San Francisco was a few days into sheltering in place in March 2020 when Dr. Maya Petersen got a surprising and urgent request: Health officials wanted to know whether she could put together a model that would help them forecast what was shaping up to be a horrifying pandemic.

An array of problems, including overcrowding, led to a surge of COVID-19 cases in California prisons in 2020-2021, says a new report co-authored by UC Berkeley professor Amy Lerman.

Scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, have created a new COVID-19 therapeutic that could one day make treating SARS-CoV-2 infections as easy as using a nasal spray for allergies. Anders Näär, a professor of metabolic...

Transfusing young mice with blood from older rodents quickly triggers ageing, suggesting that cellular ageing isn't just a case of wear and tear. There is a longstanding hypothesis that surgically connecting an old mouse with a young rodent causes a transfer of blood that de-ages the older animal. While this benefits the older mouse, the effects on the young donor rodent were less clear. Irina Conboy at the University of California, Berkeley , and her colleagues transfused blood between young and old mice. Those aged 3 months got blood from animals that were approaching 2 years old. Two weeks later, the young mice had an increased number of senescent cells ? cells in the liver, kidneys and muscles that are damaged and stop dividing, but don't die. Strength tests also revealed the young mice became weaker after receiving the older rodents' blood. "Cell senescence is only part of the process of ageing," says Conboy. "That opens new horizons and helps explain why senolytics (drugs that clear senescent cells in the body) so far in clinical trials were less successful than people hoped."

In just a decade, CRISPR has become one of the most celebrated inventions in modern biology. It is swiftly changing how medical researchers study diseases: Cancer biologists are using the method to discover hidden vulnerabilities of tumor cells. Doctors are using CRISPR to edit genes that cause hereditary diseases. But CRISPR's influence extends far beyond medicine. Evolutionary biologists are using the technology to study Neanderthal brains and to investigate how our ape ancestors lost their tails. Plant biologists have edited seeds to produce crops with new vitamins or with the ability to withstand diseases. Some of them may reach supermarket shelves in the next few years. CRISPR has had such a quick impact that Dr. Doudna, a biochemist at the University of California, Berkeley, and her collaborator, Emmanuelle Charpentier of the Max Planck Unit for the Science of Pathogens in Berlin, won the 2020 Nobel Prize for chemistry. The award committee hailed their 2012 study as "an epoch-making experiment."

A new study shows that humans' tendency to drink alcohol might come from our primates' ancestors. The study published last month revealed findings that support the "drunken monkey hypothesis." Between June to September 2013, researchers observed the eating tendencies of black-handed spider monkeys for 12 hours each day on Barro Colorado Island in Panama. The monkeys are probably not getting drunk, University of California, Berkeley biologist Robert Dudley, who co-authored the study , said. In a 2014 book, "The Drunken Monkey: Why We Drink and Abuse Alcohol," Dudley explained some fruits eaten by primates have a "naturally high alcohol content of up to 7%." But he did not have data illustrating apes or monkeys sought out and preferred fermented fruits. "It (the study) is a direct test of the drunken monkey hypothesis," Dudley said in a news release. "Part one, there is ethanol in the food they're eating, and they're eating a lot of fruit. Then, part two, they're actually metabolizing alcohol — secondary metabolites, ethyl glucuronide and ethyl sulfate are coming out in the urine. What we don't know is how much of it they're eating and what the effects are behaviorally and physiologically. But it's confirmatory." This story appeared in dozens of media outlets. For more, see our press release at Berkeley News.

You've heard about the dangers of secondhand cigarette smoke, but what about secondhand bong smoke? The haze after a bubbly bong hit may appear harmless, but a study published in JAMA Network Open found bystanders may inhale air pollutants at concentrations more than twice federal air quality limits. Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, measured fine particulate matter (PM2.5) in a real-world setting where a group of young adults socially smoked cannabis with a bong for two hours in an ordinary household living room. Within the first 15 minutes of smoking, PM2.5 concentrations surpassed air quality levels deemed safe by the Environmental Protection Agency. "There's negative attitudes to secondhand tobacco smoke but not really to secondhand cannabis smoke," said lead study author Patton Nguyen, an industrial hygienist and a graduate of UC Berkeley School of Public Health. "What we want this study to do is really elucidate and help people understand that there are public health concerns." Fine particulate matter, or PM2.5, in the air can travel deep into the respiratory tract, reaching the lungs and affecting their function.