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A house and car belonging to two University of California, Santa Cruz researchers were firebombed in the wee hours of Saturday (Aug 2) morning. The attacks occurred after anti-animal research pamphlets listing the names and personal information of several UCSC researchers were discovered in a Santa Cruz coffee shop last week.

David Feldheim, who studies mammalian brain development at UCSC, and his family were home Saturday morning when fire engulfed their front porch and door. Feldheim and his family - including two small children - escaped out a second story window using a fire ladder, Santa Cruz police told the Santa Cruz Sentinel.

Feldheim studies the role of the Eph family of receptor tyrosine kinases and their ligands, the ephrins, in the development of the mouse visual system. According to his lab Web site, Feldheim uses "expression analysis, in vitro assays, viral introduction of genes into living mouse brains, and gene-knock out experiments," to elucidate how mouse brains organize neural connections associated with vision. Feldheim was one of the scientists listed on the pamphlets found last week. Police told the Sentinel that the firebombing was being treated as an attempted homicide because Feldheim and his family were home at the time of the attack.

Around the same time that Feldheim's house burned, another UCSC scientist's Volvo was lit afire in a driveway on the university's campus. Neither police nor UCSC officials revealed the researcher's field of study or name, but they did say that it was not listed on the pamphlet in which Feldheim's name and information appeared.

According to the Sentinel, Santa Cruz police are considering the incidents acts of domestic terrorism and have turned the case over to federal investigators. "It's unconscionable that any reasonable person would consider this an acceptable tactic to get their point across," Santa Cruz Police Chief Howard Skerry said in a statement to the Sentinel. "We are working hard with the other agencies and committing all available resources to follow all possible leads. We urge anyone with information to come forward."

A news release from the university on Saturday condemning the attacks called them "acts of anti-science violence."