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Governor appoints energy professor emeritus Robert Sawyer to chair Air Resources Board
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Thursday (Dec. 22) announced the appointment of Robert Sawyer, engineering professor emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley, as chair of the state Air Resources Board (ARB).
(23 December)

Keck telescope captures faint new ring around Uranus
Uranus has at least 13 rings, two more than previously seen, according to a new report by astronomers observing the planet with the Hubble Space Telescope. UC Berkeley astronomer Imke de Pater quickly discovered that one of these is red enough to be observed by the ground-based Keck II Telescope in Hawaii.
(22 December)

UC Berkeley recommends appointment of new vice chancellor for post as the campus's chief administrative and financial officer
Chancellor Robert Birgeneau announced on Wednesday (Dec. 21) that he has recommended the appointment of Nathan Brostrom as vice chancellor-administration, the Berkeley campus's chief administrative and financial officer. Brostrom, whose appointment requires approval by the UC Board of Regents, would manage the campus's annual operating budget of more than $1.3 billion.
(21 December)

Transportation researchers get DaimlerChrysler hydrogen car for the holidays
DaimlerChrysler officially handed the keys to the F-Cell, the company's limited production hydrogen fuel cell vehicle, to UC Berkeley transportation researchers on Tuesday, Dec. 20, as part of a two-year field test. The project is connected to the U.S. Department of Energy's effort to assess the viability of hydrogen vehicle and infrastructure technology in real world settings.
(20 December)

Economist proposes Choose-Your-Charity policy to spur giving, bigger impacts
While charity officials in the United States forecast that 2005 will turn out to be banner year for giving, a University of California, Berkeley, professor says that it could be just the beginning of a major cash flow of charitable donations. In a recent issue of the journal, "The Economists' Voice," Aaron Edlin proposes shifting regulations for charitable giving to allow individuals to target donations as part of an "ultimate matching grant" program that he says would amass a treasure chest for charities.
(19 December)

William Oswald, pioneer in the use of algae to treat wastewater, dies at 86
William J. Oswald, professor emeritus of environmental engineering and public health at the University of California, Berkeley and an innovator in algae biotechnology and wastewater treatment, has died. He was 86.
(19 December)

Overfishing may drive endangered seabird to rely upon lower quality food, study says
The effects of overfishing may have driven marbled murrelets, an endangered seabird found along the Pacific coast, to increasingly rely upon less nutritious food sources, according to a new study by UC Berkeley biologists. The results suggest that feeding further down the food web may have played a role in low levels of reproduction observed in contemporary murrelet populations, and has likely contributed to the seabirds' listing as an endangered species, the researchers said.
(19 December)

Food additive inhibits longevity enzyme in yeast, increases cell toxicity, new study finds
Dihydrocoumarin (DHC), a common additive found in food and cosmetics, has been found to inhibit the activity of sirtuins, enzymes associated with lifespan control in yeast and other organisms, according to a new study led by UC Berkeley researchers. Human white blood cells exposed to DHC also experienced increased cell toxicity and apoptosis.
(16 December)

Google, Microsoft and Sun fund new UC Berkeley Internet research center
In a bold effort to revolutionize Internet service technology, researchers at UC Berkeley are teaming up with Google, Microsoft and Sun Microsystems to launch a new Internet research laboratory on the campus. The three companies will provide $7.5 million over five years to fund research at the Reliable, Adaptive and Distributed systems laboratory, or the RAD Lab.
(15 December)

Bacteria under Greenland ice may preview what scientists find under Mars' surface
The presence of methane in Mars' atmosphere has led some scientists to propose that methane-producing microbes live under the surface. If that's true, UC Berkeley's Buford Price knows just where to look.
(14 December)

MEMO TO THE MEDIA
UC Berkeley releases final fall 2005 enrollment data
Final enrollment figures for the fall 2005 semester show that approximately 23,000 undergraduate students and 10,000 graduate students are enrolled at the University of California, Berkeley, up slightly from a year ago at this time.
(14 December)

What, no iPods? Students share what's on their holiday wish lists
Inspired by last week's Berkeleyan poll of faculty and staff, we asked nine students what they'd like to unwrap this season.
(13 December)

UC Berkeley researchers probe details of how hepatitis C hijacks cells
Viruses such as influenza, HIV, hepatitis C and polio are able to hijack the machinery inside cells to make copies of themselves to spread an infection. Though the ribosome, the cell's protein making machine, is the main target, how they take it over has been unclear. Now, two UC Berkeley researchers have detailed how hepatitis C hijacks the ribosome, and they hope to get a clear enough picture to design a drug to stop it.
(12 December)

