UC Berkeley announces new NIH-funded Computational Social Science Training Program
Learning to learn
Creating informed responses: Berkeley’s computing and data science in action
COVID-19 first target of new AI research consortium
Largest gift in Berkeley’s history will create a ‘hub’ for advancing data science
AI-powered Berkeley robot among Popular Science’s ‘Best of What’s New'
Berkeley Talks: We need a digital infrastructure that serves humanity, says techno-sociologist
Meet Berkeley’s new data science leader
Meet Blue, the low-cost, human-friendly robot designed for AI
Literally Switching Strategies to Handle the Internet Data Flood
Everything big data claims to know about you could be wrong
Better planetary management though data science
Security for data analytics – gaining a grip on the two-edged sword
Security for Data Analytics - Gaining a Grip on the Two-Edged Sword
Computer Vision to Protect Patients — and Budgets
NSF awards support Berkeley data science institute, national workshops
In a step toward fighting human trafficking, sex ads are linked to Bitcoin data
“Data for Social Good”: A New Strategy to Strengthen Citizenship
Data Science for Social Good: Giving Every Undergraduate Easy Access
A “VAST” Step Forward in Cyber Security
Engineering to Restore Power to the People
Megamovie project to crowdsource images of August solar eclipse
Berkeley launches RISELab, enabling computers to make intelligent real-time decisions
UC Berkeley, Stanford study finds canvassing conversations reduce transgender prejudice
Researchers from Stanford University and UC Berkeley report in today’s edition ofScience that door-to-door canvassing by volunteers — both transgender and not — reduced voters’ prejudice against transgender people.
Three new Signatures Innovation Fellows announced
Three faculty members have been selected as 2016-17 Signatures Innovation Fellows, receiving as much as $100,000 per year each for up to two years to pursue commercially promising data science and software projects.
New app turns smartphones into worldwide seismic network
UC Berkeley scientists are releasing an Android app with the goal of creating a worldwide seismic detection network that could eventually warn users of impending jolts from nearby quakes.
Big Thinking About Big Data
To Michael Jordan, the smart way to extract and analyze key information embedded in mountains of “Big Data” is to ignore most of it. Instead, zero in on collections of small amounts of data.
Will computers ever truly understand what we’re saying?
From Apple’s Siri to Honda’s robot Asimo, machines seem to be getting better and better at communicating with humans. But some neuroscientists caution that today’s computers will never truly understand what we’re saying.
Seeing Through the Big Data Fog
Joe Hellerstein and his students developed a new programming model for distributed computing which MIT Technology Review named one of the 10 technologies “most likely to change our world”.
Signatures Innovation Program seeks faculty pursuing innovative research in data science and software areas
The Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research, in partnership with CITRIS and BIDS, will be hosting an info session for prospective applicants to the Signatures Innovation Fellows Program on Wednesday, December 9.
The AMP Lab Stands Up to Big Data
The AMP Lab, launched in 2011 by Michael Franklin and colleagues in computer science, has already had an outsized impact on industry.
Missing link between turbulence in collapsing star, hypernovae and gamma-ray bursts
A supercomputer simulation of a mere 10 milliseconds in the collapse of a massive star into a neutron star proves that these catastrophic events, often called hypernovae, can generate the enormous magnetic fields needed to explode the star and fire off bursts of gamma rays visible halfway across the universe.
Seeking Data Wisdom
Bin Yu’s statistical strategies work hand in hand with intense computation to penetrate storms of data.
UC Berkeley to co-lead regional data science ‘brain trust’
UC Berkeley is teaming up with UC San Diego and the University of Washington to lead one of four regional “brain trusts” in data science established by the National Science Foundation.
Study finds climate change will reshape global economy
The average person will suffer economic harm, often dramatic harm, by 2100 if climate change continues on its current course, new research shows.
Refining Persuasion Experiments — from Vaccines to Voting
Jasjeet Sekhon, a Signatures Innovation Fellow, has developed statistical approaches and new algorithms to provide simpler and much cheaper ways to assess the effectiveness of persuasion strategies.
Urban Infrastructure - Making Cities Smarter
Alexei Pozdnoukhov, a Signatures Innovation Fellow, leads research to use cellular data to aid traffic planning and operations. Fully developed, the technology could aid both traffic control and planning to keep pace with changes in transportation habits.
Mobile app would bring earthquake early warning to all
In a perfect world, we’d also have an early-warning system to give us vital seconds to protect ourselves and our family from harm when the shaking starts.
