The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) has honored 13 individuals with awards recognizing extraordinary scientific achievements in the areas of biology, chemistry, physics, economics and psychology. James M. Berger, Walter and Ruth Schubert Family Chair in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at UC Berkeley, is the recipient of the NAS Award in Molecular Biology.

The secrets behind the mysterious nano-sized electromagnetic “hotspots” that appear on metal surfaces under a light are being revealed with the help of a BEAST. The results hold promise for solar energy and chemical sensing among other technologies.

Neither left nor right, the 2-year-old Center for the Comparative Study of Right-Wing Movements is leading the effort to fill a scholarship gap with roots in the Cold War. Proximity to People’s Park has nothing to do with it.

Many large galaxies, such as the Milky Way, are thought to have hundreds of satellite galaxies, many of them too dim to see because they are dominated by dark matter. Post-doctoral fellow Sukanya Chakrabarti and astronomy professor Leo Blitz have developed a method to search for these “dark” satellite galaxies, and have predicted that the Milky Way has a companion dwarf galaxy not yet discovered.

UC Berkeley scientist Jill Banfield, with colleagues at the University of Pittsburgh and Stanford University, have for the first time sequenced and reconstructed the genomes of most of the microbes in the gut of a premature newborn and documented how the microbe populations changed over time. Banfield and pediatric surgeon Michael Morowitz hope that characterizing gut microbes of normal and sick infants could lead to cause of necrotizing enterocolitis in preemies.

Hundreds of visitors flocked to a new, 420-square-foot cottage in West Berkeley to examine the tiny, sustainably designed “accessory home” as a possible wave of the future.

Several dozen scholars, analysts, scientists, and students gathered in Berkeley for an unprecedented and often contentious workshop on the future of nuclear power. The workshop, sponsored by UC Berkeley’s newly formed Center for Science, Technology, Medicine and Society, brought together social scientists and their counterparts in science, engineering, and policy.

Designing skyscrapers to withstand earthquakes is getting easier thanks to a team of researchers and practitioners organized by the Pacific Earthquake Engineering Research Center (PEER) at UC Berkeley. A new guide developed by PEER’s Tall Building Initiative, led by UC Berkeley structural engineering professor Jack Moehle, has standardized the design and review process for evaluating the seismic safety of buildings over 140 feet tall.

Many futurists envision a world in which polymer membranes with molecular-sized channels are used to capture carbon, produce solar-based fuels, or desalinate seawater, among many other functions. This will require methods by which such membranes can be readily fabricated in bulk quantities. A technique representing a significant first step down that road has now been successfully demonstrated. Berkeley Lab and UC Berkeley researchers — led by materials scientist Ting Xu — have developed a solution-based method for inducing the self-assembly of flexible polymer membranes with highly aligned subnanometer channels.

Cheryl A. Kerfeld, an adjunct professor in Plant & Microbial Biology, has won the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology’s Award for Exemplary Contributions to Education. Kerfeld heads the Joint Genome Institute’s Education and Structural Genomics programs.