| The 2009-10 Featured News Archive contains
summaries of press releases about prominent news developments
at UCSB from July 2009 to June 2010. The heading of
each item links to the full text of that story. All
first appeared on the
UCSB Featured
News page.
 UCSB Physicists Move One Step Closer to Quantum Computing Physicists at UCSB have made an important advance in electrically controlling quantum states of electrons, a step that could help in the development of quantum computing. The work is published online on the Science Express Web site. The researchers, including Greg Fuchs (left), have demonstrated the ability to electrically manipulate, at gigahertz rates, the quantum states of electrons trapped on individual defects in diamond crystals. This could aid the development of quantum computers that could use electron spins to perform computations at unprecedented speed. 11/19/09
New Books Published by French and Italian Scholars Three faculty members in the Department of French and Italian at UC Santa Barbara have published new books ranging in subject from deadly medieval theater to Scheherazade’s Lovers to the culture of secrecy in early modern Europe. They include "Murder By Accident: Theater, Medievalism, and Critical Intentions" by Jody Enders, professor of French and Theater; "Les Amoureuz de Schéhérazade: Variations Modernes Sur les Mille et Une Nuits," which translates to "Scheherazade’s Lovers: Modern Variations on the Thousand and One Nights," by Dominique Jullien, professor of French and comparative literature; and "Dissimulation and the Culture of Secrecy in Early Modern Europe" by Jon R. Snyder, professor of Italian Studies and comparative literature, chair of the Department of French and Italian, and chair of UCSB’s Consortium on Literature, Theory, and Culture. 11/12/09
 Literary Scholar to Receive Lifetime Achievement Award Shirley Geok-Lin Lim, a professor of English at UCSB, is the recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Society of the Study of the Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States (MELUS). An internationally recognized scholar, Lim has published widely in the areas of literary criticism, Asian American studies, poetry, fiction, and memoir. Her most recent publications include "Princess Shawl"; "Listening to the Singer: New and Selected Malaysian Poems"; and "Sister Swing, A Novel"; and the co-edited volume "Transnational American Literature." 11/10/09
Fulbright Scholars From Canada, Europe, and the Middle East to Study at UCSB The Fulbright Scholar Program has awarded grants to seven researchers from Korea, Spain, Canada, and the Middle East to study at UC Santa Barbara during the 2009-10 academic year. They include Monica-Gabriela Cojocaru of Canada; Guillermo Rico Camps, Carlos Miguel Tamarit Degenhardt, and Javier Vidal Hurtado of Spain; Kyu Hyun Kim of Korea, Ruben Mirakyan of Armenia; and Kyung Hee Suh, also of Korea. While at UCSB, the scholars will be affiliated with the Departments of Statistics and Applied Probability; Political Science; the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics; Ecology, Evolution, and Marine Biology; Religious Studies; and Linguistics. 11/10/09
 UCSB Astrophysicists Predicted New Type of Supernova Explosion A new class of supernova was discovered by scientists at Berkeley and may be the first example of a new type of exploding star. A team of astrophysicists at UC Santa Barbara had predicted this kind of explosion in their theoretical work. Lars Bildsten, professor at UCSB's Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics (KITP), and colleagues had predicted a new type of supernova in distant galaxies that would be fainter than most and would rise and fall in brightness in only a few weeks. 11/5/09
Trayless Dining, Composting Projects Are Sustainability Successes at UCSB
Two of UC Santa Barbara's latest sustainability projects –– trayless dining and composting –– are proving to be very successful, enhancing UCSB's reputation as one of the greenest campuses in the country. Thanks to trayless dining, the amount of food waste from the university’s dining commons is down dramatically and the campus is now saving energy and water. The campus’s pilot composting project is also being hailed as a big success. 11/4/09
 New UC Santa Barbara Police Chief Takes Up Duties Dustin Olson has taken up his duties as the new Chief of Police at UC Santa Barbara. Olson, formerly the Assistant Chief of Police at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, was appointed to his UCSB post after a nationwide search. His appointment took effect Monday, November 4. He succeeds former Chief Bill Bean, who retired in June after 34 years of service to the UCSB Police Department, the last four years as chief. 11/3/09
