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May 10, 1999
Research by environmental toxicologist Donald Smith on a new technique for identifying sources of lead poisoning in children was the focus of an article in La Opinion, the leading Spanish-language newspaper in Los Angeles.
The Science Illustration Program was featured on KION Channel 46 news, including interviews with program coordinator Ann Caudle and several students. Work by this year's class of science illustrators will be on display at the Santa Cruz Natural History Museum, (831) 420-6115, through June 6, and students will demonstrate illustration techniques at the museum on May 15 from 10 a.m. to noon.
Anthropologist Nancy Chen's expertise on qigong, a traditional Chinese practice that uses meditation and martial arts exercises to improve health, continues to attract the attention of reporters, most recently from the Associated Press and the Los Angeles Times. She also consulted with a New York Times writer working on a recent editorial.
KION Channel 46 and KSBW Channel 8 covered a demonstration of telemedicine technology that brought doctors from Salinas Valley Memorial Hospital into UCSC's videoconferencing classroom so they could connect to a high-performance, high-speed network for sharing sophisticated medical images with other doctors.
Social psychology's dynamic duo, Anthony Pratkanis and Elliot Aronson, were interviewed for a Santa Cruz County Sentinel story about high school cliques in the wake of the Littleton massacre.
Professor of astronomy and astrophysics Stan Woosley was quoted in a Washington Post article about gamma ray bursts. In January, astronomers detected a gamma ray burst that has been described as the most violent explosion ever measured. Woosley has proposed one of the leading theories to account for the tremendous amounts of energy released in gamma ray bursts.
Sophomore tennis player Danny Kim was the subject of a portrait and lengthy profile on the front page of the sports section of the Santa Cruz County Sentinel recently. Women's water polo team members Maria Zavala and Maureen Reilly were also pictured in the Sentinel the same day.
Another article on the plight of California sea otters, whose numbers are declining, ran in the San Francisco Examiner and was reprinted in the Santa Cruz County Sentinel. Sea otter expert Jim Estes, adjunct professor of biology, was quoted extensively in the story. According to Estes, if current trends continue the California sea otter population will be in very bad shape in another ten or 20 years.