UCSC joins international effort to improve science education Research studies will be conducted at San Francisco's Exploratorium, the world-renowned "hands-on" museum of science, art, and human perception. Copyright 2001, Exploratorium, www.exploratorium.edu Taking a cue from the public's enthusiastic response to "informal science centers" such as science and natural history museums, zoos, and aquaria, educators in the United States and England are launching an ambitious collaboration to improve science teaching and learning. The Exploratorium, the world-renowned "hands-on" museum of science, art, and human perception in San Francisco; UCSC; and King's College London are teaming up to form the Center for Informal Learning and Schools (CILS), which will integrate the best of the informal science learning with the formal learning that takes place in schools. The project is being funded by a $10.8 million grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF). At UCSC, the coprincipal investigators are Lynda Goff, vice provost and dean of undergraduate education, and Joyce Justus, chair of the Education Department. CILS aims to prepare leaders in informal science education, conduct research, support students pursuing advanced degrees in science education, and provide professional development opportunities for science museum staff. The center, headquartered at the Exploratorium, will begin operation this summer. Participating researchers and graduate students will examine innovative methods of science teaching. CILS is one of only seven new centers funded by NSF as part of its growing effort to strengthen science in schools. Representatives of the three participating institutions and lead staff for the center gathered in London in December for a reception commemorating the program launch. Photo credit: Dominic Turner   Chronicling the horrors of the Jim Crow era Cover photo: Bettmann/Corbis For historians, few projects offer the professional or personal satisfaction that comes with gathering and preserving little-known stories. And so UCSC's Paul Ortiz feels particularly honored to have been part of a major project to record the oral histories of African Americans who lived under Jim Crow in the segregated South. Ortiz, an assistant professor of community studies, was research coordinator for the oral history project and conducted dozens of the field interviews. The highlights of those oral histories have been compiled in the important new book Remembering Jim Crow: African Americans Tell about Life in the Segregated South. The book, illustrated with 50 rare segregation-era photographs, is accompanied by two CDs: One contains excerpts of the original interviews, and the second is a major radio documentary produced by American RadioWorks. The book's firsthand accounts of living under Jim Crow convey the hardship and suffering experienced by African Americans in the United States from the end of the 19th century into the 1960s. Participants describe the horrors of lynching, harassment, and sexual exploitation, and they reveal the resourcefulness with which they fought back.   UCSC ranked second in physical sciences UCSC is the second most influential university in the world in physical sciences, according to rankings of research universities and other institutions published by the British newspaper the Guardian. The rankings are based on an analysis of 1994-98 scholarly publications. Data for the study were provided by the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI), based in Philadelphia. ISI bases its analyses on the tradition of scholarly citations. When researchers publish a journal article, they must cite previous papers by other authors that set the stage for their work. Generally, a paper garners more citations when scientists accept the work as important and well done. The physical sciences include chemistry, physics, geosciences, mathematics, and engineering. The top-ranked institution is Scripps Research Institute. Rockefeller, Harvard, and Brandeis Universities round out the top five.   Deep-diving sea lions pushed to limit Photo credit: Daniel Costa A new study may help explain why certain species of marine mammals seem particularly vulnerable to changes in their food supply. Researchers have found that some deep-diving sea lions already work so hard searching for food that their ability to increase the duration of their dives is limited. As a result, they may be unable to cope with food shortages or other environmental stresses. "They are really pushing their physiological capabilities," said Daniel Costa, UCSC professor of ecology and evolutionary biology. Costa and his coauthors, Nicholas Gales of the Australian Antarctic Division and Michael Goebel of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, published their findings in the July issue of Comparative Biochemistry and Physiology. The researchers looked at three species of marine mammals: the Antarctic fur seal, the Australian sea lion, and the New Zealand sea lion. The fur seal population is thriving, but the two sea lion populations are both struggling.   