 UCSB Scientists Say Size of Area Lagoons Can Be Predicted The size of Santa Barbara area lagoons can be predicted, according to a new study by UC Santa Barbara scientists, who say that their research could help protect the endangered steelhead trout. Concern for the survival of the steelhead prompted Andrew Rich, a doctoral student in earth science at UCSB, to study lagoons in the Santa Barbara area with his advisor, Edward Keller, professor of Earth Science. Their analysis of 23 small coastal lagoons near Santa Barbara indicates that the variability of lagoon area, length, volume, and average width can be explained by the variability of the slope of streams above the lagoon, and total annual rainfall 11/2/09
UCSB Joins in $20 Million Grant for Vision Research Using Stem Cells UCSB will receive $2.5 million of a $20 million, multi-institution grant for vision research. The research will focus on macular degeneration, the major cause of visual impairment in the elderly. The grant, from the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) and the UK Medical Research Council (MRC), will cover preclinical tests utilizing human embryonic stem cells, as part of an effort to get federal approval for clinical trials. CIRM will provide $15.9 million for work in California, and the MRC will add $4.1 million to fund collaborative work in London. 10/28/09
 UCSB Announces First-Ever Sustainability Champions Food and energy — two of the world’s most important resources — are what fuel the research and fervor of UC Santa Barbara’s first-ever Sustainability Champions. For David Cleveland, a professor of environmental studies, and Eric Matthys, a professor of environmental studies and mechanical engineering, the chance to be UCSB faculty leaders on campus sustainability issues is exciting and brimming with opportunity. Cleveland has been named the champion for 2009-10, while Matthys will assume the role for 2010-11. 10/22/09
 Geologist Analyzes Earliest Shell-Covered Fossil Animals The fossil remains of some of the first animals with shells, ocean-dwelling creatures that measure a few centimeters in length and date to about 520 million years ago, provide a window on evolution at this time, according to scientists. The research, led by John Moore, a graduate student in the Department of Earth Science at UCSB, indicates that these animals were larger than previously thought. 10/22/09
Suspect in UCSB South Hall Incident Taken Into Custody Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Department and UC Santa Barbara police have announced that a man taken into custody in Isla Vista Tuesday October 20 is believed to be the same person who sparked a lockdown and floor-to-floor search of South Hall on the UCSB campus on Monday October 19. A suspicious person was seen on the sixth-floor balcony of South Hall on Monday and one caller to police indicated the person had a weapon, but police later determined that no weapon was involved. 10/21/09
 Author Graciela Limón to Receive UCSB’s Luis Leal Literature Award Writer and educator Graciela Limón is the recipient of UC Santa Barbara’s 2009 Luis Leal Award for Distinction in Chicano/Latino Literature. The award, co-sponsored by the Santa Barbara Book Council, is named in honor of Luis Leal, a professor of Chicana and Chicano Studies at UCSB. He is internationally recognized as a leading scholar of Chicano and Latino literature. Previous recipients of the award include Pat Mora, Alejandro Morales, Helena Maria Viramontes, Oscar Hijuelos, Rudolfo Anaya, and Denise Chávez. 10/20/09
 Chancellor Yang Elected Chair of Association of American Universities UCSB Chancellor Henry T. Yang has been elected chair of the Association of
American Universities (AAU), a nonprofit organization representing 60
leading public and private research universities in the United States and
two major Canadian institutions. Yang, who has served on the prestigious
association¹s executive committee since 2005, succeeds Princeton University
President Shirley M. Tilghman in the one-year post. UC Santa Barbara has
been a member of the AAU since 1995. 10/20/09
UCSB Police Respond Quickly to Campus Incident UC Santa Barbara police are continuing their investigation of an incident
Monday, October 19, in which a suspicious person was seen on the sixth-floor
balcony of the campus's South Hall. One caller to police indicated the
person had a weapon, but after interviewing several witnesses, and
conducting a floor-to-floor, room-to-room search, police determined that no
weapon was involved 10/19/09
 UCSB Anthropologist Studies Human Life Span, Evolution of Physiology A remote Amazonian tribe in central Bolivia may offer proof that heart attack and stroke — the leading causes of death in the United States and other developed countries — were rare occurrences throughout most of human history. According to Michael Gurven, professor of anthropology at UCSB, the tribe, known as the Tsimane, may also prove that chronic inflammation, a condition currently associated with cardiovascular disease, may not play as great a role as medical research has suggested. 10/19/09
UCSB Scientists Make Major Advance in Organic Polymer Production for Solar Cells Guillermo Bazan, a professor of materials, and of chemistry and biochemistry at UC Santa Barbara, and a team of postgraduate researchers at UCSB’s Center for Polymers and Organic Solids have announced a major advance in the synthesis of organic polymers for plastic solar cells. 10/19/09
