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Why thousands of people are traveling to one country to see these birds
Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies Natalia Ocampo-Peñuela is a conservation ecologist who has been studying the explosion of bird-watching tourism in Colombia. Activity on eBird, a platform where birders can record their observations, increased more than 27-fold in Colombia since 2010, according to unpublished research by Ocampo-Peñuela and other authors that’s currently under review.
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Mangroves save $855 billion in flood protection globally, new study shows
Mangroves have been shown to provide $855 billion in flood protection services worldwide, according to a new study from the Center for Coastal Climate Resilience at UC Santa Cruz. The research, conducted by project co-lead, Pelayo Menendez and center director, Michael W. Beck, is featured in the World Bank’s 2024 edition of The Changing Wealth…
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Tsunami reality check
Although it’s unlikely, Steven Ward, a professor of earth and planetary sciences at UC Santa Cruz, has created a series of animations to show how a big tsunami might spread through San Francisco Bay. In Ward’s simulations, the incoming wave stands just over 16 feet tall.
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Tsunami warning along Northern California coast canceled, Bay Area residents react
"It’s really a subtle effect between an earthquake that can cause a very large tsunami and one that doesn’t at all, and that has to do with what direction the fault moves. If it’s moving side to side it’s not very likely to push up a big pile of water and make a tsunami, but…
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Scientists achieve major step forward in developing innovative diesel fuel alternative: 'This could really impact people'
University of California, Santa Cruz, researchers say they have improved the waste oil-to-biodiesel production process with a simple, circular method involving mild heat. "I always wanted to work on biodiesel," said doctoral student Kevin Lofgren, the study's lead author. "I started exploring this new material that we made to see if it could attack the…
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Study confirms a 40-year-old quantum theory
According to co-author Jairo Velasco, Jr., associate professor of physics at UC Santa Cruz, as electrons move from one point to another in a closed orbit, the property of the subatomic particle is better preserved. This could have wide applications in everyday electronics, demonstrating how data encoded in electrons’ properties could be transferred without loss.
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30 Under 30 – Healthcare (2025): Immergo Labs
Adjunct Professor of Computational Media Aviv Elor and Electrical and Computer Engineering Ph.D. student Ash Robbins, who co-founded the telehealth physical therapy company Immergo Labs, were recognized in the 2025 Forbes 30 under 30 list in the Healthcare category.
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Enter the ‘ether,’ where scammers weaponize your emotions
Anthony Pratkanis, professor emeritus of psychology at the University of California, Santa Cruz, co-wrote a source book for fraud fighters. “We’re looking at it from the outside, and we may not see all the little details and trappings that create that powerful situation for the targeted victim,” he said.
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Elevated radiation detected at former Bay Area landfill turned art park
State-ordered environmental testing has uncovered elevated levels of cancer-causing radiation at the Albany Bulb, a former municipal landfill for construction debris that now features scenic hiking trails and a sprawling collection of outdoor art. The new testing adds to the serious public health and safety concerns for one of the Bay Area’s most cherished coastal…
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Revealed: how a San Francisco navy lab became a hub for human radiation experiments
The navy’s San Francisco lab was one of many research centers and hospitals across the country that exposed people to radiation and other hazards for scientific purposes. That makes it a demonstration of “the ways that people have been seen as disposable, to science or to the military”, said Lindsey Dillon, a UCSC assistant professor…