of platelet cells that lead to excessive clotting. 
• 
  May 09, 2024 - New York Times

  Tuna Crabs, Neither Tuna Nor Crabs, Are Swarming Near San Diego

  Megan Cimino, an assistant researcher at the Institute of Marine Sciences at the University of California, Santa Cruz, quoted. While the link between tuna crab aggregations and El Niño isn’t exactly clear cut, “when we think about climate change, the first thing to come to mind might be warming temperatures, but climate change can result in more variable ocean conditions” as well, Dr. Cimino said.

   

  Additional coverage in the Smithsonian Magazine.

• 
  May 03, 2024 - Los Angeles Times

  As dismantling of largest dam begins on Klamath River, activists see ‘new beginning’

  Environmental Studies Ph.D. student Brook Thompson, a Yurok tribe member, spoke with the Los Angeles Times about her activism for dam removal along the Klamath River and how it feels to now see the river's largest dam being dismantled.
• 
  May 07, 2024 - NASA

  How NASA’s Roman Mission Will Hunt for Primordial Black Holes

  “Detecting a population of Earth-mass primordial black holes would be an incredible step for both astronomy and particle physics because these objects can’t be formed by any known physical process,” said William DeRocco, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California Santa Cruz.

  Additional cover on Space.com.

• 
  May 07, 2024 - Drug Discovery News

  A new Goldilocks drug class: macrocyclic peptides

  Based on the clinical trial data so far, other macrocyclic peptide researchers are excited about MK-0616’s potential and what it means for future macrocyclic peptide drugs. “What it does show is the incredible potency that you can get with these larger compounds against undruggable targets that have previously been impossible to inhibit with small molecules,” said Scott Lokey, a chemist at the University of California, Santa Cruz who was not involved with developing MK-0616.

• 
  May 06, 2024 - SF Gate

  California's historic piers are deteriorating. Should we save them?

  UC Santa Cruz professor and director for the UCSC Center for Coastal Climate Resilience Michael Beck told SFGATE that decisions like this may feel right at the time, but "if you really want it to be around for that time period, then we should take those costs now. … But as costs balloon over time, UCSC’s Beck said, the question of whether to save these beautiful relics of the past will become harder and harder for community leaders to answer.

• 
  May 03, 2024 - Mercury News

  Peregrine falcon webcam up and running on Alcatraz Island

  “A lot of people are surprised to find out that a prey bird like this, a symbol of wilderness, can be living in urban areas and doing so well,” said Zeka Glucs, director of the Predatory Bird Research Group at UC Santa Cruz. “People really fall in love with them.”

• 
  May 03, 2024 - Mercury News

  Our brains are growing. Will that help prevent dementia?

  Distinguished Professor of Biomolecular Engineering David Haussler's research on human genomic evolution was mentioned in a Mercury News story on the effects of the increasing size of human brains.

April

• 
  April 26, 2024 - Santa Cruz Sentinel

  Right Livelihood Conference features activists from around globe

  The Santa Cruz Sentinel covered the Right Livelihood International Conference at UC Santa Cruz, which brought together global leaders of social and environmental justice movements. 
• 
  April 29, 2024 - Financial Express

  Pivoting India’s growth strategy

  Distinguished Professor of Economics Nirvikar Singh wrote an op-ed for Financial Express about how India can foster greater export competitiveness to accelerate and broaden the dynamics of industrial growth.
• 
  April 18, 2024 - Associated Press

  What we know about the shooting of an Uber driver in Ohio and the scam surrounding it

  Anthony Pratkanis, an emeritus psychology professor, spoke to the Associated Press about the increasing prevalence of so-called "grandparent scams" in the past decade and explained how these scams typically work. 
• 
  April 30, 2024 - Space.com

  NASA's TESS exoplanet hunter may have spotted its 1st rogue planet

  "Definitely a ten out of ten excitement from me," William DeRocco, team co-leader and a researcher at the University of California Santa Cruz, told Space.com. "I'm used to looking for dark matter, where the odds of actually seeing anything are wildly low, so the potential of discovering something like a rogue world drifting in the darkness of interstellar space is just incredible."

• 
  April 30, 2024 - New Scientist

  How could we make a solar eclipse happen every day?

  In this episode of Dead Planets Society, hosts Leah Crane and Chelsea Whyte are joined by astronomer Bruce Macintosh at the University of California, Santa Cruz, in their attempts to fix this problem and conjure up a total solar eclipse that is accessible to all.

• 
  April 23, 2024 - The Independent

  Two lifeforms merge into one organism for first time in a billion years

  “The first time we think it happened, it gave rise to all complex life,” said Tyler Coale, a postdoctoral researcher at University of California, Santa Cruz, who led the research on one of two recent studies that uncovered the phenomenon. “Everything more complicated than a bacterial cell owes its existence to that event. A billion years ago or so, it happened again with the chloroplast, and that gave us plants.”

  Additional coverage in New Scientist, El Huff Post, and many other news outlets.

• 
  April 23, 2024 - Smithsonian

  Bioluminescence First Evolved in Animals at Least 540 Million Years Ago

  Bioluminescence first evolved in animals at least 540 million years ago in a group of marine invertebrates called octocorals, according to the results of a new study from scientists with the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, and UC Santa Cruz's Steven Haddock.
• 
  April 25, 2024 - New York Times

  What Will Happen to West Cliff Drive in Santa Cruz?

  Gary Griggs, a professor of earth sciences who has taught at the University of California, Santa Cruz, since the 1960s, said that the conversation around West Cliff Drive reflected the realities of “living on the California coast and having developed right up to the edge.”