 Large-Scale Camera Network Part of New Study at UCSB A team of researchers led by B. S. Manjunath and three of his graduate students are coordinating installation of a comprehensive camera network at various locations around the UCSB campus. The array of cameras will be used to document patterns of human movement, both inside buildings and on bicycle paths, as well as monitoring the nesting areas of snowy plovers on the beaches near campus. 10/19/09
 Bren School’s Jeff Dozier Wins Microsoft Research’s Gray Award Jeff Dozier, a professor and founding dean of UCSB’s Bren School of Environmental Science & Management, has been awarded Microsoft Research’s 2nd Annual Jim Gray eScience Award. The award, which includes a $20,000 cash component, recognizes innovators who have made significant contributions to the field of data-intensive computing. Dozier was specifically cited for his pioneering research on remote sensing, water resources, and climate change, and his contributions to the integration of environmental science and computer science. 10/16/09
UCSB Joins with Leading Asian Institute to Develop Green Electronics UC Santa Barbara and the Institute of Microelectronics (IME) of Singapore have entered into a "green electronics" research collaboration agreement focused on developing ultra-efficient nanoscale transistors and exploring their circuit-level functionality. The collaboration will be led by Kaustav Banerjee, professor of electrical and computer engineering and an affiliated faculty member of the Institute for Energy Efficiency (IEE) at UCSB, and by Navab Singh at IME. 10/14/09
UCSB Nanotechnology Breast Cancer Study Receives $2.8 Million Grant Errki Ruoslahti, professor at UCSB's Burnham Institute for Medical Research, is the recipient of a $2.8 million award from the Department of Defense for research into detection and therapies for breast cancer using nanotechnology. "The prevalence of breast cancer and the large number of deaths from this disease underscore the need for a paradigm shift in the strategies toward developing a cure for breast cancer," said Ruoslahti. "We believe that nanotechnology-based engineering solutions can provide the needed changes to drastically improve the cure rates." 10/7/09
Private Giving for UC Santa Barbara Reached $40.6 Million in 2008-09 The Campaign for UC Santa Barbara continues to attract strong philanthropic support for the campus, thus far generating a total of $544 million for priority projects and initiatives to ensure UCSB’s excellence for future generations. Of that total, UCSB received $40.6 million in gifts and pledges from alumni, parents, and friends in 2008-09 for teaching, research, and innovative academic programs. Due to the global economic downturn, contributions to the campus were down sharply from the record $81.4 million of the previous year. However, the funds raised exceeded earlier projections and were considered a great achievement. 10/6/09
UCSB Alumna Carol Greider Awarded 2009 Nobel in Physiology or Medicine Carol W. Greider, a 1983 graduate of the University of California, Santa Barbara, has been awarded the 2009 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Greider shares the Nobel with Elizabeth H. Blackburn and Jack W. Szostak. The three were honored for the discovery of "how chromosomes are protected by telomeres and the enzyme telomerase." 10/5/09
UCSB to Close Ventura Off-Campus Center in Cost-Cutting Move UC Santa Barbara has announced plans to close its Ventura Center for Off-Campus Studies. The decision was made for financial reasons, as UCSB is faced with cutting $45 million from its budget this year as a result of reductions in state support for the UC system. 10/1/09
Federal Stimulus Grants Support Diverse Research at UCSB With funds made available through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA), more than 40 grants already have been awarded to research projects at UC Santa Barbara. In addition, 79 proposals are currently under review by their respective federal granting agencies. Also known as the economic stimulus package, the ARRA was passed by Congress in February. The grants, many of which come from the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, and the Department of Energy, support a broad range of research at UCSB. 9/28/09
 Materials Pioneer Anthony Evans Dies Anthony Evans, 66, the founding chair of UC Santa Barbara’s top-ranked Materials Department, died Sept. 9 following a year-long battle with cancer, according to an announcement from the Materials Department. Evans was an expert on the properties and behavior of advanced structural materials, and one of the most cited authors in his field, with more than 540 papers to his name. 9/23/09
