News

June 13, 2013

California’s efforts to clean up diesel engines have helped reduce impact of climate change on state, study finds

Berkeley Lab partners in study showing clean diesel programs slashed black carbon, a powerful short-term contributor to global warming

June 12, 2013

Researchers develop easy and effective therapy to restore sight

Researchers at UC Berkeley have developed an easier and more effective method for inserting genes into eye cells that could greatly expand gene therapy to help restore sight to patients with blinding diseases ranging from inherited defects like retinitis pigmentosa to degenerative illnesses of old age, such as macular degeneration.

June 12, 2013

‘Nuff said: Humans get the gist of complex sounds

New research by neuroscientists at UC Berkeley, suggests that the human brain is not detail-oriented, but opts for the big picture when it comes to hearing.

June 11, 2013

Five new Bakar Fellows pursue path to marketplace

Five UC Berkeley scientists eager to take their lab-bench discoveries into the marketplace have been awarded Bakar Fellowships to help them achieve their goals.

June 4, 2013

To improve today’s concrete, do as the Romans did

In a quest to make concrete more durable and sustainable, an international team of geologists and engineers has found inspiration in the ancient Romans, whose massive concrete structures have withstood the elements for more than 2,000 years.

May 30, 2013

Scientists capture first images of molecules before and after reaction

Every chemist’s dream – to snap an atomic-scale picture of a chemical before and after it reacts – has now come true, thanks to a new technique developed by chemists and physicists at the University of California, Berkeley.

May 28, 2013

New light-controlled gel makes big strides in soft robotics

Inspired by the way plants grow toward light sources, a phenomenon known as phototropism, bioengineers from the University of California, Berkeley have created a hydrogel that could be manipulated by light.

May 22, 2013

Help wanted: Public needed to uncover clues in natural history collections

Like bugs? Ever wonder what goes on behind the scenes at natural history museums? Interested in helping scientists understand our changing environment? These are just some of the reasons why people should join a project led by UC Berkeley’s Essig Museum of Entomology.

May 16, 2013

Bach to the blues, our emotions match music to colors

Whether we’re listening to Bach or the blues, our brains are wired to make music-color connections depending on how the melodies make us feel, according to new research from the University of California, Berkeley.

May 15, 2013

Students think big ideas in tackling societal problems

Closing out almost nine months of intense competition, UC Berkeley’s annual Big Ideas contest honored this year’s crop of outstanding social projects last week during a special awards celebration at the Blum Center for Developing Economies.

May 14, 2013

Racial minorities live on the front lines of heat risk, study finds

Some racial groups are more likely to bear the brunt of extreme heat waves because of where they live, according to a new study by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley.

May 14, 2013

Wireless signals could transform brain trauma diagnostics

New technology developed at the University of California, Berkeley, is using wireless signals to provide real-time, non-invasive diagnoses of brain swelling or bleeding.

May 9, 2013

Flawed Diamonds Promise Sensory Perfection

From brain to heart to stomach, the bodies of humans and animals generate weak magnetic fields that a supersensitive detector could use to pinpoint illnesses, trace drugs – and maybe even read minds. Sensors no bigger than a thumbnail could map gas deposits underground, analyze chemicals, and pinpoint explosives that hide from other probes.

May 9, 2013

Heady mathematics: Describing popping bubbles in a foam

Two University of California, Berkeley, researchers have now described mathematically the successive stages in the complex evolution and disappearance of foamy bubbles, a feat that could help in modeling industrial processes in which liquids mix or in the formation of solid foams such as those used to cushion bicycle helmets.

May 9, 2013

Howard Hughes Medical Institute names three new campus investigators

Nicole King, Russell Vance and Michael Rape took different routes to UC Berkeley’s Department of Molecular and Cell Biology, but they’ve ended up with one of the mostly highly sought positions at any American university: a fully subsidized appointment, with added research funds, as a Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) investigator.

May 6, 2013

Scrutinizing Space Storms for a Calmer Life on Earth

When winter storms blast in from the Pacific, or hurricanes lash the Southeast, it can seem as if we’re at the mercy of punishing, unpredictable forces. But all is relatively calm here compared to the violent, seemingly random turbulence a hundred miles above the earth, in the upper reaches of the atmosphere, known as the ionosphere.

May 1, 2013

Poison lips? Troubling levels of toxic metals found in cosmetics

A new analysis of the contents of lipstick and lip gloss may cause you to pause before puckering.

April 30, 2013

Three faculty members named to National Academy of Sciences

In recognition of their excellence in original scientific research, three UC Berkeley faculty members have been elected members of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), one of the highest honors given to a scientist or engineer in the United States.

April 30, 2013

Is antimatter anti-gravity?

Antimatter is strange stuff. It has the opposite electrical charge to matter and, when it meets its matter counterpart, the two annihilate in a flash of light.

April 25, 2013

Malaria milestone ‘took a village’

On April 25, World Malaria Day, the nonprofit Zagaya released a video Illustrating why, in the words of UC Berkeley synthetic biologist Jay Keasling, “it took a village” to create an accessible treatment for malaria that will be essential to eradicating the disease.

April 23, 2013

People care about the source of cash, attach less value to ‘tainted’ wealth

It’s no accident that money obtained through dishonest or illegal means is called “dirty money.” A new study from the University of California, Berkeley, suggests that when people perceive money as morally tainted, they also view it as having less value and purchasing power.

April 21, 2013

Lost your keys? Your cat? The brain can rapidly mobilize a search party

Scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, have discovered that when we embark on a targeted search, various visual and non-visual regions of the brain mobilize to track down a person, animal or thing.

April 16, 2013

UC Berkeley selected to build NASA’s next space weather satellite

NASA has awarded the University of California, Berkeley, up to $200 million to build a satellite to determine how Earth’s weather affects weather at the edge of space, in hopes of improving forecasts of extreme “space weather” that can disrupt global positioning satellites (GPS) and radio communications.

April 16, 2013

Researchers find out why some stress is good for you

New research by Kaufer and UC Berkeley post-doctoral fellow Elizabeth Kirby has uncovered exactly how acute stress – short-lived, not chronic – primes the brain for improved performance.

April 16, 2013

From geeky to cool: Statistics is Berkeley’s fastest-growing major

Any way you count it, the fastest-growing major at UC Berkeley by far is one that long slumbered in obscurity: statistics.

April 11, 2013

Wresting New Tricks From a Python: Fernando Perez Wins 2012 Award for the Advancement of Free Software

In 2001 when Fernando Pérez was still a graduate student in particle physics, he kept bumping into walls with a popular programming language he was using called Python, as he tried to analyze an elusive theoretical phenomenon known as the quantum vacuum.

April 11, 2013

Launch of antimalarial drug a triumph for UC Berkeley, synthetic biology

Twelve years after a breakthrough discovery in his University of California, Berkeley, laboratory, professor of chemical engineering Jay Keasling is seeing his dream come true.

April 9, 2013

“Perfect Storm” of Climate Change and Population Growth Brewing in African Sahel, Experts Warn

The vast region of Africa known as the Sahel will descend into large-scale drought, famine, war and terrorist control if immediate, coordinated steps are not taken to avert the perfect storm of climate change and the most rapidly growing population in the world.

April 7, 2013

Sweet Success: Berkeley Lab Researchers Find Way to Catalyze More Sugars from Biomass

Researchers with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) through support from the Energy Biosciences Institute (EBI) have literally shed new light on cellulase catalysis.

April 3, 2013

Computers that can identify you by your thoughts

Instead of typing your password, in the future you may only have to think your password, according to School of Information researchers. A new study explores the feasibility of brainwave-based computer authentication as a substitute for passwords.

April 2, 2013

Rising temperature difference between hemispheres could dramatically shift rainfall patterns in tropics

One often ignored consequence of global climate change is that the Northern Hemisphere is becoming warmer than the Southern Hemisphere, which could significantly alter tropical precipitation patterns, according to a new study by climatologists from the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Washington, Seattle.

April 2, 2013

Campus poised to join Obama’s BRAIN initiative

Three UC Berkeley scientists were among a gathering of the nation’s top scientists at the White House this morning (Tuesday, April 2) as President Barack Obama announced a major national initiative to develop new tools to create real-time traffic maps of the human brain.

April 1, 2013

3-D printer wows students at UC Berkeley

UC Berkeley alumni, David Pastewka and Richard Berwick, along with a current senior Will Drevno were featured on ABC7 News for their business and invention – the Dreambox.

March 27, 2013

Professor Enlists Android Phones in Search for Black Holes

UC Berkeley computer scientist, David Anderson, was featured in Wired magazine for his work with the SETI@Home project.

March 25, 2013

Making Art Out of Earthquakes

UC Berkeley’s Ken Goldberg, Professor of Industrial Engineering and Operations Research, is featured in The Atlantic for his recent work, Bloom - “an Internet-based earthwork”.

March 21, 2013

Computer Simulations Yield Clues to How Cells Interact With Surroundings

Your cells are social butterflies. They constantly interact with their surroundings, taking in cues on when to divide and where to anchor themselves, among other critical tasks.

March 19, 2013

Professor makes case for U.S.-Mexico border without walls

As the United States reconsiders immigration policy reform – particularly between the United States and Mexico – the focus should be on immigration and integration instead of tougher border security, says University of California, Berkeley, professor of city and regional planning Michael Dear, the author of the new book, “Why Walls Won’t Work: Repairing the US-Mexico Divide.”

March 13, 2013

ChronoZoom wins Interactive Award at SXSW conference

ChronoZoom was named the Top Educational Resource at the 16th Annual South by Southwest Festival Interactive Awards Ceremony in Austin, Texas.

March 12, 2013

Wild bees get boost from diverse, organic crops

Fields with diversified, organic crops get more buzz from wild bees, concludes a synthesis of 39 studies on 23 crops around the world published March 11 in the journal Ecology Letters.

March 7, 2013

Long Predicted Atomic Collapse State Observed in Graphene

The first experimental observation of a quantum mechanical phenomenon that was predicted nearly 70 years ago holds important implications for the future of graphene-based electronic devices.

March 6, 2013

After-school soccer program promotes exercise among low-income overweight youth

After-school soccer programs look like a win for increasing physical activity among overweight youth in low-income neighborhoods, according to a new study.

March 5, 2013

Evidence that comets could have seeded life on Earth

A new experiment simulating conditions in deep space reveals that the complex building blocks of life could have been created on icy interplanetary dust and then carried to Earth, jump-starting life.

March 5, 2013

Berkeley-led consortium gets $3.4 million for transit research

Researchers at the University of California Transportation Center (UCTC), a research consortium led by UC Berkeley that includes the UC and California State University systems, have received a $3.4 million grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation.

March 4, 2013

Connected Corridors aims to up efficiency of existing roadways

Population and car numbers continue to increase, which means more frustrating hours spent in gridlock, more money lost on wasted energy, and more air pollution.

February 11, 2013

Scientists create automated ‘time machine’ to reconstruct ancient languages

Ancient languages hold a treasure trove of information about the culture, politics and commerce of millennia past. Yet, reconstructing them to reveal clues into human history can require decades of painstaking work. Now, scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, have created an automated “time machine,” of sorts, that will greatly accelerate and improve the process of reconstructing hundreds of ancestral languages.

February 11, 2013

New Details on the Molecular Machinery of Cancer

Researchers with Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the University of California (UC) Berkeley have provided important new details into the activation of the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR), a cell surface protein that has been strongly linked to a large number of cancers and is a major target of cancer therapies.

