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a young lady with a yellow bandana sits at a table, smiling at the camera
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Courtesy Image

Schmidt Family Foundation renews multi-year funding of UCSB’s Environmental Solutions Fellows Program

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scene from ucsb student theatrical production of animal farm
Photo Credit
Jeff Liang
Scene from UCSB Department of Theater and Dance production of "Animal Farm," February 2026

UCSB student-produced plays collect theater awards
book cover in wood block stile image of fields and a comb
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Courtesy

From Amazon pastures to suburban lawns and groomed bodies: Anthropologist’s new book explores the meanings of plants and hair
nighttime photo of cars in the foreground, wildfire in the background

Six roads to safety: New study finds a critical threshold for wildfire survival
Whitecaps stir up on the ocean surface under dark clouds
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Oporkka via iStock
Climate dynamics can be quite nuanced, with far off winds influencing tropical oceans.

Distant winds can drive massive tropical warming deep below the ocean surface
photo of a brightly colored optical experiment
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Courtesy Image

Atomic physicist David Weld selected for 2026 National Brown Investigator Award
A large and diverse group of adults in business attire stand shoulder to shoulder, smiling, in front of the White House
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Courtesy Dorit Hanein
Professor Dorit Hanein, center-left, newly elected fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering, took part in the society's recent advocacy event in Washington D.C.

Professor Dorit Hanein recognized for pioneering high resolution cryo-imaging technologies
a section of cave with Native American art
Photo Credit
Doc Searles/ CC BY-SA 2.0
The rock art of the Chumash people, the original inhabitants of what are now Santa Barbara, Ventura, San Luis Obispo, Los Angeles and Kern counties

Professor Emerita Lynn Gamble receives lifetime achievement award as a California archaeologist
book cover inside abstracted image of book cover as blurry background

New collection examines the lasting effects of purity culture
Snags cover a mountainside under white puffy clouds.
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Cavan Images via iStock
Forests can’t offset emissions as a carbon store if trees are constantly succumbing to droughts, pests and fires.

Carbon markets underestimate the risks U.S. forests face from climate change
Sunbeams filter down on a algae-covered rocks on a shallow seafloor.
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Johan Holmdahl via iStock
Oxygenated seafloors were likely the cradle of eukaryotic life.

Early complex life clung to oxygenated seafloors for hundreds of millions of years
a gray whale blows in in the San Francisco Bay
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Darrin Allen © NOAA Permit #26532
The new technology will detect whales by sensing the heat of their blows with thermal imaging

New AI system uses cameras and thermal sensors to steer ships clear of gray whales in the San Francisco Bay
concept illustration of the energy landscape of 2D materials

The first-time direct observation of exotic charge-neutral quasiparticles in twisted tungsten diselenide
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