Earth & Space
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UC Santa Cruz joins consortium advancing Earth system science programs
UC Santa Cruz has joined a nonprofit consortium of 126 North American colleges and universities focused on research and training in Earth system science.
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UC Santa Cruz names new, rare succulent species from Orange County
A new, rare species of succulent plant from Orange County has been named by Stephen McCabe, a researcher with the UC Santa Cruz Arboretum, with Kristen Hasenstab-Lehman and Matt Guiliams of the Santa Barbara Botanic Garden. The naming of new species is part of an effort by multiple entities to help conserve the many threatened…
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Innovating agriculture for a greener world
UCSC’s Earth Futures Institute’s Frontier Fellows Program, wrapping up its second year, supported six undergraduate students engaging in groundbreaking interdisciplinary research aimed at improving the planet’s future. Eric Vetha uses his passion for robotics to hone in on soil moisture management practices.
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Scientists find unexpected proteins in bacteria motors
A team of scientists, co-led by Karen Ottemann, a professor of Microbiology and Environmental Toxicology, recently found three unexpected proteins while studying the motors that power the flagella of a species called Helicobacter pylori. The proteins, which are normally found in another type of appendage on a separate group of bacteria, seem to exert control…
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‘Digital twins’ project will help clean up space junk, repair and decommission spacecrafts
Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering Ricardo Sanfelice and a team of researchers have been awarded $2.5M to model complex aerospace engineering problems.
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UC Santa Cruz will lead development of next-generation telescope alignment system
The National Science Foundation recently awarded $3.9 million to researchers at the University of California, Santa Cruz as the lead institution for the development of a next-gen telescope alignment system. The researchers will work with an international team to build and test systems in Santa Cruz and eventually install the final designs in seven telescopes…
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Students search for hidden black hole activity
When stars get too close to the supermassive black holes at the centers of galaxies, the black holes shred them apart in a process called a tidal disruption event (TDE). These TDEs cause bright flashes, but recent models suggest that scientists should see more of them than have been observed.
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Multidisciplinary team will develop advanced rhizosphere carbon imaging for climate change research with support of major DOE grant
A team of researchers at UC Santa Cruz and Stanford University are leading a new project in which they aim to use dynamic imaging and modeling of carbon in the rhizosphere to answer longstanding questions about how carbon moves through the soil and plant root interface.
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Nearly $1 million in USDA grants will support 3 UCSC-led agricultural technology projects
Three UC Santa Cruz research teams led by engineering faculty will pursue innovative agriculture technology projects with the support of seed grants from the USDA’s Agriculture and Food Research Initiative.
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Study shows significant decline of snow cover in the Northern hemisphere over the last half century
Professor and Statistics Department Chair Robert Lund collaborated on a new study that uses rigorous mathematical models and statistical methods and finds declining snow cover in many parts of the northern hemisphere over the last half century.
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Bering Land Bridge formed surprisingly late during last ice age, study finds
By reconstructing the sea level history of the Bering Strait, scientists found that the strait remained flooded until around 35,700 years ago, not long before humans began migrating into the Americas.
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Long-standing genomic mystery about the origins of introns explained in new study
A new study led by scientists at UC Santa Cruz and published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) points to introners, one of several proposed mechanisms for the creation of introns, as an explanation for the origins of most introns across species.