February 8, 2013

Intelligent civilizations rarer than one in a million

Scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, have now used the Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia to look for intelligent radio signals from planets around 86 of these stars. While discovering no telltale signs of life, the researchers calculate that fewer than one in a million stars in the Milky Way Galaxy have planetary civilizations advanced enough to transmit beacons we could detect.

February 7, 2013

New evidence comet or asteroid impact was last straw for dinosaurs

In an attempt to resolve the issue, scientists at the Berkeley Geochronology Center (BGC), the University of California, Berkeley, and universities in the Netherlands and the United Kingdom have now determined the most precise dates yet for the dinosaur extinction 66 million years ago and for the well-known impact that occurred around the same time.

February 7, 2013

Two UC Berkeley faculty members named to NAE

Two faculty members at the University of California, Berkeley, have been named to the National Academy of Engineering (NAE). Election to the NAE is considered one of the most prestigious professional distinctions accorded to an American engineer.

February 6, 2013

Bakar Fellow Dr. Michael Rape awarded the Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in Biomedical Science

Dr. Michael Rape, Bakar Fellow and Associate Professor of Cell and Development and Biology at UC Berkeley, was awarded the Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in Biomedical Science. He is a leading biochemical researcher helping to unravel the mysteries of the ubiquitin system, which tags damaged or bad proteins for destruction, and others for elimination to enable certain processes to occur, and therefore vital to the health of all life-forms.

February 5, 2013

Berkeley Lab Study Finds Big Energy Savings in The New York Times Building

Designing a building holistically, and making sure that its components and systems work together according to design intent, can pay big dividends in energy savings and occupant satisfaction, according to a study of The New York Times Building by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab).

February 5, 2013

KQED Quest profiles Kathy Ann Miller, herbarium’s seaweed expert

KQED Quest producer Sheraz Sadiq profiles Kathy Ann Miller, a curator and seaweed expert in UC Berkeley’s University Herbarium, in the video “Preserving the Forest of the Sea.”

February 5, 2013

Jay Keasling: Using microbes to create the next generation of fuel

Jay Keasling, UC Berkeley chemical engineer and leader in the field of synthetic biology, is featured on CNN’s “The Next List” for his work on using microbes to create the next generation of fuel.

February 4, 2013

New AIDS research uses models to see through lies about sex, inform HIV policy

The increasingly couples-focused public-health policy for AIDS prevention in sub-Saharan Africa underestimates the role that cheating spouses play in transmitting the virus, according to a new study from the University of California, Berkeley.

January 31, 2013

Unmasking galaxies’ hidden black holes

Most galaxies have a massive black hole at their center, astronomers suspect, but only a few dozen examples are known out of billions of galaxies in the cosmos. Now astronomers have developed a quick technique that could potentially uncover and weigh 10 times more massive black holes.

January 31, 2013

Discovery opens the door to a potential ‘molecular fountain of youth’

A new study led by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, represents a major advance in the understanding of the molecular mechanisms behind aging while providing new hope for the development of targeted treatments for age-related degenerative diseases.

January 30, 2013

Maternal overweight or obesity before and during pregnancy may lead to early menstruation in daughters

A mother’s weight before pregnancy and the amount of weight she gains while pregnant may have important implications for the hormonal development of her daughter, according to recent research from the UC Berkeley School of Public Health.

January 30, 2013

UC Berkeley chemistry professor Fréchet wins 2013 Japan Prize

Emeritus chemistry and CBE professor Jean Fréchet, a Professor of the Graduate School, has received a 2013 Japan Prize, one of the most prestigious international awards in science and technology.

January 28, 2013

Earthquake alert system may be coming

The San Francisco Chronicle recently reported on the work of Richard M. Allen, Director of the UC Berkeley Seismological Laboratory, for helping to develop an early warning system that flashes imminent danger when a damaging earthquake is about to strike.

January 27, 2013

Poor sleep in old age prevents the brain from storing memories

The connection between poor sleep, memory loss and brain deterioration as we grow older has been elusive. But for the first time, scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, have found a link between these hallmark maladies of old age. Their discovery opens the door to boosting the quality of sleep in elderly people to improve memory.

January 25, 2013

Playwright/alum Stan Lai to discuss creativity, theater

Stan Lai, considered the leading playwright/director in Asia and one of the region’s most prolific, is taking a break from his hectic schedule and heading back to his alma mater, the University of California, Berkeley, for a series of public talks and workshops about his own artistic practice and the state of modern theater.

January 24, 2013

Neurologist Jagust wins 2013 Potamkin Prize for research into cause of Alzheimer’s

William J. Jagust, an authority on brain aging and dementia, has been awarded the 2013 Potamkin Prize for Research in Pick’s, Alzheimer’s and Related Diseases by the American Academy of Neurology and the American Brain Foundation.

January 19, 2013

Poor sleep can leave romantic partners feeling unappreciated

Spouses and other romantic partners often complain about feeling unappreciated, and a new study from UC Berkeley suggests poor sleep may play a hidden role.

January 18, 2013

Scientist sees the light on solar energy

Heinz Frei, the acting director of the Joint Center for Artificial Photosynthesis at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory was recently featured in the San Francisco Chronicle. JCAP’s efforts focus on generating fuels from sunlight.

January 18, 2013

When mom is the CEO at home, workplace ambitions take a back seat

It’s often said that women can have it all – motherhood and a successful career. But a new UC Berkeley study suggests that women who rule the household have less energy for or interest in being a rising star in the workplace.

January 17, 2013

New Key to Organism Complexity Identified

The enormously diverse complexity seen amongst individual species within the animal kingdom evolved from a surprisingly small gene pool. The key to morphological and behavioral complexity, a growing body of scientific evidence suggests, is the regulation of gene expression by a family of DNA-binding proteins called “transcription factors.”

January 17, 2013

Berkeley Law Launches Center on Reproductive Rights and Justice

On the eve of the 40-year anniversary of Roe v. Wade, UC Berkeley School of Law today announced the formal launch of its new Center on Reproductive Rights and Justice (CRRJ). It is one of the first research centers to study the legal, economic, and social impact of reproductive laws on women, families, and communities.

January 17, 2013

Campus to lead $27.5 million TerraSwarm Research Center

Researchers in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences have been awarded $27.5 million over five years to spearhead the new TerraSwarm Research Center, which will address the huge potential — and risks — of the pervasive integration of smart, networked sensors connecting our world.

January 12, 2013

Turning over new leaf in climate change

The San Francisco Chronicle recently reported on the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory’s research on artificial photosynthesis.

January 10, 2013

Persistent methodological flaw undermines biodiversity conservation in tropical forests

What is the role of logging in tropical forests? How is biodiversity affected by this logging? The answers differ and are controversial among ecologists, environmentalists, and policymakers, and these disagreements have implications for the conservation of biodiversity.

January 10, 2013

A rock is a clock: physicist uses matter to tell time

What is the simplest, most fundamental clock? UC Berkeley physicist Holger Müller and his colleagues have shown that a single atom is sufficient to measure time. Conversely, the frequency of matter can be used to define its mass.

January 10, 2013

Top psychologists to present research on sleep, awe and more at ‘Big Easy’ conference

Poor sleep can sour relationships. Powerful people are better at shaking off rebuffs. Moms who run the household are less concerned with rising to power in the workplace. And people who gaze at the vastness of nature tend to be less self-centered.

January 9, 2013

The Farthest Supernova Yet for Measuring Cosmic History

The Supernova Cosmology Project, based at Berkeley Lab and headed by UC Berkeley physicist and Nobel Laureate Saul Perlmutter, has discovered the most distant supernova yet that can be used in cosmological studies. Announced at the American Astronomical Society meeting, it will help answer questions about dark energy and the fate of the universe.

January 8, 2013

Beyond manifesto: How to change the food system

Scientists from Berkeley and other institutions lay out a scientific case that biologically diversified agricultural practices can contribute substantially to food production while creating far fewer environmental harms than industrialized, conventional monoculture agriculture—that is, large swaths of land devoted to growing single crops using chemical inputs.

January 8, 2013

Earth-size planets common in galaxy

An analysis of the first three years of data from NASA’s Kepler mission, which already has discovered thousands of potential exoplanets, contains good news for those searching for habitable worlds outside our solar system. It shows that 17 percent of all sun-like stars have planets one to two times the diameter of Earth orbiting close to their host stars, according to a team of astronomers.

January 7, 2013

Exocomets may be as common as exoplanets

Comets trailing wispy tails across the night sky are a beautiful byproduct of our solar system’s formation, icy leftovers from 4.6 billion years ago when the planets coalesced from rocky rubble. The discovery by astronomers of six likely comets around distant stars suggests that comets – dubbed “exocomets” – are just as common in other stellar systems with planets.

January 7, 2013

Researchers find minimal state cost from Medicaid expansion in California

As the California Legislature prepares to consider bills relating to implementing the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and expanding Medicaid, the state has the opportunity to significantly increase health insurance coverage at minimal cost to the state budget, according to a joint study by the University of California, Berkeley’s Center for Labor Research and Education and the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research.

January 7, 2013

Cheap and easy technique to snip DNA could revolutionize gene therapy

A simple, precise and inexpensive method for cutting DNA to insert genes into human cells could transform genetic medicine, making routine what now are expensive, complicated and rare procedures for replacing defective genes in order to fix genetic disease or even cure AIDS.

January 3, 2013

How Computers Push on the Molecules They Simulate

Because modern computers have to depict the real world with digital representations of numbers instead of physical analogues, to simulate the continuous passage of time they have to digitize time into small slices. This kind of simulation is essential in disciplines from medical and biological research, to new materials, to fundamental considerations of quantum mechanics...

December 20, 2012

Cellphone, GPS data suggest new strategy for alleviating traffic tie-ups

Asking all commuters to cut back on rush-hour driving reduces traffic congestion somewhat, but asking specific groups of drivers to stay off the road may work even better.

December 19, 2012

Undergrads get a rare chance to present their research alongside world experts at upcoming biology conference

Twenty-six young UC Berkeley scientists, many in the Berkeley Undergraduate Research Apprentice Program (URAP), will make a rare trip to present their research at an upcoming major international biology conference.

December 19, 2012

What do leeches, limpets and worms have in common?

Leeches, despite the yuck factor, have captured the hearts of two University of California, Berkeley, scientists who are part of a team that this week is publishing the leech’s complete genome sequence.

December 19, 2012

Scientists construct first map of how the brain organizes everything we see

Our eyes may be our window to the world, but how do we make sense of the thousands of images that flood our retinas each day? Scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, have found that the brain is wired to put in order all the categories of objects and actions that we see.

December 17, 2012

To revert breast cancer cells, give them the squeeze

Researchers at the UC Berkeley and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have put the squeeze — literally — on malignant mammary cells to guide them back into a normal growth pattern.

December 17, 2012

Big NSF grant funds research into training robots to work with humans

What if robots and humans, working together, were able to perform tasks in surgery and manufacturing that neither can do alone? That’s the question driving new research by UC Berkeley robotics experts Ken Goldberg and Pieter Abbeel and colleagues from four other universities, who were awarded a $3.5 million grant from the National Science Foundation.

December 13, 2012

Special Anglo-American relationship to be studied in new program

Whether it involves Reagan and Thatcher, FDR and Churchill or the colonies and the crown, the special relationship between Great Britain and the United States is generally known – but not necessarily well-understood. That connection will be more deeply explored in a new Anglo-American studies program to be housed at UC Berkeley’s Institute of Governmental Studies (IGS), thanks to a $1 million gift from the Anglo California Foundation.