Photo credit: Louise Gilmore Donahue Quarry Plaza, the name given to the area of the campus where the Bay Tree Bookstore and Whole Earth Restaurant have long thrived, made its official debut in an October celebration that showcased the new, expanded book store building (right) and the newly built Graduate Student Commons (left). The Commons is not only providing a base for graduate students, its ground floor is serving as the site for a newly refurbished Whole Earth Restaurant.   Struggles that paved the way for Labor Day Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University Most working people regard Labor Day as "just another day off," laments labor historian Dana Frank, coauthor of a new book that tells the story of three compelling labor struggles in the United States. "Few people really understand how much they owe the labor movement," said Frank, a professor of American studies at UCSC. "It's like my bumper sticker says, the labor movement are the folks who brought you the weekend." In the new book Three Strikes: Miners, Musicians, Salesgirls, and the Fighting Spirit of Labor's Last Century, Frank and coauthors Howard Zinn and Robin D. G. Kelley capture the drama and grief of labor clashes that pit corporations against union organizers, chain stores against low-wage sales clerks, and new technologies against displaced workers. "We chose stories that would resonate with what's going on today," said Frank.   Grant creates center to study supernova Massive exploding stars called supernovae are among the most spectacular phenomena in the universe. Astrophysicists, however, are still struggling to work out the mechanics of these awesome explosions. A team of astrophysicists and computer scientists at UCSC and three other institutions is now tackling the problem with support from a $2 million, three-year grant from the Department of Energy. The grant establishes a Center for Supernova Research, headquartered at UCSC. Stanford Woosley, professor and chair of astronomy and astrophysics, is principal investigator and director of the new center. The other partner institutions are the University of Arizona and the Lawrence Livermore and Los Alamos National Laboratories. This simulation, generated by researchers at Lawrence Livermore Lab, depicts a type 1a supernova explosion. "The goal is to build realistic numerical models of exploding stars, using the fastest computers available to simulate the explosions," Woosley said. "Almost all of modern physics comes to bear in a supernova explosion - radiation transport, fluid dynamics, thermonuclear fusion." A supernova occurs when the core of a star collapses under the gravitational force of its own mass. This can happen when mass is transferred between two closely orbiting stars, resulting in what is known as a type 1 supernova. A type 2 supernova occurs at the end of the lifetime of a massive star when its nuclear fuel is exhausted.   Seismic data sheds new light on Earth's internal structure About 1,800 miles beneath the surface, Earth's internal structure changes abruptly where the solid rock of the mantle meets the swirling molten iron of the outer core. But the boundary between the core and the mantle may not be as sharply defined as scientists once thought. By analyzing earthquake waves that bounce off the core-mantle boundary, UCSC researchers have found evidence of a thin zone where the outermost core is more solid than fluid. Below us: In this diagram of a cross-section through the core-mantle boundary, a core-rigidity zone lies on the fluid core side of the boundary and an ultra-low velocity zone lies on the solid mantle side. Photo credit: Sebastian Rost and Justin Revenaugh The existence of such "core-rigidity zones" - small patches of rigid material within the fluid outer core - has been suggested before, but this report marks the first time scientists have actually detected one. Postdoctoral researcher Sebastian Rost and associate professor of Earth sciences Justin Revenaugh published their findings in the November 30 issue of the journal Science. The nature of the core-mantle boundary is important because researchers now think it influences phenomena ranging from the behavior of Earth's magnetic field to the massive plumes of hot rock that rise through the mantle and erupt on the surface at volcanic hot spots such as Hawaii. The interaction of core-rigidity zones with the magnetic field, for example, may help explain the slow wobbling of Earth's rotation axis, called nutation, Revenaugh said. "Studies of Earth's nutation provided one line of evidence that got people thinking there might be these little patches of rigid material in the outer core," he said. "So previous evidence was consistent with that idea, but now we have evidence that cannot be explained any other way."   Analyzing the toxicology of trace metals The W. M. Keck Foundation of Los Angeles has awarded a grant of $1 million to UCSC to support ongoing research on the environmental toxicology of trace metals. The grant will enable the campus to purchase state-of-the-art equipment for conducting trace metal research, an area in which UCSC has been a world leader for many years. Photo credit: r. r. jones Trace metals include toxic elements such as lead and mercury, as well as biologically essential elements, such as copper and manganese, that can be toxic at high concentrations. The new instrumentation obtained with the grant will enable UCSC researchers to continue to make major advances in understanding the global cycling of trace metals in the environment and their effects on biological systems. Faculty, researchers, and students in the Departments of Environmental Toxicology, Chemistry and Biochemistry, Ocean Sciences, Earth Sciences, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, and Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology will use the new equipment. Russell Flegal, professor and chair of environmental toxicology, will coordinate the award from the W. M. Keck Foundation.       