Science & Tech

April 11, 2024

OPINION: ChatGPT: Friend or Foe?

By Tara Mandrekar

It’s 10:37 p.m. on a Thursday, and you just remembered you have a discussion post due at midnight. You’re struggling to craft an acceptable response in time to catch the last Bill’s Bus downtown when you rememb...

April 11, 2024

Simply Stated: Do we really only use only 10% of our brains?

By Cassandra Cavallo

Nestled within the fortress of our craniums, the human brain stands as one of the most complex structures in the known universe. It orchestrates our thoughts, emotions and behaviors with a level of sophistication that ha...

March 11, 2024

Simply Stated: What is endometriosis, and why is it so much more than bad periods?

By Audrey Moeller

March is Endometriosis Awareness Month, and there’s no better time to talk about this invisible but terrible disease. Endometriosis and all of its related chronic conditions like polycystic ovary syndrome, adenomyosis,...

March 7, 2024

Simply Stated: How scientifically accurate are this year’s Academy Award nominees?

By Emma Holm-Olsen

Warning: This article contains spoilers about several 2024 Academy Award nominated films. With the Academy Awards fast approaching, many are probably watching and re-watching the nominees, attempting to predict which wil...

February 29, 2024

Research in Review: cancer therapy, sea otter ecology, and archaeological dating

By Cassandra Cavallo

Rac2 Boosts Cancer Therapy:  In a remarkable breakthrough, researchers from UC Santa Barbara’s Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology department have cracked a 25-year-old cellular mystery, connecting the gene...

February 29, 2024

A buzzworthy affair: New Solvang museum exhibition celebrates pollinators

By Kaitlin Lee

Pollinators, the unsung heroes of nature, are vital to the health of our ecosystems as well as to the diversity of our food sources. The California Nature Art Museum in Solvang and UC Santa Barbara’s Cheadle Center for...

February 29, 2024

Recent sewage spill in Goleta Slough leads to beach closure

By Lauryn Cummins

Over the course of four days, more than 1,000,000 gallons of untreated sewage spilled into the Goleta Slough during the rainstorms earlier this month. The Santa Barbara County Public Health Department estimates that a ho...

February 22, 2024

UBC professor discusses wildfire mitigation and self-protection at Bren Hall

By Kevin Zhang

Most people believe wildfires are a wall of flame that engulfs buildings. Renowned professor and environmental economist says otherwise. He says the culprit is ember branding, the very foundation of a house. Dr. Patrick ...

February 22, 2024

UCSB study finds perceived discrimination against bisexual people linked to relative social status

By Emma Holm-Olsen

Researchers at UC Santa Barbara have found that, while often experiencing more discrimination than other sexual orientation minority groups, people who identify as bisexual are rarely considered to have been victims of s...

February 17, 2024

Love advice from UCSB Human Sexuality professors

By Lauryn Cummins

UC Santa Barbara sociology professors Janice Baldwin and John Baldwin’s love story began in an unexpected twist of fate — a blind date, or as they fondly recall it, a "fixed-up blind date."

February 15, 2024

California Against the Sea: Rosanna Xia visits UCSB to discuss her latest book

By Madasyn Mueller

Los Angeles Times reporter and Pulitzer Prize finalist, Rosanna Xia, visited UC Santa Barbara on Feb. 8 to discuss how sea level rise is threatening California coastal communities from Crescent City down to Imperial Beac...

February 15, 2024

Simply Stated: Are aphrodisiacs a hoax?

By Olivia Gil de Bernabe, Katharine Chi

What is an aphrodisiac? An aphrodisiac is a substance or food that can provoke arousal, sexual desire, behavior and even pleasure. There are three typical usage types for aphrodisiac foods: increasing libido (sexual desi...

February 8, 2024

Catching a wave of innovation: Central Coast company Patagonia reinvents the wetsuit

By Madasyn Mueller

UC Santa Barbara  students can swap their lab coat for a wetsuit, trading biology lab at the university’s Marine Biotechnology Lab for catching waves at Campus Point in under five minutes. Surfing has a rich history o...

February 8, 2024

Simply Stated: What is the astronomy of Lunar New Year?

By Isabelle Kang

For those whose “new year, new me” plans for 2024 seem to be veering off course, look no further than Lunar New Year — a time to reset, recuperate, eat yummy food and bond with family. Long-standing Chinese traditi...

February 1, 2024

Research in Review: Groundwater depletion, metabolic imaging, and shark fishing

By Kaitlin Lee

Global groundwater decline UC Santa Barbara Assistant Professors Scott Jasechko and Debra Perrone recently published a paper analyzing data from 170,000 monitoring wells and 1,693 aquifer systems across over 40 countries...

February 1, 2024

Simply Stated: How sustainable is the Stanley Cup?

By Olivia Lohrer

A series of  TikTok videos went viral in December, showing Target shoppers aggressively running towards and grabbing Stanley’s newly-released, limited edition “Cosmo Pink” and “Target Red” 40 ounce “Quencher...