UCSC in the News
February
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February 12, 2025 - The Washington PostWe thought these places were useless. They may help save the world.
Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies Scott Winton explained how the soggy, anoxic environment of peatlands make them ideal for sequestering carbon from organic matter. “Those organisms that would break down organic matter and decompose it and recycle it back into nutrients and CO2, they can’t work efficiently. And so the organic matter tends to pile up.” -
February 12, 2025 - Santa Cruz SentinelPhotos | UC Santa Cruz team prepares for premier of Shakespeare’s ‘The Comedy of Errors’
This inside look at UC Santa Cruz’s upcoming performance of Comedy of Errors gives audiences a behind the scenes look at the production. These pictures give a look into the production during their dress rehearsal. -
February 12, 2025 - Santa Cruz Sentinel
UC Santa Cruz brings Shakespearean comedy to the stage
UC Santa Cruz is bringing back its love for Shakespeare. For several decades the university staged the Bard’s productions every summer until losing funding. The upcoming production of Comedy of Errors will rejuvenate student and audience passions for plays. -
February 08, 2025 - Fresno BeeDebunking myths perpetuated by Donald Trump about undocumented immigrants
Lucinda Pease-Alvarez, a professor emerita of education at UC Santa Cruz who has worked extensively with immigrant children and their families, co-authored this op-ed debunking a variety of myths the current president relies on when targeting undocumented immigrants.
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February 07, 2025 - Lookout Santa CruzUC Santa Cruz report details socioeconomic challenges for Black populations in Monterey, San Benito counties
Compared to other racial groups, Black residents of Monterey and San Benito counties face higher rent burdens, higher incarceration rates and lower levels of education, among other findings, according to a report published last month by UC Santa Cruz researchers. The researchers, Professor Chris Benner and Gabriella Alvarez, say this report underlines the need for implementing programs and policies that improve the social and economic well-being of Black residents of the Central Coast.
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February 07, 2025 - NaturePinpointing the origins of people taken from Africa for the slave trade
Anthropology Professor Vicky Oelze explained that, in the past, archaeologists who worked on ‘slave cemeteries’ in the African Diaspora could only use isotope ratios and genetic analysis to identify that an individual must have been born and raised somewhere on the African continent. “Now, with strontium isotopes being mapped for most of sub-Saharan Africa, we can move away from 'somewhere in Africa' and make more specific calculations of probability where a given ancestor from the African diaspora might have been kidnapped from,” she says. -
February 03, 2025 - Science NewsAn African strontium map sheds light on the origins of enslaved people
Anthropology Professor Vicky Oelze and colleagues spent more than a decade amassing nearly 900 environmental samples from 24 African countries and combined those measurements with other published data to create a strontium map of sub-Saharan Africa and have demonstrated how it can be used to shed light on the transatlantic slave trade. -
February 09, 2025 - The IndependentScientists have some novel ideas to save the ice caps. Here are the most out-of-box suggestions
While theories are abundant in glacial engineering, making them a reality would prove difficult. It would take decades to make the necessary measurements to understand what it would actually take to perform such interventions, Slawek Tulaczyk, a glaciologist at UC Santa Cruz, pointed out.
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February 06, 2025 - Live Science'Impossible' black holes detected by James Webb telescope may finally have an explanation - if this ultra-rare form of matter exists
"The dark matter self-interaction is a necessary component because the dark matter particles need a way to scatter off one another, much stronger than just gravitational interactions," said study co-author Grant Roberts, a doctoral student at the University of California, Santa Cruz. "This scatter causes the dark matter to bunch up in the very inner central regions of the galaxy, which allows them to collapse into supermassive black hole seeds."
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February 05, 2025 - ScienceTrump orders cause chaos at science agencies
“Our country is hobbling ourselves by canceling these programs,” says cell biologist Needhi Bhalla of the University of California, Santa Cruz. These undergraduates, graduate students, and postdocs “bring important, unique, and novel insights and breadth to solving challenging, scientific problems,” she adds.
