Davis Holiday Construction Halt, Microplastics in Snow: Sacramento Stories You May Have Missed
From a holiday construction pause in Davis to microplastics turning up in Sierra Nevada snow, here are some of the (non-election) stories shaping the Sacramento region today.
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Davis will halt most downtown construction from Nov. 27 through Jan. 2 to keep streets and sidewalks clear during the holiday shopping season. Public Works Director Ryan Chapman said emergency work and a few exempted projects can continue, and the City Council may make the moratorium annual if it goes well.
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UC Riverside researchers found microplastics falling with snow across the Sierra Nevada, including at remote sites reached only by skis. The snowpack supplies roughly 30% of California’s freshwater, and air masses tied to the storms had largely passed over Fresno and Madera counties, pointing to the Central Valley as a possible source. However, researchers could not determine the exact origins of the particles.
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A UC Davis team sequenced the genome of a trapdoor spider named after Stephen Colbert and found it is about 50% larger than a human’s, with 52 chromosomes. Bond said the quarter-sized spider lives in fragmented coastal dunes from the Bay Area to Monterey, and compounds in its venom could have potential as painkillers or in pest control.