The close juxtaposition of the ocean and the mountains in Santa Barbara makes for beautiful views — but when it comes to wildfires, it can also spell danger. In…

UC Santa Barbara is among 29 universities nationwide selected to participate in a collective effort to gather and use data about the careers of Ph.D. students a…

The raccoon that topples your trashcan and pillages your garden may leave more than just a mess. More likely than not, it also contaminates your yard with paras…

For nearly a century, the O’Shaughnessy seawall has held back the sand and seas of San Francisco’s Ocean Beach. At work even longer: the Galveston seawall, buil…

In Georges Seurat’s masterpiece, “A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte,” the artist used millions of dots of color to paint a scene of Parisians…

When gray wolves were reintroduced to Yellowstone National Park, they sparked a resurgence of aspen trees. Young aspens had been devastated and all but disappea…

At first glance, robots would appear to have exactly nothing in common with sweet peas or other climbing vines. Yet thanks to some innovative scientists, they n…

The Aedes aegypti mosquito may be tiny but it can wreak major havoc on human health, spreading diseases such as Zika, dengue fever and yellow fever. Those littl…

More than 8 billion metric tons. That’s the amount of plastic humans have created since the large-scale production of synthetic materials began in the early 195…

Here’s a challenge: Build a pump that can deliver a drug to you automatically when you’re sick. Now make it smaller than a penny. And make it accurate enough th…

The rigorous application and review process for graduate-level fellowships can be daunting, but it comes with the territory when you’re a blossoming distinguish…

Economic redistribution has been a core political dispute around the world for centuries. And while intuitively fairness seems a natural explanation for why peo…

In 1970, two of America’s greatest writers — Eudora Welty and Ross Macdonald — embarked on a friendship largely through letters that blossomed into a devoted re…

Growing up in Old Town Goleta, Britt Ortiz used to ride his bicycle to UC Santa Barbara on warm summer afternoons to swim in the campus pool. Little did he know…

Humans have an uncommon aural ability: In a room full of people all engaged in separate conversations, we can push aside the extraneous voices and background no…