IoES in the News
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La Kretz postdoc Zac MacDonald makes cover of Evolutionary Applications
The article authored by La Kretz postdoc Zac MacDonald concludes that ecologically mediated selection is contributing to variation within forest tent caterpillars (M. disstria), and that divergent adaptation related to both environmental conditions and host association should be considered in ongoing research and management of this important forest pest.
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Fast Company: Antoine Kunsch, ESE student, quoted in “Inside the lab where Lyft freezes, twists, and slams its bikes”
“When you’re talking about a 10-year lifespan on a bike, you strive to design parts that will last just as long,” says Antoine Kunsch, sustainability program manager at Lyft. “Taking…
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Verge: Antoine Kunsch, ESE student, quoted in “Lyft is recycling its e-bike and scooter batteries with Redwood Materials”
For Lyft, the deal is about ensuring that its huge, nationwide fleet of electric bikes and scooters aren’t ending up in a landfill at the end of their lifespan — which…
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Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim, Floha De S. Paulo: At COP27, Lula, Brazil’s president-elect says violence against indigenous peoples and ‘loggers’ fury’ will no longer be tolerated and will require ‘much more competence’
Brazilian president-elect Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva greets Chadian environmentalist and SDG advocate, Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim speaks, during the COP27 climate conference in Egypt’s Red Sea resort city of Sharm…
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Richard Jackson, UCLA Newsroom: Richard Jackson receives National Academy of Medicine award
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Rajit Gadh: Power Up! How We Avoided Critical Blackouts During The Last Heat Wave And Why It Matters | laist.com
UCLA engineering professor Rajit Gadh said the million electric vehicles in California today alone could be their own massive battery in conjunction with large-scale renewable energy run by utilities.
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Deepak Rajagopal at Berkeley Lab, Taking Freight Trucks Electric Would Have Big Economic and Environmental Benefits for India
“India has embarked on very ambitious electrification policies prior to this,” said Deepak Rajagopal, an author of the report and a faculty scientist at Berkeley Lab and UCLA. “We find…
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Expert insight from Prof. Deepak Rajagopal on moneygeek.com
Considering the federal incentives for solar technology in the recent Inflation Reduction Act, why have some states not added additional state-level incentives to make solar panel usage even more enticing?
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Brad Shaffer joins External Expert Advisory Board of the Biodiversity Genomics Europe Project
La Kretz Center Director Brad Shaffer has been chosen to join the External Expert Advisory Board (EEAB) of the Biodiversity Genomics Europe (BGE) Project (https://biodiversitygenomics.eu). BGE is a multi-partner international…
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Daniel Swain in KQED: ‘It Comes to Race’: Marin City Residents Demand Flood Protections
Marin County residents are wrestling with officials they don’t trust for agency over climate plans and flood protections. “The problem is we built our infrastructure assuming these events were very…
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Conserving biodiversity through genomics: The California Conservation Genomics Project
Brad Shaffer, La Kretz Center director, was the keynote speaker for the conservation section of the 4th Genomes of Animals & Plants Virtual Conference (GAP22.2), hosted by Cantana Bio (formerly…
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Alan Barreca in UCLA Newsroom: Low-income households more likely to have power disconnected after hot summers
Low-income homes in California are more likely to have their power disconnected about two to three months after days when the temperature exceeds 95 degrees Fahrenheit than they are at…
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Daniel Swain in Scientific American: Diseases Explode after Extreme Flooding and Other Climate Disasters
“The old aphorism that ‘when it rains, it pours’ is literally true in this context. It actually encapsulates a lot of the complexity that’s here,” Swain says. This is something…
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Rachel Blakey in LA Times: Mountain lions face greater risk of becoming roadkill in wildfire’s aftermath
In a paper published in the journal Current Biology, UCLA researchers found that the 2018 Woolsey fire had greatly increased the odds of a mountain lion being struck fatally by a motorist or killed by a fellow panther in a territorial dispute.
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Rachel Blakey in New Scientist: Mountain lions outside Los Angeles take more risks after wildfire
In the 15 months after the Woolsey fire in Los Angeles, mountain lions were more likely to cross busy roads, travel further and move around during the day, putting the already vulnerable group of cats at increased risk
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Rachel Blakey in Smithsonian Magazine: L.A.’s cougars were driven to extremes by wildfire
With less suitable habitat, the big cats traveled further and crossed dangerous roads more often
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Rachel Blakey in UCLA Newsroom: Wildfires drive L.A.’s mountain lions to take deadly risks
When the Woolsey Fire roared through the Santa Monica Mountains in the fall of 2018, it torched half of the available habitat for the area’s mountain lions — a population…
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Kirsten Schwarz chosen as NSF program director for environmental biology
Kirsten Schwarz, an associate professor at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health, has been named a program director of the National Science Foundation’s Division of Environmental Biology. In the new…
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Brad Shaffer in The Scientist: Severe Drought, Heat Upended Research This Summer
Recent heatwaves and drought have taken a serious toll on fieldwork, scientists say. Brad Shaffer, an ecologist and evolutionary biologist at UCLA, had an extraordinarily difficult time researching the feeding…
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Greg Pierce in The Los Angeles Times: Los Angeles is running out of water, and time. Are leaders willing to act?
Gregory Pierce, co-director of the Luskin Center for Innovation at UCLA, said Los Angeles is “somewhat of a leader” when it comes to water recycling, and that Hyperion may be…
