From prosthetics and implants to dental crowns and hearing aids, 3D printers are being used to manufacture a whole host of customized medical devices for patients in need. So, why not organs, too?

The number of 18- to 26-year-old students who report suffering from anxiety disorder has doubled since 2008, perhaps as a result of rising financial stress and increased time spent on digital devices, according to preliminary findings released Thursday by a team of UC Berkeley researchers.

India could make a major dent in air pollution by curbing emissions from dirty household fuels such as wood, dung, coal and kerosene, shows a new analysis led by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley and the India Institute of Technology.

Nine UC Berkeley faculty have been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a prestigious nonpartisan research center that convenes scholars and leaders in academic, business and government sectors, drawing expertise across disciplines, to address the most complex challenges of our time. Here are this year’s honorees:

Engineers at the University of California, Berkeley have built a new photonic switch that can control the direction of light passing through optical fibers faster and more efficiently than ever. This optical “traffic cop” could one day revolutionize how information travels through data centers and high-performance supercomputers that are used for artificial intelligence and other data-intensive applications.

University of California scientists think they know why Earth’s generally warm and balmy climate over the past billion years has occasionally been interrupted by cold snaps that enshroud the poles with ice and occasionally turn the planet into a snowball. The key trigger, they say, is mountain formation in the tropics as continental land masses collide with volcanic island arcs, such as the Aleutian Islands chain in Alaska.

The New York metropolitan area has seen tremendous economic growth, but many residents in rapidly gentrifying neighborhoods are struggling to afford living in the 31-county, tri-state region, University of California, Berkeley, researchers have found.

The Central Valley’s heavy wintertime tule fog – known for snarling traffic and closing schools — has been on the decline over the past 30 years, and falling levels of air pollution are the cause, says a new study by scientists at the University of California, Berkeley.

Enter Blue, a new low-cost, human-friendly robot conceived and built by a team of researchers at the University of California, Berkeley. Blue was designed to use recent advances in artificial intelligence (AI) and deep reinforcement learning to master intricate human tasks, all while remaining affordable and safe enough that every artificial intelligence researcher — and eventually every home — could have one.

Many aspects of insulin signaling remain unclear, particularly its long-term effects on cells, and there are currently no effective cures for the hundreds of millions of people around the world living with diabetes. Now, Professor Anders Näär and collaborators from Harvard Medical School (HMS) have made key new insights into the molecular behavior of insulin.

Sticker shock may not have been the only force driving the decline in soda consumption in Berkeley after residents voted to enact the nation’s first soda tax in November 2014. The election, and the vigorous campaigning around the tax that led up to the vote, also may have played a major role in changing habits, shows a new study by economists at the University of California, Berkeley.

A meteor impact 66 million years ago generated a tsunami-like wave in an inland sea that killed and buried fish, mammals, insects and a dinosaur, the first victims of Earth’s last mass extinction event. The death scene from within an hour of the impact has been excavated at an unprecedented fossil site in North Dakota.

A new technique developed by University of California, Berkeley uses inexpensive lab equipment to efficiently infuse large macromolecules into cells. Called nanopore-electroporation, or nanoEP, the technique gently creates fewer than a dozen tiny holes in each cell that are sufficient to let molecules into the cell without traumatizing it.

New research from UC Berkeley suggests that language acquisition between birth and 18 is a remarkable feat of cognition, rather than something humans are just hardwired to do.

Barnacles that hitch rides on the backs of humpback and gray whales not only record details about the whales’ yearly travels, they also retain this information after they become fossilized, helping scientists reconstruct the migrations of whale populations millions of years in the past, according to a new University of California, Berkeley, study.

A team of engineers at the UC Berkeley and the Keck Graduate Institute (KGI) of The Claremont Colleges combined CRISPR with electronic transistors made from graphene to create a new hand-held device that can detect specific genetic mutations in a matter of minutes.

Still depending on your kids to figure out why your smartphone’s acting weird? As a rule, children are wired to explore, experiment and get results through trial and error – usually more quickly than grownups. But why?

University of California, Berkeley, scientists inserted a gene for a green-light receptor into the eyes of blind mice and, a month later, they were navigating around obstacles as easily as mice with no vision problems. The researchers say that, within as little as three years, the gene therapy — delivered via an inactivated virus — could be tried in humans who’ve lost sight because of retinal degeneration, ideally giving them enough vision to move around and potentially restoring their ability to read or watch video.

The pre-Columbian city of Cahokia was once among the most populous and bustling settlements north of Mexico. But by 1400 A.D., Cahokia’s population had dwindled to virtually nothing. While theories abound about what happened to the indigenous people of Cahokia, AJ White, a Ph.D. student in anthropology at UC Berkeley, has studied ancient poop samples to connect the city’s 13th century population plunge – at least in part – to climate change.

A team of researchers led by the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) has developed a simple method that could turn ordinary semiconducting materials into quantum machines – superthin devices marked by extraordinary electronic behavior. Such an advancement could help to revolutionize a number of industries aiming for energy-efficient electronic systems – and provide a platform for exotic new physics.

