Police have turned out to put a stop to the Downtown Farmer's Market drum circle, which has traditionally taken place just outside the permitted market area in the Cedar Street...
The Santa Cruz Metro's routes will soon be available on Google Transit, allowing users to type in a starting point and destination, and letting Google work out all the details....
A group of artists called Art for Art donated nearly $6,000 to the rapidly emerging Tannery Project on River Street, using funds raised at the group’s June show in the...
Editor's Note: GTweekly is lucky to have M.P., a UCSC alumna and environmental journalism major, who is traveling to Dongtan in China to observe the construction of a green city there called Dongtan , outside of Shanghai. She will be posting several dispatches a week here at gtweekly.com.
It’s 1:30 p.m. Thursday afternoon at SFO. I keep thinking it’s Friday because it will be 9 p.m. on Friday by the time I arrive at Shanghai. Two months ago I had no intention of leaving the country, but I am lucky to find myself flying for free. My assignment is to investigate the proposed eco-city of Dongtan, just outside of Shanghai. My journey is more than a hula hoop swing from Santa Cruz to Shanghai. China in general is worlds away from Santa Cruz, so I’m told. I can’t wait to delve into the vast differences in pollution, scenery, and overall way of life.
China’s economy is commonly referred to as the dragon and thus China and its relationship with environmental politics is called the Green Dragon.
Chongming Island next to proposed eco-site of Dongtan.
Remixing Sesame Street clips is the new LOLcat meme, and nobody's done it better than this guy, who apparently has more Bert & Ernie footage lying around the Children's Television Workshop. "I was a bit bored last week," he says. Ah, people with time on their hands...
Incredibly rare wild footage of the goblin shark, a deep-sea creature capable of protruding its jaw in order to snag a bite. The skin is pinkish because of its translucence. But my favorite factoid about the shark is that its liver occupies 25 percent of its mass, and nobody knows why.
With the help of a handful of meticulous scientists, the critically endangered population of Eastern Pacific leatherback sea turtles may have just saved itself. And the key to its salvation—consistency. The 100 million-year-old species, known to grow to be over six feet in length, weigh close to two tons and make 4,000-foot dives, was the subject of a study released in the July 15 issue of Public Library of Science Biology. Scientists tracked via satellite the movements of 46 electronically tagged female leatherbacks between 2004 and 2007. As the study reveals, the leatherbacks have a penchant for a particular migratory route that begins on their nesting beach, Costa Rica’s La Playa Grande (consequently, the largest remaining viable nesting beach for this population.) From there, the turtles stick to a relatively specific corridor that takes them out past the Galapagos Islands and across the equator to their destination, the South Pacific Gyre. So how can this study save the leatherbacks? A shocking 90 percent of the Eastern Pacific leatherback population has disappeared within the last 20 years. While scientists attribute much of this sudden species decline to people relentlessly harvesting leatherbacks’ eggs on nesting beaches, out in the open ocean, leatherbacks often fall victim to the longline fishing hooks of commercial fisheries intended for big fish, like yellowfin tuna. The leatherbacks’ consistent and, therefore, predictable migratory movements revealed in this study may help conservationists in their negotiations with governments and commercial fisheries, to make a strong case to suspend fishing temporarily in certain areas, and thus allow leatherbacks safe passage along their migratory route.
I don't know about anyone else, but the hands-free cell phone law still has me flummoxed. My car trips have felt so much less productive since I can no longer make phone calls (saving up for that Bluetooth). Amusingly, I've noticed that, in order to avoid a ticket, more people are attempting to text message with their phone on their lap. Even more amusingly, Skyler Stone has discovered that the law can lead to more productivity, not less.
When most people sing along to the classic Danny Elfman Batman theme song, they go something like, "Buh nuh nuh nah nah!" Andrew Goldenberg goes three steps further. He wrote lyrics, bought costumes, and filmed himself performing a brilliant narrative of this and other classic blockbuster scores. While the "Indiana Jones" one is fairly awesome (I always just sang "Indiana! Jo-ho-hones! Indiana! India-na-Jones!"), it's National Batman Day, so here you go:
Men are often told that women like confidence. This fella here, Dmitri, took this advice so much to heart, that he decided to leave two of the most outrageously forward voice mails on the machine of a young woman named Olga. According to the story, Olga had spoken to Dmitri for two minutes, then handed him a business card. Watch, and learn.
And herein lies the crisis of conscience: you love sushi, but you’re absolutely devoted to sustainable seafood. For those of you brave enough to grill the serious sushi chef with the big knife in his hand on the origins of his maki-bound salmon and ahi tuna, you’re my hero. But for the rest of us, the Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch program just may save us an uncomfortable conversation. Together with the Blue Ocean Institute , Seafood Watch is developing the “first-ever sushi pocket guide.” But, they need your help. Seafood Watch is currently seeking information about your favorite sushi restaurant. Follow this link to fill out the Seafood Watch Program’s market research survey.
Everyone who submits a survey by Monday, July 14 is eligible to win a prize.