The first detailed survey since 1995 of doctoral programs at the nation's research universities shows that UC Berkeley continues to have the largest number of highly ranked graduate programs in the country. The rankings, by the National Research Council, confirm "that UC Berkeley is the nation’s preeminent public university for doctoral studies in a huge number and wide variety of disciplines," said graduate dean Andrew Szeri.

Two UC Berkeley faculty members, economist Emmanuel Saez and computer scientist Dawn Song, have been named MacArthur "genius" Fellows. They are among 23 recipients to receive the prestigious award – $500,000 in unrestricted funds over the next five years – announced Sept. 28 by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

Many fungi, including the destructive Sclerotinia, spew thousands of spores at once to give the spores an extra boost into their host plants. UC Berkeley, Harvard and Cornell researchers now show how this works. The near-simultaneous ejection of spores reduces drag to nearly zero and creates a wind that carries some of the spores 20 times farther than a single spore could travel solo.

Each time we perform a simple task, like pushing an elevator button or reaching for a cup of coffee, the brain races to decide whether the left or right hand will do the job. But the left hand is more likely to win if a certain region of the brain receives magnetic stimulation, according to new research from UC Berkeley.

UC Berkeley and Yale University scientists have recreated the tremendous pressures and high temperatures deep in the Earth to resolve a long-standing puzzle: why some seismic waves travel faster than others through the boundary between the solid mantle and fluid outer core.

When it comes to conducting complex tasks, it turns out that the brain needs rhythm, according to UC Berkeley researchers. Neuroscientists have found that cortical rhythms, or oscillations, can effectively rally groups of neurons in widely dispersed regions of the brain to engage in coordinated activity, much like a conductor will summon up various sections of an orchestra in a symphony.

Alexandre Chorin and James Sethian, two UC Berkeley and LBNL mathematicians, will receive awards from the world's largest applied mathematics society for their career and pioneer contributions to the field.

Girls in homes without a biological father are more likely to hit puberty at an earlier age, according to a new study led by researchers at UC Berkeley’s School of Public Health. The findings held only for girls in higher income households, and even after the girls’ weight was taken into account

Research on a drug commonly prescribed to Alzheimer's disease patients is helping neuroscientists at the University of California, Berkeley, better understand perceptual learning in healthy adults.

Pinhead-size marine organisms called foraminifera have been used to monitor pollutants in marshes and oceans, and could help to assess recovery in the Gulf of Mexico following the three-month long Deepwater Horizon oil spill.