News

Tim Stephens

  • UCSC Extension launches new program in Knowledge Services and Enterprise Management

    A new graduate certificate program in Knowledge Services and Enterprise Management (KSEM) offered by UCSC Extension and the Baskin School of Engineering at UC Santa Cruz focuses on building the skills required to design and manage technology-based enterprises. All courses in the program will be offered at UCSC’s Silicon Valley Center, located at the NASA…

  • UCSC appoints Bruce Margon as vice chancellor of research

    The University of California, Santa Cruz, has appointed Bruce Margon to serve as vice chancellor of research. Margon, currently associate director for science at the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, will assume his position at UCSC on October 16. He replaces Robert C. Miller, who is resigning his successful tenure as vice chancellor…

  • Newly discovered gene may hold clues to evolution of human brain capacity

    Scientists have discovered a gene that has undergone accelerated evolutionary change in humans and is active during a critical stage in brain development. Although researchers have yet to determine the precise function of the gene, the evidence suggests that it may play a role in the development of the cerebral cortex and may even help…

  • UCSC posts record growth in research funding in 2005-06

    Researchers at the University of California, Santa Cruz, attracted a record $128.5 million in external grants and contracts to the campus in the 2005-06 fiscal year. The increase continues an upward trend in research funding at UCSC that has brought in almost half a billion dollars over the past five years. “UCSC’s grants and contracts…

  • Study documents the marathon migrations of sooty shearwaters

    Every summer, millions of sooty shearwaters arrive off the coast of California, their huge flocks astonishing visitors who may have trouble grasping that the dark swirling clouds over the water consist of seabirds. Scientists have long known that sooty shearwaters breed in New Zealand and Chile and migrate to feeding grounds in the Northern Hemisphere.…

  • AIDS vaccine expert Phillip Berman to head UCSC Biomolecular Engineering Department

    The University of California, Santa Cruz, has recruited Phillip Berman, a pioneer in the development of recombinant vaccines for AIDS and other infectious diseases, to serve as professor and chair of the Department of Biomolecular Engineering. Berman, who joined the faculty of UCSC’s Baskin School of Engineering in July, has nearly 25 years of experience…

  • UCSC collaborating in interdisciplinary center to study marine microbes

    The University of California, Santa Cruz, is one of six partner institutions in a new interdisciplinary science and technology center that will focus on the microbial inhabitants of the sea. Funded by a five-year, $19 million grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Center for Microbial Oceanography Research and Education (C-MORE) is based at…

  • A simple survey yields a cosmic conundrum

    A survey of galaxies observed along the sightlines to quasars and gamma-ray bursts–both extremely luminous, distant objects–has revealed a puzzling inconsistency. Galaxies appear to be four times more common in the direction of gamma-ray bursts than in the direction of quasars. Quasars are thought to be powered by accretion of material onto supermassive black holes…

  • Atomic-resolution structure of a ribozyme yields insights into RNA catalysis and the origins of life

    Which came first, nucleic acids or proteins? This question is molecular biology’s version of the “chicken-or-the-egg” riddle. Genes made of nucleic acids (DNA or RNA) contain the instructions for making proteins, but enzymes made of proteins are needed to replicate genes. For those who try to understand how life originated, this once seemed an intractable…

  • UCSC physicists explore a boundary of their discipline in new book, Quantum Enigma

    Quantum mechanics, one of the most successful theories in all of science, says some strange things about the fundamental nature of the world. For all practical purposes, physicists can and do ignore the bizarre implications of the theory and use the equations of quantum mechanics to understand atoms and stars and to create the marvels…

  • UCSC scientists to discuss life on Earth in conjunction with world premiere of Frans Lanting’s Life: A Journey through Time

    A scientific forum exploring advances in the understanding of life on Earth will take place on Monday, July 31, at 7 p.m. at the Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium. The forum is being held in conjunction with Life: A Journey through Time, a multimedia presentation by photographer Frans Lanting, which has its world premiere this month…

  • UCSC researchers use new technology to study Cape fur seals in South Africa

    Sophisticated electronic tagging technology developed as part of the Tagging of Pacific Pelagics (TOPP) program is now being deployed to study Cape fur seals in South Africa. Daniel Costa, professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of California, Santa Cruz, is currently in South Africa working with an international team of investigators to…

Last modified: Mar 18, 2025