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.”
UCSC in the News
2024
October
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October 09, 2024 - Tech XploreStudy 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. -
October 10, 2024 - PeopleHow 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. -
January 01, 2020 - Los Angeles TimesOpinion: 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. -
October 10, 2024 - New York TimesWhen 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. -
October 09, 2024 - Lookout Santa CruzFestival 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. -
October 08, 2024 - Santa Cruz SentinelCircus 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. -
October 07, 2024 - Tech and Science PostEnding 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.”
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October 05, 2024 - Popular ScienceAre 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 - OceanographicExploring 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 GeographicEuropa 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 - MongabayAcross 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. -
October 02, 2024 - ScienceTo 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 - NPRHow 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.” -
September 26, 2024 - CNAExplainer: 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. -
September 26, 2024 - Los Angeles TimesOpinion: 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. -
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.” -
September 17, 2024 - Financial ExpressDeficits, 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. -
September 17, 2024 - Space.comA '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 19thTrump’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 - WIREDThe 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.”
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September 10, 2024 - The ScientistA 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.” -
September 08, 2024 - ForbesOxygen-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 PostHow 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. -
September 07, 2024 - CNNLandslides 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 - GristAs ‘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. -
September 10, 2024 - KQEDKamala 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.”
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September 09, 2024 - CalMattersHate 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 - QuartzBanks 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.
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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. -
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. -
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 SentinelUC 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 NewsAwe 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
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August 29, 2024 - National GeographicWhat 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.
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August 07, 2024 - Fast CompanyFake 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.
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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 SourceLet’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 EconomistAmerica’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.
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August 28, 2024 - BillboardUC 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 - KTVUUC 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.
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August 20, 2024 - Entertainment WeeklyAlicia 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 - KUOWSan 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.
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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 InsiderThere'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 VergeA 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.”
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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.”
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August 12, 2024 - East Bay TimesA 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.”
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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.
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August 07, 2024 - Scientific AmericanMoon ‘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.
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August 06, 2024 - SF GatePack 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.
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August 01, 2024 - The Washington PostAs India ages, a secret shame emerges: Elders abandoned by their children
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August 01, 2024 - ThrillistUp 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
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July 30, 2024 - The HillCalifornia’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 - SierraPrisoners 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.
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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.
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July 31, 2024 - San Jose Mercury NewsPeregrine 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.
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July 31, 2024 - The GuardianScientists 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 TimesLetting 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 GateWhat 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.
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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.”
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July 17, 2024 - New AtlasOur brains take naps while we're awake – and wake when we're asleep
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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.”
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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 WorldThe 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.”
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