• 
  April 30, 2024 - Technology Networks

  Advances in Liquid Biopsies: Improving Sensitivity and Earlier Detection

  Associate Professor of Biomolecular Engineering Daniel Kim was featured in a Technology Networks story on advances in liquid biopsy technology for cancer detection, his area of expertise. 
• 
  April 28, 2024 - San Francisco Chronicle

  Isaac Julien’s SFMOMA installation sets scene for most successful Art Bash ever

  Distinguished professor from UC Santa Cruz Isaac Julian premiered an installation at the SFMOMA as part of the museums Art Bash.
• 
  April 19, 2024 - Seattle Times

  A celebrity seal was moved 125 miles away in B.C. He showed up again days later.

  Roxanne Beltran, an ecology and biology professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz, said many elephant seals travel to locations where they feel comfortable — typically their birthplaces — when they begin molting around April. She said it’s still a mystery how elephant seals know how to get back there. “Something about [Emerson’s] past experiences have informed his decision to stay, and whether that’s the amount of space or the amount of food … he seems to have found a place that he likes,” Beltran said.

• 
  April 17, 2024 - Los Angeles Times

  We can’t stop Highway 1 from crumbling into the sea. Here’s why

  The same features that give the Central California coastline its majestic views also make it volatile. As Gary Griggs, a professor of earth sciences at UC Santa Cruz, explained, that is mainly because California is young—in a geological sense—and still settling in.

  Related coverage in the San Francisco Chronicle.

• 
  April 16, 2024 - Forbes

  Space Experts Debate How To De-Escalate Russian Threats Of Orbital War

  “Any kind of space warfare will put all satellites at risk,” astrophysicist Joel Primack, a professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz, said in an interview. “The SpaceX Starlink satellites orbit at an altitude of about 550 km. That’s high enough that if they were targeted, the debris would remain in orbit for centuries.”

• 
  April 05, 2024 - National Institutes of Health Newsroom

  NIBIB-led program has helped innovators pursue commercialization for a decade, three medtech participants share their experiences

  Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering Shiva Abbaszadeh's pathway to commercializing her x-ray detector technology was featured in an article about the anniversary of the The National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering's Concept to Clinic: Commercializing Innovation (C3i) program.
  
• 
  April 17, 2024 - Genome Web

  Nanopore-Based Single-Molecule Detection Tech Shows Promise for Viral Load Tracking

  Genome Web reports on technology developed by UCSC Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering Holger Schmidt for detecting COVID-19 and the Zika virus.  
• 
  April 13, 2024 - The Guardian

  The photographer who captured Black San Francisco in the 1960s: ‘We wouldn’t have seen it without him’

  UC Santa Cruz Professor Emeritus Lewis Watts comments on collection of photos capturing people of color in San Francisco in the 1960s.
• 
  April 08, 2024 - Architectural Digest

  The 64 Prettiest College Campuses in America

  Architectural Digest names UC Santa Cruz amongst the prettiest college campuses in the United States.
• 
  April 04, 2024 - MIT Technology Review

  The hard lessons of Harvard’s failed geoengineering experiment

  Environmental Studies Professor Sikina Jinnah, who co-chaired the Advisory Committee for Harvard's proposed SCoPEX solar geoengineering experiment, told MIT Technology Review that the need for early public engagement in future research proposals is one of the major take-home lessons from the project. 
• 
  April 09, 2024 - KALW

  Confirmation Bias In Policing And The American Nightmare

  Distinguished Professor of Psychology Craig Haney joined KALW radio show Your Legal Rights for a discussion of confirmation bias in prosecution. 
• 
  April 10, 2024 - San Francisco Public Press

  Overdose Deaths Swell Among SF’s Maya Residents, Highlighting Urgent Need for Culturally Competent Drug Health Services

  The San Francisco Public Press covered research by Global and Community Health core faculty member and Assistant Professor of Latin American and Latino Studies Carlos Martinez that showed most Latinx and Indigenous people in San Francisco who consumed drugs had very little knowledge of risks associated with those substances.
• 
  April 11, 2024 - Monterey County Weekly

  Local kelp forests continue to die off. Can they be saved? Divers say yes, but scientists and regulators want more answers.

  When divers, scientists and others started noticing kelp forests dying off around the Monterey Peninsula in 2015 and earlier, many were alarmed. But Mark Carr, a marine ecology professor at UC Santa Cruz who’s considered one of the foremost experts on kelp forests, wasn’t one of them. “It’s been 10 years now, and frankly people like me, marine ecologists, said, ‘Calm down, kelp will come back. Kelp comes and goes,’” Carr says. “We were wrong.”

• 
  April 11, 2024 - NewScientist

  A bacterium has evolved into a new cellular structure inside algae

  In the 3.5 billion years since life first evolved on Earth, it was thought that once-free-living bacteria had merged with other organisms on just three occasions, making this an exceedingly rare evolutionary event. Now, a fourth example has been found, in a single-celled alga common in the oceans. Tyler Coale at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and his colleagues have now shown that this bacterium has evolved into a new cellular structure, or organelle. It is the first known nitrogen-fixing organelle, or nitroplast, says Coale, and could be the key to the success of these algae.

• 
  April 08, 2024 - NECN

  Professor returns to childhood home to watch solar eclipse

  Robert Irion, emeritus director of the UC Santa Cruz Science Communication Program, featured in TV news report by NBC affiliate NECN. "When I saw the pathway of the 2024 eclipse, and realized it was going through my hometown, I knew instantly—at that moment—that I wanted to back in this spot to watch the eclipse because it would mean so much to me personally to be back here where it all started and set the stage for my whole career."
• 
  April 10, 2024 - Chronicle of Higher Education

  What Does an A Really Mean?

