Nanoscale Process Will Help Computers Run Faster and More Efficiently

Scientists as UC Santa Barbara have designed a new nanotechnology that will ultimately help make computers smaller, faster, and more efficient. UCSB scientists have created a way to make square, nanoscale, chemical patterns––from the bottom up––that may be used in the manufacture of integrated circuit chips as early as 2011. It is called block co-polymer lithography.Five leading manufacturers, including Intel and IBM, helped fund the research at UCSB, along with the National Science Foundation and other funders. The university has already applied for patents on the new methods developed here, and it will retain ownership.Craig Hawker, a materials professor and director of the Materials Research Laboratory at UCSB who led the multidisciplinary team, explained that for the future we need more powerful microprocessors that use less energy. “If you can shrink all these things down, you get both,” he said. “You get power and energy efficiency in one package.”

Study Links Warming of Indian Ocean to Decreased Rainfall in Eastern Africa

A study led by a team of geographers from UCSB, suggests that warming of the Indian Ocean––a direct result of climate change––is to blame for a steep decline in rainfall over the eastern seaboard of Africa, which has serious implications for the region’s food security. The interdisciplinary study revealed that over the past 20 years, rainfall in that part of Africa has declined by as much as 15 percent per year. It also indicates that if the decline continues at its current rate, the population of undernourished individuals in the region could increase by more than 50 percent by 2030. Researcher Chris Funk of the UCSB Geography Department’s Climate Hazards Group is the lead author of this study. His findings are published in the current issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Collision of Galaxy Clusters Captured by UCSB Astronomer

It has always been a contentious question. Are women who have had an abortion prone to depression?A task force headed by Dr. Brenda Major, a UCSB psychologist, analyzed hundreds of studies and found the answer to be no. Women who have a single abortion do not have a higher risk of mental health problems such as depression than women who go through childbirth, the American Psychological Association reported.The report, which can be downloaded at www.apa.org/releases/abortion-report.pdf, counters arguments suggesting women who had mental health problems before becoming pregnant and women who worried about stigma or secrecy or those who had low self-esteem were more likely to develop mental health problems after an abortion.

Task Force Finds Single Abortion Not a Threat to Mental Health

It has always been a contentious question. Are women who have had an abortion prone to depression?A task force headed by Dr. Brenda Major, a UCSB psychologist, analyzed hundreds of studies and found the answer to be no. Women who have a single abortion do not have a higher risk of mental health problems such as depression than women who go through childbirth, the American Psychological Association reported.The report, which can be downloaded at www.apa.org/releases/abortion-report.pdf, counters arguments suggesting women who had mental health problems before becoming pregnant and women who worried about stigma or secrecy or those who had low self-esteem were more likely to develop mental health problems after an abortion.

Researchers Show Fear of Predators Affects Health of Prey Populations

Research conducted by a group of scientists associated with UCSB’s National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS) indicates that the defensive strategies organisms employ to avoid being eaten by predators affect the health of their populations as much as or more significantly than does consumption itself. The researchers’ findings are published in a series of three articles in the September issue of Ecology, the journal of the Ecological Society of America. “These articles make the point that behavior matters, that it affects entire populations and ecosystems,” said Evan Preisser, an assistant professor at the University of Rhode Island and a co-author of two of the articles. He and Daniel Bolnick, an assistant professor at the University of Texas at Austin, co-chaired the NCEAS group that examined the topic, and both are guest editors of the issue of Ecology in which the articles appear.

Study Reveals an Oily Diet for Subsurface Life

Thousands of feet below the bottom of the sea, off the shores of Santa Barbara, single-celled organisms are busy feasting on oil. Until now, nobody knew how many oily compounds were being devoured by the microscopic creatures, but new research led by David Valentine of UC Santa Barbara and Chris Reddy of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts has shed new light on just how extensive their diet can be. In a report published in the Oct. 1 edition of the journal Environmental Science & Technology, Valentine, Reddy, lead author George Wardlaw of UCSB, and three other co-authors detail how the microbes are dining on thousands of compounds that make up the oil seeping from the sea floor. “It takes a special organism to live half a mile deep in the Earth and eat oil for a living,” said Valentine, an associate professor of earth science at UCSB. “There’s this incredibly complex diet for organisms down there eating the oil. It’s like a buffet.”And, the researchers found, there may be one other byproduct being produced by all of this munching on oil-natural gas. “They’re eating the oil, and probably making natural gas out of it,” Valentine said. “It’s actually a whole consortium of organisms—some that are eating the oil and producing intermediate products, and then those intermediate products are converted by another group to natural gas.”

New Study Offers Solution to Global Fisheries Collapse

A study published in the Sept. 19 issue of Science shows that an innovative yet contentious fisheries management strategy called “catch shares” can reverse fisheries collapse. UC Santa Barbara scientists Christopher Costello and Steven Gaines are two of the co-authors of this study.Catch shares are common in New Zealand, Australia, Iceland, and increasingly the United States and Canada. They guarantee each shareholder a fixed portion of a fishery’s total allowable catch, which is set each year by scientists. Much like stock shares in a corporation, these shares can be bought and sold. Each share becomes more valuable when the fish population—and thus the total allowable catch—increases.