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Whether we’re listening to Bach or the blues, our brains are wired to make music-color connections depending on how the melodies make us feel, according to new research from UC Berkeley. For instance, Mozart’s jaunty Flute Concerto No. 1 in G major is most often associated with bright yellow and orange, whereas his dour Requiem in D minor is more likely to be linked to dark, bluish gray.
Press Release archive
Media Advisory: Gov. Jerry Brown to address 2013 political science graduates
May 17, 2013: California Gov. Jerry Brown will address UC Berkeley political science graduates May 20.
Media Advisory: Apple Co-Founder Steve Wozniak to Address Berkeley’s 2013 Graduates
May 16, 2013:
Apple co-founder, Silicon Valley icon, and philanthropist Steve Wozniak, a UC Berkeley alumnus, will deliver the commencement address. The event will also include remarks by outgoing Chancellor Robert Birgeneau and this year’s top graduating senior Ritankar Das, a double major in bioengineering and chemical biology from Fremont, Calif. During the ceremony, Das will receive the University Medal for his scholarship, public service and humanity.
Wireless signals could transform brain trauma diagnostics
May 14, 2013: New technology developed at UC Berkeley is using wireless signals to provide real-time, non-invasive diagnoses of brain swelling or bleeding. The device could potentially become a cost-effective tool for medical diagnostics and to triage injuries in areas where access to medical care, especially medical imaging, is limited.
Racial minorities live on the front lines of heat risk, study finds
May 14, 2013: Some racial groups are more likely to bear the brunt of extreme heat waves because of where they live, finds a new UC Berkeley study. The study highlight racial disparities at a time when the frequency and intensity of extreme heat waves is expected to increase with climate change.
Eric Holder, Jerry Brown, Steve Wozniak among graduation speakers
May 9, 2013: U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and California Gov. Jerry Brown are among the political leaders, innovators and pundits set to address newly minted UC Berkeley graduates at ceremonies starting this weekend (May 11-12).
An 18-year-old wunderkind named top graduating senior 
May 9, 2013: Ritankar Das, 18, double major in bioengineering and chemical biology, is the youngest University Medalist in more than a century. He will be graduating from UC Berkeley in only three years with more than 200 credits and a GPA of 3.99.
Heady mathematics: Describing popping bubbles in a foam
May 9, 2013: Applied mathematicians James Sethian and Robert Saye from UC Berkeley and Berkeley Lab have discovered a way to mathematically describe the evolution of bubbles in a foam, and have used the equations to create a computer-generated video showing how the process proceeds.
Howard Hughes Medical Institute names three new campus investigators
May 9, 2013: Three young faculty members – Nicole King, Michael Rape & Russell Vance – have won the most sought-after appointment for a researcher at any American university: as a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator. The institute will pay their salaries in the Department of Molecular & Cell Biology and provide research funding, freeing them from constant application for federal research grants.
Hit a 95 mph baseball? Scientists pinpoint how we see it coming
May 8, 2013: How does San Francisco Giants slugger Pablo Sandoval swat a 95 mph fastball, or tennis icon Venus Williams see the oncoming ball, let alone return her sister Serena’s 120 mph serves? For the first time, vision scientists at UC Berkeley have pinpointed how the brain tracks fast-moving objects.
Poison lips? Troubling levels of toxic metals found in cosmetics
May 2, 2013: UC Berkeley researchers found lead, cadmium, chromium, aluminum and five other metals in a sample of 32 different lipsticks and lip glosses commonly found in drugstores and department stores. Some of the metals were detected at levels that could raise potential health concerns.
Is antimatter anti-gravity?
April 30, 2013: Most physicists suspect that antimatter and normal matter weigh the same, that is, they are affected the same way by gravity. No direct measurements exist, however, that prove they do. UC Berkeley scientists, part of the ALPHA collaboration at CERN, are working on just such an experiment and have some very rough results.
White House honors student working to stop human trafficking
April 29, 2013: Graduate student Minh Dang has been named a White House Champion of Change. She is among a group of Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander women cited for extraordinary commitment to their communities and the nation.
Media Advisory: May 3 public talk by Fabiola Gianotti, co-discoverer of Higgs boson
April 25, 2013: Physicist Fabiola Gianotti, co-discoverer of the Higgs boson at the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva, Switzerland, will deliver a free public lecture, “The Higgs Boson and Our Life.” The talk is part of a 3-day celebration of UC Berkeley physicist Bruno Zumino, whose theory of supersymmetry has emerged as a possible explanation for the variety of fundamental particles seen in nature.
Ten Berkeley faculty named to American Academy of Arts and Sciences
April 24, 2013: Ten Berkeley professors have been named members of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a prestigious 233-year-old honorary society of national leaders from academia, business, public affairs and the humanities.