December 12, 2012

UC Berkeley awarded $4 million ARPA-E grant for smart grid research

The Department of Energy has awarded $4 million over three years to researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, to develop new ways to monitor the stability of electric power grids.

December 12, 2012

Cloud forest trees drink water through their leaves

Tropical montane cloud forest trees use more than their roots to take up water. They also drink water from clouds directly through their leaves, University of California, Berkeley, scientists have discovered. While this is an essential survival strategy in foggy but otherwise dry areas, the scientists say that the clouds the trees depend on are now disappearing due to climate change.

December 11, 2012

Mexican American toddlers lag in preliteracy skills, but not in their social skills, new study shows

Mexican American preschoolers fall behind their white counterparts in terms of early language and preliteracy skills, but the social competencies between the two groups are indistinguishable, according to new research from the University of California, Berkeley, and UCLA.

December 10, 2012

Conservatives can be persuaded to care more about the environment, study finds

When it comes to climate change, deforestation and toxic waste, the assumption has been that conservative views on these topics are intractable. But new research from the University of California, Berkeley, suggests that such viewpoints can be changed after all.

December 10, 2012

Cleantech to Market Bridges Gap from Lab to Launch

Mechanical engineer Lindsay Miller, PhD 12, knew there was a market for her doctoral thesis project—a device the size of a stick of gum that harvests energy from machinery vibrations, generating enough electricity to run wireless sensors without ever having to change a battery.

December 6, 2012

New gene found that turns carbs into fat, could be target for future drugs

A gene that helps the body convert that big plate of holiday cookies you just polished off into fat could provide a new target for potential treatments for fatty liver disease, diabetes and obesity. Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, are unlocking the molecular mechanisms of how our body converts dietary carbohydrates into fat.

December 4, 2012

Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation Gives a Big Boost to BigBOSS

A $2.1 million grant from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation to the University of California at Berkeley, through the Berkeley Center for Cosmological Physics (BCCP), will fund the development of revolutionary technologies for BigBOSS, a project now in the proposal stage designed to study dark energy with unprecedented precision.

November 29, 2012

Four faculty members named fellows of AAAS

Four University of California, Berkeley, faculty members have been named fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the association announced today (Thursday, Nov. 29).

November 28, 2012

Let there be clean light: Kerosene lamps spew black carbon, should be replaced, study says

The primary source of light for more than a billion people in developing nations is also churning out black carbon at levels previously overlooked in climate warming estimates, according to a new study led by researchers at UC Berkeley and the University of Illinois.

November 26, 2012

New Wetland Design Shows Leap in Cleansing Toxins from Salton Sea

A rotten-egg stench that fouled a swath of Southern California in September was traced to the Salton Sea — the latest episode in the environmental woes of California’s largest, but rapidly shrinking, inland lake. Now a new study has demonstrated a cost-effective method for using man-made wetlands to clean contaminants out of the freshwater rivers that flow into the sea.

November 21, 2012

Scientists look to Hawaii’s bugs for clues to origins of biodiversity

The Hawaiian Islands are a unique and ongoing series of evolutionary and ecological experiments. As each volcano rises above the waves, it is colonized by life from neighboring volcanoes and develops its own flora and fauna.

November 19, 2012

Eating estrogenic plants alters hormones in monkeys, may increase aggression and sex

Eating certain veggies not only supplies key nutrients, it may also influence hormone levels and behaviors such as aggression and sexual activity, says a new study led by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, that could shed light on the role of diet in human evolution.

November 19, 2012

$2.75 million grant will help School improve birth outcomes, starting in four cities

In recognition of National Prematurity Awareness Month, the UC Berkeley School of Public Health announced that it has received a $2.75M grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation of Battle Creek, Michigan to implement a three-year pilot initiative, Best Babies Zone (BBZ) aimed at improving birth outcomes for infants in four U.S. cities.

November 15, 2012

Flame retardants linked to neurodevelopmental delays in children

Prenatal and childhood exposure to flame retardant compounds are linked to poorer attention, fine motor coordination and IQ in school-aged children, a finding by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley’s School of Public Health that adds to growing health concerns over a chemical prevalent in U.S. households.

November 8, 2012

USAID invests up to $20 million in UC Berkeley’s global development initiatives

UC Berkeley’s leadership in developing innovative and practical solutions for global problems is being recognized in a $20 million cooperative agreement with the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).

November 7, 2012

Sweet diesel! Discovery resurrects process to convert sugar directly to diesel

A long-abandoned fermentation process once used to turn starch into explosives can be used to produce renewable diesel fuel to replace the fossil fuels now used in transportation, UC Berkeley scientists have discovered.

November 6, 2012

Thnx4.org goes live to both teach and research the power of gratitude

UC Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center is providing an easy way to give thanks and, at the same time, contribute to a national research project on the power of gratitude

November 5, 2012

Probing the depths of poll work

About a million Americans — 100,000 of them in California — will spend Election Day as poll workers. Karin Mac Donald and Bonnie Glaser, director and research specialist, respectively, at Berkeley Law’s Election Administration Research Center, say it’s a role that’s stressful and underappreciated.

October 30, 2012

Tabletop fault model reveals why some quakes lead to faster shaking

The more time it takes for an earthquake fault to heal, the faster the shake it will produce when it finally ruptures, according to a new study by engineers at the University of California, Berkeley.

October 30, 2012

New GOTV efforts could help Latino voters achieve political potential, says researcher

Lisa García Bedolla, a University of California, Berkeley, expert on voter mobilization, says Latinos are far from casting votes in numbers that truly reflect their growing population and potential political power.

October 25, 2012

Hermit crabs socialize to evict their neighbors

Social animals usually congregate for protection or mating or to capture bigger prey, but a University of California, Berkeley, biologist has found that the terrestrial hermit crab has a more self-serving social agenda: to kick another crab out of its shell and move into a larger home.

October 24, 2012

Sather Center targets transatlantic research

With several of its namesake’s descendants on hand for the occasion, UC Berkeley’s Peder Sather Center for Advanced Study is celebrating its launch today (Thursday) with a two-day campus conference.

October 24, 2012

Study finds elevated levels of formaldehyde, other contaminants, in day care centers

A new, comprehensive survey of day care centers by University of California, Berkeley, researchers found that, overall, the environmental quality in child care settings was similar to other indoor environments, but that levels of formaldehyde and several other contaminants exceeded state health guidelines.

October 23, 2012

California Leads Nation in Exonerations of Wrongfully Convicted

A new research group at UC Berkeley finds that at least 200 wrongful convictions have been thrown out since 1989 in California, costing those convicted more than 1,300 years of freedom and taxpayers $129 million.

October 23, 2012

Food Day report: Minimum-wage hike would raise food prices pennies, help millions

A new report released today (Wednesday, Oct. 24), national Food Day 2012, says that a proposal pending in Congress to raise the minimum wage would increase retail food prices for American consumers by at most 10 cents a day, while helping nearly 8 million food workers and 21 million workers in other industries.

October 23, 2012

Did bacteria spark evolution of multicellular life?

A new UC Berkeley study now suggests that bacteria may have helped kick off one of the key events in evolution: the leap from one-celled organisms to many-celled organisms, a development that eventually led to all animals, including humans.

October 22, 2012

Don’t be so fast to judge a cat by its color, study warns

Interested in the link between how cat color influences adoption rates, a University of California, Berkeley, researcher surveyed 189 people with experience of cats as pets and found that they were more likely to assign positive personality traits to orange cats and less favorable ones to white and tortoiseshell ones.

October 21, 2012

Air pollution study clears the air on diesel versus gas emissions

UC Berkeley researchers released a new study that says diesel exhaust contributes 15 times more than gas emissions per liter of fuel burned.

October 16, 2012

Keck observations reveal complex face of Uranus

The planet Uranus, known since Voyager’s 1986 flyby as a bland, featureless blue-green orb, is beginning to show its face. By using a new technique with the telescopes of the Keck Observatory, astronomers have created the most richly detailed, highest-resolution images ever taken of the giant ice planet.

October 15, 2012

Survey shows program boosts Latino parents’ child knowledge, confidence

While many Latino children enter school hampered by weak preliteracy skills, a new program tied to Head Start successfully equips parents to close these gaps, according to findings out today from the University of California, Berkeley.

October 9, 2012

The Best of Both Catalytic Worlds

Catalysts are substances that speed up the rates of chemical reactions without themselves being chemically changed. Industrial catalysts come in two main types – heterogeneous, in which the catalyst is in a different phase from the reactants; and homogeneous, in which catalyst and the reactants are in the same phase.

October 9, 2012

Grave Matters

Thomas Laqueur studies the role of cemeteries in civilization.

October 8, 2012

Arsenic water filter recognized with international prize

A team led by Lawrence Berkeley National Lab (Berkeley Lab)’s Ashok Gadgil is the recipient of the 5th Prince Sultan Bin Abdulaziz International Prize for Water. Gadgil, head of the Lab’s Environmental Energy Technologies Division and a Professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of California, Berkeley, will receive the Creativity Prize on behalf of the team.

October 7, 2012

Study Finds Flirting Can Pay Off for Women in Negotiations

When Madeleine Albright became the first female U.S. Secretary of State, she led high-level negotiations between mostly male foreign government leaders. In 2009, comedian Bill Maher asked Albright if she ever flirted on the job and she replied, “I did, I did.” Flirtatiousness, female friendliness, or the more diplomatic description “feminine charm” is an effective way for women to gain negotiating mileage.

October 7, 2012

A Welcome Predictability

Synthetic biology is the latest and most advanced phase of genetic engineering, holding great promise for helping to solve some of the world’s most intractable problems, including the sustainable production of energy fuels and critical medical drugs, and the safe removal of toxic and radioactive waste from the environment.

October 7, 2012

Quantifying Nature’s Aquatic Requirements

Pescadero Estuary, located an hour south of San Francisco, is a coastal habitat under intense pressure from several interest groups, some human, others wild. And the estuary’s endangered fish species need specific seasonal water regimens and salinity levels to survive.

October 4, 2012

Grants help scientists explore boundary between science & science fiction

Two University of California, Berkeley, scientists have received research grants to explore areas of science that bleed into science fiction.

October 3, 2012

BPA linked to thyroid hormone changes in pregnant women, newborns

Bisphenol A (BPA), an estrogen-like compound that has drawn increased scrutiny in recent years, has been linked to changes in thyroid hormone levels in pregnant women and newborn boys, according to a new study by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley.

October 2, 2012

Fox squirrels show long-term investment savvy when hoarding nuts

Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, are gathering evidence this fall that the feisty fox squirrels scampering around campus are not just mindlessly foraging for food, but engaging in a long-term savings strategy.

October 1, 2012

Reports shows political preferences of California’s Asian Americans

Asian Americans, who account for 10 percent of registered voters in California, support a tax measure proposed by Governor Jerry Brown, are closely divided on the death penalty ballot measure, overwhelmingly support affirmative action, and support tax increases, according to two new reports from the National Asian American Survey.

October 1, 2012

Voters act on performance, not policy, new book says

Voters in U.S. presidential races make choices based on a candidate’s performance rather than on his or her policy positions – even when those stances run counter to the voters’ own, according to a new book by a University of California, Berkeley, political scientist.

September 27, 2012

Pushing innovations to industry's doorstep

A tiny laser that could enable smaller and faster smart phones and tablets. A glucosamine-like supplement that targets the underlying cause of multiple sclerosis. These are among research projects getting a boost this year from a UC grants program.

