Technology
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Manufactured Borders, Manufactured Intelligence
Education department lecturer and political analyst Nolan Higdon dissects some recent news, focusing especially on AI: what can history tell us about the unintelligence of artificial intelligence, how deep fakes are crowbarring the political divide even further and deeper, the corporate capture of the classroom, and more.
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Chewing gum has a mysterious effect on the brain
In research on fidgeting, UC Santa Cruz Professor of Computational Media Katherine Isbister has found that people engage in fidgeting when they’re trying to pay attention to a task that’s taking a long time, or in a long meeting (even if at the annoyance of those around them).
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Researchers awarded over $500,000 to use diamonds in new project: ‘We have sought to get off the ground for several years’
As reported by UC Santa Cruz, researchers with the Santa Cruz Institute for Particle Physics will receive $550,000 in funding to develop advanced diamond-based sensors to monitor intense radiation in future fusion energy reactors. Picked up by Yahoo.
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The Top 6 Biomedical Stories of 2025
IEEE Spectrum’s most popular biomedical stories of the past year centered both on incorporating new technologies and revamping old ones, featuring work from Professor of Computer Science and Engineering Katia Obraczka’s lab on using Wi-Fi to detect heartbeat.
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AI Wildfire Modeling Expands Beyond The West As Climate Risks Shift
Fire Oracle, one of the projects developed at the Reboot the Earth hackathon hosted by the United Nations and the UC Santa Cruz Baskin School of Engineering, uses machine learning to accelerate prescribed burn planning.
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New Research Shows How AI Could Transform Math, Physics, Cancer Research and More
“I had not seen anything that impressive [in math] from an LLM before,” says Ryan Foley, an astrophysicist at the University of California, Santa Cruz, who was not involved in the study. “I suspect LLMs are going to upend how theories are created, vetted and improved.”
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Does Information Ever Really Disappear? Physics Has an Answer
“Once the black hole is completely evaporated, all that’s left is the Hawking radiation, so it has to be there,” says University of California, Santa Cruz, physicist Edgar Shaghoulian. Also in Yahoo News.
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From Prince Harry to Steve Bannon, unlikely coalition calls for ban on superintelligent AI
The statement is a product of the Future of Life Institute, a nonprofit group that works on large-scale risks such as nuclear weapons, biotechnology and AI. Its executive director, Anthony Aguirre, a physicist at the University of California, Santa Cruz, said AI developments are happening faster than the public can understand what’s happening or what’s next.
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US serial killer case opens door to using cutting-edge DNA data in courts
Prosecutors contracted the company Astrea Forensics, a forensic genetic genealogy company co-founded by Professor of Biomolecular Engineering Richard “Ed” Green, who developed the methods used in this case. The technology cleared a ‘Frye hearing’, proving that it has been accepted by the scientific community and opening the door for the use of this DNA evidence…
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UC Santa Cruz engineers unveil AI wearable to speed wound healing
KSBW features a-Heal, a wound-healing device developed by Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering Marco Rolandi, Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering Mircea Teodorescu, Associate Professor of Applied Mathematics Marcella Gomez and collaborators at UC Davis.
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As a new state bill pushes back against license plate cameras, Watsonville looks to add more
Ram Sundara Raman, an assistant professor of computer science and engineering at UC Santa Cruz, said there is a troubling lack of transparency and oversight in Flock Safety’s data practices.