Hundreds of auroras detected on Mars
Mars has no global magnetic field like the Earth, so scientists did not expect to find auroras on the planet. After an ultraviolet flash was detected recently, however, UC Berkeley physicists pored over data from the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft in search of similar events. They found hundreds.
(12 December)

Pulling all-nighters, buying pizza, dressing up as Darwin . . .
It's all in a day's teaching for the campus's GSI "heroes" — the second of three groups commended for their commitment to Berkeley's undergrads by the students themselves in a recent survey.
(08 December)

Preserving California's history from fungi, fire, and bugs
Moisture damage to archival materials is one of several misfortunes that can befall the treasures stored in the state's wide-ranging museums and historical societies. The California State Library's chief preservation specialist, Barclay Ogden, helped start the California Preservation Program, which disseminates information on protecting collections and responding to emergencies.
(08 December)

The joy of receiving
According to an old saw, it is better to give than to receive. To explore the presumably less rewarding part of this equation, the Berkeleyan asked a number of people on campus what they wished to open come Christmas, Kwanzaa, or Chanukah. The sole dictate of the assignment was for the recipients to turn their attention to the world of goods and services, reserving wishes for world peace for another time.
(08 December)

Get up off your good intentions
Campus exercise programs help employees stand up for fitness.
(08 December)

UC staff renew the call for educational-fee discounts
University of California staff leaders are reviving the long-discussed proposal to offer educational-fee discounts to employees' spouses, domestic partners, and children, and they say it could be on the Board of Regents' agenda as early as January.
(08 December)

Waggener named associate vice chancellor for IT, campus CIO
Shelton Waggener, currently director of IST-Central Computing Services, has been appointed associate vice chancellor for information technology and campus chief information officer, replacing John (Jack) McCredie, who is retiring this month.

(08 December)

News Briefs
Shorter items of interest to the campus community.
(08 December)

Plants, too, have ways to manage freeloaders
Many, if not all, plants maintain relationships with bacteria, and like any hardworking homeowner, they have developed ways to get rid of freeloaders. Working with the yellow bush lupine at UC's Bodega Marine Reserve, UC Berkeley biologists have shown that lupines treat root-nodulating bacteria differently, depending on how effective they are at providing nitrogen to the plant.
(07 December)

Hungry Mind: From "weird little kid" in India to master storyteller — and winner of a publishing jackpot
UC Berkeley lecturer Vikram Chandra, a Fall 2005 addition to the English department, describes why he's still teaching despite a $1 million advance for his third book, how he fell in love with the Modernists through a Bombay lending library, and what software programming and genre novels have in common.
(07 December)

Petroleum chemist Heinz Heinemann dies at 92
Heinz Heinemann, a long-time lecturer in the College of Chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley, and a chemistry researcher at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), died Nov. 23 of pneumonia in Washington, D.C.
(06 December)

University leaders pledge to help women in academia
Chancellor Birgeneau, along with eight other leaders of top U.S. research universities, issued a joint statement today calling for an end to the barriers to women's full participation in academia. The statement says women's academic careers must be more compatible with family responsibilities if universities are to achieve gender equity.
(06 December)

Memorial service to honor Col. Charles Travers, UC Berkeley benefactor
A memorial service will be held Thursday (Dec. 8) at UC Berkeley for Col. Charles T. Travers, a longtime supporter of the campus and namesake of its political science department. Travers died Nov. 6 at his home in Greenbrae of natural causes. The 1932 UC Berkeley alumnus was 95 years old.
(05 December)

Peter E. Haas, Sr., a legendary supporter and cherished friend of the University, passes away
In a statement mourning the death of his friend Peter Haas, Chancellor Robert J. Birgeneau eulogizes a gracious and forceful man who left a lasting mark on his beloved university. "We are diminished and profoundly saddened by his passing," said Birgeneau.
(04 December)

Two cutting-edge researchers join UC Berkeley's School of Information Management & Systems
Appointment of two renowned researchers to the faculty of the University of California, Berkeley's School of Information Management & Systems (SIMS) has been announced by SIMS Dean AnnaLee Saxenian. The new faculty members are Geoffrey Nunberg and Paul Duguid.
(02 December)

Regents approve 2006-07 budget as spotlight glares on executive pay
Fallout from the S.F. Chronicle's compensation series continues in wake of board's votes to raise student fees, reward top managers.
(02 December)

Research patently in the public interest
From diagnosing dengue fever to combating malaria, Berkeley's socially responsible licensing initiative serves the "moral imperative" to get promising new therapies into the arms of the developing world.
(02 December)

A death-penalty deluge?
Elisabeth Semel, director of the Death Penalty Clinic at Boalt, says the California electorate's "inevitable" appointment with the death penalty, and its attendant moral questions, has been long in the making.
(02 December)

When your client's a clapper rail
Associate Professor of Architecture Jill Stoner — an 'architect in reverse' — explores possibilities for farming the city and flooding the mall.
(02 December)

Talking teaching, pondering pedagogy
The Presidential Chair Fellows Program offers faculty members a two-semester series of monthly workshops and forums in which to discuss and improve their teaching.
(02 December)

Hesitant hottie
Brad, O.K. Jake, sure. But Manga?? Berkeley's own Michael Manga, associate professor in earth and planetary sciences, makes the pages of People.
(02 December)

Harsha Ram wins MLA award for book on Russian poetry evolution
The Modern Language Association of America has announced it will award an honorable mention to Harsha Ram, a University of California, Berkeley, associate professor of Slavic languages and literatures, for his book about the evolution of modern Russian poetry.
(02 December)

Campus officials lift alcohol ban for most Greek organizations
A University of California, Berkeley, ban on alcohol at fraternity and sorority events has been lifted for the vast majority of Greek organizations on campus, paving the way for alcohol consumption at all of their approved social events as early as the weekend of Dec. 9.
(01 December)

News Briefs
Shorter items of interest to the campus community.
(01 December)

Additional state investment in higher ed will boost tax rolls, study shows
The state of California has much more at stake than the personal gains of individual students when it considers how much money to spend on getting more students in and through college.A new study released by University of California, Berkeley, researchers carefully documents how increased educational investments would provide the state of California with billions of dollars in tax receipts and help restore its position as one of the wealthiest states in the nation.
(30 November)

Alleged 40,000-year-old human footprints in Mexico much, much older than thought
When British and Australian researchers announced earlier this year that they'd found human footprints in 40,000-year-old rock near Puebla, Mexico, many anthropologists withheld judgment. And rightfully so. Using both argon/argon and paleomagnetic dating, UC Berkeley geologists have obtained a better date for the volcanic tuff: 1.3 million years. Either the footprints are extremely old, dating from a time before Homo sapiens arose, or they are not footprints at all.
(30 November)

UC Berkeley student wins prestigious Marshall Scholarship
Daniel Zoughbie, a senior who spent last summer setting up neighborhood clinics in the West Bank for diabetics, is a 2006 recipient of a Marshall Scholarship. Each year, the British government gives about 40 U.S. students these scholarships, which allow them to pursue advanced degrees at any academic institution in the United Kingdom.
(28 November)

Should you give Richard III your seat on the bus?
Since 1999, Randy Cohen has written the New York Times syndicated column "The Ethicist," which appears in 38 newspapers across the U.S. and Canada. Cohen will give a talk called "How to Be Good" on Saturday, Nov. 19, at 8 p.m. in Zellerbach Hall, and then field questions from the audience related to their own ethical dilemmas. The Berkeleyan spoke with him recently about his job as an arbiter of ethically correct behavior.

(17 November)

Outstanding staff — 70 in all — receive annual campus award
Seventy staff members — 31 as individuals, 39 as members of six teams — received this year's Chancellor's Outstanding Staff Award (COSA) at a Nov. 1 ceremony at International House.
(17 November)

Obituary
Professor Emeritus Joseph Tussman, former chair of the philosophy department, a prominent educational reformer, and a key figure in the campus controversy over the 1950s loyalty oath, died Oct. 21 following several heart attacks. He was 90. A memorial in his honor will be held at 3:30 p.m., Friday, Nov. 18, in the Maude Fife Room, 315 Wheeler.
(17 November)

Awards
Recent faculty and staff awards.
(17 November)

News Briefs
Shorter items of interest to the campus community.
(17 November)

Eugene Petersen, specialist in catalytic reactions, has died at 81
Eugene E. Petersen, who retired from the Department of Chemical Engineering in 1991, played a major role in putting industrial catalysis on a firm scientific footing.
(17 November)

Astrophysicists put kibosh on alternative theory of star formation
The two competing theories of star formation differ in how much gas they predict the cores of new stars suck in from the clump of gas in which they're embedded. Astrophysicists from UC Berkeley and LLNL now show that the "competitive accretion" theory, which says small seed stars grow up to 100 times bigger by gas accretion, is wrong. The cores of collapsing stars are as big as they'll ever get, they say.
(16 November)

Offshoring won't bring economic doom to United States, researchers say
Although many large U.S. forms are sending research and development activities to off-shore locations, a new study by two UC Berkeley researchers at the Haas School of Business says this doesn't spell economic doom and will likely translate into new jobs and economic growth in the United States, and in Silicon Valley in particular. The study also shows that smaller firms generally conduct their research in the United States and tend to produce more innovative technologies and ideas.
(16 November)