September 26, 2012

Contaminated site yields wealth of information on microbes 10 feet under

UC Berkeley scientists have dug into the soil of a heavy metal contaminated site to analyze the genes of the underground microbial community in hopes of finding ways to help improve the microbes’ ability to remediate toxic metal contamination.

September 23, 2012

Cal Energy Corps interns field-test smart solutions

Recently returned from their summer sojourns, 32 UC Berkeley undergraduates shared experiences interning on myriad sustainability projects around the world during the second annual Cal Energy Corps symposium at the David Brower Center Thursday.

September 23, 2012

A Clock that Will Last Forever: Berkeley Lab Researchers Propose a Way to Build the First Space-Time Crystal

Imagine a clock that will keep perfect time forever, even after the heat-death of the universe. An international team of scientists led by researchers with the Berkeley Lab and UC Berkeley has proposed the experimental design of a space-time crystal based on an electric-field ion trap and the Coulomb repulsion of particles that carry the same electrical charge.

September 23, 2012

Eye proteins have germ-killing power, could lead to new antimicrobial drugs, study finds

A team of UC Berkeley vision scientists has found that small fragments of keratin protein in the eye play a key role in warding off pathogens.

September 18, 2012

New International House director to step up cross-cultural training, spread the ‘international bug’

Giesecke, 56, who most recently served as president of Anatolia College in Thessaloniki, Greece, is warming up as the fifth director of I-House. The residential community of some 600 undergraduate and graduate UC Berkeley students, currently from 65 countries, was launched in 1930 to break down cultural barriers between overseas and U.S. students.

September 17, 2012

Prop. 30 project set to rapidly expand knowledge through social networks

How can knowledge be spread rapidly across large populations using social media? To explore this question, researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, are launching a new website that allows visitors to spread the word quickly about important issues.

September 13, 2012

Berkeley Lab Scientists Create First 3-D Model of a Protein Critical to Embryo Development

The first detailed and complete picture of a protein complex that is tied to human birth defects as well as the progression of many forms of cancer has been obtained by an international team of researchers led by scientists with the Department of Energy, Berkeley Lab and UC Berkeley.

September 13, 2012

Conference explores California’s fiscal crisis

The University of California, Berkeley’s Institute of Governmental Studies (IGS) is sponsoring an all-day conference on Sept. 21, to explore “California’s Fiscal Crisis: Prospects for Deficit Reduction and Pension Reform in the Golden State.”

September 11, 2012

Berkeley Leads the Way in NSF Fellowships

The National Science Foundation fellowship is a crown jewel of graduate student awards and UC Berkeley students lead the nation in capturing these prestigious and highly competitive grants.

September 11, 2012

Public-health expert’s work to understand bullying ‘puts a fire in me’

UC Berkeley professor's study shows nearly half of U.S. adolescents with autism spectrum disorder have been bullied at school.

September 10, 2012

New ‘energy incentive’ links kilowatt usage with the bottom line

The Energy Incentive Program, as it’s named, encourages reduction in electricity usage through energy-saving measures by UC Berkeley building occupants as well as building managers like Stark. It’s one part of Operational Excellence’s work to save the campus $75 million annually.

September 10, 2012

Symposium targets sleep, stress and obesity

One of the first scientific conferences to focus on how the health risks of sleep loss, obesity, and stress interact will be held next week at the University of California, Berkeley.

September 9, 2012

New Report on Electric Vehicle Policies

The environmental law centers at UCLA and UC Berkeley Schools of Law today released a new report on industry actions and federal, state, and local policies needed to stimulate long-term, mass adoption of electric vehicles.

September 9, 2012

For Richmond residents, RBC spells restoration, remediation, renewal

A second community meeting was held at the Richmond Memorial Auditorium and UC Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory — the city’s partners in the joint campus — brought along some of the scientists themselves, who talked about their research and took questions from the audience.

September 3, 2012

Explosion of galaxy formation lit up early universe

Extremely bright, active galaxies formed and fully illuminated the universe by the time it was 750 million years old, or about 13 billion years ago, according to Oliver Zahn, a postdoctoral fellow at the Berkeley Center for Cosmological Physics (BCCP) at the University of California, Berkeley, who led the data analysis.

September 3, 2012

Crowd-sourced online reviews help fill restaurant seats, study finds

A new study by UC Berkeley economists analyzed restaurant ratings on Yelp.com and found that, on a scale of 1 to 5, a half-star rating increase translates into a 19 percent greater likelihood that an eatery’s seats will be full during peak dining times. The study, published this month in the Economic Journal, found that the increase is independent of changes in price or in food and service quality.

August 29, 2012

Affluent people less likely to reach out to others in times of chaos, study suggests

While chaos drives some to seek comfort in friends and family, others gravitate toward money and material possessions, new UC Berkeley study finds.

August 28, 2012

BCGC wins $3.4 million NSF training grant: Grad students encouraged to apply

The Berkeley Center for Green Chemistry (BCGC) has been awarded a $3.4 million training grant by the National Science Foundation. The grant will train five to six Ph.D. students annually for five years in the principles of green chemistry and the design of clean energy technologies.

August 28, 2012

Synchronized Lasers Measure How Light Changes Matter

An international team of scientists led by Thornton Glover of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) the team was able to measure the optical manipulation of chemical bonds in the in a diamond sample, on the scale of individual atoms.

August 27, 2012

Temp workers face increased likelihood of poverty

California's temporary workers are twice as likely as other employees in California to live in poverty, receive food stamps and be on Medicaid, according to a new report from the UC Berkeley's Center for Labor Research and Education.

August 22, 2012

Chancellor’s final back-to-school briefing has the ring of success

For his final back-to-school briefing before he leaves office, Berkeley Chancellor Robert Birgeneau highlighted the University's successes, including a "boom" in research funding, innovation, and collaboration.

August 22, 2012

Supernovae of the Same Brightness, Cut From Vastly Different Cosmic Cloth

In the August 24 issue of Science, the multi-institutional Palomar Transient Factory (PTF) team presents the first-ever direct observations of a Type 1a supernova progenitor system.

August 22, 2012

NSF awards $2 million to develop flexible bioelectronics systems

Engineers from the University of California, Berkeley, have been awarded a $2 million grant from the National Science Foundation to develop flexible bioelectronics systems to advance medical care.

August 21, 2012

Intense prep for law school admission test alters brain structure

Intensive preparation for the Law School Admission Test (LSAT) actually changes the microscopic structure of the brain, physically bolstering the connections between areas of the brain important for reasoning, according to neuroscientists at the University of California, Berkeley.

August 21, 2012

UC Berkeley Skydeck Welcomes New Director, Gears Up for Fall

UC Berkeley Skydeck, a startup accelerator, is soaring to new heights with the appointment of a new full-time executive director,Jeff Burton, a member of the founding team of video game maker Electronic Arts.

August 19, 2012

Speeding the Search for Better Carbon Capture

A computer model that can identify the best molecular candidates for removing carbon dioxide, molecular nitrogen and other greenhouse gases from power plant flues has been developed by researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), the University of California (UC) Berkeley and the University of Minnesota.

August 16, 2012

ITS Centers Receive $2.5 Million to Improve Road Safety

California’s Office of Traffic Safety (OTS) has awarded $2.5 million in grants to two research and education centers affiliated with UC Berkeley's Institute of Transportation Studies to improve safety for pedestrians, bicyclists, motorcyclists, and drivers.

August 14, 2012

Studies shed light on why species stay or go in response to climate change

Two new studies by scientists at UC Berkeley provide a clearer picture of why some species move in response to climate change, and where they go.

August 14, 2012

Berkeley Lab and UC Berkeley Researchers Record First Direct Observations of Quantum Effects in an Optomechanical System

Scientists with the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the University of California (UC) Berkeley, using a unique optical trapping system that provides ensembles of ultracold atoms, have recorded the first direct observations of distinctly quantum optical effects – amplification and squeezing – in an optomechanical system.

August 13, 2012

Girls with ADHD more prone to self-injury, suicide as they enter adulthood

“Like boys with ADHD, girls continue to have problems with academic achievement and relationships, and need special services as they enter early adulthood,” said Stephen Hinshaw, UC Berkeley professor of psychology and lead author of a study that reports after 10 years on the largest-ever sample of girls whose ADHD was first diagnosed in childhood.

August 13, 2012

New study links LA Unified’s new schools to elementary student performance benefits

Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, examined the Los Angeles School District’s unprecedented school building program and found that thousands of children moving into new elementary schools over the 2002-2008 construction period enjoyed strong achievement gains that equaled up to 35 additional days of instruction, compared with the progress made by the average LA Unified student.

August 12, 2012

Why are people overconfident so often? It’s all about social status

The lure of social status promotes overconfidence, explains Haas School Associate Professor Cameron Anderson. He co-authored a new study, “A Status-Enhancement Account of Overconfidence,” with Sebastien Brion, assistant professor of managing people in organizations, IESE Business School, University of Navarra, Haas School colleagues Don Moore, associate professor of management, and Jessica A. Kennedy, now a post-doctoral fellow at the Wharton School of Business.

July 31, 2012

Direct Imaging by Berkeley Lab Researchers Confirms the Importance of Electron-Electron Interactions in Graphene

Perhaps no other material is generating as much excitement in the electronics world as graphene. For the vast potential of graphene to be fully realized, however, scientists must first learn more about what makes graphene so super. The latest step in this direction has been taken by researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the University of California (UC) Berkeley.

July 30, 2012

CINEMA among tiny CubeSats to be launched Aug. 2

Eleven tiny satellites called CubeSats will accompany a spy satellite into Earth orbit on Thursday, Aug. 2, inaugurating a new type of inexpensive, modular nanosatellite. One of the 11 will be CINEMA (CubeSat for Ions, Neutrals, Electrons, & MAgnetic fields), an 8-pound, shoebox-sized package which was built over three years by 45 students from the University of California, Berkeley, Kyung Hee University in Korea, Imperial College London, Inter-American University of Puerto Rico, and University of Puerto Rico, Mayaguez.

July 30, 2012

New Report Shows How California Can Improve Water Rights

The Center for Law, Energy & the Environment (CLEE) has drafted a new report that describes how California allocates water and identifies changes that would help the current system adapt to climate change. Co-written by Dan Farber, Deborah Lambe ’95, and UC Berkeley economist Michael Hanemann, the report focuses on practical, politically feasible measures.

July 25, 2012

Berkeley Lab Technology Could Open Door to More Widespread Solar Energy Devices

A technology that would enable low-cost, high efficiency solar cells to be made from virtually any semiconductor material has been developed by researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the University of California (UC) Berkeley.

July 25, 2012

Future of California high-speed rail looks green

A new analysis gives Californians good reason to be optimistic about the green credentials of the state’s proposed high-speed rail project, due to begin construction in 2013 thanks to funding recently approved by state legislators. Arpad Horvath at the University of California, Berkeley, and Mikhail Chester at Arizona State University compared the future sustainability of California high-speed rail with that of competing modes of transportation, namely automobile and air travel.

July 24, 2012

Chemical makes blind mice see

A team of University of California, Berkeley, scientists in collaboration with researchers at the University of Munich and University of Washington, in Seattle, has discovered a chemical that temporarily restores some vision to blind mice, and is working on an improved compound that may someday allow people with degenerative blindness to see again.

July 24, 2012

Theoretical astrophysicist receives $500,000+, no strings attached

The Simons Foundation of New York initiated a new program of Simons Investigators this year, awarding 21 mathematicians, theoretical physicists and theoretical computer scientists $100,000 per year for 5-10 years, no strings attached. Theoretical astrophysicist Eliot Quataert was one of them.

