Devices that create ionized plasmas could be life-savers in the developing world or on the battlefield, providing an inexpensive way to sterilize water and medical instruments.

UC Berkeley-led researchers have found a dramatic one-third reduction in severe pneumonia diagnoses among children in homes with smoke-reducing chimneys on their cookstoves. Reducing wood smoke could have a major impact on the burden of pneumonia, the leading cause of child mortality in the world, the researchers said. A separate pilot study also found a link between prenatal maternal exposure to woodsmoke and poorer performance in markers for IQ among school-aged children.

How to feed a fast-growing world where 900 million people are undernourished? Claire Kremen, a conservation biologist, sees traditional, sustainable practices as the solution. She and a group of Berkeley colleagues are establishing a new Berkeley Center for Diversified Farming Systems to find ways to scale up agroecological practices around the globe. A special report from the College of Natural Resources.

Ever wonder how birds are able to fly in the rain? Robert Dudley and Victor Ortega-Jimenez showed that hummingbirds shake their heads with 34 g’s of force, much like a dog flings off water. But hummingbirds do this in flight in the heaviest downpour without losing control.

In 2005, Charlie Huizenga and two UC Berkeley MBA graduates started Adura Technologies to install energy efficient wireless lighting systems in buildings. Their technology, based on innovations by UC Berkeley architects and engineers, has significantly reduced lighting costs in more than 2 million square feet of public and private buildings, including UC Berkeley’s undergraduate library.

School of Information professor Marti Hearst predicts the future of online search interfaces in an article in “Communications of the ACM.” According to Hearst, “user interfaces will involve support for natural human interaction.”

Newly minted Nobel Laureate Saul Perlmutter is among the physicists and astronomers interviewed in the premier episode of a four-part NOVA series, “The Fabric of the Cosmos,” which aired November 2, 2011 on PBS stations around the country. In the San Francisco Bay Area, the one-hour episode was viewed on KQED-TV at 9 p.m.

David Graves, UC Berkeley professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering, is experimenting with low-temperature plasmas as a way to remove tenacious infectious molecules, such as the prions that cause mad cow disease, from surgical instruments. He hopes low-cost plasma devices can be used in developing countries to sterilize water, wounds and medical supplies.