More gentrification, displacement in Bay Area forecast
The San Francisco Bay Area’s transformation into a sprawling, exclusive and high-income community with less and less room for its low-income residents is just beginning, according to UC Berkeley researchers who literally have it all mapped out.
Internet investor Yuri Milner joins with Berkeley in $100 million search for extraterrestrial intelligence
The Breakthrough Prize Foundation and its founder, internet investor Yuri Milner, have signed a contract with UC Berkeley to lead a major escalation in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, or SETI.
Project Jupyter gets $6M to expand collaborative data science software
A powerful, interactive tool popular among academics and scientists who wrestle with large datasets in multiple formats is getting a big infusion of support to broaden its capabilities for collaborative data science and to reach ever wider audiences.
UC Berkeley begin monitoring tremors on San Andreas Fault
UC Berkeley seismologists were surprised last August to see a dramatic increase in faint tremors occurring under the San Andreas Fault near Parkfield, in Central California, about 10 hours after a magnitude 6.0 earthquake struck Napa
UC Berkeley launches the Signatures Innovation Fellows Program
In an effort to support UC Berkeley faculty interested in commercial applications of their research, UC Berkeley is launching a new program in the data science and software areas. The new Signatures Innovation Fellows program was recently established with the generous support of UC Berkeley alumnus Bobby Yazdani.
Diagnostic Tools: A Calculated Risk
Shawn Shadden integrates diagnostic imaging with computational modeling to better diagnose stroke severity in patients.
Tropical paradise inspires virtual ecology lab
An international collaboration including Neil Davies, Director of UC Berkeley's Gump Station, is preparing to create a digital representation of of the Pacific island of Moorea to create a virtual lab to test and hypothesize the impact of human activities.
$45 million in grants fund new cybersecurity centers at UC Berkeley, MIT and Stanford
UC Berkeley’s new Center for Long-Term CyberSecurity will map out what the cybersecurity problem will mean a few years down the road, and to stimulate interdisciplinary research efforts that will make a difference in resolving the threat.
Funding for big-data projects in ecology, astronomy & microscopy
Three professors at UC Berkeley will receive $1.5 million over the next five years from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation as part of the foundation’s Data-Driven Discovery Initiative. The initiative, one of the largest privately funded data scientist programs of its kind, is committed to enabling new types of scientific breakthroughs by supporting interdisciplinary, data-driven researchers.
10-second alert: the view from the Berkeley Seismo Lab
Scientists at the Berkeley Seismological Laboratory were alerted 10 seconds before Sunday morning’s 6.0 magnitude temblor on the Napa Fault, courtesy of the ShakeAlert earthquake early-warning system.
Berkeley air-monitoring project wins White House nod
The White House has given a public nod to a ground-breaking UC Berkeley air-monitoring project and its new collaboration with a Colorado public media platform, which aims to build a citizen-science story-corps to help monitor carbon emissions in the Bay Area.
New tool makes a single picture worth a thousand – and more – images
A photo is worth a thousand words, but what if the image could also represent a thousands of other images? New software developed by UC Berkeley computer scientists seeks to tame the sea of visual data in the world by generating a single photo that can represent massive clusters of images.
Scientists enlist big data to guide conservation efforts
Despite a deluge of new information about the diversity and distribution of plants and animals around the globe, “big data” has yet to make a mark on conservation efforts to preserve the planet’s biodiversity. But that may soon change.
Tapping real-time financial data can improve economic policymaking
Measuring the nation’s economic health has long been a slow, costly and imprecise exercise, but researchers at the University of California, Berkeley have helped develop a new way to measure real-time consumer behavior that could vastly improve economic policymaking.
Information School team app for West African fishermen snags sustainable fishing prize
Trolling for real-world solutions to support ocean fisheries, the U.S. State Department sponsored a “Fishackathon” at five sites across the country. A team from UC Berkeley’s School of Information, working out of the Monterey Bay Aquarium, took home the national grand prize for a mobile app designed to help West African fishermen.
The games genes play: Algorithm helps explain sex in evolution
UC Berkeley computer theorists have identified an algorithm to describe the strategy used by genes during sexual recombination. In doing so, they address the dueling evolutionary forces of survival of the fittest and of diversity.
Planning professor-turned-entrepreneur to help SF tackle urban problems with Big Data
Paul Waddell, a city planning professor at the University of California, Berkeley, with a penchant for conducting research with what he calls his “big urban data,” is putting his work to a real-world test in San Francisco.