  "While within a given course an A may be tied to consistent criteria, across courses and especially across institutions, it’s what people in my field of literary studies would call an 'arbitrary signifier.' That is, it means whatever the individual faculty member says it means. Much too often — though not always — in the postsecondary sector, it means 'showing evidence of prior educational privilege.'" — Jody Greene, associate campus provost for academic success at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
• 
  April 01, 2024 - The Guardian

  California’s Highway 1 road conditions will only get riskier, experts say

  “We have been lucky,” said Dr. Gary Griggs, a coastal erosion expert at University of California, Santa Cruz, of the safety record along the most rugged stretches of this road. Fast-moving debris flows and the underground churn that chews through the concrete can cause fatalities if cars are caught in the erosion. “Almost a century since it was built and it has been slide after slide after slide,” he added. “Nothing is ever going to change that, and, with these climate change indicators, it will probably get worse.”

• 
  April 08, 2024 - SFGate

  UC Santa Cruz’s Deep Read Brings ‘Trust’ To International Community

  The University of California Santa Cruz's The Deep Read, now in its fifth year, is focusing on Hernan Diaz's "Trust" this spring, culminating with an appearance by the Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist in May. Sponsored by the university's Humanities Institute, the free program, in which readers dig deep into a text over a series of four weeks with guidance from UC Santa Cruz scholars, attracts people from all over the world.

March

• 
  March 29, 2024 - Financial Express

  Happiness in India: India’s economic growth over time does not show up in improved happiness score and ranking

  In and opinion article for Financial Express, Distinguished Professor of Economics Nirvikar Singh discusses some of the possible reasons why India's happiness ranking is lower than would be implied by its GDP per capita.
• 
  March 31, 2024 - The Mirror

  Arizona declares Pluto 'official state planet' despite being relegated to dwarf status

  "It's a big elliptical hole in the ground, so the extra weight must be hiding somewhere beneath the surface. And an ocean is a natural way to get that," said lead author Francis Nimmo, from the University of California, Santa Cruz.

• 
  March 13, 2024 - CBC

  Can't make sense of record-breaking weather? Take a trip to Art Souterrain

  Festival Art Souterrain, a contemporary art exhibition, will feature micha cárdenas' immersive installation, The Probability Engine: Permafrost and Ice. This project lets you see what would happen if Canada's boreal permafrost melted away. Additional coverage in La Presse.
• 
  March 26, 2024 - Axios

  Luar, Willy Chavarría among Latinos rising in fashion

  Edward Salazar Celis, a doctoral student in Latin American and Latino studies, spoke with Axios about the history of Latino and Latin American fashion design. 
• 
  March 15, 2024 - Bon Appétit

  How Tanghulu Went From a Chinese Street Snack to a Colorful Controversy

  Culinary magazine Bon Appétit spoke with Anthropology Professor Nancy Chen about the history and medicinal uses for traditional Tanghulu skewers made from hawthorn.
• 
  March 13, 2024 - Scientific American

  Successful reforestation is keeping the Eastern U.S. cooler

  For an article about the positive impacts of reforestation, Scientific American interviewed Environmental Studies Professor Karen Holl to clarify under which conditions reforestation campaigns are appropriate and most likely to provide benefits. 
• 
  March 11, 2024 - Santa Cruz Sentinel

  By running again, Biden gambling with American democracy

  Professor and Chair of Politics Daniel Wirls wrote an opinion column for the Santa Cruz Sentinel about the Democratic Party's 2024 election strategy.
• 
  March 11, 2024 - Santa Cruz Sentinel

  TEDxSantaCruz announces speakers for first conference in five years

  Economics Professor Galina Hale and Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies Natalia Ocampo-Peñuela are among the selected speakers for an upcoming TEDxSanta Cruz event, which will also feature UCSC alumni and a current graduate student. 
• 
  March 13, 2024 - New York Times

  Dozens of Artists, 3 Critics: Who’s Afraid of the Whitney Biennial 2024?

  University of California, Santa Cruz Arts and Humanities Professor Sir Isaac Julien’s masterful video and sculpture installation is a highlight of the show. It remakes the dialogue between the Harlem Renaissance philosopher Alain Locke and the collector-philanthropist Albert C. Barnes, and there is an absorbing discussion of how Europeans and Americans viewed African sculpture — and the responses of Black versus white artists and collectors to such objects.

• 
  March 23, 2024 - Santa Cruz Sentinel

  New succulent species named by UC Santa Cruz botanist

  Emeritus Director of Research at the UC Santa Cruz Arboretum & Botanic Garden Stephen McCabe has helped name yet another succulent species in the genus Dudleya, called Dudleya chasmophyta, or the crevice-loving Dudleya, which is found exclusively on a cliff band in Orange County. Additional coverage in the East Bay Times and Mercury News.
• 
  March 26, 2024 - San Francisco Chronicle

  Rare screening of Talking Heads concert film coming to Santa Cruz

  UC Santa Cruz partnered with San Francisco’s Noise Pop Industries for unique showing of the remastered version of the Talking Heads concert-movie "Stop Making Sense"
• 
  March 26, 2024 - EarthSky

  Does Jupiter’s moon Europa have a habitable ocean, or not?

  Francis Nimmo, a planetary scientist at the University of California, Santa Cruz, noted that our own moon is still seismically active, even though models suggested it shouldn’t be. He said: "The moon is one place where we know we have tidally driven quakes."
• 
  March 22, 2024 - Santa Cruz Local

  Proposed fishing bans spark debate in Santa Cruz County

  UC Santa Cruz ecologist Mark Carr completed some of the analyses of how Marine Protected Areas have impacted the Central Coast over the past decade. Carr said fishing bans might help kelp forests in Southern California, but won’t have the same impact in Monterey Bay.
• 
  March 20, 2024 - Scientific American

  Planet-Eating Stars Are Surprisingly Common, New Study Suggests

  The circumstantial evidence tentatively suggests that 8 percent (or more) of all stars likely to be planet-devourers, says Ricardo Yarza, an astrophysicist at the University of California, Santa Cruz. But “estimating this rate is quite challenging.”
• 
  March 21, 2024 - Fast Company

  California is wrestling with electricity prices. An income-based, fixed-charge rate structure might be the best solution

  Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering Yihsu Chen offers his perspective on how the California electricity market can be made as efficient and equitable as possible in the face of the rise of small-scale solar. Also published in The Conversation.
• 
  March 20, 2024 - Smithsonian

  Why Did Seals and Sea Lions Never Commit to a Life Fully at Sea?