Photo credit: UCSC Photo Services Each year, UCSC's Academic Senate honors a number of the campus's most exemplary and inspiring teachers. Twelve such professors and lecturers, nominated by students, received recognition for teaching excellence in 2001. Pictured left, they are: (back row, l-r) Robert Shepherd, lecturer in economics; Karen Tei Yamashita, associate professor of literature; Frank Galuszka, professor of art; Daniel Palleros, lecturer in chemistry; Conn Hallinan, lecturer in writing; Jeremy Elkins, lecturer in legal studies; and Jorge Hankamer, professor of linguistics; (front row) Michael Urban, professor of politics; Jaye Padgett, associate professor of linguistics and chair of the Committee on Teaching, who joined the awardees; Jody Greene, assistant professor of literature; and Charles McDowell, professor of computer science. Not pictured: Frank Andrews, professor of chemistry, and Dana Frank, professor of American studies.   Mini refrigerators help chips keep their cool Tiny refrigerators may soon be deposited directly onto computer chips to cool their overheated circuits. A team of researchers from several institutions has found a way to grow minuscule cooling devices on top of chips, placing them in the exact spots where they are most needed. Heat generated by a chip's electric currents is one of the main obstacles to making computer components smaller and speedier. "As computers get faster, they get hotter, to the point where fans don't work to cool them anymore," said Ali Shakouri, an associate professor of electrical engineering at UCSC and technical director of the team that has built the new coolers. The temperature of a Pentium chip can soar to nearly 200 degrees Fahrenheit when it is operating, Shakouri said.   High schoolers give COSMOS an A+ Photo credit: Jennifer McNulty The smile on 16-year-old Long Vuong's face said it all. Vuong, a student at Willow Glen High School in San Jose, couldn't stop grinning as he described his experiences with COSMOS, a UC math and science program for high school students. COSMOS gives participants a chance to take advanced math and science classes in a college setting. "We don't have anything like this at our school," said Vuong. "It's been a very memorable program." COSMOS, known formally as the California State Summer School for Mathematics and Science, is UC's four-week residential program that gives students a chance to take advanced math and science classes in a college setting. Programs are offered at UCSC, UC Irvine, and UC Davis for students entering grades 8 through 12. Participants take thematic courses that focus on one or two subjects, attend lectures, participate in labs, and go on both academic and social field trips.   Gender differences in communication Communication problems send couples into therapy more than any other relationship issue. With both men and women feeling at times like their partners are from another planet, sociologist Dane Archer had plenty to work with when he took on his latest project. Gender and Communication: Male-Female Differences in Language & Nonverbal Behavior is the newest addition to a series of award-winning educational videotapes on communication that Archer has produced. The 42-minute videotape explores "how gender affects us every time we communicate," said Archer, a professor of sociology at UCSC. Five years in the making, the video artfully tackles the pervasive - and sometimes entertaining - differences in verbal and nonverbal communication between men and women. "We wanted to produce a work that looks at the topic broadly and that captures, in an imaginative way, how gender scripts our interactions," said Archer. The result is a resource that taps the disciplines of sociology, psychology, anthropology, linguistics, and women's studies. The video blends commentary by communications experts with examples of gender-based differences in communication, movement, space, and touch. Little things, such as differences in the amount of space men and women take up on a couch, illustrate the pervasiveness of gender in our lives. Intended for college audiences, much of the video focuses on differences between men and women in conversational styles. "We wanted to produce a videotape that would promote discussion of how gender inequality is reproduced in daily life," said Archer. "Gender differences in communication are everywhere. That awareness is the first step toward change."   