Josh Braun

November 30, 2001

The Deepest Darkest Secrets: An Interview with Robert Ballard

By Josh Braun

Robert Ballard, world-famous oceanographer and discoverer of the Titanic, graduated here in 1965 and is widely considered to be UCSB's golden child - and he has certainly gone a long way.

November 30, 2001

Red Tape: You Follow in a Long Line of Finals-Haters, Young One

By Josh Braun

UCSB is a member of the Association of American Universities, a list of the 60 leading colleges in the U.S. and Canada. We were also ranked the second best public research institution in the U.S., as of 1997.

November 30, 2001

Famous Explorer Returns to UCSB

By Josh Braun

Robert Ballard, UCSB alumnus, famed oceanographer and deep-sea explorer, returned on Wednesday to speak in Campbell Hall. He spent his first few minutes on stage attempting to remember what he had learned here.

November 26, 2001

Red Tape: We’ve All Got Tickets for the Attack of the Clones

By Josh Braun

U.S. politicians have generally agreed, to the point of grandstanding at times, that cloning a human would be an unconscionable and unethical act. They just never got around to outlawing it.

November 19, 2001

Red Tape: That Kind of Muzak Don’t Soothe the Soul

By Josh Braun

Try as I might, I couldn't place it. Then without warning, it happened. The orchestra on the PA system began playing Simon & Garfunkel's "Sounds of Silence."

November 16, 2001

Red Tape: NASA’s New Administrator Could Create a Black Hole of Despair

By Josh Braun

NASA's latest expedition is to hell -- in a hand basket.

November 6, 2001

Tonga: Unplugged

By Josh Braun

Next July, Tonga will be the recipient of the most advanced wireless communications network in the world. This hi-tech facelift comes with many difficulties, controversies and unanswered questions.

November 5, 2001

Red Tape: National Error in Space Administration Goes for Broke

By Josh Braun

If you blinked, you may have missed it. On Oct. 23rd at 7:26 p.m. Pacific Standard Time, NASA's newest Mars probe, Odyssey, slipped safely into orbit around the red planet with little fanfare. Scientists breathed a sigh ...

October 29, 2001

Red Tape: Tune Out Tonight, Every Night for ‘When Reality TV Attacks’

By Josh Braun

My problem is not so much with reality television. It's more with the fact that it's hard to find anything else on sometimes.

October 22, 2001

Red Tape: Lies, Damned Lies and Outdated Statistics

By Josh Braun

After two and a half years at UCSB I am still unsettled by professors using obscenely outdated statistics to make points about gender inequality.

October 15, 2001

Red Tape: What Are You Doing, Josh? I’m Scared, Josh. Let’s Talk.

By Josh Braun

My last computer fried when a glass of water spilled over it. I'm tempted to do the same to my new one -- and this time it will be on purpose.

October 11, 2001

Ugly Exteriors Hide the Hidden Beauty of UCSB

By Josh Braun

In architecture, they have a saying: "Form follows Function." Lately, when I look at our campus, I get the feeling that Form is trailing somewhere off in the distance. More likely it fell off a cliff and Function went on...

October 10, 2001

Fourteen Million Years in Tibet

By Josh Braun

"I've been on top of six thousand-meter-high mountains in Central Tibet," UCSB Geologist Bradley Hacker said. "They don't really have a particular name. Just features out in the middle of the Plateau."

October 4, 2001

Please Hold While We Transfer Your Call to an Imbecile

By Josh Braun

Simply put, however, there are times and places where your brain makes the conscious decision that it is just easier to bleed.

September 25, 2001

This is Rocket Science: The Stories Behind Vandenberg

By Josh Braun

Welcome to Vandenberg Air Force Base in north Santa Barbara county, where history is made behind locked doors. Vandenberg is the United States' proving ground for Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles.

May 31, 2001

Recent Fossil Research Disputes Traditional Model

By Josh Braun

Scientists' most basic assumptions about the fossil record may be going extinct, thanks to the work of a large research team at UCSB's National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis.