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UC Berkeley chemists have analyzed the isotopic composition of nitrous oxide – a greenhouse gas – in air samples from as far back as 1940 and found the fingerprint of nitrogen-based fertilizer, proving definitively that the 20 percent increase in atmospheric nitrogen since the Industrial Revolution is largely due to the Green Revolution.
Tag: chemistry
Four UC Berkeley scientists elected to National Academy of Sciences
May 1, 2012:
Four University of California, Berkeley, faculty members – physicists John Clarke and Bernard Sadoulet, chemist John Hartwig and ecologist Mary Power – have been elected members or foreign associates of the National Academy of Sciences, bringing UC Berkeley’s total NAS membership to 141.
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.
$3.5 million gift from Dow to develop sustainable chemistry education
February 24, 2012:
With the support of a $3.5 million gift from The Dow Chemical Company Foundation, the College of Chemistry will rebuild its aging undergraduate teaching labs and design a new curriculum based on the principles of sustainability and green chemistry.
Q&A: Carolyn Bertozzi on her love affair with sugar biology
October 18, 2011:
Newly elected to the Institute of Medicine, chemistry professor Carolyn Bertozzi answers questions about her research and teaching and the creative atmosphere at UC Berkeley.
Two UC Berkeley faculty named to Institute of Medicine
October 17, 2011:
Barbara Abrams, professor of epidemiology and of maternal and child health, and Carolyn Bertozzi, professor of chemistry and of molecular and cell biology, have been named to the prestigious Institute of Medicine (IOM), one of the highest national honors in the fields of health and medicine.
Q&A: Barbara Abrams on her prenatal-nutrition research
October 17, 2011:
Professor Barbara Abrams, newly elected to the Institute of Medicine, engages in a Q&A about her research on prenatal nutrition.
Michelle Chang, Ming Hammond receive NIH innovator awards
September 20, 2011:
Ming Hammond and Michelle Chang, two young assistant professors of chemistry, have received 2011 NIH Director’s New Innovator Awards from the National Institutes of Health. These awards support creative but high-risk research that could have a large impact on society.
Hot springs microbe yields record-breaking, heat-tolerant enzyme
July 5, 2011:
Scientists looking for unusual cellulose-digesting enzymes, called cellulases, have found one that works at a higher temperature, 109 degrees Celsius, than any others found to date. The cellulase comes from an Archaea found in a Nevada hot spring.
Late Nobelist Melvin Calvin gets stamp of approval
June 22, 2011:
This month, the U.S. Postal Service issued Forever® stamps celebrating the achievements of Nobel Laureate and late UC Berkeley chemist Melvin Calvin and three other scientists. Calvin was the first scientist to trace in detail the process of photosynthesis, for which he won the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 1961.
Three faculty members elected to American Academy of Arts and Sciences
April 19, 2011:
Sociologist Claude Fischer, cognitive scientist Michael Jordon and theoretical chemist Martin Head-Gordon have been elected members of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Green chemistry in the lab and beyond
March 22, 2011:
The Berkeley Center for Green Chemistry hosts its first national conference March 24, where experts from a broad range of disciplines will discuss the center’s unique, multidisciplinary approach to creating more sustainable and safer chemicals.
Media Advisory: Green Chemistry conference at UC Berkeley March 24
March 21, 2011:
“Green Chemistry: Collaborative Approaches & New Solutions,” a national conference this Thursday at the University of California, Berkeley, will highlight the campus’s unique, collaborative approach to sustainable, clean and safer chemistry.
Turning bacteria into butanol biofuel factories
March 1, 2011:
While ethanol is today’s major biofuel, researchers aim to produce fuels more like gasoline. Butanol is the primary candidate, now produced primarily by Clostridium bacteria. UC Berkeley chemist Michelle Chang has transplanted the enzyme pathway from Clostridium into E. coli and gotten the bacteria to churn out 10 times more n-butanol than competing microbes, close to the level needed for industrial scale production.
Chemist Gabor Somorjai awarded Spanish prize
January 27, 2011:
University Professor of Chemistry Gabor Somorjai has been awarded the 3rd annual BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award. Accompanied by a $550,000 prize, the award by the Spanish foundation honors Somorjai’s “pioneering experimental and conceptual contributions to the understanding of surface chemistry and catalysis at a microscopic and molecular level.”
