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For California botany, The Jepson Manual is the authoritative reference book. Now the super-sized tome has been revised to incorporate a wealth of new knowledge about the state’s huge diversity of native plants. Scholars and staff at the Jepson Herbarium oversaw its 2nd edition, published by UC Press.
Audio archive
I School dean talks tech innovation on Canadian radio
February 3, 2012: AnnaLee Saxenian, dean of the School of Information and author of The New Argonauts: Regional Advantage in a Global Economy, talks about what happened in Silicon Valley to make it the world’s tech innovation center, and how the future of growth and innovation will depend on the new Argonauts — experts who move information fluidly between creative hubs all over the world.
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.
Botanical art as ‘capturing a plant’s soul’
January 6, 2012: A camera can record a plant, but a botanical artist captures its soul, says botanical illustrator Catherine Watters in an audio interview with Paul Licht, director of the UC Botanical Garden. Works by Watters and other artists, along with classes and programs, will be featured at the Garden’s third-annual Plants Illustrated exhibition, Jan. 14 to Feb. 3.
Can ‘carbon ranching’ offset emissions in California?
December 12, 2011: Could cultivating dense fields of weeds help mitigate climate change by soaking up carbon dioxide from the atmosphere? Berkeley scientists Dennis Baldocchi and Whendee Silver are exploring that possibility in California’s agricultural heartland, the San Joaquin Valley. National Public Radio reports.
I School prof’s word of the year for NPR: occupy
December 8, 2011: Berkeley linguist Geoffrey Nunberg picks “occupy” as the word of the year for National Public Radio’s Fresh Air show with Terry Gross, because it “has actually shaped the perception of important events.”
Record massive black holes discovered lurking in monster galaxies
December 5, 2011: UC Berkeley astronomer Chung-Pei Ma, graduate student Nicholas McConnell and colleagues have discovered the largest black holes to date ‑- two monsters with masses equivalent to 10 billion suns that are threatening to consume anything, even light, within a region five times the size of our solar system.
PBS Newshour reports on black hole discovery today at 3 & 6 p.m.
KALW features I School prof’s teaching with Wikipedia
December 2, 2011: When he discovered a hole in Wikipedia’s coverage of cyber law, I School faculty member Brian Carver encouraged his students to step up to the task as volunteer Wikieditors. A J School reporter features Carver in her “Crosscurrents” radio segment on universities’ engagement with the online encyclopedia.
Chancellor: ‘I sincerely apologize’
November 22, 2011: En route to Thanksgiving back East with his family, Chancellor Robert Birgeneau recorded an audio message to the UC Berkeley community apologizing for the events of Nov. 9, and taking full responsibility.
ROHO staffer on Richmond’s remarkable boxcar village
October 31, 2011: One of the migrations detailed in the Bancroft Library’s “California Crossings” exhibit is that of Pueblo Indians who, upon arriving in the Bay Area, were housed in a Richmond “boxcar village.” Bancroft staffer Sam Redman talks about the village in a KALW radio interview, which also includes clips of ROHO interviews with Native Americans who lived in the village.
‘Kids First’ author David Kirp’s ideas on a new national agenda for youth
October 27, 2011: The Goldman School of Public Policy’s David Kirp outlines his ideas for reforming American education and putting “Kids First.”
Cal alum and playwright Wajahat Ali looks back on 9/11, Islamophobia
September 9, 2011: Playwright, essayist and attorney Wajahat Ali, a 2002 Berkeley English graduate, recently helped write a report on Islamophobia in the U.S. Ali talks with KQED Radio about the report and his play “The Domestic Crusaders” — about a Muslim family’s post-9/11 experience — which will be performed in New York City this weekend.
To catch a speeding bullet
August 1, 2011: East Palo Alto’s soaring homicide rate in the 1990s prompted EECS alumnus Robert Showen, an acoustics specialist in neighboring Menlo Park, to develop technology that could locate gunfire and tell police where it’s coming from.
Digital divide or digital bridge?
April 19, 2011: In an I-School event, four prominent thinkers debate the potential for electronic technologies to contribute to the socioeconomic development of the world’s impoverished communities.
Watching history unfold: Student POVs on the ‘Arab Spring’
April 14, 2011: Popular protests aimed at toppling rulers and promoting democracy have swept across North Africa and the Middle East since December 2010. What do UC Berkeley students make of the events of the so-called “Arab Spring”? Twelve of them share their views.