  Finding and uncovering fossil pinnipeds in the first place is a challenging task. “Some creatures are more likely to enter the fossil record than others,” says University of California, Santa Cruz, paleontologist Ana Valenzuela Toro, “and pinnipeds have an unusual amphibious lifestyle that exposes them to very different processes depending on where they die.”
• 
  March 19, 2024 - KQED

  Marin County Approves Contract to Prepare for Rising Seas and Extreme Storms

  Creating a new department to tackle sea-level rise, however, will be complex, and Gary Griggs, a distinguished professor of sciences at UC Santa Cruz, said putting the onus on one agency to prepare for sea-level rise could be shortsighted. “I’m a little cautious of a whole new department,” he said, especially when staff in existing programs and departments can work together to plan for sea-level rise. The real question he asked is, “How can you bring those people together?”
• 
  March 19, 2024 - Scientific American

  Orion’s Twin Rogue Planets Inexplicably Blaze with Intense Radio Waves

  “The Orion Nebula is just so far away that I would never have expected there to be detectable radio emission,” says Melodie Kao, a planetary radio expert at the University of California, Santa Cruz, who was not part of the team.
• 
  March 02, 2024 - PBS

  Can science save the northern white rhino from extinction and even bring back the dodo?

  "Identical copies of things are never going to happen. But that's not the way evolution works anyway. If we think about de-extinction in a logical, ethical, ecologically sustainable way, it can't be this purist ideal of what the extinction means. Instead, it has to be this creation of something new that's adapted for the habitat of today," Shapiro said.
• 
  March 06, 2024 - The Conversation

  Sharks, turtles and other sea creatures face greater risk from industrial fishing than previously thought

  Examining five years of data from fishing vessel location devices and the habitats of 14 large marine species, including seabirds, sharks, turtles, sea lions and tunas, we found that our estimates of risk to these animals increased by nearly 25% when we accounted for the presence of dark vessels.
• 
  March 19, 2024 - Yahoo Finance

  Beth Shapiro Joins Colossal as Chief Science Officer

  Colossal Biosciences, the world’s first de-extinction company, today announced that UC Santa Cruz professor Beth Shapiro, internationally renowned evolutionary molecular biologist, leader in paleogenomics, and ancient DNA expert, has joined as Chief Science Officer.
• 
  March 16, 2024 - earth.com

  Is there enough prey for beluga whale survival?

  “We consider the balance between calories in and calories out (that is metabolic balance) a key factor for survival in beluga whales,” explained Terrie Williams, lead researcher from the University of California, Santa Cruz. “It is the basis of understanding the biological machinery that drives large mammals.”
• 
  March 10, 2024 - KTVU 2

  Golden State Warriors hold STEAM Fest for students

  KTVU's coverage of the Golden State Warriors' annual STEAM fest highlighted UCSC's demonstration table at the event.
• 
  March 06, 2024 - Los Angeles Times

  UC applications rise for fall 2024, with gains in diversity and transfer applicants

  UC Santa Cruz emailed about 500,000 potential transfer students last fall to congratulate them on their educational journeys and offer help in course planning, financial aid issues and other support, said Michelle Whittingham, associate vice chancellor of enrollment management. The number of transfer applications overall grew to 12,218 — a 9.6% increase — for fall 2024 while those for first-year seats increased to 71,697, a 4.2% rise. “Seeing the resiliency of the students as those transfer numbers start to recover is really exciting,” Whittingham said.
• 
  March 08, 2024 - Washington Post

  Honduran ex-president convicted of helping send tons of cocaine to U.S.

  “How is it possible the U.S. government did not know this stuff was going on?” said Dana Frank, a historian and Honduras expert at the University of California at Santa Cruz. “They chose to look the other way.”
• 
  March 05, 2024 - Democracy Now

  U.S.-Backed Fmr. Honduran Pres. Juan Orlando Hernández on Trial in NY for Drug Trafficking

  Dana Frank, professor emerita of history at UC Santa Cruz, was interviewed by Democracy Now about the trial against former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández, who is accused of turning the Central American country into a narco-state. 

February

• 
  February 28, 2024 - Pittsburgh City Paper

  Near-total isolation of juvenile girls at the ACJ raises concerns of illegal solitary confinement

  Pittsburgh City Paper interviewed Psychology Professor Craig Haney about the increased risks of solitary confinement for juveniles.
• 
  February 27, 2024 - Los Angeles Times

  How the ‘Mob Wife’ aesthetic can help us think about Latinidad

  The Los Angeles Times interviewed Professor of Latin American and Latino Studies Catherine Ramírez for perspective on how the "mob aesthetic" trend compares to historical aesthetics of excess within Latinx communities.
• 
  February 28, 2024 - Vox

  Should Big Pharma pay poor countries for finding new diseases?