July 24, 2012

UC Berkeley joins edX online learning initiative

UC Berkeley today has joined edX, a not-for-profit online learning initiative founded by Harvard University and MIT and launched last May. The campus will collaborate with edX to expand the number of universities that offer their courses on the edX platform. In a press release issued by edX, Chancellor Birgeneau said the campus is “committed to excellence in online education and the dual goals of distributing higher education more broadly and enriching the quality of campus-based education.”

July 23, 2012

Campus still a great place for birds despite century of changes

The bird population on the Berkeley campus has remained surprisingly diverse over the past 100 years, showing that it’s possible to create a green wildlife haven within a dense urban area, researchers say.

July 19, 2012

Bakar Fellows advance commercially promising research

In its first year, the initiative will give research innovations by six early-career UC Berkeley faculty members — including technologies to move prosthetic limbs with the power of thought and to control Argentine ants using their own pheromones — a significant boost from the lab to the market.

July 17, 2012

White House report provides roadmap for revitalizing U.S. manufacturing

The President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) has released a new report that provides a roadmap for revitalizing the U.S. manufacturing industry, and thereby spur the creation of much-needed jobs. The PCAST report is a product of the Advanced Manufacturing Partnership (AMP) Steering Committee, whose membership includes leading manufacturing experts from industry and six universities, including UC Berkeley.

July 17, 2012

Higgs fever: Overflow crowd hears about new particle

A July 13 lecture and panel discussion drew overflow crowds to hear about the newly discovered Higgs boson. Physicists Beate Heinemann and Lawrence Hall explained the theory and experiment behind this “third” kind of stuff, while three others explored the implications of the discovery.

July 16, 2012

Not Your Typical Summer Job for High School Students

A summer job for eight high school students from the East Bay means working in a state-of-the art microbiology research laboratory on the next-step in bioenergy. The iCLEM program is a paid summer internship for high school students from economically disadvantaged backgrounds who fall outside the typical curve of academic enrichment. It is sponsored by the Joint BioEnergy Institute and the Synthetic Biology Engineering Research Center.

July 12, 2012

Discovery opens door to drugs for chronic infections

Using super-resolution microscopy and continuous fluorescent imaging, UC Berkeley physicists have for the first time revealed the structure of bacterial biofilms, which are responsible for the tenacious nature of bacterial diseases such as cholera and chronic sinusitus. The picture provides new targets for the development of drugs that can tear down these structures.

July 10, 2012

Flash of light switches right to left … for molecules

A research team that includes engineers from UC Berkeley and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory has created a way to quickly change the left-right orientation of molecules, or chirality, with a beam of light. The development could be applied across a wide range of fields, including reduced energy use for data-processing, homeland security and ultrahigh-speed communications.

July 5, 2012

Chemical engineers use lasers to put new spin on computing

Researchers at UC Berkeley and the City College of New York are using lasers to control the spin state of semiconductor materials, a development that could lead to the creation of even faster and smaller electronic devices. The researchers hope to see spintronics move beyond memory devices to the logic circuits that are the heart of modern computers.

July 2, 2012

Haas prof reports on the advantage of being first

New research finds that, when making choices, people consistently prefer the options that come first: first in line, first college to offer acceptance, first salad on the menu. A paper on these findings — coauthored by Dana Carney, assistant professor of management at the Haas School of Business — appears in the peer-reviewed journal PLoS ONE.

July 1, 2012

U.S. could quadruple biofuel use in 25 years, experts say

UC Berkeley scientists Chris Somerville and Heather Youngs of the Energy Biosciences Institute argue in The Scientist that within 25 years, the U.S. could scale up biofuel production to meet 30 percent of the nation’s demand for liquid transportation fuel, four times the current contribution.

July 1, 2012

Key to good design? Start with the end user

An engineer working on a project to improve parks would do well to visit a nearby park to get “a fuller context of what visitors experience,” says mechanical engineering grad student Lora Oehlberg. Oehlberg instructs classes at Berkeley known as the human-centered design course thread, looking at incorporating the needs of the end user into the engineering of goods, products or services.

June 28, 2012

Berkeley team awaits CERN results for Higgs boson

UC Berkeley physicists Beate Heinemann and Marjorie Shapiro, with their Berkeley Lab colleagues, are awaiting a July 4 announcement by their ATLAS experiment team at CERN as to whether the collaboration has detected the much-sought Higgs boson.

June 27, 2012

UC Berkeley chemists installing carbon dioxide sensors in Oakland

Using inexpensive detectors that can fit inside a shoebox, UC Berkeley chemists are installing carbon dioxide and other air pollution sensors in 40 sites around Oakland to explore how detailed, neighborhood-by-neighborhood information can help communities monitor greenhouse gas and other harmful emissions.

June 26, 2012

Civil engineering grad student focuses on infrastructure, advocacy

Iris Tien, a graduate student in civil and environmental engineering, headed to Sacramento this past spring to lobby for state support of higher education and impress legislators with the importance of the kind of work she does on identifying weaknesses in the state’s water and power infrastructures.

June 26, 2012

Rewriting quantum chips with a beam of light

The promise of ultrafast quantum computing has moved a step closer to reality with a technique to create rewritable computer chips using a beam of light. College of Chemistry professor Jeffrey Reimer and researchers from The City College of New York used light to control the spin of an atom’s nucleus in order to encode information.

June 21, 2012

Book it! Schedule a flash from the Golden Gate Bridge’s ‘Solar Beacon’

Through the website solarbeacon.org, anyone can now schedule Solar Beacon – heliostats mounted on the Golden Gate Bridge by UC Berkeley space scientists – to flash sunlight in their eyes, like the glint of the sun off a car’s mirror.

June 20, 2012

Q&A: Alison Gopnik on babies and learning

Best-selling author Alison Gopnik, a professor of psychology, discusses her research and UC Berkeley’s long history of focusing on how children learn. She and colleagues recently formed the Center for Developmental Cognitive Science to model the next generation of artificial intelligence on principles gleaned from children’s ability to learn rapidly, explore and reason.

June 19, 2012

Two UC Berkeley grads launch printable battery startup

With moral and monetary support from UC Berkeley and UC’s Office of the President, two UC grads – Christine Ho and Brooks Kincaid – have formed a company to create ‘printable’ batteries that are efficient, environmentally friendly and could be made as small as a postage stamp. The start-up is a tribute to the campus’s entrepreneurial environment and its innovative students.

June 14, 2012

Nine of 10 Californians under 65 will be covered under Affordable Care Act, says new Labor Center/UCLA study

Researchers say 1.8 million-2.7 million previously uninsured Californians will gain coverage through the Affordable Care Act by 2019.

June 13, 2012

Size matters: Images viewed on small screens may be distorted, study finds

Vision scientists at UC Berkeley have found that pictures viewed on the small screens of mobile devices often appear distorted compared to the same image viewed from a computer or TV monitor. The different viewing distances for the devices leads to this perceptual distortion. The researchers propose the use of longer focal lengths — 100mm — to create content that is viewed on small screens, and shorter focal lengths — 50 mm — for images used on larger devices, such as a television.

June 12, 2012

Analysis of global fire risk shows big, fast changes ahead

Climate change is widely expected to disrupt future fire patterns around the world — with some regions, such as the western U.S., seeing more frequent fires within the next 30 years, according to a new analysis led by UC Berkeley researchers in collaboration with an international team of scientists. The study used 16 different climate-change models to produce one of the most comprehensive projections to date of how climate change might affect global fire patterns.

June 12, 2012

Sleep loss leads to anxiety, poor food choices

Two new studies by researchers at UC Berkeley’s Sleep and Neuroimaging Laboratory unveil further evidence about the dangers of too little sleep.

June 12, 2012

Hindcasting helps scientists improve forecasts for life on Earth

Scientists at UC Berkeley have launched a unique program, the Berkeley Initiative in Global Change Biology, to use hindcasting – “predicting” what happened during past episodes of climate change – to improve the reliability and accuracy of computer models that forecast how plants and animals will adapt to a changing planet.

June 11, 2012

Let it burn: Prescribed fires pose little danger to forest ecology, study says

UC Berkeley-led research is giving the green light to fighting fire with fire. An analysis of controlled burns and mechanical thinning nationwide did not find substantial ecological harm from fuel-reduction treatments used to reduce the risk of catastrophic wildfires. And with a rise in wildfires predicted in many parts of the country, researchers say more treatments are needed to manage this risk.

June 11, 2012

Tumor cells move faster through tight spaces

Tight spaces have the counterintuitive effect of aiding the spread of tumor cells, according to a new study led by UC Berkeley bioengineers. The researchers developed a 3D model to study the biophysical environment factors influencing tumor invasion and found that narrow channels gave cells traction to help them move faster. The findings have implications for certain cancers, including malignant brain tumors, which tend to infiltrate most rapidly along tissue interfaces and confined spaces, such as blood vessels and nerve tracts.

June 8, 2012

X-ray telescope to focus on hottest regions of black holes, supernovas

NASA is scheduled to launch an orbiting X-ray satellite on Wednesday, June 13, that will open a new window on the universe, allowing scientists to probe the roiling edges of black holes, exploding stars and the smallest, most frequent flares on the sun. UC Berkeley scientists and engineers helped build the instruments, will operate the satellite, and will analyze the data from supernova explosions.

June 8, 2012

Theorem unifies superfluids and other weird materials

UC Berkeley physicists Hitoshi Murayama and Haruki Watanabe have proved that counting the number of Nambu-Goldstone bosons in a material reveals the material’s behavior at low temperatures, unifying the description of weird materials such as superfluids, magnets and Bose-Einstein condensates, and allowing the design of new materials with spooky properties.

June 8, 2012

UC Berkeley students present recommendations for clean energy policy in Washington, DC

A group of students from UC Berkeley met with top energy policy makers in Washington DC to present their recommendations on developing a national clean energy plan. These recommendations were based on an extensive report that represented the culmination of a semester's worth of work in the class “Renewable Energy and Other Cleaner Fuels: Energy Policy to Save the Planet, the Country, and the Economy” co-taught by Jannifer Granholm and Steve Weissman in spring 2012.

June 7, 2012

6.3 million Californians lack access to workplace retirement plan, Labor Center research finds

Some 6.3 million Californians lack access to an employer-sponsored retirement plan, according to a new study released today by UC Berkeley’s Center for Labor Research and Education.

June 6, 2012

The real culprit behind hardened arteries? Stem cells, says landmark study

Vascular diseases are actually a type of stem cell disease, according to a new study by UC Berkeley scientists. The discovery challenges a long-standing belief that smooth muscle cells contribute to clogged blood vessels, and could revolutionize research into therapies for heart attacks and strokes, which account for one in three deaths in the United States.

June 6, 2012

Scientists uncover evidence of impending tipping point for Earth

UC Berkeley professor Tony Barnosky and 21 scientists from around the world argue inNature magazine that planet Earth is frighteningly close to a tipping point that would send the globe into a state that could spell disaster for humans. The new Berkeley Initiative in Global Change Biology is focused on recognizing the signs of impending doom so that we can stop short of the precipice.

June 6, 2012

Environmental ed project teams Berkeley with global practitioners

A new environmental education program brings the latest research and expertise from UC Berkeley, to the far reaches of the world’s developing countries announced its inaugural call for proposals on June 5, 2012. The program, tirled “Sustainable Solutions: Teaming Berkeley with Global Practitioners,” is a pilot project funded by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.