Small groups of superspreaders lead to most infections, new study says
A new study published in the journal Nature shows that a small subset of particularly infectious people can exert a powerful influence over how outbreaks progress. A UC Berkeley-led research team found that diseases such as SARS and measles are prone to "superspreading events" in which a few people, given the right conditions, can ignite explosive epidemics. However, the researchers say that such volatility also means that outbreaks are more likely to fizzle out relatively quickly.
(16 November)

Fall foliage tour: Autumn's fire lights up the Berkeley campus
When it comes to fall color, November is showtime on the Berkeley campus. The NewsCenter provides a guide to the showiest displays and takes you on a fall foliage photo tour of the campus where a forest of liquidambars, tupelo, Chinese pistaches, Lombardy poplars, and maples are a blaze of scarlet, ocher and gold.
(15 November)

Two scientists among "Scientific American 50;" six elected fellows of AAAS
Two UC Berkeley scientists will be among the "Scientific American 50" lauded in the December 2005 issue of the magazine, which will arrive at newstands Nov. 22. In addition, six campus scientists will be inducted as fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science at the organization's February meeting in St. Louis.
(15 November)

Joe Wilson, the man the White House loves to hate, on spies, Scooter, and citizenship
Depicting himself as merely a citizen doing his civic duty — his undeniable star power notwithstanding — retired U.S. diplomat Joseph Wilson told a campus crowd last Wednesday that he'd expected the White House to retaliate against him for publicly debunking its pre-war claims that Iraq had sought to buy uranium from Niger. The surprise, he said, was that top administration officials would reveal the identity of his deep-undercover wife, CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson.
(14 November)

Jean O. Lanjouw, associate professor of economics, dies at 43
Jean O. Lanjouw, UC Berkeley associate professor of economics whose work focused on addressing the plight of the poor in developing countries, died of cancer on Nov. 1. She was 43.
(14 November)

An evening with Robert J. Birgeneau
No one who has tuned in even intermittently to UC Berkeley frequencies over the past year should be surprised to hear Robert J. Birgeneau articulate the benefits of diversity or extol the campus's role as a preeminent public teaching and research institution. On Nov. 9, however, Berkeley's ninth chancellor sounded these themes in the strongest terms heard to date — referring to "educational apartheid in California" and calling for the reversal of Prop. 209 — in a format that revealed nuances of character and the roots of conviction.
(14 November)

Master plan for stadium calls for new student athlete high-performance center
UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert Birgeneau on Thursday unveiled highlights of a master plan to refurbish historic California Memorial Stadium that begins with constructing a new student athlete high-performance center and allows the football team to play all home games in the stadium during construction. The announcement of the stadium plan was coupled with the presentation of a conceptual design for a stunning new law and business building directly across the street from the stadium, along with open space improvements for the southeast corner of campus
(10 November)

Introducing Berkeley's 'Everyday Heroes'
According to 4,000 undergraduates, quite a few staff and instructors regularly go above and beyond their job descriptions to help students.
(09 November)

A custodian, an IT guy — and a slew of advisers — earn students' praise as allies . . . and friends
A number of staff members were among the 200 people on campus singled out by Berkeley students as "heroes" on the 2005 UC Undergraduate Experience Survey. While characterizing heroic acts in broad strokes offers some insight into what brought these staff members to the attention of their student nominators, the details of their stories really tell the tale.
(09 November)

For Cal's team doctor, the student-athlete is No. 1
Cal's head team physician, Cindy Chang, went to med school with the goal of becoming a family practitioner. But instead of a conventional practice, she wound up ministering to a single, ever-changing, uniquely injury- prone extended family - the more than 900 student-athletes who play for Cal's 27 varsity teams, not to mention their parents and coaches, some of whom complicate the business of doctoring in ways Marcus Welby could never have imagined.
(09 November)

ASUC Art Studio's 'Masters Series' to be led by noted artists
Under manager Erica Terman, who came to campus a year ago, the ASUC Art Studio has been exploring new ways to serve the campus, the public, and the larger arts community. This week the arts-education center unveils a new program, its Masters Series of weekend workshops taught by mid-career, nationally recognized Bay Area artists.
(09 November)

Berkeley's goodwill goalie
Key, a junior goalkeeper on the California women's soccer team, spent three weeks in Malawi this past summer to bring gifts from her Golden Bear team — and to deliver messages of hope. The Oakland native planned the trip after taking South African linguistics and Swahili from Sam Mchombo, an associate professor of linguistics who is a Malawi native.
(09 November)

It takes a campus…
The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) has recognized Berkeley's ongoing effort to conserve resources with a 2005 "Flex Your Power" award. Among the 35 businesses, local governments, and institutions so honored, Berkeley was chosen as one of three winners in the "best overall" category.
(09 November)