Seismic early-warning: What Mexico has, California is lacking
Mexico, Japan, Taiwan, Romania, Turkey and several other seismically active countries operate early warning systems - but not the United States. Although the technology is available along the west coast and a demonstration system is operating, a public alert system does not exist.
Student ‘hackers’ design new ways to research the Free Speech Movement
Students were invited recently to develop a compelling user interface to the Bancroft Library’s FSM Digital Archive, and shared their results 12 days later before a panel of judges. It’s hoped that HackFSM will spur future efforts to make online collections more accessible and useful to scholars and the public.
Can New Understanding Avert Tragedy?
Solomon Hsiang's research provides a “ground–level” view of climate’s current and likely future role in such social stresses as child mortality, crime and social upheaval.
At Berkeley, experts mine questions of Big Data, power and privacy
Making Sense of Big Data
Ben Recht was recently honored by the White House with a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, recognizing some of the most promising young researchers.
NuSTAR takes first peek into core of supernova
Astronomers for the first time have peered into the heart of an exploding star in the final minutes of its existence. The feat is one of the primary goals of NASA’s NuSTAR mission.
BOSS Measures the Universe to One-Percent Accuracy
Big turnout for launch of big-data center
A throng turned out for Thursday’s high-spirited launch of the Berkeley Institute for Data Science. Designed to help researchers across the disciplines harness data in order to spur discoveries and create knowledge, the center for data-related teaching and collaboration will be housed in Doe Library.
First Science for Solutions Award goes to a new professor exploring answers to economic/environmental issues
New data science institute to help scholars harness ‘big data’
In a world awash in data, UC Berkeley is meeting the flood head-on by establishing a new institute to support faculty, researchers and students in their efforts to mine this information in areas as diverse as astronomy and economics, genetics and demography.
Astronomers answer key question: How common are habitable planets?
NASA’s Kepler space telescope, now crippled and its four-year mission at an end, nevertheless provided enough data to answer its main research question: How many of the 200 billion stars in our galaxy have potentially habitable planets?
U.S. should follow California lead on earthquake early warning, expert says
Although California Gov. Jerry Brown signed a bill last week to create a statewide earthquake early warning system, the United States is still behind the curve in embracing technology that has proven to save lives, lessen damage and speed recovery after a major quake.
New app puts idle smartphones to work for science
Android smartphone users will soon have a chance to participate in important scientific research every time they charge their phones.
Saul Perlmutter: 'Science is about figuring out your mistakes'
Saul Perlmutter, astrophysicist at the Berkeley Lab and Professor of Physics at UC Berkeley, is profiled in The Guardian's "Rational Hero" series.
This Image Could Lead to Better Antibiotics
Berkeley Lab scientists create atomic-scale structure of ribosome attached to a molecule that controls its motion
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.
Scrutinizing Space Storms for a Calmer Life on Earth
Thomas Immel and his team at the Space Sciences Lab will design, build and operate two instruments and oversee development of two others to be loaded on a solar-powered satellite for a two-year science mission tentatively set to launch in 2017.
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.
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.
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.
Professor Enlists Android Phones in Search for Black Holes
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”.
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.
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.
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.
Prop. 30 project set to rapidly expand knowledge through social networks
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.
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.
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.
"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.
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."
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Record massive black holes discovered lurking in monster galaxies
UC Berkeley astronomer Chung-Pei Ma, graduate student Nicholas McConnell and colleagues have discovered the largest black holes to date ‑- two monsters with masses equivalent to 10 billion suns that are threatening to consume anything, even light, within a region five times the size of our solar system.
Scientists use brain imaging to reveal the movies in our mind
Imagine tapping into the mind of a coma patient, or watching one’s own dream on YouTube. With a cutting-edge blend of brain imaging and computer simulation, UC Berkeley scientists are bringing these futuristic scenarios within reach. Using functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) and computational models, researchers have succeeded in decoding and reconstructing people’s dynamic visual experiences – in this case, watching Hollywood movie trailers.
Ferroelectrics could pave way for ultra-low power computing
UC Berkeley engineers have shown that by using ferroelectric materials, they can pump up the charge accumulated at a capacitor for a given voltage, a phenomenon called negative capacitance. The achievement could reduce the power draw of today’s electronics, and break the bottleneck that has stalled improvements in computer clock speed.
