Subscribe
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.
Research archive
Campus to lead $27.5 million TerraSwarm Research Center
January 17, 2013: Researchers in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences have been awarded $27.5 million over five years to spearhead the new TerraSwarm Research Center, which will address the huge potential — and risks — of the pervasive integration of smart, networked sensors connecting our world. Edward A. Lee and Jan Rabaey will serve as director and associate director, respectively, of the new multi-university team. The grant is being awarded by the industry members of the Semiconductor Research Corporation and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency as a part of the Focus Center Research Program.
Arsenic in your rice? The Wellness Letter reports
January 14, 2013: While it’s well known that many private water wells contain high concentrations of arsenic, the substance made headlines recently for its presence, as well, in rice. The UC Berkeley Wellness Report looks at recent research findings, and suggest ways to reduce arsenic consumption while still enjoying the popular grain.
Planet makes weird loops around dusty star
January 12, 2013: UC Berkeley astronomer Paul Kalas has studied the star Fomalhaut for years because of its resemblance to our own solar system 4 billion years ago. New observations using the Hubble Space Telescope reveal that an already-known planet circling Fomalhaut has a highly eccentric orbit that suggests the presence of other planets.
Wild bees boost almond pollination by honey bees
January 10, 2013: Honeybees perform better when wild bees are around, at least when it comes to pollinating California almond crops, according to a new study co-authored by researchers at UC Davis and UC Berkeley. Native bees, such as bumblebees and carpenter bees, help increase the pollination efficiency of honey bees and the amount of fruit set. The findings illustrate the importance of pollinator diversity for the state’s $3 billion almond industry.
How to ‘un-invent’ America’s food system
January 10, 2013: In a special multi-article feature devoted to “diversified farming systems,” or DFS, for the December issue of the journal Ecology & Society, scientists from Berkeley and other institutions lay out a scientific case that biologically diversified agricultural practices can contribute substantially to food production while creating far fewer environmental harms than industrialized, conventional monoculture agriculture—that is, large swaths of land devoted to growing single crops using chemical inputs.
Farthest supernova yet for measuring cosmic history
January 9, 2013: The Supernova Cosmology Project, based at Berkeley Lab and headed by UC Berkeley physicist and Nobel Laureate Saul Perlmutter, has discovered the most distant supernova yet that can be used in cosmological studies. Announced at the American Astronomical Society meeting, it will help answer questions about dark energy and the fate of the universe.
Earth-size planets common in galaxy
January 8, 2013: Last year, astronomers were excited to discover that the number of exoplanets increases toward smaller sizes, suggesting that there are many Earth-size planets in the galaxy. A new analysis of three years of Kepler data shows that this increase plateaus around twice Earth size. Nevertheless, Earth-like planets occur around at least 17 percent of sun-like stars.
Exocomets may be as common as exoplanets
January 7, 2013: Astronomers have found thousands of potential exoplanets and many stars with massive disks of gas and dust that suggest planets are forming, but not much of the stuff intermediate between dust and planets, such as asteroids, planetesimals and comets. UC Berkeley astronomer Barry Welsh has looked closely at a number of stars with dust disks and found evidence that they also have comets.
Cheap and easy technique to snip DNA could revolutionize gene therapy
January 7, 2013: UC Berkeley’s Jennifer Doudna discovered that an enzyme used by bacteria to defend against viruses makes a simple, precise and cheap method of cutting DNA in order to insert new genes. The technique, now proved to work in human cells, could revolutionize genome engineering and transform gene therapy.
Less pavement, greater flower diversity lead to more bumblebee pollinators
December 24, 2012: In a study of California bumbebees, former Berkeley post-doc Shalene Jha, now at the University of Texas, and Berkeley professor Claire Kremen found that populations decreased when more land was paved, but increased with floral diversity. This suggests that farmers should plant flowering hedgerows and cover crops to encourage native pollinators.
Cellphone, GPS data suggest new strategy for alleviating traffic tie-ups
December 20, 2012: Tired of sitting in rush hour traffic? A new study demonstrates that asking everyone to cut their driving is only moderately effective in reducing congestion, but asking those in specific communities – those that contribute most to bottlenecks – may work better.
What do leeches, limpets and worms have in common?
December 19, 2012: As much as one-third of marine life, including clams, octupuses and worms, fall into a group called the lophotrochozoa, ancient creatues that originated more than 500 million years ago. Berkeley’s Daniel Rokhsar spearheaded a team that has now sequenced the genomes of 3 of these creatures, a limpet, a polychaete worm and a freshwater leech, to learn more about their evolution.
Scientists construct first map of how the brain organizes everything we see
December 19, 2012: Our eyes may be our window to the world, but how do we make sense of the thousands of images that flood our retinas each day? UC Berkeley scientists have found that the brain is wired to put in order all the categories of objects and actions that we see. They have created the first interactive map of how the brain organizes these groupings.
Big NSF grant funds research into training robots to work with humans
December 17, 2012: What if robots and humans, working together, were able to perform tasks in surgery and manufacturing that neither can do alone? That’s the question driving new cloud robotics research by UC Berkeley professors Ken Goldberg and Pieter Abbeel and colleagues from four other universities, who were awarded a $3.5 million grant from the National Science Foundation.