Scientists Outline Planetary Boundaries: A Safe Operating Space for Humanity New approaches are needed to help humanity deal with climate change and the other global environmental threats that lie ahead in the 21st century, according to a group of 28 scientists. The research was performed by a working group at UCSB's National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS), in cooperation with the Stockholm Resilience Centre at Stockholm University, and published in Nature. The scientists propose that global biophysical boundaries can define a "safe planetary operating space" that will allow humanity to continue to develop and thrive for generations to come. 9/23/09
 UCSB Unveils New Education, Social Sciences, Media Studies Complex The newest addition to UC Santa Barbara is an impressive three-building complex that adds 209,750 square feet of high-tech classrooms, offices, meeting rooms, and much more to the west side of the campus. The long-planned complex includes the Social Sciences & Media Studies building, which houses various departments of the College of Letters & Science. Next door is the Education Building, home of the Gevirtz Graduate School of Education, the Koegel Autism Center, and the Hosford Counseling Clinic. The third structure is the Pollock Theater, part of the Carsey-Wolf Center for Film, Television and New Media. 9/22/09
Public Attitudes Toward New Technology: Lessons for Regulators New technologies may change our lives for the better, but sometimes they have risks. Communicating those benefits and risks to the public, and developing regulations to deal with them, can be difficult — particularly if there’s already public opposition to the technology. A new study that provides an overview of research on public perceptions of nanotechnology challenges some current ideas of how people view the risks and benefits of new technology. Barbara Herr Harthorn, director of the Center for Nanotechnology in Society at UC Santa Barbara, is one of the authors of the study — "Anticipating the perceived risk of nanotechnologies" — published online in the journal Nature Nanotechnology. 9/21/09
Entrepreneur Endows Susan F. Gurley Chair in Theoretical Biology UC Santa Barbara has received a $1 million gift from alumnus John Gurley and his wife, Meg (shown above), to establish an endowed chair in theoretical biology in the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics (KITP). The Susan F. Gurley Chair, which is named in memory of Gurley’s mother, has been awarded to Boris Shraiman, a permanent member of the institute. Gurley, a distinguished entrepreneur, is a Senior Fellow of the KITP and a member of its director’s council. 9/18/09
UCSB Taking Precautions for Possible Next Wave of H1N1 Flu UC Santa Barbara health officials are preparing for what could be a second wave of the H1N1 "swine flu" virus this fall. Student Health officials will be distributing "Tips on Staying Healthy" fliers to incoming freshmen and to other students in campus residence halls, as well as student residences in Isla Vista. Flu Paks will be available for purchase in residence halls and at the Student Health Service. Seasonal flu vaccinations will be available for most students, and H1N1 vaccinations are expected to arrive on campus later in the fall. 9/17/09
UCSB Offers 'School for Scientific Thought' for High School Students A total of 100 high school students have enrolled in UC Santa Barbara’s new "School for Scientific Thought" to learn about "Mutants, Spirals, and Riots," "Industrial Espionage," "Biology and Ecology of Infectious Diseases" and other "hot topics" in science and engineering in the first of a series of free Saturday mini-courses offered by the California NanoSystems Institute and supported by the National Science Foundation. The innovative educational program will expose students in grades 10 through 12 to concepts in science beyond the typical high school science curriculum, ranging from cosmology to infectious diseases and from nanotechnology to reverse engineering. 9/15/09
Reading Kafka Improves Learning, Suggests UCSB Psychology Study According to research by psychologists at UC Santa Barbara and the University of British Columbia, exposure to the surrealism in works such as Franz Kafka’s short story "The Country Doctor" enhances the cognitive mechanisms that oversee implicit learning functions. The researchers’ findings appear in an article published in the September issue of the journal Psychological Science. "The idea is that when you’re exposed to a meaning threat — something that fundamentally does not make sense — your brain is going to respond by looking for some other kind of structure within your environment," said Travis Proulx, a postdoctoral researcher at UCSB and co-author of the article. 9/15/09
 UCSB Researchers Develop Drug Delivery System Using Nanoparticles and Lasers Researchers at UC Santa Barbara have developed a new way to deliver drugs into cancer cells by exposing them briefly to a non-harmful laser. Their results are published in a recent article in ACS NANO, a journal of the American Chemical Society. "In a nutshell, what we describe is the ability to control genes in cells –– and we are working on doing this in animals –– simply by briefly exposing them to a non-harmful laser," said Norbert Reich, senior author and a professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at UCSB. 9/10/09
