A new study by UC Berkeley researchers and international collaborators finds that policies to support sustainable cattle ranching practices in Brazil could put a big dent in the beef and food industry’s greenhouse gas impact by reducing deforestation.

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.

UC Berkeley neuroscientist Daniela Kaufer and colleagues in Israel and Germany have shown in rats that a drug commonly prescribed for hypertension can nearly eliminate the epilepsy that often follows severe head injury. Nearly one in five cases of epilepsy is the result of head trauma.

Bangladesh may be known mostly for its poverty, environmental vulnerability and deadly factory fires, but the new Subir and Malini Chowdhury Center for Bangladesh Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, is ready to prove that this South Asian country of over 160 million people has a lot more to teach the rest of the world.

Chimpanzees may throw tantrums like toddlers, but their total brain size suggests they have more self-control than, say, gerbils or fox squirrels, according to a new study of 36 mammal and bird species ranging from orangutans to zebra finches.

Using nanodot technology, Berkeley Lab researchers have demonstrated the first size-based form of chromatography that can be used to study the membranes of living cells.

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.

When Hollywood knocked on the doors of UC Berkeley engineering professors Michel Maharbiz and Jose Carmena, the researchers answered. Director Wally Pfister tapped their expertise in neural engineering and brain-machine interfaces during the filming of his movie, “Transcendence,” which opens in theaters April 18.

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.

Arkin has been named one of six recipients of the 2013 Ernest Orlando Lawrence Award by U.S. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz. The E.O. Lawrence Award, the DOE’s highest scientific honor, is recognizing Arkin “for his work advancing biological and environmental sciences."