UC Santa Barbara (Audio)

Engineers are often tasked with building the physical infrastructure capable of serving the underlying societal demands. Examples include transportation networks, power grids, data centers, and many more. A fundamental challenge associated with these "socio-technical" systems is that their underlying performance is largely impacted by how society chooses to use them, and unfortunately society tends to use such systems in a highly inefficient way. Jason Marden sheds some light on the unique challenges that surface when seeking to design and control such systems. Series: "GRIT Talks" [Science] [Show ID: 32754]

Do complex systems exhibit fundamental properties? This talk looks at tradeoffs between robustness and fragility that occur in biological, ecological, and technological systems that are driven by design, evolution, or other sorting processes to high-performance states which are also tolerant to uncertainty in the environment and components. Series: "GRIT Talks" [Science] [Show ID: 32758]

Mary Karr, one of the most celebrated memoirists, poets and essayists of her generation, talks about her craft and the revelations found along the way. Her most recent publication, The Art of Memoir, features excerpts from her favorite memoirs and anecdotes from fellow writers' experiences. She is the recipient of prizes from PEN and Best American Poetry, and she has won Pushcart Prizes both for poetry and essays. Series: "Voices" [Humanities] [Show ID: 32831]

Seven and a half billion humans are changing the way we relate to the oceans. In this fast-changing world, marine animals and plants must adapt fast to a warmer and corrosive environment as ocean acidification, pollution and deoxygenation continue. This global crisis is causing humans to be anxious about the safety of our oceans for recreation and as a source of food. Debora Iglesias-Rodriguez discusses how humans can contribute to ameliorate current ocean problems and eventually return the oceans to a more sustainable state. Series: "Women in Science" [Science] [Show ID: 32756]

Patients are frequently given the wrong antibiotics to treat bacterial infections, but it is not the physician who is at fault. The standard antibiotic test used worldwide is flawed since it is based on how well drugs kill bacteria on petri plates — not how well they kill bacteria in the body. Mike Mahan describes an “in vivo” antibiotic test that mimics conditions in the body. Drugs that pass the standard test often fail to treat bacterial infections, whereas drugs identified by the test are very effective. Series: "GRIT Talks" [Health and Medicine] [Science] [Show ID: 32759]

The growth of computer processors has shaped modern life and yet we still have so many important and fundamental questions remaining. UCSB Professor Tim Sherwood discusses the state of the art in computing and how the demands for energy efficient and intelligent systems is driving the creation of entirely new approaches to the problem. Series: "GRIT Talks" [Science] [Show ID: 32753]

Humans have multiple learning systems that for the most part are functionally and anatomically distinct, evolved at different times for different purposes, and that learn in qualitatively different ways. Greg Ashby studies how people learn new categories of objects. This research has allowed the mapping the neural networks and has identified many important and surprising differences in how we learn. Series: "GRIT Talks" [Health and Medicine] [Humanities] [Science] [Show ID: 32755]

In 2013 the price of Bitcoin surged to over $1100 causing central banks around the world to take notice. Four years later, the price of Bitcoin is twice as high as its previous peak and central banks around the world are exploring the benefits of issuing crypto-based digital representations of fiat monies, more commonly known as central bank digital currencies. Rod Garratt, UCSB Professor of Economics, describes his work on a project to build a proof of concept for a wholesale interbank payment system that facilitates payments of central bank digital currency using a distributed ledger. Series: "Great Minds Gather Here" [Business] [Show ID: 32757]

Systems of interacting agents arise throughout the natural world and are studied in such varied disciplines as engineering, physics, and biology. What is the optimal way for a swarm of robotic bees to pollinate a bed of crops? How can we use vortex motion in superconductors to develop new technologies for renewable energy? How does a colony of slime mold communicate using chemical signals? UCSB Professor Katy Craig describes the mathematics underlying systems of interacting agents and how such systems can be analyzed using an age old scientific technique: what happens if we poke it? Series: "GRIT Talks" [Science] [Show ID: 32752]

The growth of computer processors has shaped modern life and yet we still have so many important and fundamental questions remaining. UCSB Professor Tim Sherwood discusses the unexpected state of the art in computing. Series: "UCTV Prime" [Science] [Show ID: 32985]