Simply Stated

Simply Stated: Do you need high-protein everything?

The International Food Information Council’s 2024 Food & Health Survey suggests that the hunger for protein has become even more pronounced in recent years, perhaps due to American adults’ extensi...
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Simply Stated: Can nature have legal rights?

As the planet faces intensifying climate disasters, a growing number of legal scholars, activists and governments are calling for a radical shift in how we think about environmental protection — by ...
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Simply Stated: ‘Trash pandas’ on our campus: can we coexist?

Spotting a raccoon at night is an experience shared frequently by students at UC Santa Barbara but what brings them onto our campus? 
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Simply Stated: Is the ‘frat flu’ part of the college experience?

For students outside of Greek life, fraternity lingo can feel like a foreign language, yet one term has transcended the Greek glossary: “frat flu” colloquially describes the wave of viral upper re...
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Simply Stated: Siblings or dating? The science behind attraction

While doom-scrolling through posts on social media, you may have come across cheeky posts captioned: “siblings or dating?” The photos depict look-alike pairs and invite viewers to guess if the duo...
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Simply Stated: Companionship in the age of AI

Artificial intelligence (AI) companions are rapidly gaining popularity, created to mimic meaningful relationships and serve as personalized mental health support, often feeling unnaturally human.
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Simply Stated: Is gossiping a nasty habit or human nature?

While gossiping is often portrayed as a malicious activity, science shows that “spilling the tea” has significant roots in both evolutionary biology and social psychology.
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Simply Stated: What is 3D printing and how is it being used on campus?

If you have ever taken a peek inside the UC Santa Barbara Makerspace before, you might have seen a cluster of identical machines lined up against a wall, quietly at work creating parts of all shapes a...
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Simply Stated: How is randomness in nature plotted to form a simple bell curve?

Nature’s design can seem random upon first glance; however, a closer look reveals a common pattern that ties it all together, from the growth of a tree bark to the toss of a coin — the bell curve....
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Simply Stated: Can AI predict politics? Investigating the mathematics of election forecasting

Despite the overwhelming surplus of election predictions, many voters remain skeptical about whether it’s even possible to interpret the current political landscape through a scientific perspective....
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Simply Stated: Why do some people lucid dream and others don’t?

Imagine being immersed in a dream, aware that you're dreaming and able to shape and traverse the world around you with no limitations. This phenomenon is called lucid dreaming and is characterized by ...
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Simply Stated: Are ghosts real, or can science explain the supernatural?

From folklore to horror movies, the paranormal and its mysteries have been ingrained in society, but the scientific community largely remains skeptical about the existence of ghosts. So, what does sci...
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Simply Stated: The mind game of fantasy football

Fantasy sports are on an upward trend of popularity, but what are the psychological motivations and effects of this new form of gambling that is now becoming an American pastime? 
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Simply Stated: What are the effects of performance-enhancing drugs on an athlete’s body?

Like virtually all of its kind that precede it, the 2024 Summer Olympics has been rife with doping scandals. Chinese Olympic swimmer Pan Zhanle was the subject of doping accusations after he secured h...
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Simply Stated: What’s the science behind the mental strength of Olympic athletes?

The mind of an Olympic athlete is a finely tuned instrument where focus, resilience and neurological efficiency converge to produce peak performance. While Olympians’ physical prowess is the result ...
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