What's Current in
Life Sciences
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![A mantis shrimp emerges from its burrow to confront a rival.](/sites/default/files/styles/large_2340x1212/public/2024-05/Mantis-shrimp-fight-uc-santa-barbara.jpg?itok=dVwHyRUg)
Photo Credit
Roy Caldwell
These territorial crustaceans use their tails as shields to defend against the explosive punches of their rivals.
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![2024 Goldwater scholars](/sites/default/files/styles/large_2340x1212/public/2024-04/3up-portrait-hero-uc-santa-barbara.jpg?itok=k7nPYUgs)
Clockwise, from left: Matthew Unger, Riya Nilkrant, Xuanwei Liang, Isaac Hair, Anika Jena
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![aerial shot of North Atlantic right whale and calf](/sites/default/files/styles/large_2340x1212/public/2024-04/NorthAtlanticRightWhale_mother_calf_NOAA-uc-santa-barbara.jpg?itok=gVWAZ_03)
Photo Credit
NOAA Northeast Fisheries Science Center/Lisa Conger and Elizabeth Josephson
North Atlantic right whale mother and calf as seen from a research drone called a hexacopter
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![the cellular development of an embryonic tooth](/sites/default/files/styles/large_2340x1212/public/2024-04/tooth-epithelium-shroff-uc-santa-barbara.jpg?itok=NiT27YkO)
Photo Credit
Neha Pincha Shroff and Pengfei Xu
Tooth epithelium (cell surface; yellow) and mesenchyme (cell surface; magenta). Proliferating cells (cyan) expand the tissue, generating a mechanical pressure at the tissue center that drives the formation of the main tooth signaling center or organizer, the enamel knot.
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![Two views: An Etruscan shrew and the breeching hide of a blue whale](/sites/default/files/styles/large_2340x1212/public/2024-03/shrew-whale-2-uc-santa-barbara.jpg?itok=AMjiD2sm)
Photo Credit
Shrew: Trebol-a/CC BY-SA 3.0 Whale: Jeff Jacobsen
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![A chiton sits among algae on a rock.](/sites/default/files/styles/large_2340x1212/public/2024-03/V-tonicia-cropped-inaturalist.jpg?itok=8o8V4Zit)
Photo Credit
Marcelo Rojas González via iNaturalist
The shell of the variable tonicia is covered in complex, image-forming eyes.
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![a cathedral in the middle of a mountain town in Colombia](/sites/default/files/styles/large_2340x1212/public/2024-02/yarumal-alzheimers-istock-uc-santa-barbara-small.jpg?itok=IRZY1Iri)
Yarumal, a municipality in the foothills of the Andes north of Medellín, is one of several communities in Colombia that host a large kindred with a genetic form of early-onset Alzheimer's disease
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![A large crescent moon shines in the early twilight over tidal mudflats.](/sites/default/files/styles/large_2340x1212/public/2024-01/Paleoproterozoic-mudflats-DALL-E-uc-santa-barbara-cropped.jpg?itok=hoVMj2Cq)
Photo Credit
DALL-E, prompt by Harrison Tasoff.
A soft summer evening in the Paleoproterozoic, as envisioned by DALL-E.
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![Side view of a researcher in a lab, wearing goggles and a white coat, looking down](/sites/default/files/styles/large_2340x1212/public/2023-12/researcher-lab-UCOP-2023-2-uc-santa-barbara.jpg?itok=gq5VrXsA)
Photo Credit
Elena Zhukova