An international group of scientists including researchers from #UCSB's Bren School of Environmental Science & Management have joined forces to urge U.N. delegates to introduce a mandatory measurement and reporting component to the Global Plastics Treaty. https://ow.ly/2yTh50ZKJTO

Want a solution to plastic pollution? Scientists urge UN to require global reporting

Scientists in the U.S. and China urge the UN to mandate global reporting in its upcoming plastics treaty. They system they propose will inform a workshop in Geneva, Switzerland in mid-September.

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#UCSB soil scientist Iris Holzer will serve as lead author on an upcoming IPCC methodology report, helping update international guidelines for tracking carbon capture, storage, and utilization. https://ow.ly/NjNQ50ZJz39

UCSB professor to lead IPCC methodology report on carbon capture, storage and utilization

UCSB soil scientist Iris Holzer will help lead the team updating the IPCC greenhouse gas accounting guidelines.

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For nearly a century, people have been trying to understand dark matter. Now, a new analysis from the LUX-ZEPLIN experiment—co-founded by #UCSB's Harry Nelson—has recorded a single particle interaction that could be interpreted as a signal from a dark matter candidate. https://ow.ly/5qny50ZIuwT

LZ sees surprising result in search for dark matter

The LUX-ZEPLIN experiment observed a particle interaction that could be interpreted as a signal from WIMPS, a dark matter candidate — but researchers will need more data to confirm

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Scientific excellence at #UCSB: In the only assessment of its kind by a journalistic outlet, Washington Monthly ranked UC Santa Barbara No. 37 among top U.S. research universities, both public and private.

DARPA tasked scientists with developing a system that can receive instructions and synthesize a sequence of DNA or RNA without any chemical input—and the agency chose #UCSB's Max Wilson to lead the winning proposal. Full story: https://ow.ly/vLEn50ZIkUl

The war in Iran has strangled one of the world’s most important oil producing regions and gas prices have soared. #UCSB’s Paasha Mahdavi argues that the current conflict provides a unique opportunity to transition toward renewable energy. Full story: https://ow.ly/fvAp50ZHL3e

The war in Iran is the perfect opportunity to kick fossil fuels, and we’re missing it

Paasha Mahdavi discusses the energy ramifications of the war in Iran, including how circumstances have aligned, why countries are digging in their heels, and what solutions are actually working.

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In a new study, a #UCSB-led team gets to the heart of an enduring question: are you your brain or your body? Neuroscience has often treated consciousness as something produced by the brain alone. This emerging body of research expands that view. Full story: https://ow.ly/OEX650ZHmra

How the heart, lungs and brain work together to shape experience

In a new paper published in Neuroscience of Consciousness, a UCSB-led team gets to the heart of an enduring question: are you your brain or your body? Their answer points to what happens between them.

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Researchers at UC Santa Barbara’s National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS) are blazing a trail through the Wild West of AI-assisted science, with a field guide aimed at environmental data scientists. Full story: https://ow.ly/6rIz50ZGcTR

A field guide for the Wild West of AI-assisted science

Researchers at UCSB's National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis develop a set of practice guidelines for environmental data scientists who use generative AI

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The UCSB Library has expanded its digital collection related to humanities & social sciences 📖 The library licensed the entire suite at AM, a digital publisher of unique primary source collections from around the world, which bodes well for researchers: https://ow.ly/csLX50ZERo9

Expanded humanities and social science collection at UCSB Library is a research treasure trove

UCSB Library's acquisition of the entire AM suite digital collection bodes well for researchers who rely on primary source material

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An El Niño of historic proportion is taking shape in the tropical Pacific. While 2026 promises exceptional conditions, a new study that includes researchers from #UCSB found that El Niño events have become nearly 40% stronger in the last 40 years. https://ow.ly/7vzk50ZGBGN

El Niño has become more intense over last 40 years than the previous 1,000 years

A stronger El Niño will amplify this natural cycle's capacity for disruption and destruction.

