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  • Study confirms ammunition as main source of lead poisoning in condors

    A study led by environmental toxicologists at the University of California, Santa Cruz, has confirmed what wildlife biologists have long suspected: Bullet fragments and shotgun pellets in the carcasses of animals killed by hunters are the principal sources of lead poisoning in California condors that have been reintroduced to the wild. Lead poisoning is a…

  • 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…

  • UCSC’s Regional History Project publishes oral histories of Loma Prieta earthquake and University Library

    The UC Santa Cruz Library’s Regional History Project has just announced the publication of two new oral histories. The first volume is The Loma Prieta Earthquake of October 17, 1989: A UCSC Student Oral History Project. It consists of 11 interviews with Santa Cruz community residents, local schoolchildren in Aptos, UCSC students, plus the director…

  • 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…

  • Woody Allen to headline UC Santa Cruz Arts & Lectures 2006-07 season

    Renowned filmmaker and Dixieland jazz clarinetist Woody Allen, African world music star Angelique Kidjo, National Public Radio’s legal affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg, and the European-influenced Aspen Santa Fe Ballet are just some of the highlights of the new 2006-07 UC Santa Cruz Arts & Lectures season. The lineup will also feature a new work by…

  • 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…

  • Sign language study reveals key finding about short-term memory

    For decades, researchers have misunderstood a key aspect of short-term memory because of shortcomings in the way they compare the memory capacity of deaf people who use American Sign Language (ASL) and hearing people, according to a new study by a psychology professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Previous studies suggested that ASL…

  • 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…

Last modified: Mar 18, 2025