by Ryder Diaz | Jun 6, 2013 | Posts
Many people squirm at the thought of picking up a live scorpion. But biologist Lauren Esposito is on a quest to find and identify every scorpion in the Caribbean. Searching for scorpions Lauren Esposito collects scorpions in the...
by Ryder Diaz | Apr 9, 2013 | Posts
As I walked down a path at the UC Santa Cruz arboretum, I heard them. The buzz was distinct. It wasn’t the thin sound of a common housefly or the high-pitched trill of a mosquito. This vibration had some weight behind it. I knew it was a bumblebee before I saw it....
by Ryder Diaz | Feb 19, 2013 | Posts
Detectives look to insects for clues to crack cases A lot of dead bodies turn up on Mount Hamilton and in the Santa Cruz Mountains, two natural areas near San Jose, Calif. Some bodies are found decomposed beyond recognition. Jeffrey Honda has worked on a number of...
by Ryder Diaz | Jan 22, 2013 | Posts
Sharing science in the days of YouTube Steven Ward has a pretty good trick. He can drop you right into the heart of a natural disaster and you’ll come out unscathed. Guaranteed. Tsunami? Earthquake? Volcanic explosion? He’ll even take requests. Ward creates computer...
by Ryder Diaz | Nov 19, 2012 | Posts
As most native Hawaiian birds have gone extinct, “widowed” flowering plants are missing their lifelong partners – the birds that pollinate them. The loss of these partnerships threatens to drive some Hawaiian plant species to extinction, as many of these plants are...
by Ryder Diaz | Oct 31, 2012 | Posts
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...
