Media Coverage
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Two Centuries On, Smithsonian Connects Jefferson’s Hair to Hemings’s Children
Beth Shapiro and Ed Green, two experts in ancient DNA at the University of California, Santa Cruz, employed groundbreaking techniques to yield “extraordinary proof” that Thomas Jefferson fathered children with Sally Hemings. Additional coverage in The Atlantic and The New Yorker.
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We’re worrying about the wrong AI apocalypse
“Before, you needed to have highly skilled technical expertise,” to pull off some version of a real-life Aurora Generator Test, said Alvaro Cardenas, a computer science professor at UC Santa Cruz. “And now, you just have to have a general idea of what’s possible.”
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How sick sea lions and an anchovy fishing ban in Monterey Bay are connected
“The classic way to get a big toxic event in Monterey Bay and in California is you have alternating cold, high-nutrient water and then warm water that’s keeping everything up in the surface and concentrating,” said Raphael Kudela, a professor of ocean science at UC Santa Cruz. “That’s basically what we’ve been having this year.”
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Hundreds celebrate Labor Day in Watsonville
Sen. John Laird led the gathering through a list of recent achievements in the state Legislature, including new equipment for Watsonville Community Hospital, a new radio system for Santa Cruz METRO and improvements planned for the Pajaro Valley, including union-friendly contracting. “We’ve got land for affordable housing in Santa Cruz,” Laird continued. “We have more…
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Monterey Bay Central Labor Council annual picnic celebrates unions, calls for action in November
Veronica Hamilton, research director at the UC Santa Cruz Center for Labor and Community, said the center is about to publish a report on issues facing young workers throughout Santa Cruz County and the ways that South County employees are disproportionately impacted by the housing crisis. These include overcrowding and the costs of childcare.
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How Bozeman is preventing human-wildlife conflicts before they start
University of California, Santa Cruz ecologist Chris Wilmers, who leads the Santa Cruz Puma Project, said that regional development patterns have long ignored large animals’ need to move across the landscape. “For 20 to 30 years, throughout the Intermountain West, it’s been 30 acres and a house here, 10 acres and a house there,” said…
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These Sisters Knew Their Mom Was Being Scammed. Telling Her Was the Hard Part.
Scammers often warn targets that relatives will try to interfere. Anthony Pratkanis, an emeritus psychology professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz, calls the tactic “the wedge”—isolating victims by telling them that family members don’t want them to be happy or have money.
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English Museum to Repatriate Colonial-Era Human Remains
”It is a celebration,” Dolly Kikon, a Naga anthropologist and professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz, said in an interview before the announcement. ”It is the homecoming of our loved ones. A group of our elders are returning.” She, along with Arkotong Longkumer, a professor of anthropology at the University of Edinburgh, initiated…
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The Case for Letting High Schoolers Goof Off
Passing a law is one thing; knowing whether schools are following it is another. “There are no tracking systems,” London, a sociology professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and the author of Rethinking Recess: Creating Safe and Inclusive Playtime for All Children in School, said. She added, “I think the piece of it…
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How can countries escape poverty trap, U.S. politics, and effects of AI on teaching and learning Ajay Shenoy
Ajay Shenoy, an Associate Professor of Economics at UC Santa Cruz, discusses his research, as well as how the rise of AI is affecting teaching and learning experiences, especially for online courses.
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California is about to see a sudden foot of sea level rise from El Niño. Here’s when it hits
California’s highest king tides are predicted on Thanksgiving Day and Christmas Day, with another in late January. Water levels will probably rival the highest in recorded history, even without a nearby storm. “If we get big waves coming at the same time, (flooding) is gonna be worse,” said Gary Griggs, a professor of earth sciences…
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DNA Reveals the Extinct ‘American Cheetah’ Wasn’t Actually a Cheetah
Molly Cassatt-Johnstone, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of California, Santa Cruz led research that produced high-quality ancient genomes from a fossil in Natural Trap Cave, Wyoming, and another from Bluefish Caves in Yukon. The genetic family tree placed Miracinonyx beside the modern puma, Puma concolor, rather than the African cheetah. The Miracinonyx and puma…