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February 06, 2025 - STATResearchers 'stunned' after HHMI abruptly cancels program to make science more inclusive
The Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the nation’s largest private funder of biomedical research, this week abruptly ended a $60 million program aimed at improving the retention of a diverse student body in undergraduate science and engineering programs. “There is a chance for layoffs to occur at the end of this calendar year. If the university can’t find some cash to support staff members, that’s a concern” said Grant Hartzog, a molecular biologist at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
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February 06, 2025 - KSBWUC Santa Cruz alumna wins Grammy for ‘Best Folk Album’ again
Gillian Welch, along with her partner David Rawlings, won for their album “Woodland” at the 67th Annual Grammy Awards on Feb. The album is a blend of Appalachian folk, bluegrass, and Americana. -
February 07, 2025 - The Guardian‘This is Black hair’: technological advances are making waves in animation
UC Santa Cruz professor and researcher A.M. Darke co-authored a study on animating Black hair so it more accurately represents coils. Black hair has historically been overlooked in the field of animation. This new research paves the way for better representation and changes the course of animation. -
February 06, 2025 - KIONUCSC alumna wins second Grammy award for Best Folk Album
An alumna from UC Santa Cruz, Gillian Welch, was the recipient of the Best Folk Album award with musical partner David Rawlings at the 67th Annual Grammy Awards on February 2. They won the award for their “Woodland!” album. Welch graduated from Porter College in fine arts, class of 1990.
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February 04, 2025 - The San Jose Mercury NewsAncient alphabetic writing unearthed by UC Santa Cruz professor remains a mystery
The San Jose Mercury News ran a feature story about UC Santa Cruz History Professor Elaine Sullivan, a renowned Egyptologist. When she was a graduate student, she unearthed artifacts in Syria marked with an an ancient alphabetic script whose meaning still remains a mystery. The artifacts are 500 years older than the earliest alphabetic inscriptions from Egypt or Israel.
January
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January 23, 2025 - The ParajonianMonterey County declares emergency
Assistant Professor of Applied Mathematics Javier Gonzalez-Rocha was quoted in a story from The Parajonian about the lack of air-quality sensors in the Pajaro Valley. -
January 30, 2025 - MongabayLures that attract seed-dispersing bats could aid tropical reforestation
Environmental Studies Professor Karen Holl commented on new research, saying that reforestation impacts from attracting seed dispersing bats will depend upon whether or not the dispersed seeds actually germinate and contribute a lot to forest regrowth. Instead of bat lures, Holl recommends planting forest islands, which offer habitat and attract seed dispersing animals over time, contributing to forest recovery. -
January 29, 2025 - ForbesUnion Popularity Hits 70%, But Trump’s NLRB Move Threatens Labor
New evidence suggests younger workers are more attuned to the benefits of unionization. Researchers at the University of California, Santa Cruz did a deep dive in their January 2025 "Union-Curious Young Workers in Santa Cruz County" — the first in a planned series of reports — which reported 44% of young workers in Santa Cruz County would join a union if given the opportunity, 37% are union-curious, and only 19% would not join a union. -
January 27, 2025 - Financial ExpressAI and jobs in India
Distinguished Professor of Economics Nirvikar Singh wrote an opinion article about how acceleration of advances in AI demonstrates that the range of productive jobs and the skills needed for them in the future is much broader than what has fueled India’s growth so far. -
January 27, 2025 - HuffPostInside Trump’s Yearslong War With A Fish
“He’s seen an opportunity to weigh in on an issue where cities, by and large, have one strong opinion, and rural regions have a different one,” said Brent Haddad, a professor of environmental studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz. “In California, the cities are mostly Democratic voters. In the rural regions are mostly Republican voters. And so it’s just an opportunity to throw red meat to Republican voters in California, but it doesn’t advance policy or help the economy or rural people one bit.”
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January 26, 2025 - The Guardian
Should Los Angeles be in such a rush to rebuild after the devastating wildfires?
Miriam Greenberg, sociologist at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and the co-director of the Center for Critical Urban and Environmental Studies at UC Santa Cruz, is currently leading a research project called Wildland Urban Interface (WUI) Research for Resilience: Addressing California’s Climate, Conservation and Housing Crises. "What we often see in the aftermath of the disaster is uneven redevelopment," Greenberg said. "There’s major differences for those who are documented and undocumented, who have different access to aid, as well as for homeowners vs renters, and those with often vastly different levels of insurance."