  Vox discussed research by Politics Professor and Global and Community Health Program Co-Director Matt Sparke on how the COVID pandemic demonstrated that prioritizing intellectual property rights above all else entrenches global inequalities in access to medications and treatments.
• 
  February 26, 2024 - The Guardian

  ‘It was the perfect storm’: the fatal crash that changed criminal justice in San Francisco

  Politics Professor Anjuli Verma spoke with The Guardian about how a New Year's Eve car crash in San Francisco fueled fears about crime in the city.
• 
  February 26, 2024 - Jacobin

  Tax Ivy League Endowments, and Fund Public Higher Ed

  Jacobin Magazine cited research by Economics Professor George Bulman, which found that colleges and universities with larger endowments do provide more financial aid, but they also enroll fewer low-income students and students of color. As their endowment wealth helps them become higher ranked, they become more selective, rather than increasing the size or diversity of their student bodies, the research found. 
• 
  February 27, 2024 - Sierra

  A Tale of Two Sea Level Rise Solutions

  Environmental Studies Ph.D. student Amanda Stoltz spoke with Sierra about climate gentrification. "Not only are lower-income and BIPOC communities already bearing the brunt of the climate crisis, but also rising real estate prices may continue to push those communities out of climate-safe neighborhoods and into areas more at risk," she said. 
• 
  February 20, 2024 - KAZU

  California Faculty Association members vote to approve tentative agreement

  UC Santa Cruz graduate student Sarah Mason, who works with the Center for Labor and Community spoke with KAZU to explain the process of ratifying union labor agreements. 
• 
  February 09, 2024 - PBS

  Being 80

  A PBS documentary that seeks to counteract stereotypes on aging features the ongoing work of UC Santa Cruz Sociology Professor Emeritus John Brown Childs, who teaches peacemaking skills through a program with Soledad State Prison and UCSC students. 
• 
  February 21, 2024 - NPR

  Former president of Honduras is on trial, facing charges that he ran a 'narco state'

  University of California, Santa Cruz Research Professor and Professor Emerita of History Dana Frank was quoted in an NPR segment this week about former president of Honduras Juan Orlando Hernández, whose trial begins in New York, as he stands accused of overseeing a "narco state."
• 
  February 12, 2024 - PBS Newshour

  Landmark report details how human activities can disrupt animal migrations

  When whales migrate from polar waters toward the equator, they help move nutrients to parts of the ocean that typically don’t have a lot to spare, said Daniel Costa, director of the Institute of Marine Sciences at the University of California, Santa Cruz. As they travel, whales release urea as waste, a source of nitrogen that’s useful to other members of the marine ecosystem.
• 
  February 07, 2023 - The Hill

  California’s record rainfall leads to mudslides, sewage spills

  Co-author Pete Raimondi, a marine ecologist at the University of California, Santa Cruz, stressed the importance of locating “areas where kelp can persist on its own.” Doing so, he added, could help identify where kelp restoration efforts have the best chance at success. 
• 
  February 07, 2024 - New York Times

  A Two-Ton Lifeguard That Saved a Young Pup

  Researchers have observed elephant seals for more than 40 years and had never seen a male rescue a pup like this before. “It’s completely out of the ordinary,” said Daniel Costa, an ecologist at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Since this is the first time anyone has seen anything like this from elephant seals, Costa suspects it was a rare one-off behavior.
• 
  February 07, 2024 - Scientific American

  Saturn's 'Death Star' Moon May Hide a Massive, Shockingly Young Ocean

  The finding that Mimas has an ocean is intriguing—but that ocean’s inferred youth is what has sent ripples through the scientific community. “The implications give one pause because they’re very surprising,” says Francis Nimmo, a planetary scientist at the University of California, Santa Cruz, who was not involved with the new study.
• 
  January 01, 2020 - KTVA

  Underwater forests focus of new study in Alaska

  From fish to crabs, Alaska’s kelp forests are home to a rich diversity of marine life. How these underwater forests are impacted by climate change, which are expected to make the ocean warmer and more acidic, is the focus of of a new study by Lauren Bell from the University of California, Santa Cruz.
• 
  February 01, 2024 - CBC

  Sea otters have a big appetite - and that could help marshes handle climate change

  "They eat a lot. They eat about a quarter to a third of their body weight every single day," explained Tim Tinker, a research ecologist at the University of California at Santa Cruz, and one of the study's Canadian co-authors. "And so whatever they're eating, they're going to have big impacts."
• 
  February 04, 2024 - CNN

  ‘Save the Whales’ was a shining success. Now can humpbacks save us from ourselves?

  CNN followed an international team of whale experts throughout 2023, from Ari Friedlaender’s lab at the University of California at Santa Cruz to humpback breeding grounds off the Pacific coast of Colombia, and their feeding grounds at the bottom of the world. While Friedlaender has been collecting whale data for more than 25 years, his work found new relevance after a team of economists from the International Monetary Fund estimated a single baleen whale provides about $2 million worth of Earth services, both in life and death.
• 
  February 02, 2024 - AP News

  Rising seas and frequent storms are battering California's piers, threatening the iconic landmarks

  “We are very much in a changed environment,” said Mike Beck, director of the Center for Coastal Climate Resilience at the University of California, Santa Cruz. “And we’re not going to be able to rebuild back in the same places and in the same ways that we did before. We’re going to have to think more clearly about how we design and where we put these.” Beck was the main expert quoted in the piece and was also featured in the accompanying video. 
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  February 15, 2024 - Popular Science

  When planting trees is bad for the planet

  Popular Science reached out to Environmental Studies Professor Karen Holl for her perspective on a new study about the risks of planting trees in places where they wouldn't grow naturally. 
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  February 13, 2024 - King City Rustler

  New study focuses on ‘Building an Inclusive Economy’ in Monterey Bay region

  The King City Rustler covered the release of a new report developed by UC Santa Cruz's Institute for Social Transformation that shares indicators for tracking inclusive economic development. “Accurate data is important for grounding discussions about challenges and opportunities we face in the region,” said Chris Benner, faculty director of the institute. 
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  February 10, 2024 - The New York Times

  For Gen Z, an Age-Old Question: Who Pays for Dates?

  The New York Times interviewed Distinguished Psychology Professor Campbell Leaper about his 2016 research that found an association among men between the idea that men should pay for dates and hostile views toward women. 
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  February 01, 2024 - Santa Cruz Sentinel

  Boulder Creek resident’s film on aging, staying active to air on KQED Plus

  The Santa Cruz Sentinel covered the release of an upcoming documentary featuring UC Santa Cruz Professor Emeritus of Sociology John Brown Childs. 
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  February 13, 2024 - New Scientist

  People who are blind can navigate indoors with a phone in their pocket

  The New Scientist featured Professor of Computer Science and Engineering Roberto Manduchi's research on creating apps that allow visually impaired people to navigate with their phones while the device is in their pocket.
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  February 01, 2024 - Science

  Racing extinction: Can science act fast enough to save large, endangered mammals?