June 6, 2012

Stealth behavior allows cockroaches to seemingly vanish

Cockroaches, known for their stealth behavior, have a strategy up their sleeve only recently discovered by UC Berkeley biologists. They are able to quickly disappear under ledges by flinging themselves off at full speed, grabbing the edge with hook-like claws on their hind legs, and swinging like a pendulum to land upside-down underneath.

June 5, 2012

California poll by IGS shows new open primary ballot boosts moderate candidates

The new “top two” ballot used in California’s primary election today (Tuesday, June 5) appears to give moderate candidates in state races a 6-7 percent boost compared to the traditional, more restricted ballot, according to preliminary results of a new study by the University of California, Berkeley’s Institute of Governmental Studies.

June 3, 2012

Aging and breast cancer

A big step towards understanding the cellular basis for why women over the age of 50 are much more vulnerable to breast cancer has been taken by Berkeley Lab researchers. They determined that aging causes an increase in a type of adult stem cell believed to be at the root of many breast cancers, and a decrease in cells believed to serve as tumor suppressors.

May 30, 2012

A new tool to attack the mysteries of high-temperature superconductivity

Using ultrafast lasers, Berkeley Lab scientists have tackled the long-standing mystery of how Cooper pairs form in high-temperature superconductors. With pump and probe pulses spaced just trillionths of a second apart, the researchers used photoemission spectroscopy to map rapid changes in electronic states across the superconducting transition.

May 30, 2012

Hazy days: Berkeley Lab tackles pollution in Mongolia

Scientists at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) are known for designing high-efficiency cookstoves for Darfur and Ethiopia. Now they are applying their expertise to the windswept steppes of Mongolia, whose capital city, Ulaan Baatar, is among the most polluted cities in the world. The scientists are working with the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), a U.S. foreign aid agency, to improve air quality in the capital city by lowering emissions from outdated stoves and boilers.

May 29, 2012

Berkeley Lab study assesses residential cooking exhaust hoods’ ability to vent pollutants

Cooking exhaust hoods designed for home kitchens vary widely in their ability to capture and vent away the air pollutants generated by the gas burners on cook stoves, according to a study by two Berkeley Lab scientists.

May 28, 2012

Freecycling has viral effect on community spirit and generosity, study shows

Reinforcing that the best things in life are free, a new UC Berkeley study shows that online freebie-exchange communities such as “Freecycle” and “Couchsurfing” foster greater team spirit among their members than do cash-for-goods websites.

May 26, 2012

Computer model pinpoints prime materials for efficient carbon capture

Chemist Berend Smit and colleagues are working with the power industry to find the best materials to capture and sequester carbon dioxide.

May 24, 2012

I School grad student profiles rural Chinese Internet users

China has more than half a billion Internet users, 136 million of whom live in rural areas. School of Information PhD student Elisa Oreglia, in an award-winning ethnographic study, looks at how older, less-educated villagers — many of whom claim to be Web illiterate — often become comfortable with computers by observing their younger family members.

May 23, 2012

First direct observation of oriented attachment in nanocrystal growth

Study at Berkeley Lab points the way to synthesizing new biomimetic materials and improved bioremediation.

May 22, 2012

The search for the earliest signs of Alzheimer's

For the past five years, volunteers from the City of Berkeley and surrounding areas have come to Berkeley Lab to participate in an ongoing study that’s changing what scientists know about Alzheimer’s disease. The goal of the Berkeley Aging Cohort Study is to reveal how our brains change as we age.

May 22, 2012

"Tree of Life" to harness big data, visualize complex relationships

UC Berkeley plant biologist Chelsea Specht is part of a unique collaboration to develop software that visualizes enormous amount of data across all of life, allowing scientists to see, at a glance, how organisms are related. The effort is supported by a $2 million grant from the National Science Foundation.

May 21, 2012

Wearable electronics - the next fashion fad?

Advances in materials science and electrical engineering have paved the way for a new type of electronic device: one that can bend and fold just like a piece of paper. Ana Claudia Arias, professor of electrical engineering and computer science, hopes to take this innovation to the next level. Her goal: "wearable electronics."

May 20, 2012

Preventive medicine for pipelines

A pipeline-monitoring system using MRI technology could warn of dangerous wear before explosions occur. The innovation was developed by Professor Emeritus Jerome Singer and two College of Engineering alums.

May 14, 2012

Scientists at UC Berkeley and LBNL convert carbon in tobacco leaves to biofuel

Scientists at UC Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory's FOLIUM Project, funded by ARPA-E, use light to convert the carbon in tobacco leaves into biofuels.

May 13, 2012

Electricity-generating viruses could lead to pocket power plants

Scientists at UC Berkeley and Berkeley Lab have harnessed the electricity-generating capabilities of viruses, a development that could lead to pocket power plants for mobile devices.

May 13, 2012

Microbe that can handle ionic liquids

Researchers at the Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI) have identified a tropical rainforest microbe that can endure relatively high concentrations of an ionic liquid used to dissolve cellulosic biomass for the production of advanced biofuels.

May 13, 2012

Beyond the high-speed hard drive: topological insulators open a path to room-temperature spintronics

Berkeley Lab researchers and their colleagues demonstrate unique new materials for innovative electronic and magnetic applications

May 8, 2012

Floating robots use GPS-enabled smartphones to track water flow

A fleet of 100 floating robots took a trip down the Sacramento Riveron Wednesday in a field test organized by UC Berkeley engineers. The devices, equipped with GPS-enabled smartphones, demonstrated the next generation of water monitoring technology.

May 7, 2012

A new accelerator to study steps on the path to fusion

Berkeley Lab’s NDCX-II, the recently completed second generation Neutralized Drift Compression Experiment, is a compact accelerator whose dense ion beam will be able to deliver a powerful punch for producing warm dense matter – a step on the road to heavy-ion nuclear fusion.

May 6, 2012

Steelhead trout lose out when water is low in wine country

The competition between farmers and fish for precious water in California is intensifying in wine country, suggests a new study by UC Berkeley biologists.

May 6, 2012

Brighter, smaller probes to uncover the secret lives of proteins

Berkeley Lab scientists create nanoparticle probes that may lead to a better understanding of diseases.

May 3, 2012

Scientists core into Clear Lake to explore past climate change

One of the oldest lakes in the world, Clear Lake has deep sediments that contain a record of the climate and local plants and animals going back perhaps 500,000 years. UC Berkeley scientists are drilling cores from the lake sediments to explore this history and fine-tune models for predicting the fate of today’s flora and fauna in the face of global warming and pressure from a burgeoning human populations.

May 2, 2012

From soil microbe to super-efficient biofuel factory?

Berkeley Lab scientists are exploring whether a common soil bacterium can be engineered to produce liquid transportation fuels much more efficiently than the ways in which advanced biofuels are made today.

May 2, 2012

Ashok Gadgil gets $100,000 award for global innovation

The Lemelson-MIT Program has awarded Ashok Gadgil, professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, the 2012 $100,000 Lemelson-MIT Award for Global Innovation. The award recognizes Gadgil, who is known for his work on affordable water disinfection systems and fuel-efficient cookstoves for developing nations, for “his steady pursuit to blend research, invention and humanitarianism for broad social impact.”

May 1, 2012

Bringing the electric grid into the 21st century

Researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) are working on a project that would modernize the grid and essentially bring it into the Internet age by using automated control software to manage demand in real time.

May 1, 2012

Q&A with Richard Karp

Establishing a new research institute at a top-tier university is a major undertaking that required a great deal of teamwork to pull off. In a recent interview, Richard Karp, founding director of the Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing, gave the inside story on how it all came together.

May 1, 2012

Simons Foundation awards UC Berkeley $60 million for theory of computing institute

The Simons Foundation has awarded a landmark $60 million grant to UC Berkeley to establish a theory of computing institute that promises to catalyze new advances in broad disciplines that affect our everyday lives, from how we spend our money to how we fight disease.

May 1, 2012

Four UC Berkeley scientists elected to National Academy of Sciences

Four University of California, Berkeley, faculty members – physicists John Clarke and Bernard Sadoulet, chemist John Hartwig and ecologist Mary Power – have been elected members or foreign associates of the National Academy of Sciences, bringing UC Berkeley’s total NAS membership to 141.

May 1, 2012

Fatty-liver disease discovery promises new treatments for diabetes, other problems

Two types of naturally produced substances — one of them a bear bile acid — reduce the uptake of fat by the liver, opening the door to the development of new treatments for fatty liver disease and type 2 diabetes, according to a new study by researchers at UC Berkeley.

May 1, 2012

AFRON builds robotics education, research, industry in Africa

Roboticists in Ghana and at UC Berkeley this week launched AFRON, the African Robotics Network, an initiative to enhance robotics education, research and industry in Africa. Co-founder is professor Ken Goldberg, a fellow with IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers).

April 30, 2012

MCB grad forging new pathways in science, and academia

Immunology grad student Patty Garcia chips away at the barriers that divide science and society, while puzzling out the molecular mechanics of cancer.

April 29, 2012

Study says highly religious people are less motivated by compassion than are non-believers

“Love thy neighbor” is preached from many a pulpit. But new research from UC Berkeley suggests the devoutly religious are less motivated by compassion when helping a stranger than are atheists, agnostics and less religious people.

April 25, 2012

Crawford Greenewalt receives prestigious award for work at site of ancient city of Sardis

This year's Bandelier Award for Public Service to Archaeology goes to UC Berkeley's Crawford Greenewalt, for his work at the ancient city of Sardis.

April 23, 2012

Berkeley researchers find big benefits for students, taxpayers and state from funding of higher education

The State of California needs to consider the whopping return on investments for higher education as it tries to balance its budget, UC Berkeley researchers say in new study, "California's Economic Payoff: Investing in College Access and Completion."

April 23, 2012

Cal Energy Corps interns prep for sustainable future

Some 32 Berkeley undergraduates will spend up to 12 weeks working on sustainability projects in the Bay Area and across nine far-flung countries.

April 19, 2012

Sustainability Summit marks progress toward ever-greener campus

At the campus's 9th Sustainability Summit, progress in "greening" the Berkeley campus was everywhere evident — from the sheer number of student projects in the works to the metric tons of greenhouse gases not being emitted thanks to new institution-wide programs.

April 18, 2012

IceCube experiment gives insight into origin of cosmic rays

UC Berkeley physicist Buford Price and eight students and post-docs are part of the IceCube collaboration conducting cosmic ray research at the South Pole.

April 18, 2012

CalCAP wins clean-air leadership award

UC Berkeley's Cal Climate Action Partnership was honored Thursday with a clean air award from Breathe California, for its leadership in reducing greenhouse-gas emissions.

April 18, 2012

First atomic-scale real-time movies of platinum nanocrystal growth in liquids

Berkeley Lab researchers have developed a technique for encapsulating liquids of nanocrystals between layers of graphene so that chemical reactions in the liquids can be imaged with an electron microscope.

April 18, 2012

Let there be light! Solar cells that emit photons break efficiency record

UC Berkeley engineers have demonstrated that when flatplate solar cells emit light particles, there is a big boost in voltage and efficiency.

April 18, 2012

Where’ve you been? Pathogen history is key to its virulence

When assessing the virulence of plant-borne diseases, knowing the pathogen's recent travel history may be just as important as identifying its particular strain, according to new research results by researchers at UC Berkeley, UC Davis and the USDA Agricultural Research Service.

April 17, 2012

New findings in breast cancer

A Berkeley Lab-University of Copenhagen collaboration found that luminal-like breast cancer cells with no detectable stem cell qualities can generate larger tumors than their basal-like counterparts. This contradicts prevailing beliefs and could impact future breast cancer diagnosis and treatment.

