What's Current in

Letters and Science

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The surface of Lake Superior from the back of a research vessel.
Photo Credit
Alexandra Phillips
The sulfate poor waters of Lake Superior could provide insights on the biochemistry of Earth's early ocean.
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Two pianists play facing each other on a darkened stage
Photo Credit
Courtesy photo
Vicki Ray and Aron Kallay have been playing together for about a decade.
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A roadcut slices through the Great Unconformity.
Photo Credit
Adrian Tasistro-Hart
Cambrian Sawatch sandstone from the Sauk Transgression caps 1 billion-year-old Pikes Peak granite (pink) marking the Great Unconformity in a roadcut in Manitou Springs, Colorado.
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A large pile of small blue plastic objects rises from a relief map of Manhattan
Photo Credit
Courtesy Benioff Ocean Science Laboratory
This image of a blue plastic pile represents the cumulative amount of plastic waste that would be generated between 2010 and 2050 — enough to cover the entire island of Manhattan, and ten times the height of the Empire State Building — under a business-as-usual scenario where no aggressive policy actions are taken.
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Two actors in 1920s attire sitting on a couch, laughing, in a black and white image
Photo Credit
Jeff Liang
“Hay Fever” will run from Nov. 14-19 in the Performing Arts Theater on campus.
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Walter Capps speaking from a podium
Walter Capps on the campaign trail, 1996
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Diverse group of students listening to a lecture in a modern lecture hall
Photo Credit
Elena Zhukova
UC Santa Barbara students attend a lecture in the Interactive Learning Pavilion
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A pyramid of concept cards underpins a basilica on a laptop screen. Behind the computer is a more abstract pyramid of concepts floating above the desk.
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An illustration by Midjourney with the prompt: “A computer with clouds of equations and symbols.”
What an artificial intelligence displays on the screen reflects its internal representation of the world, which may be quite different than our own.

The mind of the machine