A team of UC Berkeley scientists has launched a project called RadWatch to provide the public online access to a wealth of information — including near real-time readings — on environmental radiation levels. The researchers say the effort is meant to demystify radiation, an often misunderstood subject.
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.
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.
People playing betting games engage two main areas of the brain: the medial prefrontal cortex and the striatum. Ming Hsu of UC Berkeley and Eric Set of the University of Illinois scanned 12 genes involved in dopamine regulation in these areas and found that people’s genetic variants affected how they dealt with trial-and-error learning and belief learning.
An advance has been achieved towards next generation ultrasonic imaging with potentially 1,000 times higher resolution than today’s medical ultrasounds. Researchers with the DOE’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have demonstrated a technique for producing, detecting and controlling ultrahigh frequency sound waves at the nanometer scale.
Televised sports can reduce crime. In brief, that’s the conclusion of two UC Berkeley law students, based on their research exploring the relationship between major sporting events on television in Chicago and crime rates there.
UC Berkeley researchers have discovered that oxytocin – a hormone associated with maternal nurturing, social attachments, childbirth and sex – is indispensable for healthy muscle maintenance and repair, and that in mice it declines with age.
Berkeley Lab researchers have devised a technique whereby self-assembling nanoparticle arrays can form a highly ordered thin film over macroscopic distances in one minute.
Peggy Lemaux, UC Berkeley cooperative extension specialist, is working with Berkeley Lab and the University of Kentucky to develop a genetically engineered tobacco plant that will produce oil that can be used as a biofuel. KQED Science wrote this story about the research effort.
Berkeley Lab researchers have found unexpected traces of water in semiconducting nanocrystals that helps answer long-standing questions about their surface chemistry.