The magnificent sounds of the minke whale When Jason Gedamke and Daniel Costa first went to Australia to record the sounds of dwarf minke whales, people told them they were wasting their time. There were very few reports of minke whale vocalizations, and some experts believed the species rarely made any sounds at all. But according to Gedamke, a UCSC graduate student, not only are minke whales vocal, their repertoire includes a loud and distinctive songlike sequence unlike any previously recorded whale sound. UCSC graduate student Jason Gedamke has a close encounter with a dwarf minke whale near Australia's Great Barrier Reef. Listen to the sound (WAV format). Photo credit: Qamar Schuyler "It's surprisingly loud and complex, and sounds like it's produced mechanically or synthetically," Gedamke said. "When I first heard it, I couldn't believe it came from a whale." Neither could some whale experts he sent the recording to later, who suggested he check with the Australian Navy to find out if the noise was coming from their equipment. It turned out that Australian researchers had been hearing it for years and called it the "guitarfish" or "boingfish" sound, but had no idea what its source was. Gedamke and Costa, a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at UCSC, worked with Andy Dunstan, a scientist on the research and ecotourism vessel Undersea Explorer. They went to great lengths to demonstrate conclusively that the sound is made by dwarf minke whales. The researchers reported their findings in the June issue of the Journal of the Acoustic Society of America.   New planets have solar system orbits An international team of astronomers has discovered eight new extrasolar planets, including at least two that travel in circular orbits similar to those of Earth and Mars. Planet hunters have now detected nearly 80 planets orbiting nearby stars, but most of them have elongated, or "eccentric," orbits. The latest discoveries strengthen the likelihood of finding solar systems analogous to our own, said UCSC professor of astronomy and astrophysics Steven Vogt, a member of the team that made the latest discoveries and lead author of a paper submitted to the Astrophysical Journal describing some of the new planets. This is a possible scene from a moon of the extrasolar planet in orbit around the star HD23079. The planet is about three times the mass of Jupiter and orbits the star in 628 days, with a nearly circular orbit of one-and-a-half times the Earth-Sun distance (almost the same as that of Mars). Photo credit: David A. Hardy; Courtesy Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council "Most of the planetary systems we've found have looked like very distant relatives of the solar system - no family likeness at all," Vogt said. "Now we're starting to see something like second cousins. In a few years' time we could be finding brothers and sisters." The newly detected planets range in mass from 0.8 to 10 times the mass of Jupiter, the largest planet in our solar system. They orbit their stars at distances ranging from about 0.07 to 3 astronomical units (one astronomical unit is the distance from the Sun to Earth). "As our search continues, we're finding planets in larger and larger orbits," Vogt said. The further a planet lies from its star, the harder it is to detect because it takes longer to complete an orbit. Only recently have astronomers begun to make the precise measurements over long observing times needed to detect such planets. From the U.S., Australia, Belgium, and the United Kingdom, the astronomers are searching the nearest 1,200 stars for planets similar to those in our solar system, particularly Jupiter-like gas giants.   Satyajit Ray collection boosted by grant   Satyajit Ray Courtesy of the Satyajit Ray Film and Study Collection Satyajit Ray was one of those artists whose influence extends beyond his own culture to become an important part of our shared human heritage. Even if you've never heard of Ray you've been touched by his influence - echoes of his cinematic legacy are present in our own culture today, from E.T. to The Simpsons. Ray wasn't just India's most renowned filmmaker; in the opinion of many, he was the greatest filmmaker in the latter half of the 20th century. Ray's films are acclaimed internationally for their inventive technique, literary depth, and profound humanity, and UCSC's Satyajit Ray Film and Study Collection (Ray FASC) was established in 1993 by Professor Dilip Basu to preserve Ray's work and make it accessible to the public. Ray FASC was recently awarded a grant of $210,000 by the Packard Humanities Institute to continue this important work. In addition, Dr. Anu Luther Maitra has announced that she will provide an endowment of $100,000 in the name of her late husband, Sidhartha Maitra, to establish the Sidhartha Maitra Endowed Lecture series.   Women and the Silent Screen Women played a remarkable role in the early film industry, enjoying degrees of creative control that remain unparalleled even today. As directors, screenwriters, and actors, they helped shape the contours of cinematic language in the early 20th century. The work of key silent film pioneers was celebrated at UCSC in November during a major international gathering of some 60 silent film scholars, the first of its kind in the U.S.   Silent star Lillian Gish also directed. The conference, organized by Professors Amelie Hastie and Shelley Stamp of UCSC's Department of Film and Digital Media, included screenings of such film's as Germaine Dulac's The Smiling Madame Beudet, one of the outstanding achievements of 1920s French cinema. The New Music Ensemble, under Professor Nicole Paiement's direction, performed a new score by composer Carolyn Yarnell, commissioned for the screening. Heart O' the Hills, starring Mary Pickford, was also screened, and renowned silent film composer Maria Newman conducted a performance of her new score for the film.   