New research points to lessons from Dutch cannabis system

The Netherlands’s system of quasi-legal retail marijuana sales – steadily evolving since 1976 – may have modestly increased the number of marijuana users, but does not seem to have intensified their use of marijuana or the likelihood that they will move on to harder drugs, says a new UC Berkeley study in the journal Addiction.

Ferroelectrics could pave way for ultra-low power computing

UC Berkeley engineers have shown that by using ferroelectric materials, they can pump up the charge accumulated at a capacitor for a given voltage, a phenomenon called negative capacitance. The achievement could reduce the power draw of today’s electronics, and break the bottleneck that has stalled improvements in computer clock speed.

A century later, Ishi still has lessons to teach

On the 100th anniversary of the making of the Yahi survivor’s historic “wood duck” recording, a daylong conference dedicated itself to correcting the record, and to remembering him as an educator, a pioneer and a man.

Catch an exploding star

Don’t miss the supernova of a generation! Discoverer Peter Nugent of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory told PBS NewsHour how, when and where to find it in the night sky, preferably after Monday’s full moon. Hint: snag a good pair of binoculars.

There’s something in the California air

UC scientists built and worked in towers — some as tall as 1,500 feet — as part of the largest single atmospheric research effort in the state. The data they’ve collected will guide policymakers dealing with air pollution.

Long distances can’t keep this pair apart

UC Berkeley researchers have found evidence that leafflower trees and leafflower moths, two species that are mutually dependent upon each other, managed to colonize South Pacific islands separately, and then reconnect again. The findings contradict a long-standing belief in island biology that highly specialized organisms cannot establish themselves on remote islands.

Success of amphibian social networking spawns Reptile BioBlitz

Photos and observations posted to the website of the Global Amphibian BioBlitz now cover more than 700 species: 10 percent of the world’s frog, toad and salamander species that the social networking effort hopes to track. This success has now spawned a Reptile BioBlitz.