 UCSB Receives NSF Grant to Preserve Herbarium, Algae Collections Thanks to a $272,162 grant from the National Science Foundation, as well as the generosity of the family of former UCSB Chancellor Vernon Cheadle, UC Santa Barbara’s Cheadle Center for Biodiversity and Ecological Restoration will soon have a new compact storage system to replace the World War II-era cabinets currently being used to store the 100,000 specimens contained in its herbarium. In addition to preserving the massive collection of oak, conifer, and other plant specimens, the new storage system will also be used to protect CCBER’s algae collection, one of the most significant collections of algal material from the central California coast. 9/3/09
UCSB Ranked Among Top U.S. Universities by Washington Monthly UC Santa Barbara has been ranked number 21 in a list of the Top 30 National Universities released today by Washington Monthly magazine in its September/October issue. Thirteen of the top 20 universities in the Washington Monthly rankings are taxpayer-funded. The University of California dominated Washington Monthly's 2009 list, with UC Berkeley, UC San Diego, and UCLA ranking 1-2-3. 9/2/09
 UCSB Chemist Named Fellow of the American Chemical Society Michael T. Bowers, professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, has been named a Fellow of the American Chemical Society (ACS) in its inaugural class of 162 Fellows. He recently received the award at a ceremony in Washington, D.C. The organization has approximately 150,000 members worldwide, and is the world's top chemical society. "It is a tremendous honor to be selected in the inaugural class as an ACS Fellow, certainly one of the premier honors an American chemist could receive,"
said Bowers. 9/1/09
Green Mussel May Inspire New Forms of Wet Adhesion The green mussel is known for being a notoriously invasive species, but scientists have just discovered that it also has a very powerful form of adhesion in its foot, according to a recent article in the Journal of Biological Chemistry. The stickiness of the mussel's foot could possibly be copied to form new man-made adhesives. 8/27/09
UCSB Scientists Propose Antarctic Location for 'Missing' Ice Sheet New research by scientists at UC Santa Barbara indicates a possible Antarctic location for ice that seemed to be missing at a key point in climate history 34 million years ago. The research, which has important implications for climate change, is described in the August issue of Geophysical Research Letters. The new study, by showing that West Antarctica had a higher elevation 34 million years ago than previously thought, reveals a possible site for the accumulation of the early ice that is unaccounted for. 8/25/09
UCSB Scientists Discover Potential Drug Delivery System Scientists at UCSB have discovered a potential new drug delivery system — a biological mechanism for delivery of nanoparticles into tissue. The results of their study are published in this week’s Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. “This work is important because when giving a drug to a patient, it circulates in the blood stream, but often doesn’t get into the tissue,” said senior author Erkki Ruoslahti, of the Burnham Institute for Medical Research at UCSB. "This is especially true with tumors." 8/24/09
UCSB Ranked Among Country’s Best Universities by U.S. News & World Report
U.S. News World Report has ranked UC Santa Barbara number 11 in its annual listing of the "Top 50 Public National Universities" in the country, and number 42 on its list of the "Best National Universities." UCSB is tied at number 42 with UC Davis, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institution of New York, and the University of Washington. In addition, the undergraduate program in UCSB’s College of Engineering is ranked number 34 on the magazine’s list of "Best Programs at Engineering Schools Whose Highest Degree is a Doctorate." 8/20/09
 UCSB Ethnic and Multicultural Archive Launches Teatro Campesino Online More than 100 vintage video recordings of the world- renowned Latino theater company El Teatro Campesino are now available online courtesy of the California Ethnic and Multicultural Archives (CEMA) at UC Santa Barbara’s Davidson Library. The digitized videos, 118 in all, make up the Teatro Campesino Online Collection, and can be accessed on CEMA’s ImaginArte Web site (http://cemaweb.library.ucsb.edu/theater.html). 8/13/09
 Scientists Demonstrate Importance of Niche Differences in Biodiversity Scientists at UC Santa Barbara have found strong evidence that niche differences are critical to biodiversity. Their findings are published online in this week’s issue of the journal Nature. "Ecologists have long assumed that species differences in how they use the environment are key to explaining the large number of species we see all around us, but the importance of such niches have never been field tested," said first author Jonathan M. Levine, associate professor of biology at UCSB. The new study provides the first strong evidence that species’ differences are responsible for their coexistence.