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#UCSB's Helen Morales—the first Dollyolgist and author of "Pilgrimage to Dollywood"—on Dolly Parton’s radical empathy and the cultural power that let her hold contradictions and people together. Full story: https://ow.ly/kg1c50ZGh3R

We’ll always love Dolly Parton, Dollyologist explains

UCSB classicist and “Dollyologist” Helen Morales explains Dolly Parton’s radical empathy, cultural reach and enduring appeal across divides.

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#UCSB researchers have found that triggering a stress response in glioblastoma cells, a type of aggressive brain cancer, can suppress their growth and invasion. Their findings suggest new therapeutics in the treatment of the hard-to-access tumors. Full story: https://ow.ly/EItC50ZFSpv

Light-triggered stress response suppresses glioblastoma spread in 3D models

Researchers find that triggering a stress response in glioblastoma cells with light stops them from spreading — a development that could point the way for treatments for the hard-to-reach brain tumors

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Physicists reconstruct the collision that launched a runaway black hole news.ucsb.edu/2026/022754/... 🧪

Physicists reconstruct the collision that launched a runaway black hole

Researchers at UCSB and UT Austin describe the violent event that have shot a super-massive black hole into intergalactic space.

news.ucsb.edu

www.socialsciences.ucsb.edu/news/ucsb-ec...

The Protofab, located at #UCSB's OASIS research and development hub, is opening a range of equipment for research use this month, including tools for automated wire bonding, plasma cleaning and 3D package inspection. Full story: https://ow.ly/u73n50ZFJ7s

UCSB launches prototyping hub for packaging microchips and photonics

With more than 4,000 square feet of space, Protofab enables users to package their chips and turn them into prototypes — a step long considered a bottleneck in research and development.

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High textbook costs shouldn't stand in the way of an education. 📚 UCSB Library is working with professors like Carmen Galaz García (Bren School) to expand Open Educational Resources (OER) and build zero-cost alternatives for @ucsantabarbara.bsky.social students. www.library.ucsb.edu/node/13738

The violent collision that launched a runaway black hole: Researchers from #UCSB and University of Texas at Austin have provided the first account of a class of black hole mergers predicted by general relativity 🌌 Full story: https://ow.ly/PGwi50ZETtR

Physicists reconstruct the collision that launched a runaway black hole

Researchers at UCSB and UT Austin describe the violent event that have shot a super-massive black hole into intergalactic space.

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While Antarctica has been “shrinking” for decades, between 2021 and 2023 it appeared to be growing ❄️ A new study by researchers at #UCSB and University of Washington has found that the precipitation increase was an anomaly. Full story: https://ow.ly/H7PY50ZCvlL

Antarctica’s brief rebound was caused by climate variability, not a ‘new normal’

A short-term climatic shift increased precipitation over East Antarctica between 2021 and 2023, adding enough snow to temporarily balance ice loss from climate change at the continent’s edges.

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Dozens of aspiring teachers in the UC Santa Barbara Teacher Education Program (TEP) are working alongside professional educators as thousands of K-12 students head back to school this week 🍎📚 Full story: https://ow.ly/kqRG50ZC2we

Back to school: UCSB teacher candidates assist local K-12s

It's back to school in Santa Barbara, and UCSB's TEP graduate students are helping out in local K-12 classrooms as teachers and students kick off the new year.

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California has experienced 5,000 wildfires in 2026 alone, many of them affecting watersheds that lead to the sea. What are the effects on water quality at the beaches? That question has been on the minds of #UCSB's Jean Carlson & UCLA+ Caltech's Carl Swindle. https://ow.ly/SlG550ZBYsl

Researchers link wildfires in California’s coastal watersheds to the water quality at the beach

Researchers link wildfires in California’s coastal watersheds to the water quality at the beach

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Internationally recognized as a leading research university, #UCSB has risen nine spots globally in ShanghaiRanking Consultancy's 2026 Academic Ranking of World Universities. The campus also ascended three spots nationally to land at No. 30 among U.S. institutions included in the ranking 🏆

#UCSB library staff have been racing against time to preserve vital imagery for researchers. Work by UCSB geographers relied on decades of aerial photographs to record historic sand dune disappearance. Many of these images, however, were threatened by vinegar syndrome. https://ow.ly/9XhK50Zz3KE

UCSB team saves historic aerial photos critical to coastal research

An ongoing digitization project preserves UCSB Library's vast archive of aerial photographs.

