University of California, Santa Barbara

Updating the Fundamentals: Forecasting the 2026 Midterm Election Post-Gallup

Statistical forecasts of congressional and presidential elections have become a regular feature of our discipline, and most rely on presidential approval, which has historically been provided by the polling firm Gallup.In 2025, Gallup discontinued its monthly presidential approva...

High‐Efficiency InGaP‐on‐Insulator Microresonator Nonlinear Conversion and Entanglement Generation

ABSTRACT InGaP‐on‐insulator (InGaP‐OI), with its intrinsically high optical nonlinearity, has emerged as an efficient and bright integrated photonic platform for frequency conversion and on‐chip entanglement generation, but high waveguide propagation loss in the visible wavelengt...

The Marginal Yield of LLM-Guided Alpha Search: Search Effort, Information and Investment Value

Language models can propose stock-return factors without limit, so the useful question is what an additional proposal is worth to an investor. We follow the gain from continued search through three stages: the training score the search optimizes, the accuracy of a joint return fo...

DNA methylation differences between female and male X chromosomes in human brain

Abstract Background DNA methylation is a key epigenetic mechanism of sex chromosome regulation. However, DNA methylation studies often exclude X chromosomes. Moreover, widely used DNA methylation assays interrogate biased subsets of CpGs, rather than assessing CpGs across the who...

$c=1$ strings as a matrix integral

We study the perturbative S S -matrix of the c=1 c = 1 string and show that it admits a description in terms of a double-scaled (0+0)-dimensional matrix integral based on the spectral curve \mathsf{x}(z) = 2\sqrt{2}\cos(z) 𝗑 ( z ) = 2 2 cos ⁡ ( z ) , \mathsf{y}(z)=\sin(z) 𝗒 ( z )...

Demographic “doomsday” misses the mark

A dire prediction published in Science in 1960 anticipated a population singularity in 2026—we are not even close

Local Structure and Dynamics of Three-Dimensional Covalent Organic Frameworks

Abstract Resolving and controlling the local dynamical properties of covalent organic frameworks (COFs) remains a central challenge, particularly when assembled from large, flexible building units. Here, we combine synchrotron X-ray pair distribution function (PDF) analyses with...

Prehistoric global migration of vanishing gut microbes with humans

The gut microbiome is crucial for health and is affected strongly by lifestyle1. Many microorganisms commonly found in non-industrialized populations are disappearing or have become extinct in industrialized populations2–6. Studying which microorganisms have been long-term reside...

Income sharing for common pool resources with uncertain productivity

Abstract We address the interconnected issues of externalities in the use of a natural common‐pool resource system and adverse effects of environmental uncertainty on risk‐averse resource users. We set up a simple analytical model and derive conditions such that insurance by mean...

Evidence from alkaline magmatism for fluorine- and bromine-enriched cratonic mantle roots

The base of cratonic lithospheric mantle (cratonic root) is a key volatile-rich reservoir (e.g., carbon and halogens), formed through long-term metasomatism by deep-derived incipient melts, whose reactivation has been proposed to drive climatic change over the course of Earth his...

Nuclear recoil Migdal effect in liquid xenon dark matter experiments

The Migdal effect predicts that a nuclear recoil (NR) can be accompanied by detectable atomic ionization or excitation signals, even at the low energies expected from interactions of sub-GeV dark matter particles with atomic nuclei. Liquid xenon-based dark matter experiments have...

Combining Contingency Management With Continuous Glucose Monitoring to Support Type 2 Diabetes Prevention and Care

Diabetes prevention and care require recurring self-management behaviors whose benefits are often delayed and uncertain. Digital contingency management (CM), which arranges incentives contingent on objective evidence of behavior or outcomes, offers a scalable way to strengthen th...

Past rapid spread of introduced livestock coincided with vegetation clearance on Madagascar

Debates persist around the past and present effects of introduced livestock on the native biodiversity of Madagascar. Indeed, the variable habitat and past rate of spread of livestock across the island's distinct ecoregions are poorly known. Sets of 14C and stable isotope data fr...

HybridPortal: Enabling Hybrid Group Interactions in Hybrid Events through a Mobile Portal

Hybrid events are increasingly prevalent, offering in-person and remote participation to enhance inclusivity and sustainability. However, they often fail to create cohesive experiences, leaving remote participants feeling disconnected from in-person interactions. We present Hybri...

Blood proteomics of menopause map to brain aging and dementia risk

Abstract Menopause is a hallmark process in biological aging that has been implicated in later neurodegenerative risk, but the pathways underlying this connection remain unclear. Here we used blood proteomics data from several cohorts to identify biological changes associated wit...

Compartmental-Reaction Diffusion Framework for Microscale Dynamics of Extracellular Serotonin in Brain Tissue

Abstract. The neurotransmitter serotonin (5-hydroxytryptamine) shapes the plasticity and integration of network dynamics in the entire brain. In contrast to axons that have well-defined targets and form classical synapses, serotonin-releasing (serotonergic) axons often produce ra...

Holistic Assessment of Actinide-Borohydride Covalency Using NMR and X-ray Absorption Spectroscopies

Abstract The influence of metal-ligand covalency on actinide electronic properties and reactivity continues to be a topic of intense interest given its implications for nuclear and radiochemical applications. Extensive work has focused on developing spectroscopic methods that can...

An early shift from wetland-adjacent to upland farming in the Maya lowlands

Maize is a seed grain of global social and economic importance. It has a mutualistic relationship with humans that evolved in parallel with the decisions of farmers who intensified its production. This occurred in the context of climate change, human selection for improved variet...

False kings and imagined protestants: why schismogenesis does not explain variation in inequality among Indigenous societies of the Pacific Coast

Indigenous societies along the temperate Pacific coast of North America embody diverse cultural institutions. This variation is conventionally classified into two distinct cultural areas: the Northwest Coast (NWC) and California (CAL). Discussion of the environmental, material, s...

Ion-Containing Bottlebrush Elastomers as Pressure-Sensitive Electroadhesives

Abstract This study presents a materials-design framework for low-voltage pressure-sensitive electroadhesives based on ion-containing bottlebrush polymers that combine the on-demand reversibility of traditional electroadhesives with the tunable conformability typical of pressure-...