Success of amphibian social networking spawns Reptile BioBlitz
Photos and observations posted to the website of the Global Amphibian BioBlitz now cover more than 700 species: 10 percent of the world’s frog, toad and salamander species that the social networking effort hopes to track. This success has now spawned a Reptile BioBlitz.
‘Supernova of a generation’ discovered by Berkeley scientists
Skywatchers should get their binoculars and telescopes ready. Scientists at UC Berkeley and Berkeley Lab caught a supernova soon after its explosion. The supernova, located in the Big Dipper constellation, is appearing brighter than any other supernova of its type in the last 30 years. Earthlings might even be able to see it with good binoculars in 10 days’ time.
Storing vertebrates in the cloud
UC Berkeley is leading an effort to take information on the vertebrate collections in museums around the world and store it in the cloud for easy use by researchers and citizen scientists alike.
UC Berkeley robotics expert named among world’s top young innovators
Pieter Abbeel, a UC Berkeley, professor known for his novel work in the field of machine learning in robotics – including robots that can fold laundry – has been named to a prestigious list of 35 of the world’s top young innovators by Technology Review magazine.
Computerized pen boosts confidence for students with learning disabilities
I-School student volunteers who evaluated a Disabled Students Program pilot test, which provided Livescribe computerized pens to students with learning disabilities, found that the smartpens had effects that extended well beyond note-taking abilities.
NSF launches new cyberinfrastructure project to succeed TeraGrid
The NSF has launched a massive five-year, $121 million project involving 17 institutions, including UC Berkeley, to bring advanced digital services to the nation’s scientists and engineers. Collectively known as the Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment (XSEDE), the new project replaces the TeraGrid, which for 10 years provided researchers with computational and data resources in an open infrastructure to support scientific discovery.
Magnetic memory and logic could achieve ultimate energy efficiency
Information theory dictates that a logical operation in a computer must consume a minimum amount of energy. Today’s computers consume a million times more energy per operation than this limit, but magnetic computers with no moving electrons could theoretically operate at the minimum energy, called the Landauer limit, according to UC Berkeley electrical engineers.
New Intel lab will focus on secure computing
Radical new Intel transistor based on UC Berkeley’s FinFET
In early May, Intel announced a radical new transistor design: a 3D device that will enable the production of integrated-circuit chips that operate faster with less power. The breakthrough has its roots in research begun in 1997 by a team led by Berkeley electrical engineers Chenming Hu, Jeff Bokor and Tsu-Jae King Liu.
Graphene optical modulators could lead to ultrafast communications
UC Berkeley researchers have shown that graphene, a one-atom-thick layer of crystallized carbon, can be tuned electrically to modify the amount of photons absorbed. This ability to switch light on and off is the fundamental characteristic of a network modulator, opening the door to optical computing in handheld electronics.
UC Berkeley, UCSF join forces to advance frontier of brain repair
Researchers at UC Berkeley and UCSF have launched the joint Center for Neural Engineering and Prostheses to develop technology that can translate brain signals into movements controlling prosthetic limbs, circumventing damaged or missing neural circuits in people suffering from disabling conditions.
Voice-based cell-phone system: A boon to farmers in the developing world?
Can mobile phone–based information improve the lives of farmers in the developing world? A research project — led by School of Information assistant professor Tapan Parikh and funded by the National Science Foundation — aims to address this question.
Engineers grow nanolasers on silicon, pave way for on-chip photonics
UC Berkeley engineers have found a way to grow nanolasers directly onto a silicon surface, an achievement that could lead to a new class of faster, more efficient microprocessors, as well as to powerful biochemical sensors that use optoelectronic chips.
GRIN Plasmonics: A practical path to superfast computing, ultrapowerful optical microscopy and invisibility carpet-cloaking devices
Berkeley Lab researchers have carried out the first experimental demonstration of GRIN plasmonics, a hybrid technology that opens the door to a wide range of exotic optics, including superfast photonic computers, ultra-powerful optical microscopes, and “invisibility” carpet-cloaking devices.
Einstein@Home's pulsar discovery proves value of volunteer computing
Eric Brewer to receive $150,000 ACM-Infosys Foundation Award for scalable Web technology
Eric Brewer, UC Berkeley professor of electrical engineering and computer sciences, is the 2009 recipient of the ACM-Infosys Foundation Award in the Computing Sciences, a prestigious honor that comes with a $150,000 prize.