News & Media

Brain Power

June 02, 2016

Compared to other mammals, humans have the largest cerebral cortex. A sheet of brain cells that folds in on itself multiple times in order to fit inside the skull, the cortex is the seat of higher functions. It is what enables us to process everything we see and hear and think.

The expansion of the cerebral cortex sets humans apart from the rest of their fellow primates. Yet scientists have long wondered what mechanisms are responsible for this evolutionary development.

The UC Santa Barbara Current

UCSB Receives Grand Challenges Explorations Grant

May 26, 2016

UC Santa Barbara announced today that it is a Grand Challenges Explorations grant winner; CGE is an initiative funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. David Low, a professor in UCSB’s Department of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology, will pursue an innovative global health and development research project titled “Strategy for development of enteric pathogen-specific T2 bacteriophage targeting the essential outer membrane protein BamA.”

The UC Santa Barbara Current

A Winner in Three Minutes: Grad Slam top honors go to UCSB biomolecular science and engineering graduate student Nicole Leung

April 18, 2016

Seventy-six students, 14 rounds, three minutes. UC Santa Barbara’s annual competition of ideas and communication — Grad Slam 2016 — has found a new winner, and her name is Nicole Leung. The graduate student emerged victorious Friday, April 15, to take home the $5,000 grand prize for her talk, “Lighting the Path from the Eye to the Brain.”

The UC Santa Barbara Current

Innovation Awards Will Recognize Tech Entrepreneurs. UCSB materials professor Galen Stuckey will receive the "Spirit of Innovation" award.

March 28, 2016

Even before terms such as “venture capitalist,” “tech startup” and “disruptive technology” entered the mainstream vernacular, UC Santa Barbara was a regional hub for high-tech innovation.

As far back as the mid-1980s, faculty members whose tech savvy and business acumen were matched only by their research and teaching prowess took advantage of a healthy entrepreneurial environment and a climate ripe for technological innovations.

The UC Santa Barbara Current

The Brain Game: A new book by neuroscientist Kenneth S. Kosik offers strategies for reducing the risk of Alzheimer's disease

February 09, 2016

Diet, exercise, a good night’s sleep — all sound recommendations for mitigating one’s risk for everything from heart disease to diabetes and, as it turns out, Alzheimer’s.

The neurodegenerative condition affects an estimated 5.3 million people in the United States alone — and that number that is sure to grow as the population continues to age. But several simple strategies may help some stave off the disease, according to a new book by UC Santa Barbara neuroscientist Kenneth S. Kosik.

The UC Santa Barbara Current

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