8/12/09
Experiments at UCSB Push Quantum Mechanics to Higher Levels Physicists at UCSB have devised a new type of superconducting circuit that behaves quantum mechanically –– but has up to five levels of energy instead of the usual two. The findings are published in the August 7 issue of Science. The researchers operated a quantum circuit as a more complicated artificial atom with up to five energy levels. 8/11/09
 UCSB's Bren Hall Is Nation's First Building to Earn
'Double Platinum' Rating for Sustainability Bren Hall, which houses the Bren School of Environmental Science & Management at UC Santa Barbara, has become the nation's first building to earn two LEED Platinum certifications, the highest sustainability rating possible, from the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC). "This is tremendous news," said Bren School Acting Dean John Melack. 8/10/09
 UCSB and Burnham Institute for Medical Research Announce Director of New Joint Research Center for Nanomedicine The Burnham Institute for Medical Research (Burnham) and UC Santa Barbara have named leading biomedical researcher Jamey D. Marth director of a new joint Center for Nanomedicine that will be established at UCSB. The collaborative biomedical research partnership merges UCSB’s core expertise in engineering, materials sciences, nanotechnology and physics with Burnham’s strengths in the biological sciences and biomedical research. The new center will promote the convergence of these fields and pioneer the development of novel technologies for advancing human health. 8/10/09
 UCSB Library Awarded Second Grant to Document Historical Sound Recordings by Victor Talking Machine Company The University Library at UC Santa Barbara has been awarded a second National Endowment for the Humanities grant to further develop an online encyclopedia of all the recordings made by the Victor Talking Machine Company (which later became RCA Victor) between 1900-1950. The discography of Victor records is making the history of recorded sound in the United States broadly accessible to scholars and the public for the first time. 8/6/09
UCSB Projects Receive Multi-Campus UC Research Awards Six research programs based at UC Santa Barbara have received awards in the 2009 University of California Multi-Campus Research Programs and Initiatives (MRPI) competition. There were a total of 28 MRPI award grants, with UCSB receiving the most of any UC campus. In addition, David Marshall, dean of the Department of Humanities and Fine Arts and executive dean of UCSB’s College of Letters & Science, will be the principal investigator for a special project based at UC Irvine. 8/5/09
 New Book by UCSB Scholar Offers Firsthand Account of a North Korean Labor Camp Survivor In a new book, titled "Long Road Home: Testimony of a North Korean Camp Survivor" (Columbia University Press, 2009), Kim Suk-Young, an associate professor of theater arts at UC Santa Barbara, shares Kim Yong's first-person account of the atrocities he witnessed — and experienced — in North Korea’s most brutal labor camps. She also tells of his harrowing escape through China and Mongolia to South Korea and, eventually, the United States. 8/5/09
Scientists Isolate Protein That May Be 'Boon' to Medicine Scientists at UC Santa Barbara have isolated a unique protein that appears to have a dual function and could lead to a "boon in medicine." The findings are published in the August issue of the Journal of Cell Biology. The protein that the researchers studied, named mDpy-30, affects both the expression of genes and the transport of proteins. "We first found that this protein has a dual location in the cell," said Dzwokai Ma, senior author and assistant professor of biology. "That spurred us to investigate this protein further, because location is always linked to function."