The grass-mud horse, online censorship, and China’s national identity
December 17, 2012: For the past decade, Xiao Qiang, an adjunct professor at the School of Information, has been documenting Internet censorship by the Chinese government. He also tracks the impact of emerging online bulletin boards, blog-hosting portals, and microblogs similar to Twitter — and ingenious strategies, including wordplay, for resisting control.
To revert breast cancer cells, give them the squeeze
December 17, 2012: UC Berkeley researchers have found that compression can guide malignant breast cells back to a normal growth pattern. The findings, presented at the American Society for Cell Biology meeting, demonstrate the influence of mechanical forces on a cell’s destiny.
UC Berkeley awarded $4 million ARPA-E grant for smart grid research
December 12, 2012: The Department of Energy has awarded $4 million over three years to UC Berkeley researchers to develop new ways to monitor the stability of electric power grids. The award is among 66 projects funded by DOE’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) “OPEN 2012″ program.
Mexican American toddlers lag in preliteracy skills, but not in their social skills, new study shows
December 11, 2012: Mexican American preschoolers fall behind their white counterparts in terms of early language and preliteracy skills, but the social competencies between the two groups are indistinguishable, according to a new UC Berkeley/UCLA study.
Study gives insight into crowd-sourced commuting
December 10, 2012: Sharing real-time information about traffic or other transportation delays provides drivers and riders greater control over their commute, and it could help local authorities improve transportation planning, says a new study conducted by CITRIS researchers in partnership with San Jose and Ericsson. The study was part of a Connected Commuting Task Force funded by the New Cities Foundation.
Conservatives can be persuaded to care more about the environment, study finds
December 10, 2012: When it comes to climate change, deforestation and toxic waste, the assumption has been that conservative views are intractable. But new research from UC Berkeley suggests that such opinions can be changed with messages couched in terms of fending off threats to the “purity” and “sanctity” of Earth and our bodies.
Survey shows most Americans want a ‘Do Not Mail’ initiative
December 7, 2012: A new survey by UC Berkeley School of Law finds that a very large majority of Americans, across all ideologies, age groups, and income levels support a Do Not Mail initiative similar to the popular Do Not Call registry.
New gene found that turns carbs into fat, could be target for future drugs
December 6, 2012: UC Berkeley researchers have identified a gene that plays a critical role in converting dietary carbohydrates into fat. The gene, called BAF60c, could eventually be important in the development of treatments for such diseases as fatty liver and diabetes.
Moore Foundation grant to boost search for dark energy
December 5, 2012: A $2.1 million grant from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation to the Berkeley Center for Cosmological Physics will fund revolutionary technologies that the proposed BigBOSS project will use to study dark energy with unprecedented precision. BigBOSS, based at Berkeley Lab, will probe the expansion history of the universe, says BCCP director Uros Seljak. professor of physics.
Scientists find oldest dinosaur, or closest relative yet
December 5, 2012: UC Berkeley graduate student Sarah Werning and University of Washington post-doc Sterling Nesbitt analyzed a museum fossil collected 80 years ago and concluded that the dog-sized creature may have been the earliest dinosaur yet found, having walked Earth 10 million years before previously known dinosaurs.
Let there be clean light: Kerosene lamps spew black carbon, should be replaced, study says
November 28, 2012: Kerosene lamps, the primary source of light for more than a billion people in developing nations, churns out black carbon at levels previously overlooked in climate warming estimates, according to a new study led by researchers at UC Berkeley’s School of Public Health and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The new findings result in a 20-fold increase to previous estimates of black carbon emissions from kerosene-fueled lighting. The good news is that affordable, cleaner alternatives exist.
Study finds toxic or untested flame retardants in most furniture
November 28, 2012: A study by Arlene Blum, a visiting scholar at UC Berkeley, and colleagues at Duke University found that 85 percent of all couches tested contained flame retardants that are either toxic or lack adequate health information. They urge California and other states to revise laws so that toxic chemicals are not required in order to insure fire-safe furniture.
Are you ready for flu season?
November 26, 2012: Each year the flu puts more than 200,000 Americans in the hospital and causes between 3,000 and 49,000 deaths. Are you protected? The UC Berkeley Wellness Letter offers tips for arming yourself against this year’s flu bug.
Scientists look to Hawaii’s bugs for clues to origins of biodiversity
November 21, 2012: The Hawaiian Islands are a perfect laboratory for learning how plants and animals colonize new ecological niches, since every time a volcano sticks its head above the waves, life invades. A new $2 million grant from the NSF will allow UC Berkeley researchers to study how insects and spiders explore new niches and create new biodiversity on the newest of the islands, Hawaii.
Eating estrogenic plants alters hormones in monkeys, may increase aggression and sex
November 19, 2012: Male red colobus monkeys that ate more of an estrogen-containing plant not only had higher levels of the hormones estradiol and cortisol in their systems, they were more aggressive, had more sex and groomed less. The finding that the consumption of plant-based hormones may have affected primate behavior suggests that it could have played an important role in primate evolution.
Flame retardants linked to neurodevelopmental delays in children
November 15, 2012: A new UC Berkeley study adds to the health concerns over flame retardants widely used in foam upholstered furniture. Researchers have found that children exposed to PBDEs in the womb and in early childhood had poorer attention, IQ and fine motor skills.
