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Media Highlights

October 2009

This summary highlights media placements members of the UCSC community have garnered during the month of October 2009.

National and international

Sociologist Craig Reinarman's expertise on drug policy was featured in a Newsweek story about the growing movement to legalize marijuana.

A story about a National Leadership Grant of $615,175 awarded to the library from the Institute of Museum and Library Services to help digitize the Grateful Dead Archive received significant press, including a front page story in the Santa Cruz Sentinel and coverage in the San Francisco Chronicle, Sacramento Bee, San Jose Mercury News, San Francisco Examiner, Fresno Bee,Contra Costa Times, Canada’s Broadcast News, and The Hamilton Spectator, as well as television news coverage on NBC and CBS in the San Francisco Bay Area, Washington D.C., and San Diego, plus considerable traffic on Facebook and Twitter social network sites. The library’s head of Special Collections Christine Bunting was also quoted in stories about the award in the Marin Independent Journal and Monterey County Herald. And the New York Times, New York Post, San Francisco Examiner, American Songwriter magazine and the Huffington Post reported that an upcoming exhibit at the New-York Historical Society in March will highlight items on loan from UCSC’s Grateful Dead Archive.

A New York Times article about domestic cats as predators of birds referenced a landmark study done in 1999 by biologists Kevin Crooks and Michael Soulé.

Economist Michael Hutchison was featured in a Christian Science Monitor article about parallels between the current U.S. recession and Japan's "lost decade" of economic stagnation during the 1990s. Despite some similarities, Hutchison noted important differences, including U.S. officials' familiarity with the cost of Japan's slow initial response to its downturn.

Film critic B. Ruby Rich of community studies was interviewed by BBC World Service Radio regarding the apprehension in Switzerland of film director Roman Polanski. Rich noted the timing of Polanski's seizure in light of 40-year anniversary of slaying of Sharon Tate and the release last year of a documentary about the case. She was also interviewed by the KGO-TV.

Astronomer Greg Laughlin was interviewed for a National Geographic Channel documentary about extrasolar planets and was quoted in stories in Science Now and the Nature blog "The Great Beyond" about an unusual extrasolar planet that is gravitationally linked to two stars.

The Wall Street Journal published an article about economist Rob Fairlie's research on entrepreneurship; the research was also cited in an article in Phil's Stock World, and he was quoted in a Patriot Ledger story on the same topic. Fortune Small Business teamed up with Fairlie and the Kauffman Foundation to announce the 50 best places to launch a business, and the ranking generated coverage in the Waterloo Courier and the Pittsburgh Tribune Review. In addition, Fairlie also contributed research assistance to CNN's special "Latino in America."

Music professor David Cope was featured in an interview on NPR’s “All Things Considered” about a computer program he created that composes classical music. Cope and his research on the topic of artificial intelligence in music were also featured in Discover magazine and arstechnica blogs.

Center for Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems director Patricia Allen was cited extensively in the New York Times's Freakonomics blog by James McWilliams entitled "Is Locavorism for Rich People Only?"

A Wired News photo essay on the physics of weird, rare clouds included a quote from atmospheric scientist Patrick Chuang.

In coverage of the Federal Reserve's inflation-fighting policies, the Associated Press cited the views of economist Carl Walsh.

Astronomer Garth Illingworth was quoted in a Science News for Kids article about Hubble Space Telescope images of distant galaxies.

Geophysicist Steven Ward and his tsunami simulations were featured recently on the History Channel program "MysteryQuest: Search for Atlantis," which aired again on Saturday, October 17. Ward was also quoted in a story about Florida tsunami risks in the Daytona Beach News-Journal.

Climate scientist James Zachos was featured in a cover story in New Scientist magazine about the long-term consequences for the planet of climate change induced by human activities. And a New Scientist story about the LCROSS moon mission included a quote from planetary scientist Don Korycansky.

Tim Galarneau of the Center for Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems was featured in an article that appeared in The Nation about food movements sweeping college campuses.

Postdoctoral researcher Chris Darimont of environmental studies coauthored an op-ed about salmon that ran in the Times Colonist of Victoria, British Columbia.

Botanist Jean Langenheim was quoted in a Science News story about new research on the origins of amber.

History professor Dana Frank was interviewed by KPFA Pacifica Radio in Los Angeles, and WBAI in New York City about the continuing political crisis in Honduras.