Millions of Americans are progressively losing their sight as cells in their eyes deteriorate, but a new therapy developed by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, could help prolong useful vision and delay total blindness.

The University of California announced today that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) issued U.S. Patent Number 10,227,611 covering use of single-molecule RNA guides and Cas9 protein in any cell, thus creating efficient and effective ways for scientists to target and edit genes.

The 2018 trade war cost the American economy $7.8 billion dollars in lost gross domestic product, according to a new paper authored by a team of economists at UC Berkeley, Columbia University, Yale University and UCLA.

In a new study, researchers at UC Berkeley and Berkeley Lab describe how the architecture of the long-horned passalid beetle's gut — and the beneficial microbes that inhabit it — help the beetle carry out an amazing transformation. This knowledge could help scientists engineer more efficient systems for producing bioproducts in the lab.

In an exclusive New York Times story today, Berkeley and 20 other universities announced they are forming a new consortium, the Public Interest Technology University Network (PIT-UN), to support not only the development of new technologies, but also to exploring what policies and safeguards must be put into place to ensure that they will work for the benefit of society.

Physicists have used a seven-qubit quantum computer to simulate the scrambling of information inside a black hole, heralding a future in which entangled quantum bits might be used to probe the mysterious interiors of these bizarre objects.

With support from the Bakar Fellows Program, David Schaffer is working on one of the first gene therapies to be approved for clinical use. The therapy acts to restore vision in children with a rare and previously incurable disease called Leber's congenital amaurosis type 2.

Some of the peculiar aspects of our solar system — an enveloping cloud of comets, dwarf planets in weird orbits and, if it truly exists, a possible Planet Nine far from the sun — have been linked to the close approach of another star in our system’s infancy that flung things helter-skelter.

UC Berkeley synthetic biologists have engineered brewer’s yeast to produce marijuana’s main ingredients—mind-altering THC and non-psychoactive CBD—as well as novel cannabinoids not found in the plant itself.

A new study from UC Berkeley challenges decades of research positing that emotional intelligence and recognition are based largely on the ability to read micro-expressions signaling happiness, sadness, anger, fear, surprise, disgust, contempt and other positive and negative moods and sentiments.

Inserting or tweaking genes in plants is more art than science, but with a new technique developed by University of California, Berkeley, scientists could make genetically engineering any type of plant—in particular, gene editing with CRISPR-Cas9—simple and quick.

It’s still some years off, but Steven Conolly aims to see disease in a totally new way. He leads research on an emerging Magnetic Particle Imaging (MPI) technology that already can peer past tissue or organs to detect disease deep within the body.

Based on new data published today in the journal Science, it seems increasingly likely that an asteroid or comet impact 66 million years ago reignited massive volcanic eruptions in India, half a world away from the impact site in the Caribbean Sea.

Consumption of sugary drinks in Berkeley’s diverse and low-income neighborhoods dropped precipitously in 2015, just months after the city levied the nation’s first soda tax on sugar-sweetened beverages.

Astronomers now think that Neptune’s tiniest moon, Hippocamp, was chipped off a larger moon, Proteus, by a cosmic collision billions of years ago.

Climate change is fueling coral bleaching throughout the tropics, with potentially devastating consequences on coral reef ecosystems and on the people who depend on them for seafood, tourism and shoreline protection.

New simulations led by researchers working at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and UC Berkeley combine decades-old theories to provide new insight about the driving mechanisms in the plasma jets that allow them to steal energy from black holes’ powerful gravitational fields and propel it far from their gaping mouths.

Nearly 40 percent of women worldwide stop using birth control pills within a year – mainly due to side effects such as depression, weight gain, bleeding between periods and blood clots. Research by Polina Lishko on a non-hormonal contraceptive is showing promise as a new birth control alternative.

Peidong Yang assumes the role of Director of the Kavli Energy NanoScience Institute (ENSI).

Researchers discover copper has potential as a catalyst for turning carbon dioxide into sustainable chemicals and fuels without any wasteful byproducts, creating a green alternative to present-day chemical manufacturing

Caitlin Rosenthal, an assistant professor of history at UC Berkeley, has brought history into fresh focus with her new book, Accounting for Slavery: Masters and Management, which examines how white owners of enslaved black people were early innovators of many business practices and terms we use today.

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has issued a notice of allowance for a University of California patent application covering systems and methods for using single molecule guide RNAs that, when combined with the Cas9 protein, create more efficient and effective ways for scientists to target and edit genes.

Cloud applications and the ever-increasing demand by large enterprises to transmit and analyze “big data” are stretching the capacity of even the largest data center servers as traditional switches become data flow bottlenecks. Ming Wu has invented a new optical, or photonic, switch capable of record-breaking speed that can be fabricated as integrated circuits so they can be mass-produced, keeping the cost per device low.

NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has snapped the latest weather pictures of our solar system’s frigid outer planets, and UC Berkeley astronomers have jumped in to interpret them.

Ooh, surprise! Those spontaneous sounds we make to express everything from elation (woohoo) to embarrassment (oops) say a lot more about what we’re feeling than previously understood, according to new UC Berkeley research.

In a mere seven years, Cas9 has shown itself to be a formidable gene editor, employed in humans, plants, animals and bacteria to quickly and accurately cut and splice DNA, transforming biology and opening new avenues for treating disease. But a new kid on the block, CasX, may give Cas9 a run for its money.

A new 3D printer uses light to transform gooey liquids into complex solid objects in only a matter of minutes.

Researchers exploring the effects of a long-standing treatment for cystic fibrosis have discovered a potential new target for drugs to treat the disease, which has no cure and typically cuts decades off the lives of patients.

Viruses plague bacteria just as viruses like influenza plague humans. Some of the largest of these so-called bacteriophages have now been found in the human gut, where they periodically devastate bacteria just as seasonal outbreaks of flu lay humans low, according to a new study led by UC Berkeley scientists.

UC Berkeley’s new Cannabis Research Center, announced today by a multidisciplinary team of faculty, will explore how cannabis production impacts the environment and society, and how these impacts will evolve under new regulations set in place by legalization.

When we’re in pain, we have a hard time sleeping. But how does poor sleep affect pain? For the first time, UC Berkeley scientists have answered that question by identifying neural glitches in the sleep-deprived brain that can intensify and prolong the agony of sickness and injury.

Prior infection with the dengue virus could protect children from the symptoms of Zika, finds a new study led by researchers at UC Berkeley and the University of Michigan.

A detailed study of four mouse models of autism challenges the most common assumption about what goes wrong in brain circuits to cause disease symptoms.

Over the last 24 years, Robert Alter has balanced his work on the modern novel with time spent translating the Old Testament in a way that strikes him as “rhythmic.”

David Zilberman, a professor of agricultural and resource economics at UC Berkeley, has been awarded the 2019 Wolf Prize in Agriculture in recognition of his work developing economic models for fundamental problems in agriculture, economics, and policy.

A new fly-through of the fly brain allows anyone to whizz past neurons and visit any of the 40 million synapses where neurons touch neuron. It’s a super-resolution view of the complex network connections in the insect’s brain that underlie behaviors ranging from feeding to mating.

One of the last acts of NASA’s Cassini spacecraft before its death plunge into Saturn’s hydrogen and helium atmosphere was to coast between the planet and its rings and let them tug it around, essentially acting as a gravity probe.

John F. Hartwig from University of California at Berkeley and Stephen L. Buchwald from MIT, awarded the 2019 Wolf Prize for Chemistry for the development of efficient transition-metal catalysts that have revolutionized drug manufacturing, leading to a breakthrough in molecule and synthetics design. 

From spoons to stuffed animals, humans learn early in life how to pick up objects that have a variety of shapes, textures and sizes. A new machine-learning algorithm developed by engineers at UC Berkeley can teach robots to grasp and carry items with similar dexterity.

Not everyone is benefiting equally from the availability of new solar energy technologies, a new study by researchers at UC Berkeley and Tufts University shows.

UC Berkeley integrative biology Ph.D. student Alexander Stubbs and colleague determined that a mysterious noise reported by U.S. diplomats stationed in Cuba plagued by resulting hearing loss and other medical symptoms was not from sonic attacks as feared, but was produced by the Indies short-tailed cricket (Anurogryllus celerinictus).

UC Berkeley researchers have now made CRISPR-Cas9 even more versatile by giving it an “on” switch, allowing users to keep the Cas9 gene editor turned off in all cells except its designated target.

Heat trapped by greenhouse gases is raising ocean temperatures faster than previously thought; further evidence that earlier claims of a slowdown or “hiatus” in global warming over the past 15 years were unfounded.

With the help of sponges inserted in the bloodstream to absorb excess drugs, doctors are hoping to prevent the dangerous side effects of toxic chemotherapy agents or even deliver higher doses to knock back tumors, like liver cancer, that don’t respond to more benign treatments.

Women and underrepresented minorities in STEM fields are more likely to advance professionally, publish more research and secure postdoctoral and faculty positions if their institutional culture is welcoming and sets clear expectations, according to a study of hundreds of Ph.D. students at four top-tier California research universities.

For the vast majority of teachers, existing pensions provide a higher, more secure retirement income than a cost-equivalent 401(k)­-style plan. And pensions keep teachers in classrooms, according to a new study from UC Berkeley and the National Institute on Retirement Security.

Awarding parents more time with newborns and easing access to preschool could fit within Gov. Gavin Newsom’s first state budget, according to UC Berkeley researchers.

A “bumper crop” of prestigious awards, prizes and honors will be presented Wednesday, Jan. 3 in Chicago to UC Berkeley faculty members by the American Historical Association, the nation’s most important professional association for historians.