April 17, 2012

Four Berkeley Lab scientists elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences

Four Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) scientists have been elected to the 2012 class of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, an honorary society founded in 1780 to recognize leading “thinkers and doers.”

April 16, 2012

Four faculty members elected to American Academy of Arts and Sciences

Four UC Berkeley faculty members – a pioneer in photonic crystals, a dark matter astrophysicist, a specialist in nanowires and an expert on molecular machines – are among 220 new members of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences

April 12, 2012

Nomura named Searle Scholar

Daniel Nomura, an assistant professor in nutritional sciences and toxicology, is one of 15 U.S. researchers in the chemical and biological sciences to be named a 2012 Searle Scholar.

April 12, 2012

Berkeley Lab to lead a U.S.-India clean energy research center

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) has been selected to lead a new joint U.S.-India research center focusing on energy efficiency technologies for buildings.

April 11, 2012

CED's Teresa Caldeira named a Guggenheim Fellow

City and regional-planning professor Teresa Caldeira is among 181 new Guggenheim Fellows, in the U.S. and Canada, announced April 12.

April 9, 2012

Voting-scenario startup wins CITRIS Big Ideas prize

Web-based startup Politify earned $20,000 for its first-place finish in the information technology category of the 2012 Big Ideas @ Berkeley innovation contest.

April 8, 2012

Text messages - even automated ones - can soothe the disconnected soul

Text messaging often gets a bad rap for contributing to illiteracy and high-risk behavior such as reckless driving. But a Berkeley social-welfare professor has found an upside to texting, especially for people who feel stressed out, isolated and alone.

April 5, 2012

Berkeley researchers tackle California's carbon footprint

The Cool California Challenge brings together 10 cities in a yearlong community-based competition to cut carbon emissions — with the winner crowned California’s Coolest City.

April 3, 2012

African Americans are more apt to blog than whites and Latinos

The blogging community is more racially diverse than one might think. Internet-connected African Americans are more likely to blog than their white and Hispanic counterparts, according to new research from UC Berkeley

April 3, 2012

UC Berkeley leads $4 million program to train slum health researchers

The Fogarty International Center of the National Institutes of Health has awarded $4 million to UC Berkeley to train and educate researchers, educators and professionals who can tackle global health challenges specific to slum dwellings.

April 2, 2012

NSF grant funds computer-assisted programming project

UC Berkeley engineers, led by computer scientist Ras Bodik, will join the University of Pennsylvania and seven other research institutions in a project to make computer programming faster, easier and more intuitive.

April 1, 2012

Fertilizer use responsible for increase in nitrous oxide in atmosphere

UC Berkeley, chemists have found that increased fertilizer use over the past 50 years is responsible for a dramatic rise in a major greenhouse gas contributing to global climate change.

March 28, 2012

Big grant for Big Data: NSF awards $10 million to harness vast quantities of data

The quest to capture the massive amounts of data being produced in our world has gotten a $10 million boost, via a National Science Foundation award to UC Berkeley.

March 28, 2012

New material cuts energy costs of separating gas for plastics and fuels

A new type of hybrid material developed at UC Berkeley could help oil and chemical companies save energy and money by eliminating an energy-intensive gas-separation process.

March 28, 2012

Berkeley Lab-led institute to help solve data-intensive science challenges

Energy Secretary Steven Chu announced a $25 million five-year initiative called the Scalable Data Management, Analysis, and Visualization that will be led by Arie Shoshani of Berkeley Lab Computational Research Division.

March 25, 2012

Pilot program to bolster biophysical sciences’ innovation pipeline

The new Bakar Fellows Program is designed to help early-career Berkeley faculty commercialize promising research discoveries.

March 25, 2012

New synthetic biology technique boosts microbial production of diesel fuel

Joint BioEnergy Institute researchers have developed a dynamic system for regulating metabolic pathways

March 22, 2012

A shiny new tool for imaging biomolecules

Berkeley Lab researchers have developed a technique for lacing artificial membranes with billions of gold nanoantennas that can boost optical signals from a protein tens of thousands of times without the protein ever being touched.

March 20, 2012

Berkeley Lab study shows significantly higher potential for wind energy in India than previously estimated

A new assessment of wind energy in India by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory has found that the potential for on-shore wind energy deployment is far higher than the official estimates.

March 19, 2012

Better organic electronics

At Berkeley Lab’s Molecular Foundry, scientists have provided the first experimental determination of the pathways by which electrical charge is transported from molecule-to-molecule in an organic thin film.

March 19, 2012

Green jail to demonstrate power of microgrids

Berkeley Lab scientists are helping enable the Santa Rita Jail in Dublin, California, to run its own microgrid, which will minimize costs and maximize reliability.

March 17, 2012

A surprising new kind of proton transfer

Berkeley Lab scientists at the Advanced Light Source and their colleagues investigating molecular components of RNA were surprised to find that protons can find ways to transfer even when hydrogen bonds are blocked.

March 15, 2012

QB3, Pfizer expand support for translational research

Renewal spans four UC campuses, builds on success of 2009 agreement

March 14, 2012

New research suggests cap and trade programs do not provide sufficient incentives for energy technology innovation

According to a new study in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, these programs are not enough to induce the private sector to develop innovative technologies to address climate change.

March 12, 2012

A fragrant new biofuel

Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI) researchers have identified methyl ketones, chemical compounds known for their fragrance and flavor, as strong biofuel candidates. Methyl ketones produced from glucose by engineered E. coli yielded high cetane numbers.

March 11, 2012

Harvard honors Berkeley public-health prof for contributions to statistics

A professor of biostatistics and statistics at the School of Public Health, Nicholas Jewell, has been chosen to receive Harvard University's 2012 Marvin Zelen Leadership Award in Statistical Science.

March 11, 2012

Scientists tap the genius of babies and youngsters to make computers smarter

UC Berkeley scientists are tapping the cognitive smarts of babies, toddlers and preschoolers to program computers to think more like humans.

March 8, 2012

Risks of bioenergy underestimated, new report says

The net effect on climate of large-scale biofuels deployment is highly uncertain, and could actually lead to a net increase in greenhouse gas emissions, according to a new paper co-authored by UC Berkeley researchers

March 8, 2012

New discovery is key to understanding neutrino transformations

The joint China-U.S. Daya Bay experiment to explore the multiple personalities of neutrinos announced its first results, paving the way for further experiments on whether neutrinos and antineurtinos have similar split identities

March 8, 2012

QB3 bioscience startups going strong at six-year mark

Incubator entrepreneurs launch 60 companies, generate 280 jobs, raise $226 million in follow-on funding

March 7, 2012

The First Spectroscopic Measurement of an Anti-Atom

Scientists at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have played leading roles in designing and operating ALPHA, the CERN experiment that was the first to capture and hold atoms of antihydrogen, a single antiproton orbited by a single positron.

March 6, 2012

Responding to the Radiation Threat

Berkeley Lab Researchers Developing Promising Treatment for Safely Decontaminating Humans Exposed to Radioactive Actinides

March 6, 2012

Learning by getting into the heads of schoolchildren

UC Berkeley psychology professors Silvia Bunge and Stephen Hinshaw are scanning the brains of kids to learn how they learn. The findings may help educators and revolutionize classrooms.

March 5, 2012

Berkeley Lab quantifies effect of soot on snow and ice, supporting previous climate findings

A new study shows how soot darkens snow and ice, which upsets earth’s radiation balance.

March 5, 2012

Physicist Marvin Cohen wins Dickson Prize in Science

Carnegie Mellon University will award its 2011 Dickson Prize in Science to Berkeley physics professor Marvin L. Cohen, a senior scientist at the Berkeley lab and one of the most influential condensed-matter physicists in the world.

March 4, 2012

Going mental: Study highlights brain’s flexibility, gives hope for natural-feeling neuroprosthetics

Neuroscientists have shown that the same brain processes used to learn new motor skills are also necessary to master abstract skills, or controlling a robotic arm using brain activity alone.

March 2, 2012

Berkeley gears up for new era of enterprise with Skydeck incubator

Skydeck forms the hub of Berkeley's efforts to foster a new generation of young entrepreneurs and forge a hotbed of collaborative innovation and enterprise in the East Bay.

March 1, 2012

Solved: The Mystery of the Nanoscale Crop Circles

In strange patterns of a gold-silicon alloy, Berkeley Lab scientists uncover unsuspected secrets and promising routes to nanoscale semiconductor processing

March 1, 2012

LAMIS – A green chemistry alternative for remote-controlled laser spectroscopy

LAMIS, a green chemistry laser spectroscopy technique from Berkeley Lab, is faster and less expensive than mass spectrometry and can be carried out from across vast distances.

February 27, 2012

Upper class more likely to be scofflaws due to greed, study finds

The upper class has a higher propensity for cheating, driving illegally and endorsing unethical behavior in the workplace , believing that “greed is good,” according to a new UC Berkeley study.

February 27, 2012

Solving a spintronic mystery over gallium manganese arsenide

Berkeley Lab Researchers Resolve Controversy Over Gallium Manganese Arsenide that Could Boost Spintronic Performance

February 27, 2012

Trash costs, sustainability pays, says campus recycling ‘King’

The manager of Campus Recycling and Refuse Services, Lin King, is working with campus groups, including Cal Athletics, to meet aggressive UC waste-diversion goals.

February 24, 2012

Correct protein folding

Using the exceptionally bright and powerful x-ray beams of the Advanced Light Source, Berkeley Lab researchers have discovered a critical control element within chaperonin, the protein complex responsible for the correct folding of other proteins.

February 24, 2012

$3.5 million gift from Dow to develop sustainable chemistry education

With the support of the gift from The Dow Chemical Company Foundation, the College of Chemistry will rebuild its undergraduate teaching labs and design a new curriculum.

February 23, 2012

Fill 'er up with tobacco? Berkeley Lab-led team explores new path to biofuels

Next week's ARPA-E Summit will feature several Berkeley Lab-led projects, all aimed at dramatically improving how the U.S. produces and uses energy. Among them is an effort to produce transportation fuel from tobacco.

February 22, 2012

Four from Berkeley win prestigious Gates Cambridge Scholarships

Four UC Berkeley scholars have been named to receive the 2012 Gates Cambridge Scholarship, a prestigious award that pays the full cost of a graduate degree in any field of study at Cambridge University.

February 21, 2012

Huts, artifacts in Jordanian excavation offer new perspectives on life 20,000 years ago

Archaeologists working in eastern Jordan have announced its discovery of 20,000-year-old hut structures, the earliest yet found in that country.

February 21, 2012

How good cholesterol turns bad

Berkeley Lab researchers have found new evidence pointing the way to the design of safer, more effective next generation CETP inhibitors that could help prevent the development of heart disease.

February 21, 2012

Berkeley Lab mathematicians win Cozzarelli Prize

Berkeley Lab mathematicians James Sethian and Robert Saye have won the 2011 Cozzarelli Prize for the best scientific paper in the category of Engineering and Applied Sciences.

February 19, 2012

Yosemite’s alpine chipmunks take genetic hit from climate change

Global warming has forced alpine chipmunks in Yosemite to higher ground, prompting a startling decline in the species’ genetic diversity, according to a new study by researchers at Cal.

February 18, 2012

Through engineering prof, girls meet ‘the science of better’

Rhonda Righter, professor of industrial engineering, is tackling a new assignment: serving as a volunteer role model to 35 middle-school girls.