Chancellor Birgeneau makes first official visit to D.C.
Chancellor Robert Birgeneau was in Washington, D.C., recently for a series of meetings and events with members of Congress, Berkeley alumni, and current student interns in the Capitol. Birgeneau had been to Washington before, but this was his first official visit as chancellor.
(09 November)

New Briefs
Shorter items of interest to the campus community.
(09 November)

Abalones may owe their huge size to otters
California sea otters are maligned for their ruthless pursuit of large abalones prized by divers. But a new study suggests that otters are partly responsible for the size of these abalones, some a foot across.
(09 November)

New system for earthquake early warning
UC Berkeley seismologist Richard Allen has found that the frequency of P waves produced within the first four seconds of an earthquake provides enough information to estimate the ultimate magnitude of the earthquake. Using a system called ElarmS, he and colleagues are able to predict distant ground motion and send warnings to areas of potentially damaging shaking, providing seconds to tens of seconds of advance warning.
(09 November)

Cal Style 2005: Flip-flops, floods, and fur – fake, of course
The head of Berkeley's Fashion and Student Trends (FAST) club gives an inside peek on what's hot - and so, like, not - this season on campus. Hint: not all floods are unwelcome, and not all thongs make a right.
(09 November)

The 'soul-satisfying' work of repatriation
A federal law giving Native Americans the right to know about tribal treasures in museum collections has benefited the anthropologists at Berkeley's Hearst Museum -- they've learned more about their holdings through contact with the tribes.
(03 November)

Clark Kerr Medal for former UC President Peltason
Jack W. Peltason, 16th president of the University of California (1992-95), will be awarded the Clark Kerr Medal for Distinguished Leadership in Higher Education by the Berkeley Division of the Academic Senate in a campus ceremony on Tuesday, Nov. 8.
(03 November)

Y-PLAN chugs along, linking students and their neighborhoods
Y-PLAN (Youth — Plan Learn Act Now) is both an interdisciplinary course taught since 1999 and a community-based research initiative, in which graduate students mentor 10th- and 11th-grade students on urban-revitalization projects. Last semester's project, a redesign of the historic West Oakland Central Railway Station, involved more than 35 students from McClymonds High School and proved the most successful ever.
(03 November)

Friends don't let friends miss the bus
The Bear Pass pilot program is set to expire on June 30, and the Parking and Transportation Department is pulling out all the stops to keep it running.
(03 November)

November is Open Enrollment month at Berkeley
UC Berkeley employees interested in adding or changing benefits coverage can do so during the monthlong Open Enrollment 2006, which began Nov. 1 and runs through midnight on Wednesday, Nov. 30. For those who make changes during the period, new coverage will be effective Jan. 1, 2006.

(03 November)

Boalt Hall professor helps create legal manual for Katrina survivors

(03 November)

News Briefs
Shorter items of interest to the campus community.
(03 November)

New X-rays of cell's ribosome could lead to better antibiotics
The ribosome, a nano-machine that manufactures all of our cells' proteins, is also a target of many antibiotics. New, sharp X-ray images of the ribosome will help researchers understand how today's antibiotics interfere with the machine, and could lead to improved drugs that throw a wrench into it.
(03 November)

Point of View: Which recent event related to the White House is the most troubling?
The White House has come under fire for a lot of things lately: among them, the Bush Administration's response to Hurricane Katrina, the indictment of Scooter Libby, the milestone of 2,000 American deaths in Iraq, and the Supreme Court nomination of Harriet Miers. In this informal survey, we asked members of the Berkeley community which of these — if any — they thought was the most troubling, and why.
(02 November)

Investigators release preliminary findings of levee failures at Senate hearing
Many of the New Orleans levee and floodwall failures in the wake of Hurricane Katrina occurred at weak-link junctions where different levee or wall sections joined together, according to a preliminary report released Nov. 2 by independent investigators from UC Berkeley and the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE). Researchers presented this and other findings at a hearing in Washington, D.C., before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.
(02 November)

Updated UC Berkeley Web site provides helpful resources to reporters covering campus news
Members of the media seeking information about the University of California, Berkeley, and its Media Relations unit can now turn to an improved Web site launched today (Tuesday, Nov. 1).
(01 November)

Researchers showcase innovative transportation projects at international conference
From smart cars to rail-like bus systems, researchers at UC Berkeley will provide next week a glimpse of transit's future for participants at one of the world's largest gatherings of transportation experts. The 12th World Congress on Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS), to be held Nov. 6-10 in San Francisco, will bring together international researchers, industry professionals and government officials to present and observe advanced transportation technologies and deployment activities.
(01 November)

New report examines effects nationwide of preschool on kids' development
A UC Berkeley/Stanford University report has found good news and bad news about how preschools nationwide influence children's development. Among the finding is that the social skills of white, middle-class children suffer after attending preschool more than six hours a day, compared to similar children who stay home with a parent.
(01 November)

