News

Randy Katz, VC Research, UC Berkeley
October 9, 2018

Randy Katz: The 2018 Nobel Prizes and use-inspired research

Vice Chancellor Randy Katz writes about the 2018 recipients of the Nobel Prize with deep roots to UC Berkeley. Jim Allison, honored with the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, performed his award-winning research as director of Berkeley’s Cancer Research Laboratory. Frances Arnold, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, conducted her doctoral work here under the guidance of Professor Emeritus Harvey Blanch. And Paul Romer, a professor at Berkeley in the 1990s, won the Nobel Prize in Economics.
A forest stream
October 8, 2018

Clean Water Act dramatically cut pollution in U.S. waterways

The 1972 Clean Water Act has driven significant improvements in U.S. water quality, according to the first comprehensive study of water pollution over the past several decades, by researchers at UC Berkeley and Iowa State University.
Deborah Estrin, Allan Sly
October 5, 2018

Two Berkeley alums win MacArthur ‘genius’ awards

The MacArthur Foundation yesterday unveiled the 25 newest stars in its constellation of “genius” award winners, and two — computer scientist Deborah Estrin and mathematician Allan Sly — have roots at UC Berkeley.
drawing blood from arm of pregnant woman
October 4, 2018

Tales from 141,430 and one genomes

Analysis of the world’s largest set of genome data from pregnant women, totaling 141,431 expectant mothers from across China, has uncovered unsuspected associations between genes and birth outcomes, including the birth of twins and a woman’s age at first pregnancy.
animated gif showing bursts change in brightness
October 4, 2018

Ghost objects in the sky

Astronomers typically study objects that are visible night after night or explode suddenly, like supernovas, but Casey Law is scouring vast amounts of data in search of bright objects that disappear, never to be seen again.
Frances Arnold in lab
October 3, 2018

Chemistry Nobel goes to UC Berkeley Ph.D. Frances Arnold

When Frances Arnold first came to UC Berkeley as a graduate student in 1980, she was focused on biofuels — at that time a promising new technology and, for Arnold, a way to benefit humanity by weaning society off fossil fuels.
black hole lensing supernova and galaxy
October 2, 2018

Black holes ruled out as universe’s missing dark matter

For one brief shining moment after the 2015 detection of gravitational waves from colliding black holes, astronomers held out hope that the universe’s mysterious dark matter might consist of a plenitude of black holes sprinkled throughout the universe.
James Allison and Nobel medal
October 1, 2018

UC Berkeley research led to Nobel Prize-winning immunotherapy

Immunologist James P. Allison today shared the 2018 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for groundbreaking work he conducted on cancer immunotherapy at UC Berkeley during his 20 years as director of the campus’s Cancer Research Laboratory.
Gloved hands perform lab experiments
September 26, 2018

CZ Biohub awards $13.7 million for new collaborative health research

The Chan Zuckerberg Biohub, a nonprofit medical research organization, announced that it is awarding $13.7 million over three years to support cutting-edge biomedical research from seven teams of scientists, physicians and engineers, with faculty members from UC Berkeley, UCSF and Stanford.
A photo of half-dome and a waterfall in Yosemite National Park
September 24, 2018

National parks bear the brunt of climate change

Human-caused climate change has exposed U.S. national parks to conditions hotter and drier than the rest of the nation, says a study that quantifies for the first time the magnitude of climate change on all 417 parks in the system.
map of bay area showing where 1600 people moved
September 19, 2018

Rising housing costs are re-segregating the Bay Area, study shows

New reports from the Urban Displacement Project at UC Berkeley and the California Housing Partnership confirm that rising housing costs between 2000 and 2015 have contributed to displacement of low-income people of color and resulted in new concentrations of poverty and racial segregation in the Bay Area.
Images of brain noting electrode location, rest activity, and regret encoding.
September 13, 2018

Regret is a gambler’s curse, scientists say

What goes through a gambler’s mind after she’s placed her bet? It’s not just the anticipation of a big payoff, or doubts about the wisdom of her bet. It’s also regret about previous bets, both won and lost.
graphic of racially and ethnically diverse people
September 12, 2018

