| Research UC Berkeley

Environmental ed project teams Berkeley with global practitioners

A new environmental education program brings the latest research and expertise from UC Berkeley, to the far reaches of the world’s developing countries announced its inaugural call for proposals on June 5, 2012. The program, tirled “Sustainable Solutions: Teaming Berkeley with Global Practitioners,” is a pilot project funded by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.

Stealth behavior allows cockroaches to seemingly vanish

Cockroaches, known for their stealth behavior, have a strategy up their sleeve only recently discovered by UC Berkeley biologists. They are able to quickly disappear under ledges by flinging themselves off at full speed, grabbing the edge with hook-like claws on their hind legs, and swinging like a pendulum to land upside-down underneath.

California poll by IGS shows new open primary ballot boosts moderate candidates

The new “top two” ballot used in California’s primary election today (Tuesday, June 5) appears to give moderate candidates in state races a 6-7 percent boost compared to the traditional, more restricted ballot, according to preliminary results of a new study by the University of California, Berkeley’s Institute of Governmental Studies.

Aging and breast cancer

A big step towards understanding the cellular basis for why women over the age of 50 are much more vulnerable to breast cancer has been taken by Berkeley Lab researchers. They determined that aging causes an increase in a type of adult stem cell believed to be at the root of many breast cancers, and a decrease in cells believed to serve as tumor suppressors.

A new tool to attack the mysteries of high-temperature superconductivity

Using ultrafast lasers, Berkeley Lab scientists have tackled the long-standing mystery of how Cooper pairs form in high-temperature superconductors. With pump and probe pulses spaced just trillionths of a second apart, the researchers used photoemission spectroscopy to map rapid changes in electronic states across the superconducting transition.

Hazy days: Berkeley Lab tackles pollution in Mongolia

Scientists at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) are known for designing high-efficiency cookstoves for Darfur and Ethiopia. Now they are applying their expertise to the windswept steppes of Mongolia, whose capital city, Ulaan Baatar, is among the most polluted cities in the world. The scientists are working with the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), a U.S. foreign aid agency, to improve air quality in the capital city by lowering emissions from outdated stoves and boilers.

Berkeley Lab study assesses residential cooking exhaust hoods’ ability to vent pollutants

Cooking exhaust hoods designed for home kitchens vary widely in their ability to capture and vent away the air pollutants generated by the gas burners on cook stoves, according to a study by two Berkeley Lab scientists.

Freecycling has viral effect on community spirit and generosity, study shows

Reinforcing that the best things in life are free, a new UC Berkeley study shows that online freebie-exchange communities such as “Freecycle” and “Couchsurfing” foster greater team spirit among their members than do cash-for-goods websites.

Computer model pinpoints prime materials for efficient carbon capture

Chemist Berend Smit and colleagues are working with the power industry to find the best materials to capture and sequester carbon dioxide.

I School grad student profiles rural Chinese Internet users

China has more than half a billion Internet users, 136 million of whom live in rural areas. School of Information PhD student Elisa Oreglia, in an award-winning ethnographic study, looks at how older, less-educated villagers — many of whom claim to be Web illiterate — often become comfortable with computers by observing their younger family members.