Richard Holton, former Haas School dean and leader in numerous fields of business, dies at age 79
Richard H. Holton, professor emeritus and former dean at the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley, died Monday, Oct. 24, at the age of 79 after battling cancer and Parkinson's disease. Holton was a leader in the fields of marketing, international business and entrepreneurship and left a lasting imprint in these areas at the Haas School.
(28 October)

Picky female frogs drive evolution of new species in less than 8,000 years
New species seem to have popped up quickly in many places around the globe, yet random genetic drift would seem to take millions of years. Now UC Berkeley and Australian researchers have found a frog species that originated in only a few thousand years, driven by very picky females making just the right mate choice.
(27 October)

John V. Wehausen, leader in marine hydrodynamics, dies at 92
John V. Wehausen, UC Berkeley professor emeritus of engineering science and considered one of the world's leading researchers in marine hydrodynamics, died Oct. 6 at the Kaiser Oakland Medical Center. He was 92.
(27 October)

A man, a plan, a film series
From Nov. 3 through Dec. 1, the Pacific Film Archive will present "Selling Democracy: Films of the Marshall Plan, 1948-53." The four-program series, which has been touring the country, features a retrospective of 25 short films rarely seen in the United States — a sampling of the 260-plus films produced under the auspices of the Marshall Plan to win over Europe's citizens to the cause of economic recovery and the democratization of Germany.
(26 October)

The right picture: Finding it, organizing it, showing it, storing it . . .
The ARTstor Digital Library, which features an easy-to-use interface, enables faculty and graduate-student instructors to select from a wealth of digital images in creating slideshows and study websites for their courses.

(26 October)

Extension's fall program gives freshmen a head start

(26 October)

Poverty is this generation's civil-rights movement, says ex-Senator John Edwards
More than 1,500 or so students and others lined up from the Martin Luther King, Jr. Student Union all the way to Sather Gate for the chance to hear former senator and vice presidential candidate John Edwards talk about poverty. "Poverty is the great moral issue of our century," he said, challenging the students to do something about it.
(26 October)

Haas School awards Moskowitz Prize for socially responsible investment research
The Center for Responsible Business at the Haas School of Business, in cooperation with the Social Investment Forum, has awarded the 2005 Moskowitz Prize for Socially Responsible Investing to a Dutch research team that examined the relationship between a company's environmental and financial performance.

(26 October)

News Briefs
Shorter items of interest to the campus community.
(26 October)

Pyrethroid pesticides found at toxic levels in California urban streams
Now that organophosphate pesticides have been phased our for homeowner use in California, pyrethroid pesticide use is increasing in urban areas. A new study shows that these pesticides are already showing up in urban streams at levels toxic to organisms that live in the stream-bottom sediment. The likely cause is overuse of these pesticides on lawns and around buildings.
(25 October)

For the Western bluebird as for humans, accumulated wealth encourages family stability
Among Western bluebirds and other cooperatively breeding birds, when grown children hang around the nest instead of dispersing at maturity, family structures become more close-knit. But what keeps the kids hanging around? A new study shows, as with humans, it's the accumulated wealth. Once the money begins to run out, the kids split.
(24 October)

UC to hold forum on California's special election
Former California Gov. Gray Davis will join policy experts, journalists, pundits, and political staffers at an Oct. 28 conference, webcast live from the University of California Washington Center, on the national implications of key issues in California's Nov. 8 special election
(20 October)

Scholars and players in harmony
The Department of Music, which celebrates its 100th anniversary this year, began as a non-academic entity charged with overseeing the young campus's musical aggregations. Today's department is a thoroughly integrative academic milieu, wherein ethnomusicologists collaborate with carillonists, classicists with avant-gardists, composers with performers.
(20 October)

Big hurt in the Big Easy
A team of Berkeley engineers touched down in New Orleans on Oct. 2 — a month after Hurricane Katrina spun into the area — to investigate the levee failures that devastated the Ninth Ward and many other neighborhoods of the city.
(20 October)

Are we living within our means?
The campus's first comprehensive sustainability assessment reflects a growing 'green' consciousness — and provides Berkeley with a roadmap for future progress.
(20 October)

Faculty Athletic Fellows program goes beyond good sportsmanship
The Faculty Athletic Fellows program, launched last fall by the Athletic Study Center, is intended to help foster the success of student-athletes off the field.
(20 October)

Conference points to new era in science diversity
Berkeley's Biology Scholars Program (BSP) has been recognized as one of the most successful science-diversity programs in the country. To help others replicate that success on other California campuses, the program recently hosted the first of five conferences devoted to "The Science of Diversifying Science."
(20 October)