8/4/09
UCSB Study Links Strength and Beauty to Anger, Pro-War Attitudes
A new study by scientists at UC Santa Barbara provides evidence that anger serves as a nonconscious bargaining system, triggered when someone places too little weight on one’s welfare. The researchers’ findings are published online this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science. The study also showed that men with greater upper body strength — and women who consider themselves attractive — feel entitled to better treatment, anger more easily and frequently, and prevail more often in conflicts of interest. In addition, these individuals were found to endorse the use of military force as an effective way to settle international disputes. 8/4/09
 Chemists Explain the Switchboards in our Cells Our cells are controlled by billions of molecular “switches” and chemists at UC Santa Barbara have developed a theory that explains how these molecules work. Their findings may significantly help efforts to build biologically based sensors for the detection of chemicals ranging from drugs to explosives to disease markers. Their research is described in an article published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science. 8/3/09
Scientists Document Prospects for Recovery of Fisheries, Call for More Global Action Researchers have joined forces in a groundbreaking assessment on the status of marine fisheries and ecosystems, in a study based at the National Center for Ecological Analysis at UC Santa Barbara. Christopher Costello, an economist at the Bren School of Environmental Science & Management at UCSB, is one of 19 co-authors. The study shows that steps taken to curb overfishing are beginning to succeed in five of the 10 large marine ecosystems that they examined. The paper, which appears in the July 31 issue of the journal Science, provides new hope for rebuilding troubled fisheries. 7/30/09
UCSB Scientist Appointed to New Post at Large Hadron Collider Experiment
UC Santa Barbara physics professor Joseph Incandela has been appointed as one of two deputy spokespersons for the Compact Muon Solenoid experiment — one of four major projects at the Large Hadron Collider in Europe. Incandela, who is wrapping up his third year as deputy physics coordinator for the CMS experiment, was nominated and unanimously chosen for this position by his international peers. 7/28/09
 Driving Fast — New Book by UCSB English Scholar Examines the Thrill of Speed In his new book, "The Speed Handbook: Velocity, Pleasure, Modernism" (Duke University Press, 2009), UC Santa Barbara English Professor Enda Duffy examines the cultural dynamics of speed, which he suggests have their roots in the birth of the automobile. According to Duffy, of all the inventions of the modern age, only the automobile provides an experience — the thrill of acceleration — not available to our ancestors. 7/27/09
Mauna Kea Selected as Site for Thirty Meter Telescope After careful evaluation and comparison between two sites –– Mauna Kea in Hawaii and Cerro Armazones in Chile –– the board of directors of the TMT Observatory Corporation has selected Mauna Kea as the preferred site for the Thirty Meter Telescope. The TMT will be the most capable and advanced telescope ever constructed. The announcement was made today in Pasadena by UC Santa Barbara Chancellor Henry T. Yang, chairman of the board of TMT, which is a collaboration of the California Institute of Technology, the University of California, and ACURA, an organization of Canadian universities. 7/21/09
Tiny Diamonds on Santa Rosa Island Give Evidence of Cosmic Impact Nanosized diamonds found just a few meters below the surface of Santa Rosa Island off the coast of Santa Barbara provide strong evidence of a cosmic impact event in North America approximately 12,900 years ago, according to a new study by scientists. Their hypothesis holds that a series of comets struck across North America at that time. "It is hard to explain this assemblage of materials without a cosmic impact event and associated extensive wildfires," said James Kennett, professor emeritus of earth science at UCSB and co-author of the study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 7/21/09
 Bowers Appointed to Kavli Chair in Nanotechnology
John E. Bowers, a pioneering professor of electrical and computer engineering at UC Santa Barbara and director of the campus’s Institute for Energy Efficiency, is the first scholar appointed to the Fred Kavli Chair in Nanotechnology. Bowers is recognized as an international leader in the development of novel optoelectronic devices for the next generation of optical networks. "The Kavli Chair will allow me to pursue the more speculative ideas in nanotechnology, such as developing nanostructured materials for better thermoelectrics than are found in nature," said Bowers. 7/15/09
 New Study Ranks ‘Hotspots’ of Human Impact on Coastal Areas Coastal marine ecosystems are at risk worldwide as a result of human activities, according to scientists at UCSB’s National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis, who have recently published a study in the Journal of Conservation Letters. The authors have performed the first integrated analysis of all coastal areas of the world. "The hottest hotspot is at the mouth of the Mississippi River," explained first author Benjamin S. Halpern, "with the other top 10 in Asia and the Mediterranean." 7/9/09
Alzheimer’s Research Yields Potential Drug Target Scientists at UC Santa Barbara and several other institutions have found laboratory evidence that a cluster of peptides may be the toxic agent in Alzheimer’s disease. Scientists say the discovery may lead to new drugs for the disease. In an article published this week in Nature Chemistry, the researchers explain the process in which the toxic Amyloid Beta 42 peptides aggregate, and outline the new technology they use to study these peptides. The findings come out of the laboratory of Michael T. Bowers, professor of chemistry and biochemistry at UCSB. 7/1/09
|
