On Tuesday we Californians will vote on Prop 37 to decide whether or not to force companies to label their genetically modified foods. The European Union already requires the labeling of these GMOs, and some European countries ban genetically modified products outright. This labeling paints the picture that GMOs are dangerous and shouldn’t be developed…
Almost every morning since I moved to Santa Cruz, I’ve seen their long, brown-and-yellow bodies slither across my counter tops. My unwanted house guests are cellar slugs and I imagine that their shimmering slime trails are chock-full of germs, ready to infect me. Like most people, I strive for sterility from the outdoors. But could…
The deeply nasal, yet strangely calming voice would echo through my living room, keeping me company during the middle of the night. Each sentence was overstuffed with ideas, like airborne zip files, waiting to be unpacked. I would be utterly absorbed by this voice for hours, lying motionless on the couch in the dark. This…
We all have our reasons for choosing paper vs. plastic vs. reusable bags. A woman at a checkout line in Alabama told a friend of mine that she uses reusable bags because she would rather see petroleum go into NASCAR races than plastic bags. Like I said, we all have our own reasons. (more…)
I am a newbie to the Pacific Coast, but I am no stranger to living on a fault. As a kid in Utah I stuffed emergency kits with my parents and dove under my desk during earthquake drills at school. When you live in earthquake country, it pays to be prepared. An international science team’s…
Four years ago, honeymooning in Big Sur, my husband and I stumbled onto an overwintering site for monarch butterflies. Monarchs arrive at pine and eucalyptus groves up and down California’s coast this time of year after migrating hundreds of miles. On a hike in Andrew Molera State Park, we noticed a couple of monarchs perched…
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…
After seeing the alarming video of the Minnesota I-35 bridge collapse in class today, I’m reminded from my recent reporting on the flattening of the Golden Gate Bridge 25 years ago on how flexible numbers can be. Searching for a simple detail revealed how much hand waving goes on that I hope is reserved for…
Two quarters ago, David Cohn—the web whiz and crowd-funded journalism advocate who invented Spot.us—left the SciCom class of 2012 with a note-worthy nugget of internet advice. “It’s cheaper and easier to try something,” he said, “than to debate about whether or not to try it.” Instead of carefully considering the pros and cons of making…
Ah, the signs of spring. The sun is out, the rain has stopped (for now)—and sudden oak death is on the move. This invasive, fungus-like tree killer, which is related to the Irish potato blight, moves in fits and spurts with bouts of warm spring rains. Every spring for the past four years, scientists from…
