Science & Tech

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...

February 18, 2016

Fit AND Fat: The Downfall of BMI

By Natalie Overton

Everyone has heard of it; some know it all too well. The Body Mass Index (BMI) has served as the go-to source for affirmation and criticism of health for too long, according to UCSB researcher and graduate student Jeffre...

February 17, 2016

The Force in Our Stars

By Natalie Overton

Matteo Cantiello, postdoctoral fellow, Jim Fuller, a professor at California Technical University, and Lars Bildsten, the director of Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics (KITP), have been “listening” to the stars...

February 11, 2016

Laying Down the Roots of S.T.E.M. Education

By Stephanie Pernett

“Science is more than a school subject, or the periodic table or the properties of waves. It is an approach to the world, a critical way to understand and explore and engage with the world, and then have the capacity t...

February 11, 2016

Science Through the Lens of an Artist

By Natalie Overton

  At first glance, the whirling, shimmering zigzags of color seem like a modern tech-art combination — so distant from their roots in the detailed scientific processes that inspired them. These works of art are ab...

February 4, 2016

Clam-tastic Solar Power Technology

By Lawrence Esbig

Giant clams contain light-reflecting cells, called iridescent cells, on their exposed epithelium that allow the giant clam to reflect incoming sunlight into vivid shades of gold, blue and green. The giant clam can mix an...

February 4, 2016

The Search for Dark Matter

By Stephanie Pernett

One of the greatest mysteries in modern astrophysics is dark matter. While it makes up about 80 percent of the matter in the entire Universe, its detection has eluded physicists and scientists since it was first hypothes...

February 3, 2016

The Oscar of the Marine World

By Tara Sharifi

In the world of science, there are few honors that are significant enough to be compared to something as prestigious as an Academy Award in the film industry. One award noteworthy of paralleling this comparison is the Pe...

January 28, 2016

Translating Research into Industry

By Mackenzie Gorman

UCSB’s Technology Management Program (TMP) is a rare and unique program that allows students of any major to complement their studies with a certificate in technology management. Essentially, it provides business train...

January 28, 2016

What Is the Cause of Climate Change?

By Mackenzie Gorman

Global warming is often addressed as “climate change” these days, because scientists are attempting to encompass all the phenomena that accompany our planet’s steady increase in temperature. In addition to the warm...

January 21, 2016

Investigating Microbes in the Sargasso Sea

By Erendira Garcia

Thanks to new funding from an anonymous donor, Craig Carlson, professor and chair of UC Santa Barbara’s Ecology, Evolution, and Microbial Biology department, will now be directing a collaborative project that conducts ...

January 21, 2016

Saved By the Bell

By Natalie Overton

Declines in mountain yellow-legged frog (Rana muscosa and Rana sierrae) populations were first recognized in the 1970s. Since then, according to National Park Service, the population size has decreased 92%, and in 2013 t...

January 14, 2016

UC Santa Barbara’s Top Innovators

By Priyanka Shindgikar

National Medal Of Technology Recipient, Andrew Gossard Arthur Gossard, UC Santa Barbara Research Professor and Professor Emeritus of Materials, Electrical and Computer Engineering, was recently named one of the eight rec...

January 14, 2016

Emotional Theory: Getting Physical

By Natalie Overton

When I arrived at his office half an hour early, the door was open. Sitting comfortably at his neatly paper-laden desk was UCSB Researcher and Sociology professor, Dr. Thomas Scheff (or “Doc”, as his students call hi...