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.

UC Berkeley engineers have developed a pressure-sensitive electronic material from semiconductor nanowires that could one day be used as an artificial skin for robots and prosthetic limbs.

In 1994, amateur astronomers discovered the comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 that made a dramatic impact on the planet Jupiter. They have found three small asteroid impacts on the planet since then — the most recent in August — providing helpful information for astronomers trying to assess the danger from near-Earth asteroids.

Yeast cells don't normally eat complex sugars or carbohydrates, only simple sugars like glucose and sucrose. UC Berkeley's Jamie Cate and colleagues have now added genes to yeast that allow it to eat more complex sugars, called cellodextrins. These yeast could find use in the biofuels industry, which hopes to use cellulosic plant fibers to make alcohol.

An independent analysis of Proposition 23 says the initiative would create legal uncertainty, reduce California state revenue, and jeopardize new and existing clean energy jobs. The white paper, released today by UC Berkeley School of Law's Center for Law, Energy & the Environment, reports Prop. 23 would also slow California's efforts to reduce climate change and could have a domino effect on other states.

Energy-policy expert Dan Kammen has been appointed to a new position at the World Bank, where he will help distribute billions of dollars to developing countries to improve energy efficiency and foster low-carbon, renewable sources of energy.

Plant biologists Markus Pauly and Sarah Hake have been awarded a three-year, $793,000 grant from the Department of Energy for research on the genetic diversity of corn. They hope to identify and develop strains of corn with higher yields of fermentable sugars, allowing the plant's stems and leaves to be used for fuel production.

NASA has chosen a UC Berkeley experiment and three others to fly aboard Solar Probe Plus, a satellite scheduled for launch in 2018 to explore the sun's million-degree atmosphere. Physicist Stuart Bale, director of the Space Sciences Lab, will lead development of instruments to detect radio emissions, magnetic fields, shock waves and dust as the spacecraft plunges into the sun.

Berkeley professor Wayne Getz uses global positioning technology, along with his background in mathematics, to help conserve zebra, buffalo and other animals in his native South Africa. In the process, he is helping to train the next generation of African-born ecologists.