Obituary
Amichai Kronfeld, a lecturer in philosophy and cognitive science and a long-time activist for a just and peaceful resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, died Sept. 1 of cancer.
(20 October)

News Briefs
Shorter items of interest to the campus community.
(20 October)

UC leaders urge greater state support for graduate programs
Citing the importance of graduate education and research for California's economy, University of California officials called on the state to increase funding for graduate programs at a legislative hearing held Tuesday (Oct. 18) in Sibley Auditorium.
(19 October)

Human rights researchers find widespread problems after 2004 tsunami
In what could forecast similar problems in New Orleans, researchers at the University of California, Berkeley have found that throughout countries affected by the December 2004 tsunami survivors continue to suffer inequities in aid distribution and substandard shelter. These problems primarily stem from government incompetence or corruption, discrimination and a lack of public accountability, according to a report released today (Wednesday, Oct. 19) by the UC Berkeley Human Rights Center and the East-West Center, an internationally recognized research and education organization in Honolulu, Hawaii.
(19 October)

Tebtunis papyri returned to UC Berkeley's Bancroft Library decades after their discovery
Just a few weeks ago, three tins of ancient papyri belonging to the University of California, Berkeley, finally arrived home, shipped across the Atlantic more than a century after they were collected in Egypt.
(18 October)

Berkeley professors explore Hurricane Katrina impacts in public forum
The impacts of Hurricane Katrina, ranging from higher winter heating fuel bills to property damage and emergency response, were explored in a teach-in at UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business on Oct. 14.
(18 October)

New de Young museum features UC Berkeley contributions
When the new M.H. de Young Museum in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park opens Saturday (Oct. 15), it will feature contributions by the University of California, Berkeley - on the grounds outside and in a major exhibit inside.
(14 October)

Campus launches fire abatement projects in hills
Fall signals fire abatement season on campus property in the hills, where two projects are felling some 3,000 non-native trees, most of them fire-hazardous eucalyptus.The work is part of an annual, ongoing effort to create fuel breaks and to return areas to native trees and plants.
(13 October)

Improvements on the work/life horizon
Juggling the competing pressures of work and family is an ongoing challenge for parents as well as for adults who care for their own aging parents. Berkeley boasts a host of progressive work/family offerings, including a number of recent developments, but there is still work left to do.
(12 October)

The 'iron law of admissions' — and its consequences
Studying Harvard, Yale, and Princeton's admissions early-20th-century admissions policies, sociology professor Jerome Karabel discovered, sheds light on a wide range of other subjects - from power relations in American society to the re-definition of academic "merit" following the urban race riots of the 1960s.
(12 October)

Remembering Ken Saro-Wiwa
Owens Wiwa fled Nigeria in 1995, after his brother, the writer and human-rights activist Ken Saro-Wiwa, was hanged for murder. Now a physician based in Toronto, Wiwa was on campus last Thursday to commemorate the 10th anniversary of Saro-Wiwa's execution. Appearing on a panel at the Townsend Center with Berkeley geography professor Michael Watts, director of the Center for African Studies, and San Francisco attorney Cindy Cohn, he said the injustices in Ogoniland continue, and vowed to carry on his brother's legacy of nonviolent protest.
(12 October)

Campus librarians collect top honors
Later this month the Berkeley division of the Librarians Association of the University of California will honor two of its own, the recipients of the 2005 Distinguished Librarian Award: John Roberts of the Jean Gray Hargrove Music Library and Daniel Krummes of the Harmer E. Davis Transportation Library. Each represents what the association calls "the highest ideals of librarianship on the Berkeley campus."
(12 October)

LBNL lecture: 'The magic of magnetism'
Most people have intuitive associations with the word "magnetism" based on everyday life: refrigerator magnets, the compass, North and South Poles, or someone's "magnetic personality." Few people, however, realize how complicated the phenomenon really is, how much research still deals with the topic today, and how much it penetrates our modern industrialized world. On Thursday, Oct. 20, the director of the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory (SSRL), Joachim Stöhr, will speak at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and provide a glimpse at the magic and science behind magnetism.
(12 October)

News Briefs
Shorter items of interest to the campus community.
(12 October)

Chancellor Birgeneau's message on South Asia earthquake
In the wake of a massive earthquake that devastated areas of Pakistan, India and Afghanistan, killing tens of thousands of people, Berkeley Chancellor Robert Birgeneau urges the campus community to rally together to assist those in need.
(11 October)

Paul R. Gray will step down as executive vice chancellor and provost in July 2006
Paul Gray, the campus's executive vice chancellor and provost, has decided to step down from his position on July 1, 2006, to return to teaching and research in the College of Engineering. Chancellor Robert Birgeneau made the announcement today, calling Gray, who since 2000 has served as the campus's second highest administrator and its chief academic officer, an "extremely effective and highly regarded provost who has been central to the development of our vision for Berkeley."
(11 October)

