As we wind up our year in the UCSC Science Communication Program, it’s a time of transition. Not only for the ten of us, as we wrap up our final stories, multimedia projects, and internships, but also for the solar system. This week marks a rare celestial event, which happens just twice every hundred or…
San Jose is a bustling city of just under a million inhabitants. Yet only 25 miles to its east, on the tranquil summit of Mount Hamilton, astronomers cast their view skyward at the Lick Observatory. I visited the observatory, which is operated by the University of California, last week. Lick actually encompasses nine different research…
One minute I’m milling around the dock of the Santa Cruz harbor, the next minute I’m hurtling out to sea on a 23-foot motorboat named “Aquaholic,” a chilly Pacific gale plastering hair across my face as I shout out questions about crab fishing and scribbling down the answers in a notepad that threatens to be…
You drink it. You put it on your cereal. You dunk cookies in it. MILK! This magical substance is the first beverage most of us consume, when our wimpy newborn bodies can’t handle much else. But it’s not just a beverage, it’s a hyper-nutritious, calcium-packed nectar, produced by the mammary glands of female mammals to…
