“Don’t you dare lick that seal!” screamed a bikini-clad young woman flicking the salty waves with her toes. As I glanced across the Santa Cruz Dog Beach toward the base of a succulent-covered cliff, a brown mutt the size of a footstool was fondling a lifeless pinniped half buried in the sand. It was one…
The first clue that I was wrong was that I had a knee-jerk reaction. Nu uh, Temple Grandin, I thought, you can too learn algebra! Sitting inside a gigantic fancy tent at the Hyatt Regency in Monterey, Calif., I soon learned that my impetuous disagreement was based on one simple fact: I knew next to…
Reader, be proud. You’re a perceptual expert. As you read, your eyes alternately focus and move along each line of text in a seamless sequence honed over years of practice. Reading, recognizing faces and distinguishing colors or musical tones are all forms of perceptual expertise. To appreciate the visual skill involved in reading, turn a…
The term “living fossil” carries far more weight than Grandpa’s 80th birthday card. The world is supposedly full of animals, plants, even bacteria that—depending on who you ask—have barely evolved in millions of years. Alligators, sharks, gingko trees all bear the label. Their poster child is the coelacanth, the last living member of a subclass…
We stand at a strange moment in human history, when lawyers and corporations wage war amongst each other over one question: who owns your body? Off to the side, biohackers—the freaks, geeks, rebels, and punks who do biotechnology experiments in garages and basements—must decide whether to abide by the outcomes. Maybe you’ve heard about…
As we sat in my car outside a silent movie theater in Los Angeles, my friend anxiously opened a plastic bag containing a white T-shirt she’d slept in for the past three nights. “Does it smell like me?” she asked nervously, gesturing the open end toward my face. I stuck my nose into the bag and inhaled….
Doe-eyed kids will rise from their comfy beds on Christmas, eager to rush downstairs and unwrap the presents under the tree, all the while, unwittingly taking a huge dump on the environment. U.S. household waste is highest between Thanksgiving and New Years, rising by 25 percent—or an extra one million tons during the holiday season….
Following the recent sexual harassment scandal at Scientific American, heated ethical debates dominated the science journalism digisphere. We —the ten budding writers in the UC Santa Cruz Science Communication Program class of 2014, led by our instructor, Nature reporter Erika Check Hayden — decided to weigh in. We started with the nine Principles of Journalism…
On African savannas, poachers have forced black rhinos nearly to extinction. Closer to home, poaching, poisoning and habitat loss threaten California condors. Yet nearly 60 percent of all endangered species in California are plants. With more than 6,000 native plant species, the Golden State is so rich that Conservation International calls it a biodiversity hotspot….
As the holidays roll around, some of us can’t wait to pile our plates with cookies, candy and family favorites. But if you’re feeling overwhelmed by seasonal excess, try focusing on the color red. According to a new study, people tend to eat — or use — less of things presented on red dishes, whether…