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January 17, 2025 - CBS Bay AreaContra Costa GOP members head to President-elect Trump's inauguration
"It's a very interesting time in American politics. I think we're going through what they call a realignment, which is when both parties are redefining themselves. And they'll probably hold onto whatever definitions come out of the Trump era for the next 30 or 40 years," said Nolan Higdon, a lecturer of history and media studies at UC Santa Cruz.
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January 31, 2025 - New York TimesA Spotted Hyena Turns Up in Egypt After a 5,000 Absence
While Dr. Nagy said the hyena sighting left him in “disbelief,” Christine Wilkinson, a carnivore ecologist and hyena specialist at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and the California Academy of Sciences, wasn’t fazed in the slightest. “To be honest with you, spotted hyenas cannot surprise me,” she said. “They are just incredibly behaviorally flexible animals that can make it work in all different circumstances.”
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January 30, 2025 - Earth.comClimate change is constantly reshuffling Earth's species
The study, led by Malin Pinsky, an associate professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at UC Santa Cruz, highlights how rising and falling temperatures lead to rapid shifts in species composition. The researchers found that as temperature fluctuations accelerate, ecosystems struggle to maintain stability. “It’s like shuffling a deck of cards, and temperature change now is shuffling that deck faster and faster,” said Pinsky. “The worry is that eventually you start to lose some cards.”
Additional coverage in La Repubblica.
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January 30, 2025 - BBCWhich is worse for wildlife, wind farms or oil drilling?
Aspen Ellis, a seabird biologist at University of California, Santa Cruz, spent a decade doing field work on remote islands off the coast of the United States. She often lived for months amongst thousands of birds, becoming so immersed in their ways that she even learned to tell which predators were nearby from the birds' calls. But as she added her observations to 40 or 50 years of previous research on these colonies, she noticed a worrying pattern. "Again and again, I just found myself logging the impact of climate change over time," she recalls, from rising sea levels that threatened breeding colonies, to fish moving to cooler areas and leaving seabird chicks starving. "Without addressing this larger issue of climate change, the seabird conversation work we were doing wasn't sufficient to save those populations," she adds. She decided to change focus – and today, studies ways to make clean-energy offshore wind farms safer for birds.
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January 27, 2025 - Forbes
How Restoring Coral Reefs Can Save Millions In Coastal Flood Damages
“Most hazard mitigation and disaster recovery funding supports artificial infrastructure, such as seawalls, that degrade nature,” said Michael W. Beck, director of the UC Santa Cruz Center for Coastal Climate Resilience, who co-led the study. “By valuing the benefits of natural infrastructure, we level the playing field and open major new funding opportunities for reef restoration.”
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January 29, 2025 - New York Times
Lurking Inside an Asteroid: Life’s Ingredients
David Deamer, professor emeritus of biomolecular engineering, was quoted in a New York Times story on the chemistry of the early solar system. -
January 25, 2025 - Los Angeles TimesUC, a top recipient of federal research funding, is concerned about Trump pause on grant reviews
John MacMillan, UC Santa Cruz vice chancellor of research, said that even if the pause is lifted on Feb. 1, rescheduling the meetings takes time and could delay funding decisions for at least two or three months. “Particularly for our younger scientists, pausing their work and the long-term effects of that can be pretty profound.”
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January 25, 2025 - Washington Post
The dodo bird is extinct. This scientist says she can bring it back.
Beth Shapiro, the chief science officer at Colossal and professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at UC Santa Cruz, is attempting a feat straight out of science fiction: reviving the dodo, a bird that’s been extinct for more than three centuries.
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January 20, 2025 - CBS News
Environmental concerns still loom over Northern California lithium battery facility fire
The ongoing fire is raising concerns not just for the residents in the area, but also for the endangered sea otters living in the sensitive wetlands near the Vistra plant. "They're a keystone species. They help to protect the kelp beds offshore by consuming sea urchins, and they help to protect the sea beds here in the slough," said University of California, Santa Cruz researcher Lilian Carswell. "So healthy sea otters mean a healthy environment."
Carswell also interviewed by KSBW, KION, and Santa Cruz Lookout.
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January 20, 2025 - BloombergAfter the fire, should some parts of Los Angeles never rebuild?
