Science & Tech

October 27, 2015

The Genetic ID Card — A Simple Medical Solution

By Mackenzie Gorman

Imagine that you have developed Stevens-Johnson Syndrome (SJS), and your entire body is under attack. It starts with just a fever, a cough and red eyes, so you don’t really think anything of it. But then, a rash appear...

October 22, 2015

A California Sharktober

By Karla Bernardo

With the increased amount of shark encounters that have occurred this past year due to the warming of the marine climate, surfers and beachgoers must be much more vigilant when out in open ocean. The El Niño Southern Os...

October 22, 2015

Four-Year California Drought Leaves Trees Thirsty

By Daniela Garcia

  For the last four years, California has been in a severe drought resulting in record-high temperatures and record-low snow packs. Our state is lacking an alarming amount of water and our trees are starting to be a...

October 20, 2015

UCSB Professor Receives Pioneer Award for Initiative to Decrease Dengue Fever

By Mimi Liu

UCSB Professor of Neuroscience and Molecular, Cell and Developmental Biology Craig Montell has been awarded the Pioneer Award, which includes $2.5 million for research allotted over a five-year period. The Pioneer Award ...

October 15, 2015

Celebrating the Nobel Laureates of 2015

By Tara Sharifi

The Nobel Prize recipients were announced last week, and prizes for science were awarded in the fields of physics, chemistry and physiology or medicine. The three categories of awards were split among eight individuals, ...

October 15, 2015

Let There Be Light

By Stephanie Pernett

The United Nations has declared 2015 the International Year of Light. To honor that, UC Santa Barbara’s College of Engineering along with the Institute of Energy Efficiency (IEE) hosted a light symposium at Corwin Pavi...

October 8, 2015

Newly Discovered Parasite Named After UCSB Professor

By Mackenzie Gorman

You may see Armand Kuris, parasitologist and professor in the Ecology, Evolution, and Marine Biology department, wearing a new T-shirt, which has a picture of the new discovered fish parasite, Chloromyxum kurisi. Team me...

October 8, 2015

Researchers Develop Improved Method To Screen for Neural Toxicity

By Lawrence Esbig

Traditional methods for testing neural toxicity have often been costly and, at times, failed to detect certain compounds toxic to the brain. However, researchers from University of Wisconsin-Madison, UC Santa Barbara and...

October 1, 2015

UCSB Researchers Find Possible Factor to Delay Onset of Alzheimer’s

By Mimi Liu

Although a definitive cure for Alzheimer’s is distant at this time, researchers at UCSB have discovered a possible factor important in delaying the onset of the disease. Co-authors Dr. Kenneth Kosik, professor at UCSB ...

October 1, 2015

A New Definition of ‘Cheating’

By Daniela Garcia

In the scientific community it has been widely accepted that there is a large amount of cheating by members of mutualistic partnerships. According to a new study conducted by scientists at the National Center for Ecologi...

September 24, 2015

Global Plastic Pollution Threatens Seabirds

By Erendira Garcia

Plastic pollution has been an important global environmental concern for decades due to the rapid amount of plastic production and consumption. Until now, scientists have not been able to quantify the impact of plastic w...

September 24, 2015

KeyRaider Steals Over 225,000 Apple Accounts

By Juliet Bachtel

The largest known Apple account theft occurred this summer when over 225,000 Apple accounts were confiscated by malware software nicknamed, KeyRaider. Cydia, a software distribution and installation tool for jailbroken i...

September 17, 2015

Earth Versus Asteroid: Who Will Win?

By Stephanie Pernett

Natural disasters and the diminishing of Earth’s resources are only some of the problems that humans have to face; there is also the threat of asteroids colliding into Earth and causing a razing of the environment, its...

September 17, 2015

Battle of the Bacteria

By Mimi Liu

UCSB researchers recently demonstrated how Gram-negative bacteria, such as E. coli, exploit target-cell machinery of nearby bacteria and use protein toxins to kill them. Their work furthers current understanding of conta...

September 7, 2015

Scientists Discover Single-Celled Marine Plankton Staring Back at Them

By Erendira Garcia

Scientists at the University of British Columbia have identified an eye-like structure in a rare, single-celled marine plankton from the family Warnowiaceae. It is more common that multicellular organisms gain morphologi...

August 31, 2015

A New Era for Antibiotics Resistance Testing

By Kendra Witt

A new study by UCSB Professor Michael Mahan and researchers shows that, for as long as they have been studied, pathogenic bacteria may not have been playing up to how they are really made to be. In the sphere of healthca...