Stereotypes measurably influence how we treat each other

Our race, ethnicity, nationality, gender, socio-economic class and physical appearance can determine whether or not we get a break in life. But how big a role do social stereotypes really play when it comes to landing a job, loan, university spot or other opportunity?
Zika virus graphic
September 5, 2018

Blood tests reveal broad extent of Zika infection

A new study shows that nearly half of the population of Managua, Nicaragua, has been infected with the Zika virus. Previous infection with the Zika virus imparts immunity to the disease and can help quell future outbreaks.
Water entering a storm draim
August 30, 2018

Engineered sand zaps storm water pollutants

UC Berkeley engineers have created a new way to remove contaminants from storm water, potentially addressing the needs of water-stressed communities that are searching for ways to tap the abundant and yet underused source of fresh drinking water.
Jupiter's Great Red Spot
August 28, 2018

Looking for water in Jupiter’s Great Red Spot

Scientists have for the first time detected water clouds deep inside Jupiter’s Great Red Spot – a centuries-old storm larger than planet Earth – allowing them to put tighter limits on the total amount of water in the planet.
Bay wetlands at sunset
August 27, 2018

UC Berkeley leads new assessment of Bay Area climate impacts

California today issued its latest assessment of the many challenges the state faces from climate change — including wildfires like those still raging throughout the state – and highlighted for the first time the regional impacts with nine deep-dive reports spearheaded by University of California scientists.
A colorful landscape
August 21, 2018

Ecological winners and losers of California’s drought

A long-term study led by UC Berkeley and the University of Washington tracked how hundreds of species in Carrizo Plain National Monument valley fared during the historic drought that struck California from 2012 to 2015. It shows surprising winners and losers, uncovering patterns that may be relevant for climate change.
An engineer with Peanut Robotics works on a robotics arm inside UC Berkeley's SkyDeck startup incubator in Berkeley, Calif. Tuesday, Aug. 14, 2018. Photo: Jessica Christian, The Chronicle
August 15, 2018

UC Berkeley startup accelerator gets a boost from venture fund

SkyDeck, UC Berkeley's accelerator and incubator, is accelerating its own growth. A new venture fund enables SkyDeck to invest $100,000 in the companies in its accelerator, and its accepting a broader and more global range of entrepreneurs, tripling its adviser group and doubling its office size.
woman looking lonely
August 14, 2018

Poor sleep triggers viral loneliness and social rejection

Poor sleep can literally kill your social life. UC Berkeley researchers have found that sleep-deprived people feel lonelier and less inclined to engage with others, avoiding close contact in much the same way as people with social anxiety.
schwarzite carbon cage
August 13, 2018

Long-sought carbon structure joins graphene, fullerene family

he discovery of buckyballs surprised and delighted chemists in the 1980s, nanotubes jazzed physicists in the 1990s, and graphene charged up materials scientists in the 2000s, but one nanoscale carbon structure – a negatively curved surface called a schwarzite – has eluded everyone. Until now.
a nanoribbon superlattice
August 8, 2018

Tying electrons down with nanoribbons

UC Berkeley scientists have discovered possible role for narrow strips of graphene, called nanoribbons, as nanoscale electron traps with potential applications in quantum computers.
5 faculty named Bakar Fellows
July 27, 2018

Five innovators join the ranks of the Bakar Fellows

Five UC Berkeley faculty innovators have been selected for the Bakar Fellows Program, which supports faculty working to apply scientific discoveries to real-world issues in the fields of engineering, computer science, chemistry and biological and physical sciences.
CRISPR-Gold gene editing
June 25, 2018

CRISPR reduces autism symptoms in mice

Scientists have used CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing to lessen some autism symptoms in mice with a form of fragile X syndrome, the most common known single-gene cause of autism spectrum disorder.
earth surface from satellite perspective, night skies
June 1, 2018

June 14 launch of ICON satellite to probe the edge of space

NASA’s Ionospheric Connection Explorer (ICON) is charged with the task to measure the winds of ionized atoms at the edge of space and determine how they are impacted by atmospheric weather, in particular seasonal monsoons in the tropics.
Photo of top of Hippopotamus head above water.
May 21, 2018