Fire guts two labs in biology building   Photo credit: Louise Gilmore Donahue A fire at ucsc in mid-January injured no one but gutted two large research labs, damaged other areas of the building, and closed several other buildings in the Science Hill area of campus for a day. The blaze, which broke out on the fourth floor of Sinsheimer Laboratories, the campus's primary biology building, destroyed the labs of biologists Manuel Ares and Jane Silverthorne. At press time, the fire was under investigation, and the cause had not been determined.   UCSC researchers lead study of global warming With a $2.5 million grant from the National Science Foundation, UCSC researchers are leading an interdisciplinary team from seven institutions in a project to study the consequences of global warming. The five-year project focuses on a dramatic episode of global warming that took place 55 million years ago at the end of the Paleocene epoch. The Late Paleocene Thermal Maximum (LPTM) was one of the most abrupt and extreme global warming events in the geologic record. Over a period of several thousand years, the Earth warmed by as much as 10 degrees Celsius (18 degrees Fahrenheit), said James Zachos, professor of Earth sciences at UCSC and lead investigator of the project. "The LPTM was a natural greenhouse experiment run on a global scale, which we now have the opportunity to study from beginning to end," Zachos said. The project seeks to understand how global ecosystems responded to and eventually recovered from this brief (in geologic time) episode of extreme global warming. "A more comprehensive understanding of what took place 55 million years ago will provide us with a much better appreciation of the sensitivity of biological systems to global climate change," Zachos said. In addition to Zachos, the UCSC investigators involved in the project are professor and chair of ocean sciences Margaret Delaney and associate professors of Earth sciences Paul Koch and Lisa Sloan. UCSC's Center for the Dynamics and Evolution of the Land-Sea Interface, an interdisciplinary research center directed by Zachos, provided crucial support for the grant proposal and will play an important role in facilitating project-related workshops, student participation, and public outreach.   Alumni Association names award winners Victor Hanson Onassis Foundation Craig Haney UCSC Photo Services Betsy Wootten UCSC Photo Services A widely published professor of classical studies at a California State University campus, a psychology professor at UCSC who is an authority on prison conditions, and a staff member who helped establish Kresge College have been named winners of the UCSC Alumni Association's achievement awards for 2001-02. In campus ceremonies scheduled to take place on February 2, Victor Hanson was to receive the Alumni Achievement Award; professor of psychology Craig Haney, the Distinguished Teaching Award; and Betsy Wootten, the Outstanding Staff Award. The Alumni Council, the association's governing body, selected the winners based on nominations from students, faculty, alumni, and staff. Alumni award recipient Victor Hanson has attracted attention for his provocative perspectives on the demise of the family farm, the humanities and their place in the intellectual health of our nation, military history, and the global role of the United States. A graduate of Cowell College in 1975 with a B.A. in classical literature, Hanson has been a professor of classical studies at CSU Fresno for 12 years. Teaching award winner Craig Haney has dedicated much of his life to studying the impact of incarceration and the system of capital punishment in the United States. His testimony has proved critical in several court decisions. Many students nominating Haney for the award said his classes, concern for students, and commitment to social justice have inspired them. Outstanding Staff Award winner Betsy Wootten is the supervisor of faculty services at Kresge College. She is the "friend and confidant of students, faculty and staff, their first point of contact and their appeal of last resort," wrote Helene Moglen, professor of literature, in nominating her. Wootten has been at Kresge from its beginning in 1971.   In Memoriam Marcia "Toni" Landels Hyman, a past trustee of the UC Santa Foundation, died of cancer in December at her home in San Francisco. She was 65. A staunch environmentalist, Mrs. Hyman supported the preservation of redwood forests, especially the Landels-Hill Big Creek Reserve in Big Sur, which her father, Edward D. Landels, helped to establish. The Big Creek Reserve is part of the University of California Natural Reserve System, and it is one of four natural reserves administered by UCSC. Mrs. Hyman served on the board of the UC Santa Cruz Foundation from 1997 to 2001. She was also an active supporter of the Arboretum. Contributions in her name should be sent to the UCSC Foundation for the Big Creek Reserve fund at the Carriage House, UC Santa Cruz, 1156 High Street, Santa Cruz, CA 95064.