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The competition between farmers and fish for precious water in California is intensifying in wine country, suggests a new study by UC Berkeley biologists. The study links higher death rates for threatened juvenile steelhead trout with low water levels in the summer and the acreage of vineyards upstream.
Research archive
New material cuts energy costs of separating gas for plastics and fuels
March 29, 2012: In producing hydrocarbons for the chemical industry, refiners must first crack oil at high temperatures and then cool the mixture to liquefy the gases for separation. This energy-intensive chilling step could be eliminated thanks to a new material that can do the gas separation at high temperature.
Big grant for Big Data: NSF awards $10 million to harness vast quantities of data
March 29, 2012: Never before has data analysis been so hot. The quest to capture the massive amounts of data being produced in our world — and thus unveil answers to some of society’s most vexing problems — has gotten a $10 million boost, via a National Science Foundation award to UC Berkeley.
A sociologist’s guide to trust
March 28, 2012: The word “trust” gets bandied about a lot when talking about the Web. But as Coye Cheshire, professor at the School of Information, will tell you, trust is a thing that happens between people, not things.
Do you really need a colonoscopy?
March 27, 2012: Screening for colorectal cancer is a proven lifesaver. So why are up to a half of Americans over 50 not getting the recommended tests for this cancer? Overemphasis on colonoscopy is part of the reason, say editors of the UC Berkeley Wellness Letter.
Turning kitchen gadgets (and more) into low-cost lab equipment
March 26, 2012: Postdoc Lina Nilsson and engineering colleagues have been developing low-cost, accessible devices for doing lab research — then sharing their blueprints and instructions online for creating do-it-yourself equipment. Their inventive concept won first place for social entrepreneurship in the 2010-11 Big Ideas @ Berkeley contest.
Grad student demonstrates long-predicted effect on cosmic background radiation
March 20, 2012: Nick Hand, a graduate student in astronomy, has confirmed a subtle effect on the cosmic microwave background radiation that was predicted 40 years ago. While an undergraduate at Princeton, Hand combined new survey data of distant galaxies to show that the temperature of the background radiation – a remnant of the Big Bang – is shifted when it passes through a galaxy cluster.
ChronoZoom: A deep dive into the history of everything 
March 14, 2012: Working with eight UC Berkeley students and with resources from Microsoft Research Connections, geologist Walter Alvarez has created a new piece of Web-based software that allows students, researchers and the general public to cruise through cosmic timelines. Called ChronoZoom, it could help students visualize the sweep of history.
Law students play key role in proposed consumer-protection bill
March 12, 2012:
Berkeley Law students have been doing yeoman’s work on the Fair Debt Buyers Practices Act, now before California state senators in Sacramento. The bill would curb abuses by predatory debt buyers.
Scientists tap the genius of babies and youngsters to make computers smarter
March 12, 2012: People often wonder if computers make children smarter. UC Berkeley scientists are asking the reverse question: Can children make computers smarter? And their answer appears to be ‘yes’ as they tap the cognitive smarts of babies, toddlers and preschoolers to program computers to think more like humans.
Risks of bioenergy underestimated, new report says
March 8, 2012: The net effect on climate of large-scale biofuels deployment is highly uncertain, and could actually lead to a net increase in greenhouse gas emissions, according to a new paper co-authored by UC Berkeley researchers. The authors argue for a more comprehensive risk assessment of bioenergy use so policymakers can make more informed decisions.
Berkeley psychologists get into the heads of schoolchildren
March 8, 2012: UC Berkeley psychology professors Silvia Bunge and Stephen Hinshaw are scanning the brains of kids to learn how they learn. The findings may help educators and revolutionize classrooms.
New discovery is key to understanding neutrino transformations
March 8, 2012: The joint China-U.S. Daya Bay experiment to explore the multiple personalities of neutrinos announced its first results today (Thursday, Mar. 8), paving the way for further experiments to determine whether neutrinos and antineurtinos have similar split identities. If not, it may provide a clue to why the universe has more matter than antimatter, and thus why we exist.
UC’s affirmative action wars — the Atkinson years
March 7, 2012: “Entrepreneurial President,” a new UC Press book by Center for Studies in Higher Education researcher Patricia Palfrey, documents Richard Atkinson’s tenure as UC president startingg with the dawn of the post-affirmative-action age. He presided from 1995 to 2003.
Going mental: Study highlights brain’s flexibility, gives hope for natural-feeling neuroprosthetics
March 4, 2012: Neuroscientists have shown that the same brain processes used to learn new motor skills, such as riding a bike or driving a car, are also necessary to master abstract skills, such as working out the next chess move, or controlling a robotic arm using brain activity alone. The findings could be a major boost to the development of thought-controlled, natural-feeling prosthetic devices.
Wellness Letter explores the alcohol-cancer connection
March 1, 2012: Should a woman curtail her consumption of alcohol to reduce the risk of breast cancer? Or should she continue to drink to help protect her heart? The UC Berkeley explores the nuances of recent research findings.