UC Berkeley recordings of Ishi added to Library of Congress registry
April 6, 2011: Recordings of songs and stories told by Ishi, a Yahi tribe member who was taken in by UC Berkeley anthropologists in the early 1900s, have been added to the Library of Congress registry. Ishi, who emerged from the Mount Lassen foothills in 1911, was initially thought to be the last-surviving member of the Yahi tribe. The recordings are part of the collection at Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology.
Newt podcast with Botanical Garden director Paul Licht
March 3, 2011: The UC Botanical Garden is home to two newt species, Taricha torosa (California newt) and Taricha granulosa (rough-skin newt). The winter rains prompt the newts to migrate to the Garden’s Japanese Pool where their mating rituals and general cavorting can be easily observed by visitors. The garden is offering several opportunities to get up close and personal with newts this March including this podcast with garden director Paul Licht.
Jim Crow signs as symbols of subjugation, trophies of triumph
February 15, 2011: In the mid 1960s, landmark laws brought an official end to the system of legal segregation known as Jim Crow. Professor Elizabeth Abel explores the “visual politics” of a system that shaped experience and perception throughout the American South (and beyond) for nearly a century — in a book praised by literary critic Henry Louis Gates as giving “new focus to our national dialogue on race.”
Sotomayor presides over packed moot court finals
February 4, 2011: U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, saying the arguments gave her “an injection of hope,” presided over the finals of the James Patterson McBaine Honors Moot Court Competition before an enthusiastic crowd of more than 2,000 spectators packed inside Zellerbach Hall.
Legalize marijuana? Pro, con, or undecided, Berkeley students sound off on Prop. 19
October 19, 2010:
On Nov. 2, state voters will decide on a controversial and quintessentially California ballot measure, Proposition 19, the “Regulate, Control and Tax Cannabis Act of 2010.” Where do students at Berkeley, with its reputation for liberalism (accurate or not) come down on the issue? Eleven campus undergraduates think out loud about the pros and cons of Prop. 19.
43 years after ‘Titicut Follies,’ it’s Berkeley, the movie
September 14, 2010: With dozens of documentaries under his belt, Frederick Wiseman has found that “when you turn the camera off, the interesting thing will happen.” That, in part, is why he plans to shoot some 250 hours of film for his exploration of life at Berkeley.
Gulf oil drilling is just one facet of South’s surfeit of heavy industry
August 17, 2010:
Cal alum Rachel Edmonds ’09 is keenly interested in places like the Gulf of Mexico, where “dirty” industries provide jobs but can mar the landscape and degrade the environment. She recently visited many such sites in the American South — where much of the nation’s heavy industry is found — on a travel fellowship given annually by the Department of Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning.
How Japanese Americans preserved traditions behind barbed wire
June 10, 2010:
For several decades, Berkeley staff member Shirley Muramoto Wong has tracked down elderly artists who, during World War II, taught traditional Japanese arts while imprisoned in far-flung “relocation” camps. In coaxing out and recording their memories, Muramoto — herself a master of the koto — has helped bring to light a little-known aspect of U.S. history.
At campus health center, Tangy Voce provides ‘emotional therapy’ and a chance to sing during the workday
April 28, 2010: For 10 years, Tangy Voce, a chorus made up of current and retired faculty and staff, has offered its members an opportunity to grow as musicians and gain confidence as singers.
Adventurous musical doubleheader to raise money for jazz students
April 22, 2010: This weekend two benefits for the Jazz and Improvised Music Fund will feature pianist and composer Myra Melford’s group, Trio M.
Giggles give clues to hyena’s social status
March 30, 2010: The giggle call of the spotted hyena tells other hyenas not only the age and identity of the animal, but also its social status, according to a new UC Berkeley study.
Marching on Sacramento, Berkeley students make the case for higher ed to legislators
March 1, 2010: A small group of UC Berkeley students are en route this morning to Sacramento, where they plan to join a small army of their peers in urging state legislators to reinvest in public higher education.
Student parent, born in an Andean village, aims to go global in defense of the dispossessed
January 15, 2010: Consuelo Bustinza’s journey has taken her, so far, from a tiny Andean village to a place she describes as “a big ocean of knowledge and opportunities” where one learns to “solve big problems,” UC Berkeley. Diminutive, energetic, and startlingly self-possessed, the campus senior aspires to one day be a voice for the dispossessed in the international arena.
