Media Coverage
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A Guide to the James Webb Telescope's View of the Universe
"We live in this beautiful galaxy, the Milky Way," says Brant Robertson, professor of astronomy and astrophysics at the University of California, Santa Cruz. "We can’t see the Milky Way from inside, and we can’t fly out and see it. But we know that our galaxy developed from other galaxies."
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A Blueprint From History for Tackling Homelessness
Jonathan van Harmelen, a Ph.D. candidate in history at UC Santa Cruz, penned this opinion piece arguing that one of the most pressing issues facing the United States during the 2020s is the issue of homelessness. Based on his academic research, he points out that some of the implemented solutions for homelessness build on the same…
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Icy Oceans Exist on Far-Off Moons. Why Aren’t They Frozen Solid?
For most of humankind’s existence, Earth was the only known ocean-draped world, seemingly unlike any other cosmic isle. But in 1979, NASA’s two Voyager spacecraft flew by Jupiter. Its moon Europa, a frozen realm, was decorated with grooves and fractures — hints that there might be something dynamic beneath its surface. “After Voyager, people suspected…
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Detecting Cancer Early by Measuring RNA in the Blood
Scientific American features Assistant Professor of Biomolecular Engineering Daniel Kim's research on using RNA in the bloodstream for an early, non-invasive cancer detection test.
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Carrots farms v valley: the battle over a water-depleted California region
Professor Emeritus of Agroecology Stephen Gliessman spoke with The Guardian about the risks of overdrawing water in the aquifers of California's Central Valley.
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Review | Five great sci-fi and fantasy novels to read now
The latest novel from micha cárdenas, the director of the Critical Realities Studio and assistant professor of art and design at UC Santa Cruz, was reviewed in the Washington Post. The reviewer notes that the novel, Atoms Never Touch, conjures an immersive dystopia, full of facial recognition, augmented-reality lenses and a brutal security state — while…
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Is de-extinction only a pipette dream? This startup has a big, expensive plan to find out.
Beth Shapiro, who co-directs the Paleogenomics Lab at the University of California, Santa Cruz and has studied the flightless bird’s genome for almost two decades, advises Colossal’s avian genomics work.
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Can UM-led team create a ‘perfect’ reef? Why the U.S. military is banking on it
The nation’s military has been working on a new weapon: Creating a ‘perfect,’ self-healing coral reef that can withstand disease, warming temperatures and sea rise.The reef design is made up of three stacked layers. The bottom layer is a concrete chamber called the “sea hive” after its honeycomb shape. As waves hit the bottom row…
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Depleted Groundwater Could Be Refilled by Borrowing a Trick from Solar Power
Researchers measure the water that flows off the hillside and into the basin. To calculate how much water seeps underground, they use stream and pressure gauges, as well as thermal probes inserted into the shallow soil at the bottom of the basin. “The infiltrating water carries heat,” says Andrew Fisher, a hydrogeologist at the University…
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None of Your Photos Are Real
The aesthetics of online socializing reaffirmed old racial imbalances around beauty but also opened up a space for women of color, especially, to have representational agency, says Derek Conrad Murray, a professor at UC Santa Cruz who specializes in the history of art and visual culture. “Self-representation and social media enabled many women of color…