  How can we speed up the process of saving large mammals? After four decades of conducting ecophysiological research on large marine and terrestrial carnivores, UC Santa Cruz Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Terrie Williams' team has found that a laboratory-to-zoo-to-field approach is one effective way to quickly gain critical knowledge about what different species need to survive.
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  February 12, 2024 - The Wall Street Journal

  ‘Tripping on Utopia’ Review: LSD and the Cold War

  The Wall Street Journal praised Associate Professor of History Benjamin Breen's new book, Tripping On Utopia, in a review that was published this week, calling attention to the way Breen "narrates the rise and fall of LSD through the lives of Margaret Mead, who became the leading American anthropologist of her era, and her third husband, Gregory Bateson, the British-born dilettante who became a pioneer of the Californian state of mind."
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  February 12, 2024 - The Architectural Review

  Iwona Buczkowska and Angela Davis named winners of the 2024 Jane Drew and Ada Louise Huxtable Prizes

  The Architectural Review ran a detailed feature story about University of California, Santa Cruz Distinguished Emerita Professor Angela Davis, who taught in both the History of Consciousness and Feminist Studies departments. Davis won this year's Ada Louise Huxtable Prize for Contribution to Architecture.

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  February 07, 2024 - PBS NOVA

  Easter Island Origins

  Assistant Professor of Biomolecular Engineering Alexander Ioannidis discusses the genomic evidence used to trace the origins of the people of Easter Island. Ioannidis came to UC Santa Cruz after doing this research at Stanford University.

January

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  January 22, 2024 - Mercury News

  Lick Observatory: Unraveling cosmic mysteries from an otherworldly ‘little town’

  Piper Walker, 22, an astrophysics major at UC Santa Cruz, collaborates remotely with researchers at Lick Observatory. Walker, from her Santa Cruz bedroom, even helped identify her first quasar.
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  January 26, 2024 - Los Angeles Daily News

  Boeing to extract badly tainted soil from ‘burn pit’ at Santa Susana Field

  Dan Hirsch, former director of the Program on Environmental and Nuclear Policy at the University of California, Santa Cruz, spent decades advocating for the cleanup of the Santa Susana Field Lab, known as one of the most contaminated fields in the U.S. Along with other activists, Hirsch worried that weak toxic clean-up standards set by the California Department of Toxic Substances Control for the burn pit — and for the entire Santa Susana Field Lab area — would allow Boeing to preserve, rather than clean up, the area’s toxic contamination.
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  January 17, 2024 - Hindustan Times

  American Dream: Haryana youngsters queue up big time on the US border

  Hindustan Times interviewed Distinguished Professor of Economics Nirvikar Singh about the economic factors driving migration to the United States from the state of Haryana in India.
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  January 31, 2024 - KPBS

  Tips for parents to encourage kids to play outside

  Sociology Professor Rebecca London shared tips with KPBS about how parents can encourage children's play. Parents can model different kinds of play for their children and should follow their children's natural interests, London says. 
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  January 30, 2024 - Financial Express

  Lessons from China’s EV success

  Distinguished Professor of Economics Nirvikar Singh wrote an opinion article for Financial Express about lessons India could learn from China's success with manufacturing and selling electric vehicles.
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  January 29, 2024 - KPBS

  The way kids play has quietly transformed. Here’s why that matters

  Sociology Professor Rebecca London spoke with KPBS about her research on the benefits of free play for children's development. 
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  January 22, 2024 - KALW

  Yurok, Klamath & Karuk Native tribes celebrate historic dam removals

  Environmental Studies Ph.D. student Brook Thompson, a member of the Yurok and Karuk tribes, joined KALW's Your Call radio show to discuss the removal of the Klamath River dam.
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  January 19, 2024 - National Geographic

  Why your dog helps you relax more than your friends do

  Assistant Teaching Professor of Psychology Hannah Raila spoke with National Geographic about her recent research that documented how people who interacted with their dogs after a stressful experience had a greater boost in mood and a greater reduction in anxiety than those who tried to destress by coloring or just through the passage of time. 
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  January 30, 2024 - KPBS

  For the first time, California law will protect students’ right to recess

  KPBS spoke with Sociology Professor Rebecca London about a new state law and her research on the importance of recess.
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  January 24, 2024 - The New Yorker

  When America First Dropped Acid

  In her detailed book review in this week's issue of The New Yorker, Margaret Talbot praised University of California, Santa Cruz Associate Professor of History Benjamin Breen for "an eye for the telling detail, and a gift for introducing even walk-on characters with brio" in his new book, Tripping On Utopia: Margaret Mead, the Cold War, and the Troubled Birth of Psychedelic Science.

   

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  January 16, 2024 - New Zealand Herald

  Lake Taupō trout subject of US-based research

  UC Santa Cruz PhD student Georgia Third is studying the diet and habits of Lake Taupō's rainbow trout. "Trout in Taupo were introduced from California and I’m studying around the area that trout came from in Santa Cruz," she said. "I’m studying the trout in the ancestral population and in the introduced population. The University of California, Santa Cruz have found a few different genes that are of importance to trout over there, to whether they migrate or stay resident, and how fast they grow."
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  January 19, 2024 - The New York Times

  Could LSD Have Achieved World Peace? Ask Margaret Mead.

  In “Tripping on Utopia,” Benjamin Breen chronicles the legendary anthropologist’s doomed effort to save the world through hallucinogens.