People care about the source of cash, attach less value to ‘tainted’ wealth
April 23, 2013: It’s no accident that money obtained through dishonest or illegal means is called “dirty money.” A new UC Berkeley study suggests that when people perceive money as morally tainted, they also view it as having less value and purchasing power, challenging the belief that all money is green, and that people will cross ethical boundaries to amass it.
Lost your keys? Your cat? The brain can rapidly mobilize a search party
April 21, 2013: A contact lens on the bathroom floor, an escaped hamster in the backyard, a car key in a bed of gravel: How are we able to focus so sharply to find that proverbial needle in a haystack? UC Berkeley scientists have discovered that when we embark on a targeted search, various visual and non-visual regions of the brain mobilize to track down a person, animal or thing.
Campus announces 2013-14 freshman admissions numbers
April 18, 2013: More than 14,000 students have been offered admission to UC Berkeley’s 2013-14 freshman class, according to data campus officials released today (Thursday, April 18). A record high number of more than 67,600 students had submitted applications.
Researchers find out why some stress is good for you
April 16, 2013: Chronic stress is known to cause major health problems, yet acute stress is thought to improve people’s performance and health. A new study by UC Berkeley professor Daniela Kaufer shows why that is. Stress generates new nerve cells in the brain that, two weeks later, help people learn better.
UC Berkeley selected to build NASA’s next space weather satellite
April 16, 2013: NASA has awarded UC Berkeley’s Space Sciences Laboratory up to $200 million to build a satellite to determine how Earth’s weather affects weather at the edge of space, in hopes of improving forecasts of extreme “space weather” that can disrupt global positioning satellites (GPS) and radio communications.
From high school dropout to U.S. Gates Cambridge scholar 
April 16, 2013: Justin Park dropped out of high school, but he never lost his love of literature and learning. After 20 years as a bartender, bike messenger and military man, Park returned to school at UC Berkeley, graduated — and now has been selected as a Gates Cambridge Scholar, a top world honor.
Media Advisory: How Deepwater Horizon is linked to other disasters
April 11, 2013:
Robert Bea, an expert witness in the ongoing civil trial to determine the causes of BP’s oil rig blowout in 2010 in the Gulf of Mexico, will discuss the common threads linking Deepwater Horizon to other major engineering disasters.
Launch of antimalarial drug a triumph for UC Berkeley, synthetic biology
April 11, 2013: The best therapy today for malaria is a drug combination that includes a derivative of artemisinin, now solely available from plants. On April 11, Sanofi began production of the first semi-synthetic version of artemisinin, derived from yeast developed by biotech company Amyris based on discoveries in the laboratory of Jay Keasling at UC Berkeley.
Berkeley professor to testify in trial of former Guatemalan dictator
April 4, 2013: Professor Beatriz Manz has been called to testify as an expert eyewitness in the genocide trial of a former Guatemalan military dictator.
Rising temperature difference between hemispheres could dramatically shift rainfall patterns in tropics
April 2, 2013: UC Berkeley climatologist John Chiang, geography graduate student Andrew Friedman and colleagues from the University of Washington found that changes in the temperature difference between the Northern and Southern hemispheres during the 20th century were linked to catastrophic changes in tropical rainfall. As the difference rises, the tropics could see future rainfall disruptions.
California’s online registration drive draws broader voter base
March 26, 2013: A new Berkeley study of California’s new online voter registration system shows some striking results, including that more registrants come from low- and middle-income neighborhoods than expected.
Ph.D. students rethink the tenure track, scope out non-academic jobs
March 20, 2013: Traditionally, the holy grail for doctoral students has been a professorship at a prestigious university. But in a sign of changing times, many Ph.D. students are now seeking jobs outside higher ed. Enter “Beyond Academia,” a career conference organized by Ph.D. students and postdocs.
Professor makes case for U.S.-Mexico border without walls
March 19, 2013: Against the background of fierce debate on immigration reform, Michael Dear’s Why Walls Won’t Work examines the often-thriving, but threatened, cross-border lives in communities straddling the U.S.-Mexico border.
Americans and religion increasingly parting ways, new survey shows
March 12, 2013: Religious affiliation in the United States is at its lowest point since it began to be tracked in the 1930s, according to analysis of newly released survey data by researchers from UC Berkeley and Duke University. Last year, one in five Americans claimed they had no religious preference, more than double the number reported in 1990.
Evidence that comets could have seeded life on Earth
March 5, 2013: UC Berkeley and University of Hawaii scientists have shown that complex molecules can form on icy rocks in space, suggesting that comets may have seeded early Earth with the building blocks of life. The team zapped icy snowballs of carbon dioxide and hydrocarbons, producing complex molecules, such as dipeptides, that are capable of catalyzing the formation of more complex structures.