Hippo poop a growing problem in African rivers

Hippopotamus are a major tourist draw to African watering holes, but their bountiful poop is increasingly fouling African rivers and lakes during the dry season, killing off fish and other aquatic life. And human activity is making it worse.
Nicholas de Monchaux
May 21, 2018

Urban Resilience: Hiding in Plain Sight

More than 1,500 abandoned parcels of land lie scattered throughout San Francisco, from unused alleys to vacant parking lots and public easements. The combined

Earth's magnetosphere
May 9, 2018

Reconnection tames the turbulent magnetic fields around Earth

When the solar wind – which is really a driving rain of charged particles from the sun – strikes Earth’s protective magnetic field, the shock generates roiling, turbulent magnetic fields that enshroud the planet and stretch for hundreds of thousands of miles.
Sample hologram with randomly distributed neuron targets in red around the box. True depth, x/y/z
April 30, 2018

Editing brain activity with holography

What if we could edit the sensations we feel; paste in our brain pictures that we never saw, cut out unwanted pain or insert non-existent scents into memory?
Beginning of a kind of stellar explosion called a Fast-Evolving Luminous Transient, or FELT
March 26, 2018

Flash-in-the-pan supernovas explained

Most exploding stars flare brightly and then slowly fade over weeks to months, but an unusual group of supernovas noticed only in the last 10 years flare up and disappear within days.
Glass of bear surrounded by wheat
March 20, 2018

Brewing hoppy beer without the hops

Hoppy beer is all the rage among craft brewers and beer lovers, and now UC Berkeley biologists have come up with a way to create these unique flavors and aromas without using hops.
Illustration of Pyrene molecules, which are four-ring, 16-carbon polycyclic hydrocarbons, are likely formed around giant stars.
March 9, 2018

How to make space molecules

How could complex carbon-based molecules – a rich zoo of chemical compounds formed from fused rings of carbon and hydrogen – possibly form in the cold vacuum of space?
Scientist leaning over vials with plants
March 6, 2018

A way to grow plants with less water

Crops possibly can be grown with significantly less water by altering a gene involved in regulating photosynthesis, according to new research.
Illustration of rat generating visual feedback to a computer
March 1, 2018

Retraining the brain’s vision center to take action

Neuroscientists have demonstrated the astounding flexibility of the brain by training neurons that normally process input from the eyes to develop new skills, in this case, to control a computer-generated tone.
Ion Stoica sitting in the center of two people
February 27, 2018

$10 million for Berkeley RISELab’s AI research

The National Science Foundation today announced that RISELab has been awarded an Expeditions in Computing award to enable game-changing advances in real-time decision making technologies.
Animation of event horizon of a black hole
February 20, 2018

Some black holes erase your past

If someone were to venture into a relatively benign black hole, they could survive, but their past would be obliterated and they could have an infinite number of possible futures.
red blood cell
January 30, 2018

Super-resolution microscopy reveals fine detail of cellular mesh

One of today’s sharpest imaging tools, super-resolution microscopy, produces sparkling images of what until now has been the blurry interior of cells, detailing not only the cell’s internal organs and skeleton, but also providing insights into cells’ amazing flexibility.
Brain
January 22, 2018

Recording a thought’s fleeting trip through the brain

UC Berkeley neuroscientists have tracked the progress of a thought through the brain, showing clearly how the prefrontal cortex at the front of the brain coordinates activity to help us act in response to a perception.
Raymond Lifchez
January 22, 2018

2018 Ed Roberts Award for accessible design leader Raymond Lifchez

The Center for Independent Living will recognize UC Berkeley architecture and city planning professor Raymond Lifchez tomorrow (Jan. 23) with the second annual Ed Roberts Award, which recognizes and honors individual contributions to the success of CIL and the independent living/disability rights movement.
blowing nose - flu
January 18, 2018

Amid flu epidemic, more bad news about its spread

Getting lots of sleep, drinking lots of water, sneezing into the crook of your arm and getting a vaccination no doubt will help fight back the flu. But if you don’t want to get it in the first place, don’t breathe.
January 10, 2018

SETI project homes in on strange ‘fast radio bursts’

Recent observations of a mysterious and distant object that emits intermittent bursts of radio waves so bright that they’re visible across the universe provide new data about the source but fail to clear up the mystery of what causes them.