   

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  January 19, 2024 - NPR

  The Birth Of Psychedelic Science

   You may have heard about the pioneering research of anthropologist Margaret Mead, but do you know about her work with psychedelics? Mead and her husband, Gregory Bateson, thought psychedelics might reshape humanity by expanding consciousness
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  January 16, 2024 - Smithsonian Magazine

  Inside Elephant Seal Pups' Race to the Depths

  “We discovered that northern elephant seals appear to develop their diving capabilities more quickly than southern elephant seals, which allows them to reach deeper depths during their first oceanic migration,” says Roxanne Beltran, a physiological ecologist at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
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  January 12, 2024 - BBC

  7 pioneering dark matter scientists

  After moving to the University of California, Santa Cruz, Sandra Faber, together with John Gallagher, wrote a hugely influential review article about dark matter for Annual Reviews of Astronomy and Astrophysics, published in 1979. By presenting all the available evidence, the two authors convinced the scientific community that dark matter was not just a figment of our imagination, but a real, major constituent of the Universe.
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  January 16, 2024 - NPR

  How Margaret Mead's research into utopias helped usher in the psychedelic era

  UC Santa Cruz historian Benjamin Breen was interviewed in NPR's Fresh Air about his new book, "Tripping on Utopia: Margaret Mead, the Cold War, and the Troubled Birth of Psychedelic Science." The book explores the intertwined lives of two cultural anthropologists — Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson, who were married for 14 years — and the extraordinary circle of social scientists, psychoanalysts, artists and spies who gathered around them from the 1930s through the ’70s. Additional coverage of Breen's book in the LA Times and NY Post.
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  January 08, 2024 - Financial Express

  James Webb Telescope unveils another cosmic surprise! Challenges astrophysical assumptions with banana-like newborn galaxies

  This breakthrough builds upon earlier indications from Hubble telescope observations, suggesting that ancient galaxies exhibited pickle-like shapes, as highlighted by Joel Primack, an astronomer at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
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  January 09, 2024 - Santa Fe New Mexican

  Report: Radioactive contaminants found on Los Alamos National Lab worker's skin

  “This is not a one-off. This is a pattern,” said Dan Hirsch, retired director of environment and nuclear policy programs at the University of California, Santa Cruz. “This suggests the lab does not have sufficient controls to undertake the extraordinarily hazardous, new operations of pit production. They are having repeated contamination events, which shouldn’t be occurring.”
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  January 05, 2024 - NPR

  Climate change is causing massive waves along California's coast

  UC Santa Cruz oceanographer Gary Griggs discusses human-caused climate change impacts on California coast on NPR's All Things Considered. Griggs says that human-caused climate change will force seas to rise in the future, making waves even bigger.
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  January 09, 2024 - Inside Higher Ed

  University of California system considers online degrees

  “[Creative technologies] went through way more scrutiny than any in-person degree that I have witnessed,” said Jody Greene, associate campus provost for academic success at Santa Cruz. “We have a quality control built in. Why close the door to these programs when you yourself [as the academic senate] will get to decide about quality?”
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  January 06, 2024 - The Atlantic

  Earth Could Outlive the Sun

  In 2022, Ricardo Yarza, a stellar astrophysicist at UC Santa Cruz, simulated what happens when a red giant swallows a planet. He found that if the planet starts out close enough to the star, its orbit rapidly decays.
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  January 03, 2024 - Mongabay

  Salmon and other migratory fish play crucial role in delivering nutrients

  “If you talk to folks who handle a lot of fish — fishers or biologists that have handled fish in Alaska and other places over the last 20 to 30 years — they almost to a person will tell you the fish are smaller,” says Eric Palkovacs, professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
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  January 08, 2024 - Inside Higher Ed

  An ethnic studies requirement at the UC waylaid amid war

  Christine Hong, a professor of critical race and ethnic studies and literature at UC Santa Cruz said opponents of the requirement describe the field as “dividing the world into oppressors and victims.” But she believes “it centers the critical perspectives and the modes of knowledge of peoples and communities who have historically been excluded from the project of knowledge formation.“We all have something to gain from a shared investment in justice, and justice for the broadest possible collective,” said Hong. “We all have something to gain from a structural critique of racism and colonialism.”
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  January 03, 2024 - Wired

  The Tantalizing Mystery of the Solar System’s Hidden Oceans

  “After Voyager, people suspected that Europa was weird and might have an ocean,” said Francis Nimmo, a planetary scientist at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
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  January 05, 2024 - New York Times

  The Early Universe May Have Gone Bananas

  The result builds on hints from earlier observations from the Hubble telescope that the earliest galaxies were shaped like pickles, said Joel Primack, an astronomer at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and an author of the new paper.
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  January 02, 2024 - Wired

  This Art Exhibition on Video Games Breaks You Out of Your Comfort Zone

  A.M. Darke, exhibiting artist and associate professor of art and design for games and playable media at UC Santa Cruz, explains that one of the powerful aspects of video games is that they “invest you as a participant and an agent in those stories.” You don’t just witness or consume games, especially interactive ones. You actively make choices in the game.
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  January 07, 2024 - New York Times

  For Dizzy Gillespie, Queens Was the Place to Be and to Bop

  “One of the really interesting things to think about as this designation is directed to the Hotel Cecil and Minton’s and to Dizzy Gillespie’s home is that it speaks to me of the ways bebop was quite famously developed in clubs like Minton’s, and especially Minton’s, but also a lot of those ideas got worked out in rehearsals that often happened in people’s homes,” said Eric Porter, a professor of history at University of California, Santa Cruz. “Whether they were rehearsing for a recording or just hanging out and thinking about music, the basement studios were really important for the development of bebop as well.”
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  January 16, 2024 - Wired

  A Flaw in Millions of Apple, AMD, and Qualcomm GPUs Could Expose AI Data

  Assistant Professor of Computer Science and Engineering Tyler Sorensen was quoted in a Wired story on flaws present in mainstream GPUs — a discovery that was found through Sorensen's reseach. 
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  January 06, 2024 - SiliconValley.com

