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UCSC 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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Ancient 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…
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A 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…
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Climate 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…
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Which 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'…
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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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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.
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UC, 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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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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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…