Computer scientist James Davis was quoted in a CNET News story about the role of technology in economic development efforts in third-world countries.

Planetary scientist Erik Asphaug was quoted in a Scientific American story about a newly discovered Kuiper Belt object.

Jeff Bury of environmental studies was quoted in a story that appeared in The Daily Climate about climate change in the Peruvian Andes.

State and regional

The San Jose Mercury News published a lengthy feature about ecologist Chris Wilmers's research on mountain lions in the Santa Cruz mountains. The Santa Cruz Sentinel ran the story on page one. KTVU-TV is the most recent news team to tag along with Wilmers as he tracked the mountain lions in the Santa Cruz mountains.

A study of bias in coin flips by mathematician Richard Montgomery and others was covered in the San Jose Mercury News and on the NBC Bay Area news site.

The San Jose Mercury News ran an opinion piece penned by Karen Holl of environmental studies. She underscored the urgency of Senate action on climate change legislation by spelling out the human health impacts of global warming in a piece titled "Climate Change is Already Making Us Sick."

Stories about a major grant for cancer genomics research ran in the San Jose Mercury News, Contra Costa Times , and Santa Cruz Sentinel.

Biologist James Estes was quoted in a story about sea otters in the Salinas Californian.

The San Jose Mercury News and Santa Cruz Sentinel covered the opening of a new UCSC Extension facility in Santa Clara.

A teleconference announcing the status of Shakespeare Santa Cruz generated two front-page stories in the Santa Cruz Sentinel, as well as coverage by SF Bay Area TV’s KRON-4 and CBS’s KPIX-5, Bay City News, San Gabriel Valley Tribune, Mid-County Post, Monterey County Weekly, Salinas Californian, and the San Jose Mercury News arts blog.

Local

In the Santa Cruz Sentinel the month:
Nate Dominy's selection as one of Popular Science magazine's annual "Brilliant 10" scientists under the age of 40 was heralded. . . . The was a story about AIDS vaccine research led by biomolecular engineer Phil Berman. . . . The paper featured a story about "UC Santa Cruz Celebrates Pixar, a week of lectures and screenings in downtown Santa Cruz and at UCSC in honor of a visit by Ed Catmull, president of Pixar and Disney Animation Studios. . . . There was a profile of seismologist Karen McNally on the 20th anniversary of the Loma Prieta earthquake. . . . An extensive advance of UCSC’s third annual Founders Day gala dinner ran, profiling each of the five awardees: Ed Catmull, Patricia and Rowland Rebele, John R. Rickford, and Daniel Friedman. . . . Artist and alumna Susan Else, who earned a degree in literature and American studies at UCSC, and is now a “fabric sculptor,” working with textiles, weaving and quilting, was profiled.

The Santa Cruz Sentinel and San Jose Mercury News ran a story about molecular biologist Harry Noller, who contributed to ribosome research that earned three other scientists a Nobel Prize in chemistry. Other articles that mentioned Noller as equally deserving of the prize ran in the Salt Lake Tribune, ArsTechnica, MedGadget, and the Hindu.

Biologist Todd Newberry was featured in a Monterey County Herald article about birding on Elkhorn Slough.

Research on nanopore technology led by biomolecular engineers Mark Akeson and David Deamer was covered by the Santa Cruz Sentinel and AzoNanotechnology.

The Santa Cruz Sentinel's coverage of the campus's annual fundraising success focused on scholarship recipient Kristen Heady, who received support from an endowment created by UCSC chemist Linda Davis Anderson. Anderson established the fund, which supports re-entry women in science, in memory of her mother. The San Jose Mercury News and Contra Costa Times also ran the story.

The Santa Cruz Sentinel ran a story on a talk by Pixar animator and UCSC alum Mark Henne in downtown Santa Cruz, part of “UC Celebrates Pixar” events, quoting assistant computer science professor Arnav Jhala. The week of Pixar celebration was previewed in the Aptos, Capitola/Soquel, and Scotts Valley Times, Santa Cruz Good Times, Santa Cruz Weekly, and City on a Hill, as well as on numerous web sites, including Steve Jobs News Watch and pixartalk.com.

Weekend Santa Cruz profiled theater arts professor Patty Gallagher, interviewing her about her upcoming special Shakespeare Santa Cruz staged reading of Mark Twain’s “The Diaries of Adam and Eve.”

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