January 15, 2001 Making the News UCSC opinions have appeared in numerous papers recently. On the op-ed page of the San Francisco Examiner, journalism lecturer Conn Hallinan wrote a stinging indictment of the media for its lack of diversity, which he said contributed to poor coverage of Election Day voting irregularities and "massive violations of the Voters Rights Act." . . . Before the election, sociologist Craig Reinarman penned a piece for Pacific News Service about the failure of both presidential candidates to stake out new turf regarding federal drug policy. . . . And Manuel Pastor coauthored a piece for the Los Angeles Times celebrating President-elect George W. Bush's commitment to diversity in his Cabinet nominees but expressing concern about his commitment to justice. UCSC scientists played major roles in the top two discoveries featured in Science magazine's annual story on the year's major advances in science. The "Breakthrough of the Year" for 2000, in the judgment of Science's editors, was the sequencing of the human genome, an effort that involved significant contributions from David Haussler, professor of computer science, biology graduate student Jim Kent, and their coworkers. First runner-up for breakthrough of the year was new insight into the structure and function of ribosomes, the protein factories of all living cells, resulting from discoveries made by several groups, including one led by Harry Noller, Sinsheimer professor of molecular biology. Political scientist Wendy Mink was quoted in a post-election story by Gannett News Service that ran in numerous papers after the U.S. Supreme Court's final ruling. . . . And the San Jose Mercury News reported Mink's selection as one of 21 women of the 21st century. Steven Vogt and Douglas Lin, both professors of astronomy and astrophysics, were quoted in several news stories about the discovery of two unusual planetary systems. The stories appeared in the New York Times, San Jose Mercury News, San Francisco Chronicle, Santa Cruz Sentinel, and other newspapers. Vogt is a member of the team that made the discovery, and Lin was interviewed as a leading expert on theories of planet formation. Andrew Fisher, associate professor of Earth sciences, was interviewed on National Public Radio's "All Things Considered" for a story on newly discovered undersea thermal vents. The Tribune in Los Angeles cited Manuel Pastor's work on a study of the proposed expansion of Los Angeles International Airport. Community studies lecturer Mike Rotkin was the subject of a lengthy profile in the San Jose Mercury News. A video crew from National Geographic television was on campus recently to work on an episode of "Wildlife Detectives" focusing on the deaths of sea lions from domoic acid poisoning in 1998. Ronald Schusterman, adjunct professor of biology and ocean sciences, and Mary Silver, professor of ocean sciences, were both interviewed for the program. Psychology's Barbara Rogoff appeared on KUSP Radio's "Talk of the Bay" to discuss narrative evaluations. Slug sports have been in the news lately. The Santa Cruz Sentinel has run several stories on the up-and-coming men's basketball team and head coach Eric Bridgeland; pictured in the stories were Slugs Michael Halligan, Matt Glynn, Paul Foster, and James Darr. The Livermore Tri-Valley Herald and its affiliated newspapers ran a story about research by Earth sciences graduate student Henry Scott, who is working at Lawrence Livermore Laboratory to replicate conditions in certain types of asteroids and in the icy moons of Jupiter and Saturn. Research on the West Antarctic Ice Sheet by Slawek Tulaczyk, assistant professor of earth sciences, was featured in a Reuters news service story which ran on the Yahoo!News web site.