Apology and the crisis in Afghanistan
February 29, 2012: The burning of copies of the Koran by American troops in Afghanistan has triggered a wave of riots and assassinations there. Have U.S. apologies helped or hurt? Jeremy Adam Smith, Web editor at the campus’s Greater Good Science Center, reflects on how to make peace by expressing regrets.
Black and Latino seniors’ retirement insecurity detailed
February 27, 2012: Black and Latino seniors face tougher times in retirement than American seniors as a whole, says a new research brief based on U.S. census data. Retirees of color, especially Blacks and Latinos, “rely more heavily on Social Security and have less access to other types of retirement income than their white counterparts,” says study author Nari Rhee of the Center for Labor Research and Education.
Upper class more likely to be scofflaws due to greed, study finds
February 27, 2012: The upper class has a higher propensity for cheating, driving illegally and endorsing unethical behavior in the workplace, believing – as did Gordon Gekko in the movie “Wall Street” – that “greed is good,” according to a new UC Berkeley study.
Huts, artifacts in Jordanian excavation offer new perspectives on life 20,000 years ago
February 21, 2012: Archaeologists working in eastern Jordan have announced its discovery of 20,000-year-old hut structures, the earliest yet found in that country. Along with materials found in the huts, the find suggests the area was once intensively occupied and offers a new perspective on how humans lived at the time.
Yosemite’s alpine chipmunks take genetic hit from climate change
February 19, 2012: Global warming has driven Yosemite’s alpine chipmunks to higher ground, prompting a startling decline in the species’ genetic diversity. The genetic erosion occurred in the relatively short span of 90 years, highlighting the rapid threat changing climate can pose to a species, and putting the alpine chipmunk on a trajectory toward extinction.
On-site worker rescue plan urged for confined spaces
February 13, 2012: Many employers rely upon public fire departments to rescue workers in confined spaces. That is a mistake, according to a UC Berkeley analysis of hundreds of worker deaths over 13 years in the United States. Companies need to station trained, rescue personnel on site so they can pull workers out within moments in an emergency, the study concludes.
Breakthrough in designing cheaper, more efficient catalysts for fuel cells
February 9, 2012: UC Berkeley chemists Chris Chang, Jeff Long and Marcin Majda have redesigned catalysts in ways that could have a profound impact on the chemical industry as well as on the growing market for hydrogen fuel cell vehicles.
Advanced power-grid research finds low-cost, low-carbon future in West
February 9, 2012: The least expensive way for the Western U.S. to reduce greenhouse gas emissions enough to help prevent the worst consequences of global warming is to replace coal with renewable and other sources of energy that may include nuclear power, according to a new study by UC Berkeley researchers.
Sweet news about chocolate… but
February 8, 2012: Several recent large-scale research reviews have provided the best evidence yet that chocolate is good for your heart — good news as the national chocolate holiday approaches. The UC Berkeley Wellness letter sums up the research, but adds a few caveats about chocolate’s pitfalls.
UC Berkeley grad student’s research spurred by Gulf oil spill
February 8, 2012: Soon after the April 2010 explosion on the Deepwater Horizon offshore oil platform killed 11 workers and spilled 5 million barrels of crude into the Gulf of Mexico, UC Berkeley graduate student Thomas Azwell packed his bags and headed to Louisiana. Azwell teamed up with researchers in the Gulf to develop marsh restoration technology that could impact remediation efforts nationwide.
Solving the Brueghel ‘imbroglio’ with modern, digital tools
February 7, 2012: Thanks to a grant from CITRIS, associate art professor Elizabeth Honig is employing some decidedly 21st century digital tools to help sort out a controversy surrounding Brueghel scholarship.
The key to biofuel’s carbon footprint? Location, location, location
February 3, 2012: Determining the climate impact of using grass to make cellulosic ethanol depends on how and where it’s grown, processed and transported, according to a new study published in Environmental Research Letters. Key factors affecting the greenhouse-gas emissions of cellulosic ethanol production were the amount of soil carbon emitted or stored during growth of the grass, and greenhouse-gas offset credits for electricity exported to the grid by biorefineries, said the authors, who are UC Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory researchers at the Energy Biosciences Institute.
Energy secretary joins groundbreaking for new LBNL research facility
February 2, 2012: U.S. Secretary of Energy Steven Chu joined UC and Lawrence Berkeley Lab (LBNL) leaders Feb. 1 to break ground on the lab’s new Computational Research and Theory facility.
Professors’ innovations benefit society, economy
February 1, 2012: Cutting-edge research is a hallmark of UC Berkeley, and it should come as no surprise that faculty members are eager to see their discoveries put to use. Many, such as chemistry dean Richard Mathies, have formed start-ups to develop their inventions to a point where they become viable in the marketplace, benefiting not only society but the university as well.
Scientists decode brain waves to eavesdrop on what we hear 
January 31, 2012: Stroke victims or paralyzed people unable to speak may someday be able to communicate via synthesizers that decode their internal speech and play it back. That hope comes from research by UC Berkeley neuroscientists Brian Pasley and Robert Knight, who have successfully decoded brain waves to predict what a person heard.