February 15, 2012

Alan Schoenfeld awarded highest international distinction in math education

Alan Schoenfeld, a professor at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Education, has received the 2011 Felix Klein Medal for Lifetime Achievement from the International Commission on Mathematics Instruction.

February 15, 2012

Two faculty named Sloan Research Fellows

UC Berkeley faculty members Sylvia Ratnasamy and Allan Sly are among 126 young scholars awarded prestigious research fellowships this year from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. The $50,000 research award recognizes "rising stars" early in their careers.

February 15, 2012

Be vigilant global ‘netizens,’ not passive ‘users,’ Internet scholar-activist urges

Scholar-activist Rebecca MacKinnon discusses how to protect civil liberties, privacy and even the character of democracy in a networked world where private interests control much of the digital real estate.

February 15, 2012

Carlos Bustamante honored with Vilcek Prize

Carlos Bustamante, a professor of molecular and cell biology and of physics and chemistry, has been awarded the 2012 Vilcek Prize

February 13, 2012

Engineering to offer energy major for undergrads

Beginning this fall, the new Energy Engineering major will admit up to eight new students each year.

February 9, 2012

Advanced power-grid model finds low-cost, low-carbon future in West

A new study by UC Berkeley researchers state that replacing coal with renewable energy can help reduce greenhouse gas emissions in a least expensive way.

February 9, 2012

Scott Shenker elected to National Academy of Engineering

Engineering professor Scott Shenker joins the ranks of the National Academy of Engineering, bringing to 92 the total number of UC Berkeley faculty members given the prestigious honor.

February 9, 2012

Breakthrough in designing cheaper, more efficient catalysts for fuel cells

UC Berkeley chemists Chris Chang, Jeff Long and Marcin Majda have redesigned catalysts in ways that could have a profound impact on the chemical industry as well as on the growing market for hydrogen fuel cell vehicles.

February 9, 2012

Wen-hsin Yeh receives Humboldt Research Award

China scholar has been awarded a Humboldt Research Award by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation in Germany

February 8, 2012

Physicist Hitoshi Murayama to direct new Kavli Institute at Univ. of Tokyo

Berkeley physics professor to guide Kavli Institute research into cosmological questions such as how the universe began, how it will end, and what laws govern it

February 8, 2012

UC Berkeley grad student’s research spurred by Gulf oil spill

UC Berkeley graduate student Thomas Azwell teamed up with researchers in the Gulf of Mexico to develop marsh restoration technology that could impact remediation efforts nationwide.

February 8, 2012

Berkeley Lab launches new institute to build low-carbon pathways to prosperity

To broaden and accelerate its efforts at poverty alleviation Berkeley Lab announces the launch of the LBNL Institute for Globally Transformative Technologies.

February 6, 2012

For Chancellor Birgeneau, research is for life

Throughout his tenure as UC Berkeley chancellor, Robert Birgeneau has sustained a research interest in new materials, maintaining labs both on campus and at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

February 3, 2012

‘Justice will prevail,’ chancellor tells campus diversity conference

UC Berkeley hosted a two-day event, the 2012 California Diversity and Leadership Conference, in a push for multicultural equity and inclusion.

February 2, 2012

Energy Secretary joins groundbreaking for new LBNL research facility

U.S. Secretary of Energy Steven Chu joined UC and Lawrence Berkeley Lab leaders to break ground on the lab’s new Computational Research and Theory facility.

February 1, 2012

Self-assembling nanorods

Berkeley Lab researchers have developed a relatively fast, easy and inexpensive technique for inducing nanorods to self-assemble into aligned and ordered macroscopic structures.

January 31, 2012

Scientists decode brain waves to eavesdrop on what we hear

Neuroscientists may one day be able to hear the imagined speech of a patient unable to speak due to stroke or paralysis, according to University of California, Berkeley, researchers

January 31, 2012

Science decodes 'internal voices"

Berkeley researchers have demonstrated a way to reconstruct words, based on the brain waves of patients thinking of those words.

January 30, 2012

California native-plant classic gets a 21st-century makeover

Thanks to new molecular-genetic tools and intensive field research, scientists’ understanding of the native flora of the Golden State has grown exponentially in the 18 years since publication of The Jepson Manual.

January 30, 2012

Nora Silver highlights diversity and volunteerism in new book

A new book by Nora Silver, adjunct professor of business, explores an increasingly important issue facing nonprofits: understanding, attracting and engaging ethnic volunteers.

January 30, 2012

Bright lights of purity

Berkeley Lab researchers have discovered why a promising technique for making quantum dots and nanorods has so far been a disappointment. Better still, they’ve also discovered how to correct the problem.

January 27, 2012

Remote sensing places nature at our fingertips

UC Berkeley geologist Bill Dietrich and biologist Todd Dawson are two of many UC scientists placing remote sensors in natural reserves to map land, track animals and collect environmental data.

January 27, 2012

From cancer research to energy storage, Berkeley Lab scientist takes on big challenges

Berkeley Lab scientist Rizia Bardham, who recently earned a spot on Forbes' list of 30 rising stars in science under 30, is helping develop new hydrogen storage materials at the Lab's Molecular Foundry.

January 26, 2012

Berkeley Lab to Develop Novel Materials for Hydrogen Storage

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory is aiming to solve how to store enough of hydrogen-powered fuel cells, in a safe and cost-effective manner, to power a vehicle for 300 miles by synthesizing novel materials with high hydrogen adsorption capacities.

January 26, 2012

Researchers Discover a Rotational Motion of Cells that Plays a Critical Role

Berkeley Lab researchers have discovered a rotational motion that plays a critical role in the ability of breast cells to form the spherical structures in the mammary gland known as acini.

January 24, 2012

Study shows restored wetlands rarely equal condition of original wetlands

A new UC Berkeley study cautions, however, that restored wetlands may not recover to the condition of a natural, undamaged wetland for hundreds of years, if ever.

January 24, 2012

Under the electron microscope – a 3-D image of an individual protein

Gang Ren and Lei Zhang are reporting the first 3-D images of an individual protein ever obtained with enough clarity to determine its structure.

January 23, 2012

Lifelong brain-stimulating habits linked to lower Alzheimer’s protein levels

People who have made mental engagement a lifelong habit have lower levels of a key protein linked to Alzheimer's disease, according to a new study led by UC Berkeley neuroscientists. The findings could provide support for cognitive therapies to prevent the onset of a debilitating disease.

January 23, 2012

Lab picks Richmond Field Station for a second campus

The Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, bursting at the seams of its home next door to UC Berkeley, announced Monday that it has picked the University of California’s bayside Richmond Field Station as the site of its second campus.

January 19, 2012

NAS honors Robert Powell’s work on nuclear deterrence

UC Berkeley political scientist Robert Powell has been awarded the National Academy of Sciences Award for Behavioral Research Relevant to the Prevention of Nuclear War.

January 19, 2012

UCTC receives funding for new transportation research

The University of California Transportation Center (UCTC) on the UC Berkeley campus received a $3.5 million grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation and a matching amount from California’s Department of Transportation.

January 18, 2012

‘Income inequality didn’t just happen, it was engineered’

Political scientist Paul Pierson of UC Berkeley and Jacob Hacker of Yale say the vast and growing gap between America's haves and have-nots didn't just happen, but was deliberately and politically "engineered." Coauthors of the recent book "Winner-Take-All Politics," the two appeared on the Jan. 13 episode of "Moyers & Company."

January 18, 2012

Indian Country comes to Berkeley (and vice versa)

Berkeley faculty, staff and alumni collaborate on a four-day, first-of-its-kind Native American Museum Studies Institute designed to give Indians the tools to "tell their own stories, and to tell the stories from their perspective."

January 18, 2012

UC’s green investments pay off

The University of California is saving $32 million a year on energy and remains the higher-education leader in adopting green-building standards. Those achievements and others are outlined in the "2011 UC Annual Report on Sustainable Practices."

January 17, 2012

Berkeley Lab’s Ashok Gadgil Wins Zayed Future Energy Prize’s Lifetime Achievement Award

Ashok Gadgil, a scientist at Berkeley Lab, has won the Lifetime Achievement Award of the 2012 Zayed Future Energy Prize, a $3.5 million award that recognizes and rewards innovation, leadership and long-term vision in renewable energy and sustainability.

January 17, 2012

Diesel-truck emissions in Oakland fall sharply, study finds

Strict new emission standards for diesel trucks have reduced their emissions of unhealthy pollutants by half at the bustling Port of Oakland, says a team of researchers led by Rob Harley, professor of civil and environmental engineering.

January 17, 2012

Gossip isn’t all bad — new study finds its social and psychological benefits

A new study from the University of California, Berkeley, suggests rumor-mongering can have positive outcomes such as helping us police bad behavior, prevent exploitation and lower stress.

January 12, 2012

Berkeley Lab Director Paul Alivisatos Wins Wolf Prize in Chemistry

Paul Alivisatos, Berkeley Lab director and UC Berkeley professor, has won the prestigious Wolf Foundation Prize in Chemistry for 2012. Alivisatos is an internationally recognized authority on nanochemistry and a pioneer in the synthesis of semiconductor quantum dots and multi-shaped artificial nanostructures.

January 11, 2012

New Information on the Waste-Disposal Units of Living Cells

Berkeley researchers have provided the most detailed look ever at the “regulatory particle” used by the proteasome - one of the most critical protein machines in living cells - to identify and degrade proteins marked for destruction.

January 10, 2012

Biofuels, land and ethics

Growing dedicated energy crops on lands that won’t support food crops is one of the promises of emerging cellulosic fuels.Bioenergy Connection looks at how much land is available, its energy-producing potential and which plants are the most promising alternatives.

January 9, 2012

Omar Yaghi to Direct Berkeley Lab’s Molecular Foundry

Omar Yaghi, one of the world’s most cited chemists and leading authorities on nanoscience, is the new director of the Molecular Foundry, a U.S. Department of Energy nanoscience center at Berkeley Lab.

January 6, 2012

Climate Change and Business Research Initiative Gains Traction

Environmentalists and corporations don’t always see eye-to-eye on climate change. But the Climate Change and Business Research Initiative has shown that the two sides’ objectives can not only co-exist, but be mutually beneficial.

January 5, 2012

The Next Big Step Toward Atom-Specific Dynamical Chemistry

Chemists hope to understand precisely how electrical charges flow and different forms of energy move within molecules and across molecular boundaries. Berkeley Lab scientists are using powerful lasers to devise future light sources that can do the most demanding experiments

January 4, 2012

Leaping lizards and dinosaurs inspire robot design

Undergraduate and graduate students teamed up with biologist Robert Full to study how lizards use their tails when leaping. What they found can help design robots that are more stable on uneven terrain and after unexpected falls, which is critical to successful search and rescue operations.

January 3, 2012

Stellar discovery

It takes more than luck to find a supernova. California magazine offers a behind-the-scenes look at the organized search for these astronomical objects, and the role played by scientists at Berkeley.

January 3, 2012

Though it’s not mind-reading, neuroscientists explore perception

A team of neuroscientists led by Berkeley Professor Jack Gallant are beginning to figure out a way to reconstruct what we see, based on records of our brain activity. Jake Schoneker, a School of Journalism alum, reports on the PBS NewsHour.

January 2, 2012

Law prof’s book probes ‘whys’ behind Big Apple crime decline

Between 1990 and 2009, New York City saw its crime rate drop by more than 80 percent. In his latest book, “The City that Became Safe,” Professor Frank Zimring explores how NYC’s experience, focusing on harm-reduction strategies, challenges assumptions driving U.S. policies on crime and drugs.