Science & Tech

April 14, 2016

UCSB Professor Leads Alzheimer’s Trial

By Ritwik Trehan

Kenneth Kosik, professor of neuroscience at UCSB, has been running drug trials with Colombian families who are genetically predisposed to Alzheimer’s disease

April 14, 2016

Phenology Emphasizes Importance of Pollen

By Emily Ohara

Susan Mazer, UCSB professor of ecology and evolution, explains that despite pollen’s small size, it is an essential part of the life cycle and genetic diversity of plants

April 11, 2016

Assembly Discusses Computer Science Education, Women in S.T.E.M.

By Annie Golay

Members of the California Select Committee on STEM Education spoke out against barriers to computer science education in California’s schools at a meeting of the state Assembly on Thursday.

April 7, 2016

NASA Approves Study of Ocean Carbon Cycles

By Stephanie Pernett

In a plan recently approved by NASA, researchers from UCSB and other institutions have developed a study for a major NASA field campaign to quantify the state of the ocean carbon cycle from satellite observations.

April 7, 2016

City Rejects Desalination Plant Study Revision

By Stephanie Pernett

Santa Barbara City Council declined to revise a study on the feasibility of alternatives for the Charles E. Meyer Desalination Plant at a council meeting on March 22.

April 5, 2016

Fecal Matter to Fuel: UCSB Lab Does the Dirty Work

By Emily Ohara

Get a load o' this shit.

April 4, 2016

Paleontologist Finds ‘The Lost Giant’ on Expedition to Sahara Desert

By Effie Sklavenitis

In 2008, National Geographic paleontologist Nizar Ibrahim was on an African expedition when he and his team found “the lost giant” of the Sahara—the Spinosaurus—he told UCSB students Sunday.

April 1, 2016

Healthcare Apps Save Money, Lose Interaction

By Stephanie Pernett

With a rise in mobile healthcare applications, “telehealth” services such as Lemonaid Health, Maven, Doctor on Demand and Nurx are providing students with increasingly immediate medical assistance.

March 31, 2016

Capps’s H.O.P.E. Act Yields Two Successful Surgeries

By Supriya Yelimeli, Sierra Deak

Johns Hopkins University Medical Center announced the first successful HIV-positive organ donation on Wednesday, made possible by the HIV Organ Policy Equity (H.O.P.E.) Act, sponsored by Santa Barbara Congresswoman Lois ...

March 9, 2016

Organs Made to Order

By Janani Ravikumar

A team at Wake Forest University has refined the process of 3D-printing to create human body parts such as ears, muscles and jawbones, through a combination of living cells and a special gel.

March 3, 2016

Sylvester’s Guide to Roadside Geology

By Natalie Overton

Since his retirement, Arthur Sylvester has been researching and leading student tours all throughout Southern California.

March 3, 2016

Cloudy With a Chance of Monsoons

By Daniela Garcia

Recently, there has been a rise in debates and information regarding intense weather events. Californians are not the only ones experiencing both extreme drought and dangerous flooding; there has been an increase of extr...

February 25, 2016

How to Prevent Alzheimer’s 101

By Emily Ohara

How many times have you walked into a room and forgotten what you needed? Forgetfulness is a part of everyone’s daily lives, but many fear that as they age and their scatter-brained tendencies increase, it can be a sig...

February 25, 2016

The Kidney-Saving Diet

By Lawrence Esbig

Polycystic Kidney Disease (PKD) is a genetic disease, characterized by giant fluid-filled cyst growing in the kidneys, which enlarges the organ to potentially fatal sizes. Treatment for slowing or stopping cyst growth ca...

February 24, 2016

Gravitational Waves Detected As Suggested by Einstein’s Theory of Relativity

By Janani Ravikumar

The Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) has successfully recorded the sound of two black holes colliding billions of light years away. A faint rising tone in the recording is the first direct evide...

February 18, 2016

Zika Virus Prompts Public Health Emergency

By Emily Ohara

The Zika virus is causing international concern due to its rapid spread across the globe and potential connection to a microcephaly, a neurological birth disorder. According to World Health Organization (W.H.O.), the agg...