Miriam Greenberg, a professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz, says a lot more research is needed before designing managed-retreat programs for wildfire-prone areas. But in some cases it’s much better for people to stay and rely on the knowledge of indigenous people who have kept fires away for centuries. “We need people who know how to steward those lands,” she said. -
January 18, 2025 - The GuardianThe perfect storm: why did LA’s wildfires explode out of control?
Sociology Professor Miriam Greenberg explained the housing affordability pressures that are driving people to live in areas with rising fire risk as the climate changes. “Living in dense urban areas – which are safer in relation to fire and many other climate hazards – has become out of reach for many people, so they’re moving to areas that are ones they can afford,” she said. Even in the wake of a wildfire, Greenberg says some survivors who want to get out of a high-risk area cannot move to a safer area because the rents there are too high.
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January 20, 2025 - The Mercury News‘Rage-giving’ bolstered migrant nonprofits through Trump’s first term. How will they fare in the next?
Research by UC Santa Cruz Associate Professor Juan Pedroza found that giving to immigrant-serving nonprofits increased markedly during the first Trump Administration. "It’s no secret that right out the gate, Trump went after immigrants, early and often and loudly,” said Pedroza. “It’s encouraging and impressive that all these different sources knew where to get the money to make a difference … Now, it’s newly relevant.” -
January 16, 2025 - Santa Cruz LocalAs Los Angeles burns, Santa Cruz County officials urge wildfire prep — and not just in the mountains
Santa Cruz Local shared information about an upcoming wildfire preparedness event co-hosted by UC Santa Cruz's Center for Critical Urban and Environmental Studies. -
January 16, 2025 - CalMattersWhy California keeps putting homes where fires burn
Miriam Greenberg, an urban sociologist at UC Santa Cruz has argued that academics and policymakers need to see residential expansion into the state’s most fire-prone areas as yet another reflection of California’s affordability crisis. “People are looking to the (wildland-urban interface) as one of the only places that has capacity for housing,” she said.
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January 14, 2025 - ABC NewsDebunking 5 claims about the California wildfires
Brent Haddad, a professor of environmental studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz, corrected President-elect Trump's false claims about water for firefighting efforts in the Los Angeles area. "No water restoration declaration was put before Gov. Newsom," Hadded told ABC News in an email. -
January 12, 2025 - SalonWhy the legacy media suddenly sound like Bernie Sanders
Nolan Higdon, a lecturer at Merrill College and the Education Department at the University of California, Santa Cruz, argues in this op-ed that the results of the 2024 election forced a reckoning in legacy media, where they had to confront the fact that they were wrong and Bernie Sanders was right, when it came to electoral politics.
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January 13, 2025 - The Washington Post
Cycling through Kansas, I've found people working across divisions
Jenny Reardon, a professor of sociology at the University of California, Santa Cruz, has spent a few weeks bicycling through her home state of Kansas every year since 2017. In this op-ed, she shares some of her observations and notes that Kansans are working on finding common ground.
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January 09, 2025 - CNNFact check: As wildfires rage, Trump lashes out with false claims about FEMA and California water policy
Brent Haddad, an environmental studies professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz, clarified that “there was never a ‘water restoration declaration’ in California that the Governor refused to sign,” and “there is no connection between environmental protection in northern California and low-flow fire hydrants in Pacific Palisades.” Haddad was also quoted on this topic in a wide range of local news outlets across the country.
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January 10, 2025 - The iPaperUp to $150bn damage in LA fires unleashes wave of anger at cancelled insurance
Galina Hale, a professor of economics at the University of California Santa Cruz, told The i Paper that insurance companies use models to determine what is termed “actuarily fair” insurance policy pricing. “Some areas have such high risks that insurance companies would have to charge insurance premia above what people might be willing to pay," she said. "These areas then lose insurance coverage altogether. In other areas, insurance companies have to increase their premia to reflect rising risks.”
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January 08, 2025 - The ProgressiveHow Venture Capital Flattens Neighborhoods
Associate Teaching Professor of Community Studies Alison Alkon explained how gentrification tends to happen in phases, and the latest phase, funded by venture capital, has attempted to co-opt the aesthetic of the independent businesses that are often last hold-outs in the resistance against gentrification. “The force of this countermovement that was trying to make things kind of quirky and independent actually got absorbed into VC,” says Alkon, “like waves washing over cities across the world in a way that made them look more and more alike.” -
January 05, 2025 - Santa Cruz SentinelListen to the visually impaired in the quest for better audio descriptions
The Santa Cruz Sentinel covered Professor of Computational Media Sri Kurniawan's efforts to a work with the local blind and visually impaired community to identify useful features for new automatically generated audio description programs. -
January 14, 2020 - The GuardianAmericans are taught FDR was the hero of the Great Depression. For one historian, that’s erasure
In The Guardian, journalist Lauren Aratani profiles UC SAnta Cruz Research Professor and Professor Emerita of History Dana Frank about her new book, What Can We Learn About The Great Depression: Stories of Ordinary People and Collective Action In Hard Times. -
January 13, 2025 - The Guardian
Science has a trust problem. How to solve it? Don’t be condescending
Local newspapers, television and radio stations are the most trusted media in the county, with 85% of Americans saying the local press is essential for democracy. It’s because these reporters are from the same communities they’re writing about, said Erika Hayden, director of the Science Communication Program at the University of California, Santa Cruz, enabling greater transparency and authenticity.
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January 12, 2025 - San Francisco ChronicleRising tides could wipe out Pacifica, but residents can’t agree on how to respond
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January 06, 2025 - GristThe business case for saving coral reefs
“It’s kind of a selfish way to look at these ecosystems. We need to maintain them because they’re protecting people,” said Borja G. Reguero, a coastal engineer and professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz who’s co-authored much of the relevant science. Such logic is compelling to the emergency authorities and insurance companies that wind up “paying for the Katrinas and Sandys,” he added. -
January 05, 2025 - Santa Cruz Sentinel
Study focuses on effect of climate change on California's grasslands
Several UC Santa Cruz researchers contributed to a recent study that combined long-term observational data with results from global change experiments in the region to show that, climate change is causing species that prefer hotter and drier conditions to become more dominant in regional grassland communities. "(We need to) understand what's happening so that we can guide our restoration and conservation efforts," said Environmental Studies Professor Karen Holl. Additional coverage in The Sacramento Bee.
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January 05, 2025 - Rolling StoneChina Is Ready to Take Advantage of Trump Trashing Clean Energy
Environmental Studies Professor Sikina Jinnah discussed how backtracking on climate change affects America's standing with Europe and the rest of the world. “They’re probably thinking, ‘Oh god. Not again,’” she said. “[Trump’s win] signals to not only Europe but the rest of the world that we’re an unreliable partner in multilateral negotiations — not only in the climate context but much more broadly.”
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January 01, 2025 - High Country NewsWind energy jobs are taking off, but so are risks
President-elect Trump has threatened to rescind all unspent IRA money, and the Treasury Department could reopen and rewrite the tax credit rules. Without federal funds and leadership, unionization rates in the wind industry will likely continue to vary across states. Going forward, Mijin Cha, who studies just transition at the University of California, Santa Cruz, said that new labor standards, as opposed to market incentives, would more effectively guarantee good jobs.
December
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December 12, 2024 - CNN
Humpback whale makes record journey from South America to Africa
“Our dogmatic thinking is that (whales) always go to the place where they came from,” said Ari Friedlaender, professor of ocean sciences at the University of California, Santa Cruz, who was not involved in the study. “But there has to be some movement where you get some (animal) explorers that decide, for whatever reason, to follow a different path.”
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December 30, 2024 - Smithsonian MagazineHungry Sea Otters Are Taking a Bite Out of California's Invasive Crab Problem, New Study Finds
“The otters are a just super voracious predator,” says study co-author Kerstin Wasson, an ecologist at the reserve and the University of California, Santa Cruz. “We calculated that the current otter population here eats somewhere between 50,000 and 120,000 green crabs a year.”
Additional coverage in the Washington Post, USA Today, and other outlets.
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December 26, 2024 - New York Times
Raging Waves Batter California's Coast and Its Beloved Piers
Michael W. Beck, the director of the Center for Coastal Climate Resilience at the University of California, Santa Cruz, said that big wave events have increased significantly over the past few decades. Daily exposure to stronger waves — which strike multiple times a minute — also causes wear that California’s sea structures weren’t designed to withstand, he said. “The waves have just been relentless on these piers,” Mr. Beck said.