  Bullfrog to become California's amphibious illegal alien

  “It’s exciting to be moving forward, finally, to try to walk back the damage that’s been caused by bullfrogs,” said Erika Zavaleta, an ecology professor at UC Santa Cruz and co-chair of the California Fish and Game Commission, which sets policy for the state’s Department of Fish and Game and voted this month  to start work on regulatory and legislative steps to fend off the importation and sale of the frog.
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  January 05, 2024 - NBC Bay Area

  Researchers find answer to mystery of dead seal pups along Northern California coast

  Researchers have found an answer to a grim, whodunit-style mystery where the headless bodies of harbor seal pups were found on Northern California beaches. The answer, caught on hidden motion sensor cameras, not only ended the mystery but also showed nature taking its course: coyotes eating those seal pups. The cameras are part of UC Santa Cruz PhD student Frankie Gerraty’s research on the connection between land and sea. “One of the most interesting findings from our recent research has been that coyotes are not only scavenging mammal carcasses, but they are also, on occasion, killing seal pups as well,” Gerraty said. Additional coverage in the Mercury News.
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  January 04, 2024 - Quanta Magazine

  The Biggest Discoveries in Biology in 2023 | Quanta Magazine

  Novel work on the circadian clock has been done in the lab of a single scientist: the biochemist Carrie Partch at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Partch is driven by a unique obsession not only with the basic steps of the clock, but also with the intricate dance that clock proteins perform as they are built and as they interact and degrade.
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  January 03, 2024 - Santa Cruz Sentinel

  Finding sanctuary | An iconic coastal species, the endangered black abalone

  Although Big Sur boasts some of the densest populations of black abalone on the west coast, natural disasters have contributed to thousands of intertidal black abalone being buried alive in the intertidal zone. Dr. Steve Lonhart, a sanctuary research ecologist, collaborated with scientists from UC Santa Cruz, led by doctoral student Wendy Bragg, to rescue and recover black abalone that were partially or completely buried at the margins of the debris flows.
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  January 02, 2024 - Los Angeles Times

  California energy officials vote to extend Diablo Canyon nuclear plant operations

  "Inside the aging Diablo Canyon reactors resides an astronomical quantity of radioactivity," said Daniel Hirsch, a retired director of the Program on Environmental and Nuclear Policy at UC Santa Cruz. "It only stays inside if it's constantly cooled. Any disruption in that, an earthquake or accident, can cause a meltdown releasing enough radioactivity to contaminate a substantial portion of California for generations. If you approve overturning the Diablo shutdown agreement, you risk culpability for a nuclear catastrophe," he continued.
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  December 14, 2023 - KQED

  How Bay Area Italians Were Treated As 'Enemy Aliens' During WWII

  “A lot of people mistakenly assume that Japanese Americans were the only ones affected by national security fears,” says UC Santa Cruz historian Alice Yang, adding that Italians and Germans also had their civil liberties infringed upon. People were imprisoned for being journalists at Italian radio stations and newspapers, teaching the Italian language or simply being veterans of World War I. These activities were seen as promoting Italian pride, Yang says, and in the wartime era, that was considered subversive.
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  January 09, 2024 - KPCC/ LAist

  A New Research Project Aims To Give A Comprehensive Count To California’s Mountain Lion Population

  Environmental Studies Professor Chris Wilmers joined the KPCC/LAist radio show "AirTalk" for a segment about his work on the latest population estimate for California's mountain lions. 
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  January 09, 2024 - Black Voice News

  Fentanyl Crisis and Mental Health Issues Drive 2022 Increase in Deaths in Riverside County Jails

  Distinguished Professor of Psychology Craig Haney spoke with Black Voice News about the mental health crisis in jails. “We don’t have a functioning, adequate public mental health system in the United States,” said Haney. “As a result, people suffering from mental health problems often end up in the criminal justice system.”
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  January 08, 2024 - Smithsonian Magazine

  A New Project Uses Isotopes to Pinpoint the Birthplaces of the Enslaved

  Smithsonian Magazine covered research by Associate Professor of Anthropology Vicky Oelze that's using stable isotope analysis to hone in on the regions of origin for enslaved African people who were buried at the Anson Street Burial Ground in South Carolina. 
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  January 07, 2024 - Los Angeles Times

  California mountain lion population is thousands fewer than previously estimated

  The Los Angeles Times covered new research on California Mountain Lions that was conducted in partnership with Environmental Studies Professor Chris Wilmers. The San Francisco Chronicle also covered this research. 
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  January 03, 2024 - Lookout Santa Cruz

  Stark racial, economic inequalities persist across Monterey Bay, new study finds

  Lookout Santa Cruz covered a new report produced by Institute for Social Transformation Faculty Director Chris Benner that tracks progress on efforts to build a more inclusive economy in the Monterey Bay region. 
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  January 01, 2024 - High Country News

  Labor unions and environmentalists are working together on the energy transition

  Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies J. Mijin Cha spoke with High Country News about the importance of transitioning away from fossil fuels in a way that also protects the livelihoods of workers.
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  December 28, 2023 - BenitoLink

  The elusive inclusive economy of Monterey, Santa Cruz, and San Benito counties

  BenitoLink covered highlights from a keynote research presentation by Institute for Social Transformation faculty director Chris Benner at the Monterey Bay Economic Partnership's State of the Region conference. 
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  December 27, 2023 - Mongabay

  In Kenya, vicious ants are nesting birds’ best neighbors, study finds

  Environmental Studies Professor Stacy Philpott provided outside perspective on a new study to Mongabay, sharing her thoughts on ant-bird interactions based on her prior research in Mexico. 
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  December 26, 2023 - Psychology Today

  Can We Learn to Draw Faces From Memory?

  Psychology Professor Nicolas Davidenko wrote an article for Psychology Today about his latest research exploring some of the factors that make it so difficult to draw faces from memory.