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Researchers out of #UCSB and Chile examined the impacts of a land restitution program in Chile that returned more than 510,000 acres to the Mapuche, the country’s largest Indigenous group. Full story: https://ow.ly/g6Mk50ZzUj4

Indigenous land restitution empowers communities, but environmental gains require extra support

Land restitution can help redress dispossession and support Indigenous self-determination, but realizing many environmental benefits will require complementary policies.

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New shark findings out of #UCSB: Long before intensive human fishing, Panama’s Pacific reefs supported roughly 20 times more sharks than its Caribbean reefs, an important consideration for future conservation efforts 🦈 Full story: https://ow.ly/9H4t50ZzwIs

Two oceans, one country, 20 times the number of sharks

Fossil shark scales from Panama reveal that its two coasts never had the same number of sharks. The findings mean that it would be a huge mistake to apply conservation targets across the isthmus.

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Researchers at #UCSB have uncovered direct human evidence for a neural circuit that may help better understand a mystery of Parkinson’s Disease: paradoxical kinesia. Full story: https://ow.ly/Kj2e50ZyKJn

Researchers find direct human evidence for a neural circuit that may help better understand a mystery of Parkinson’s Disease

Researchers uncover a neural circuit that may explain paradoxical kinesia, in which people with Parkinson's Disease can smoothly execute complex actions despite the impairment of their motor circuits

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A new collaboration between researchers at #UCSB and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory is bringing artificial intelligence into one of the most computationally demanding frontiers in modern physics: modeling the behavior of extreme plasmas relevant to nuclear fusion. https://ow.ly/mYo450Zyef1

UCSB, Lawrence Livermore collaborate to accelerate fusion plasma simulations with AI

A new collaboration between researchers at UC Santa Barbara and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) is bringing artificial intelligence (AI) into one of the most computationally demanding frontiers in modern physics.

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#UCSB's Marley Dewey is studying how to repair coral as part of a $750,000 CAREER award from the National Science Foundation 🪸🏆 She’ll bring that work into the community through local exhibits and developing curriculum for K-12 students integrating science and art. https://ow.ly/kbe650Zya63

NSF grant supports Marley Dewey’s work to restore coral reefs

UC Santa Barbara assistant professor of bioengineering Marley Dewey is bringing in a wider community as she studies how to repair coral, as part of a $750,000 CAREER award from the National Science Foundation.

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Researchers from three institutions, including #UCSB, have demonstrated that artificial intelligence has the potential to make future visual prostheses, like a bionic eye, more precise, predictable and responsive to an individual user 👁️ Full story: https://ow.ly/XYKX50ZxM6V

Deep learning refines how bionic eyes communicate with the brain

UCSB associate professor of computer science Michael Beyeler and his colleagues used a deep-learning model to design patterns of electrical stimulation for electrodes temporarily implanted in the visual cortex — the region at the back of the brain that processes visual information — of a blind participant.

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How much better for the planet are electric vehicles? You’d be better off sending a new gas-fueled car to the scrap heap & replacing it with an EV, according to findings from researchers at #UCSB & UCSC who explored the carbon footprint trade-offs of vehicle trade-ins. https://ow.ly/mfwi50Zxac2

Thinking about trading your car in for an EV? There’s a compelling new reason to do it now

Accounting for the emissions over a vehicle’s entire lifecycle overturns the sunk-cost thinking that keeps gasoline vehicles on the roads.

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Working with UC Santa Barbara mathematics professor Bjorn Birnir, 2026 UC President’s Postdoctoral Fellow Therese Basa Landry is using the power of fractals to discover the math underlying complex natural phenomena, in this case erosion. Full story: https://ow.ly/tkfu50Zwl2Q

UC President’s Postdoctoral Fellow uses fractals to study erosion

UC President's Postdoctoral Fellow Therese Basa Landry will be using her expertise in fractal geometry

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