Media Coverage
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Complete Reference Genomes Set New Genomics Milestones
A consortium team from the University of California, Santa Cruz (UC Santa Cruz) Genomics Institute used the consortium’s methods to create a complete reference genome for the marmoset, a small primate increasingly used to study neurodegenerative diseases.
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The Classics Are Cool Again
At a time when humanities degrees are being questioned and classics departments collapsed, some colleges are seizing on the blockbuster to showcase their studies in Greek and Roman literature and culture. The University of California at Santa Cruz’s ancient-studies program hosted a two-part book club.
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The Andromeda galaxy is making far fewer stars than it used to, and astronomers think they know why
“There’s a strong scientific value to this archival data,” said study co-author Raja GuhaThakurta, a professor of astronomy at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Additional coverage in Astronomy Magazine.
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Who Gets to Enjoy California’s Coast?
“Persistent barriers keep some of California’s most vulnerable and marginalized communities from the coast,” said lead author Timothy Frawley, a project scientist in the Fisheries Collaborative Program at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Additional coverage by POLITICO.
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Emperor penguin chicks like these starved. An iceberg may be the cause
“The shape of the iceberg itself trapped adult penguins as they were returning to the colony from the sea,” says Michael Polito, a marine biologist at University of California, Santa Cruz who was not involved in the work.
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Clear sighting of ‘wandering’ black hole reveals escapee from galaxy merger
Within weeks of the discovery of TDE 2025abcr, a team led by Kishore Patra of the University of California, Santa Cruz observed it with the W. M. Keck telescopes in Hawaii and NASA’s JWST observatory, to capture its glow in optical and infrared light. Additional coverage in Smithsonian Magazine
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How human behavior impacts these sex-changing fish
“This is an exciting finding,” says Malin Pinsky of the University of California Santa Cruz, who studies genetic changes in fish population, but was not involved in this study. “I am not surprised that large differences in the environment, such as from fishing, would affect the DNA in this way.”
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After federal cuts to SNAP, Santa Cruz food bank CEO says “we can’t lose sight of hope”
A recent report that UC Santa Cruz commissioned found that one out of every three people in our county is food insecure, namely attributed to the high cost of living.
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Beyond free access: UC Santa Cruz study exposes the hidden barriers to California’s beaches
A new UC Santa Cruz study reveals that despite California’s strong access laws, historical discrimination, wealth disparities and systemic barriers still make the state’s coastlines overwhelmingly white and affluent. Additional coverage by The Cool Down and Earth.com.
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This humpback whale hunting strategy has been out of sight — until now
In Stellwagen Bank, the research team has seen individual humpback whales switching between surface bubble-net feeding and benthic hunting. It’s like they’re “playing two sports that have completely different skill sets to be successful,” says Ari Friedlaender, a marine biologist at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
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As Commercial Salmon Fishing Resumes in California, the Industry Faces a Murky Outlook
For California’s salmon recovery to continue, Steve Lindley, an oceanographer and fish ecologist at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and a former director of NOAA’s Fisheries Ecology Division, said it will be important to think of how salmon are raised and where they live.
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Thousands of Kidnapped Africans Died on an Island in the Atlantic After Being Rescued From Slave Ships. Evidence in Their Teeth Traces Their Journeys
Strontium isotopes are specific to types of water and plants, and they embed in kids’ tooth enamel as it forms. That means the isotopes “reflect where they were at that specific time in their lives,” study co-author Vicky Oelze, a geochemist at the University of California Santa Cruz, tells Science. “Even if they were displaced, the signature of where…