Additional coverage in SiliconValley.com, KQED, and the San Jose Mercury News.
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December 18, 2024 - NPRYou don't look a day over 4.35 billion! Here's the moon's anti-aging secret
"We think that the Moon went through a period when it looked like Io, and for the same reason," says Francis Nimmo, a planetary scientist with the University of California, Santa Cruz, and lead author of the paper. "There would have been volcanoes jetting off all over the place," he says. "It would have been very dramatic." The result would be a Moon that seemed younger than its true age.
Coverage of this news appeared in more than 1,000 other outlets, including an op-ed from Nimmo in The Conversation, and news coverage in El País, NBC News, Popular Science, Salon, Scientific American.
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December 26, 2024 - San Francisco ChronicleResearch by UC Santa Cruz professor, others yields gruesome discovery
New research by an anthropology professor at UC Santa Cruz and other experts revealed a startling twist on the human sacrifice traditions of an ancient people of Peru.“Most of what we know about human sacrifices with the Moche relates to very public and gruesome forms of human sacrifice,” said Lars Fehren-Schmitz, an archaeogeneticist at UC Santa Cruz and author of the research. Additional coverage in Live Science.
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December 23, 2024 - High Country News
Utah’s coal mines can’t find enough workers
Miners describe eroding benefits as unionized coal mines have closed down. Some former union mines may eventually reopen, but it will be with new names, new owners and no union contracts. Mijin Cha, a just transition researcher at the University of California, Santa Cruz, said that this is a common trend across the nation.
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December 23, 2024 - Grist
Three-quarters of the world’s land is drying out, ‘redefining life on Earth’
Climate change has made great swaths of the planet drier and soils saltier, jeopardizing food production and water access for billions. We can look to current geopolitical and ecological events that are playing out currently to understand what we can expect in the future,” said Hannah Waterhouse, a soil and water scientist at the University of California, Santa Cruz. “Think of what is occurring in Sudan right now, where climate change is exacerbating resource scarcity, which is interacting in governance and geopolitics in violent outcomes for civilians.” Additional coverage in Clean Technica.
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December 20, 2024 - Financial Express
A haze of institutional weakness
In an opinion article, Distinguished Professor of Economics Nirvikar Singh argues that the standard approach of localized and reactive policies will not India’s air pollution problems. -
December 18, 2024 - San Francisco Chronicle
Scientists are turning fog into water. Here’s what it could mean for California
Peter Weiss, an environmental toxicologist at UC Santa Cruz, started collecting fog during the megadrought that plagued California from 2019 through 2021. “It’s bringing the concept of collecting atmospheric water in this passive way to our everyday lives,” Weiss said. “You can get a tangible quantity of water you can put to use that you wouldn’t otherwise have.” -
December 13, 2024 - The ScientistA Tiny but Mighty Helper Stops Mosquito Viruses in Their Tracks
Even though Wolbachia’s virus-blocking effects were described more than 10 years ago, the mechanisms behind it are still poorly understood, noted William Sullivan, a cell biologist at the University of California, Santa Cruz, who has delved into the biology of Wolbachia for more than two decades. “The million-dollar question is the mechanism of virus protection, and there are lots of models out there,” said Sullivan, who emphasized that more research efforts should be devoted to uncovering the basic molecular and cellular biology of Wolbachia interactions with their hosts.
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December 18, 2024 - Cal Matters
California’s attorney general leads a ‘know your rights’ workshop for immigrants
California Attorney General Rob Bonta and other immigrant advocates have warned people to be careful about the legal help they seek and to only use qualified and licensed immigration attorneys. Scams offering fake immigration services or extorting payments by threatening deportation target vulnerable communities, especially in Los Angeles. Cal Matters shared research by UC Santa Cruz Associate Professor of Sociology Juan Pedroza that sheds light on these types of scams, which are likely vastly underreported. -
December 13, 2024 - WDETExploring gender roles in 2024, from ‘girlboss’ to ‘trad wife’
UC Santa Cruz gender and sexual identity diversity expert Dr. Phillip Hammack joined Detroit Public Radio to discuss how gender roles have shifted in the past decade. Hammack said that new labels popularized on social media show that "ideas around how to be a woman, how to inhabit your gender, have now opened up, and there are options,” he said. “Those kinds of micro labels say, ‘You can inhabit your womanhood in different ways, and that’s okay.’”
