What's Current in

Letters and Science

Four adults in farmers clothes, their faces lit, look up at a foreboding figure in a mask
Photo Credit
Jeff Liang
The allegory that is 'Animal Farm' examines the perils of unchecked power and privilege, the use of words as a political weapon, and revolutions that erode into regimes not unlike those they overthrew.

UCSB theater students take on Orwell’s ‘Animal Farm,’ a fable that still bites

Read Article

silhouettes of people with gears and other systems in their heads

Rethinking autism through the diagnostic process
portrait of author with image of the cover of his new book
Photo Credit
Matt Perko

Historian Tsuyoshi Hasegawa writes definitive account of the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II
Coconut palms stretch into the distance framed by tropical blue waters.
Photo Credit
PeaceMan via iStock
Coconut palms account for more than one third of forested areas on Fakarava Atoll, French Polynesia, which falls far short of the region’s most heavily impacted atolls.

After decades of plantation agriculture, coconut palms dominate over half of Pacific atoll forests
blue whale tail
Photo Credit
Courtesy Image

Researchers paint a global picture of whale-ship collision risk
Meghan Morrissey uses a micropipette in her lab.
Photo Credit
Matt Perko
Morrissey’s group is working to harness macrophage immune cells for novel cancer therapies.

Prof. Meghan Morrissey honored by the American Cancer Society for her work on cancer immunotherapy
three-panel photographic image of a woman holding a picture of her son, the cover of a new book on Guatemala and the dry riverbed below a dam
"The Fourth Invasion" argues that present-day hydroelectric projects are a continuation of Guatemala's long history of colonialism and resource exploitation and includes the state-sponsored genocide of the late 20th century

Guatemala’s history of colonialism, from genocide to extractionist industries
Portrait of Leah Bleich
Photo Credit
Taylor Finlay
Director Leah Bleich brings her first feature to the campus where she got her start in filmmaking.

‘Back’ to the future: Alum Leah Bleich returns to campus with her first feature film
illustration of two women, one of whom is pregnant, standing in front of a balancing scale

Abortion access linked to future economic and educational success
dolphin swimming with plastic bag on fin
Photo Credit
Joao Vianna/Getty Images

A new study in Science maps out a comprehensive plan to eliminate plastic pollution by 2050
Three mountain yellow-legged frogs perched on a rock.
Photo Credit
Roland Knapp
The Sierra Nevada yellow-legged frog is recovering in Yosemite, a beacon of hope for amphibian conservation.

Frog populations once decimated by disease mount a major comeback
printed materials of assorted sizes and styles
Photo Credit
Courtesy

Santa Barbara’s Off Register art book and print fair brings art, prints and interactive exhibits
Three actors on a stage in colorful makeup and costumes for The Threepenny Opera
Photo Credit
Jeff Liang
UC Santa Santa Barbara Department of Theater and Dance is mounting a new production of 1928 play “The Threepenny Opera”

A bracingly contemporary century-old masterpiece
Subscribe to Letters and Science