Research News

Berkeley Lab scientists adapt microscopy technique to build and image peptoid nanosheets with unprecedented atomic precision

An affordable, human-friendly robot developed by Berkeley engineers is among Popular Science’s “Best of What’s New” innovations for 2019.

An international research team is calling on policymakers to focus not just on the threats of climate change, but on the increasing number of opportunities to drastically reduce greenhouse gases.

Scorching temperatures and parched earth are no match for the sorghum plant — this cereal crop, native to Africa and Australia, will remain green and productive, even under conditions that would render other plants brown, brittle and barren. A new study published this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences provides the first detailed look at how the plant exercises exquisite control over its genome — switching some genes on and some genes off at the first sign of water scarcity, and again when water returns — to survive when its surroundings turn harsh and arid.

Fiber-optic cables that constitute a global undersea telecommunications network could one day help scientists study offshore earthquakes and the geologic structures hidden deep beneath the ocean surface.

In a video posted online this week, Seeker, a San Francisco-based digital media network focused on science and technology, profiled UC Berkeley’s newest cutting-edge facility, the Advanced Bioimaging Center. Run by Srigokul “Gokul” Upadhyayula, a newly arrived assistant professor-in-residence of molecular and cell biology, the center is building imaging systems that will provide real-time video of living cells for biologists who want to understand “how life works,” Upadhyayula told Seeker. He still is awestruck at the “microscopic universe inside each cell,” he said

Honorees recognized for achievements in heavy element chemistry, tectonics, microbial photosynthesis, geological processes, particle physics, and biomolecular engineering

Five Berkeley faculty members have been named fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), an honor bestowed upon the society’s members by their peers. The five are among 443 members awarded the honor because of their scientifically or socially distinguished efforts to advance science or its applications. Founded in 1848, the AAAS is the world’s largest general scientific society and publisher of Science and five other journals.

By the second trimester, long before a baby’s eyes can see images, they can detect light. But the light-sensitive cells in the developing retina — the thin sheet of brain-like tissue at the back of the eye — were thought to be simple on-off switches, presumably there to set up the 24-hour, day-night rhythms parents hope their baby will follow. University of California, Berkeley, scientists have now found evidence that these simple cells actually talk to one another as part of an interconnected network that gives the retina more light sensitivity than once thought, and that may enhance the influence of light on behavior and brain development in unsuspected ways.

An important case of the current U.S. Supreme Court term is about Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA — a program that some 700,000 undocumented people depend on for the right to work and protection from deportation — and whether or not it was properly ended by the Trump administration in 2017. The program has been kept in place since then by federal court injunctions. Berkeley Law Dean Erwin Chemerinsky and attorney Ethan Dettmer of Gibson, Dunn and Crutcher’s in San Francisco are key members of the litigation team that won one of the court injunctions, and are currently defending DACA in the Supreme Court. In this Nov. 18 talk, they discuss what it’s like litigating a case like this and the Supreme Court arguments that happened last week.

Scientists at Berkeley Lab reveal oxygen’s hidden talent for filling in atomic gaps in TMDs; and the surprising role of electron spin in conductivity

For tens of thousands of years, modern humans and Neanderthals lived side-by-side in the region where Africa meets Eurasia. And then, some 40,000 years ago, our evolutionary cousins suddenly went extinct, leaving us as the only human species surviving on the planet. The sudden disappearance of the Neanderthals has remained somewhat of a mystery to scientists, but a new study, led by researchers at Stanford University and co-authored by researchers at UC Berkeley and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, suggests that deadly diseases carried by modern humans may have been what ultimately led to their demise.

Teen girls in South Africa face an extraordinary threat of HIV: By the time they reach adulthood, one in four South African girls will have contracted the virus, and most are first infected during adolescence. Experiencing depression puts these girls at even higher risk of HIV infection, reveals analyses led by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, and based on a longitudinal study led by colleagues at the University of North Carolina and the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa.

Katherine Yelick, the associate laboratory director for Computing Sciences at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and professor of electrical engineering and computer sciences at UC Berkeley, has been honored by HPCwire as their Editor’s Choice for Outstanding Leadership in HPC.

In a new commentary published in Nature, three UC Berkeley researchers and their coauthors argue that without considerable government investment in four areas—family planning, girls’ education, agriculture, and security—Western Sahel countries’ political and economic systems could collapse. In a region with widespread hunger and malnutrition, rising food and economic insecurity could pave the way for famines, mass migration, and violent conflict. Only by investing heavily in forward-looking programs, the researchers argue, can governments avert serious disruptions down the line.

With a $106 million gift from the Weill Family Foundation, UC Berkeley (Berkeley), UC San Francisco (UCSF) and the University of Washington (the UW) have launched the Weill Neurohub, an innovative research network that will forge and nurture new collaborations between neuroscientists and researchers working in an array of other disciplines—including engineering, computer science, physics, chemistry, and mathematics—to speed the development of new therapies for diseases and disorders that affect the brain and nervous system.