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December 16, 2024 - San Francisco Public PressShuttered Radiation Lab Poses Ongoing Health Risks for Growing Neighborhood
Coverage of the history of cleanup and development plans at the Navy's San Francisco lab cited research by Associate Professor of Sociology Lindsey Dillon and quoted Daniel Hirsch, the retired director of UCSC's former Program on Environmental and Nuclear Policy. Hirsch says there is “high likelihood that contamination migrated from the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard into the neighboring community.”
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December 12, 2024 - San Francisco Public Press
Destroyed Records, Dying Witnesses Obscure SF Radiation Lab
“You almost have a sense of a military entity, knowing it was involved in rights violations and other questionable activities, burning the file before the incoming troops arrived,” said Daniel Hirsch, the retired director of the former Program on Environmental and Nuclear Policy at the University of California, Santa Cruz, who has authored several reports about shipyard and lab activities. Hirsch was also quoted in Part 4 and Part 6 of this series
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December 12, 2024 - Atlanta Journal-ConstitutionGeorgia prison system engages in deception as crisis builds
A leading expert on prison conditions and solitary confinement, Craig Haney, was brought in to study the unit, and he described the SMU as "one of the harshest and most draconian" solitary confinement facilities he had ever seen. … "The atmosphere inside E Wing was bedlam-like, as chaotic and out of-control as any such unit I have seen in decades of conducting such evaluations," wrote Haney, a psychology professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
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December 11, 2024 - KTVULuigi Mangione: Societal support for alleged criminals isn't unprecedented
"Sometimes communications online, particularly social media, can kind of give us an idea of where the public is at. And I don't think anybody can dismiss the fact that there are divergent opinions on this murder," said Nolan Higdon, a lecturer at the University of California, Santa Cruz. This story was picked up by Yahoo News.
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December 18, 2024 - Lookout Santa CruzScotts Valley didn’t get a tornado warning, but San Francisco did. Why?
Environmental Studies Professor Michael Loik explained how climate change could potentially lead to increased opportunities for tornado development. “From a mechanistic standpoint, if you warm up the atmosphere, you warm up the ocean, you create more evaporation, you create more storminess,” he said. “From a statistical standpoint, then that might lead some to predict more tornadoes but there’s so much more that goes into it than that.”
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January 01, 2020 - San Francisco Public Press
Cold War Human Radiation Experiments Pushed Ethical Boundaries
“This testing on people who were not genuine volunteers, who were not genuinely informed of the risk — they were human guinea pigs in an experiment that had no value at the end of the day,” said Daniel Hirsch, the retired director of the former Program on Environmental and Nuclear Policy at the University of California, Santa Cruz. “This is a real abuse of power.”
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December 08, 2024 - Monterey County HeraldClimate change swiftly remaking region’s grasslands
Climate change is altering regional grasslands at remarkable speed as species that thrive in hotter, drier conditions dominate the ecosystem, scientists reported in a recent study. The researchers found this strong trend at test sites across California, with the most notable results near Elkhorn Slough, at UC Santa Cruz and in coastal Mendocino County. "I think what I was most surprised about was how consistent the results were across multiple sites," said study author Karen Holl, an ecologist from UC Santa Cruz whose lab provided the observational data for Monterey and Santa Cruz counties
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December 06, 2024 - TODAYHow to keep a dream journal — and why you should
Thematic dream analysis can help you uncover the repetitive thoughts, emotions and behavioral patterns that could use some addressing. Thematic analysis as a dream method has been developed and refined by several researchers over time, including the prominent work of G. William Domhoff, a psychologist at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
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December 06, 2024 - PoliticoThe litmus test posed by ‘Lithium Valley’
The jury is still out on whether lithium development at the Salton Sea will help the majority-Latino communities living in California’s second-poorest county. This is the topic of a new book from Chris Benner, sociologist and director of the Institute for Social Transformation at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and scholar-activist Manuel Pastor, director of the University of Southern California’s Equity Research Institute. Additional coverage in E&E News.
