What's Current in

Science + Technology

Image
2024 Goldwater scholars
Clockwise, from left: Matthew Unger, Riya Nilkrant, Xuanwei Liang, Isaac Heir, Anika Jena

Five UC Santa Barbara undergraduates named Goldwater Scholars

Read Article

Image
Diatoms under the microscope.
Photo Credit
Elif Bayraktar via iStock
Diatoms are one of the largest groups of phytoplankton, which serve as a foundation of the ocean’s food web.
Image
Illustration of a transmitter assembly, including electronic and photonic integrated circuits
Photo Credit
Courtesy image
In this image of the newly developed transmitter assembly, the small, brownish chip on the left is the electronic integrated circuit (EIC), and the larger, black-and-gold chip on the right is the photonic integrated circuit (PIC). The long structure on the left side of the PIC is the modulator, which converts the electrical signal into an optical one. Light gets coupled into and out of the chip through the fibers on the right side of the PIC. Everything is mounted on a printed circuit board (PCB), with gold wire bonds connecting the chips. Data flows from left to right, where the incoming electrical signal gets amplified by the EIC, converted to an optical signal by the PIC, and sent out via fiber to its destination.
Image
an orange garibaldi with a scientific diver in the background
Photo Credit
Chris Honeyman
A research diver conducts periodic monitoring of a kelp forest marine protected area
Image
An AI-generated illustration of an engineer at a laptop, looking at a robot
Photo Credit
Courtesy photo
An AI-generated image depicts engineers working on an AI-enabled robot.
Image
A thinning forest on a hill.
Photo Credit
Lee Anderegg
A forest community changes as trembling aspen succumb to drought in southwestern Colorado.
Image
This artist’s impression shows two tiny but very dense neutron stars at the point at which they merge and explode as a kilonova.
Photo Credit
University of Warwick/Mark Garlick
Multi-messenger astronomy enabled scientists to observe merging neutron stars for the first time in 2017 (artist’s impression).
Image
Burning hillside at Sedgwick Preserve
Photo Credit
Matt Perko
A flame torched hillside at Sedgwick Reserve is the site of a prescribed burn.
Image
NASA simulation of binary black hole system
Photo Credit
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/Scott Noble; simulation data, d'Ascoli et al. 2018
The gravitational waves emitted by the merger of black holes, when lensed by massive objects as the waves travel toward Earth can be used to calculate the rate at which the universe is expanding
Image
colorful image of the belly view of a small shrimp
Photo Credit
Damian Kao Alvina G Lai Evangelia Stamataki Silvana Rosic Nikolaos Konstantinides Erin Jarvis Alessia Di Donfrancesco Natalia Pouchkina-Stancheva Marie Sémon Marco Grillo Heather Bruce Suyash Kumar Igor Siwanowicz Andy Le Andrew Lemire Michael B Eisen Cas
The genome of the crustacean Parhyale hawaiensis, a model for animal development, regeneration, immunity and lignocellulose digestion. VijayRaghavan K, ed. eLife. 2016;5:e20062. doi:10.7554/eLife.20062.