Point of view: Reactions to '100 Suns' exhibit on Memorial Glade
"100 Suns," a weeklong public "bookwork" commissioned by Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism, documents the era of visible nuclear testing — an era in which UC Berkeley played a pivotal role. Eight viewers of "100 Suns" share their reactions to the exhibit.
(06 October)

Jeff Hawkins, computing pioneer, endows new center to develop model of brain
Jeff Hawkins, inventor of the Palmpilot and a former UC Berkeley graduate student, has endowed a new research center at UC Berkeley to develop mathematical and computational models of how the brain works. The Redwood Center for Theoretical Neuroscience, which will operate within the Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute, is being celebrated this Friday with a day-long symposium.
(06 October)

In the matter of Scripture v. scholarship
The public debate over the relationship between religion and science in the classroom figures prominently in a lawsuit against the University of California filed recently on behalf of applicants for admission from Christian high schools. The complaint claims that UC violated the First Amendment rights (specifically those guaranteeing freedom of speech and religion) of some Christian schools and that it practiced "viewpoint discrimination" against their students by finding that some of the schools' courses do not meet UC requirements for college preparation.
(05 October)

Unlocking Yosemite's mysteries
In Yosemite in Time, a forthcoming book of essays and photographs — some of which are currently on view at the Berkeley Art Museum — writer Rebecca Solnit and her two photographer collaborators aim to fracture the frames through which we're accustomed to seeing nature, to close the artificial distance between people and landscape. The result toys not just with time but with the nature of place, the pace of change, and the importance of culture in our points of view.
(05 October)

Special election 101: Enrollment is unlimited
Voters looking for convenient and reliable assistance preparing for California's upcoming special elections can turn to the campus Institute of Governmental Studies, where library staff have created another in their series of informative "Hot Topics" websites — this time on special elections in California, their history and process, and the Nov. 8 special election in particular.
(05 October)

When life gives you tomatoes — make salsa!
A collaboration between the UC Botanical Garden Education Program, the Lawrence Hall of Science, and 18 elementary schools in five East Bay school districts is moving learning beyond the confines of the classroom.

(05 October)

UC helps facilitate public access to digital texts
The University of California libraries have announced their participation in a partnership to build a freely accessible digital library with materials drawn from across the world. The UC libraries will contribute books and resources to build a collection of out-of-copyright American literature that will include works by many great American authors.
(05 October)

Awards
Recent faculty and staff awards.
(05 October)

News Briefs
Shorter items of interest to the campus community.
(05 October)

Split-second explosions, so-called short gamma-ray bursts, solidly linked to stellar collisions
Gamma-ray bursts, the brightest explosions in the universe, seem to break down into two groups: seconds-long bursts and split-second bursts, called short gamma-ray bursts. While the former seem to be caused by the collapse of a massive star, the short bursts were a mystery. Now, a burst captured by the HETE-2 satellite has led to an identification with the cataclysmic collison of two compact stars to form a black hole.
(05 October)

Google cofounder Sergey Brin comes to class at Berkeley
Sergey Brin, cofounder of Google, was a surprise guest speaker at Berkeley on Monday, addressing a SIMS class on "Search Engines: Technology, Society, and Business." Casual and relaxed, Brin talked about how Google came to be, answered students' questions, and showed that someone worth $11 billion (give or take a billion) still can be comfortable in an old pair of blue jeans
(04 October)

Two new physics Nobelists to talk at UC Berkeley Friday, Oct. 7
Two new winners of the 2005 Nobel Prize in physics ­ Theodor Haensch and Roy Glauber ­ will speak this Friday as part of "Amazing Light: Visions for Discovery," an international symposium being held on campus Oct. 6-8. Fourteen other Nobelists are scheduled to participate in this gathering of some of the greatest minds in physics and cosmology in celebration of UC Berkeley Nobelist Charles Townes' 90th birthday.
(04 October)

Researchers use laser amplifier to slow light at room temperature
UC Berkeley researchers have made a dramatic advance in their quest to slow light down for applications in speedier communication networks. They created a device that uses a laser amplifier to slow the speed of light more than one million-fold to 245 meters per second, or three-quarters the speed of sound in air. Moreover, the team did this at room temperature.
(03 October)

Engineers studying levee failures in New Orleans
UC Berkeley civil engineers have arrived in New Orleans as part of an independent team of researchers investigating levee failures in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. The team is funded by the National Science Foundation.
(03 October)

Growing energy: Berkeley Lab's Steve Chu on what termite guts have to do with global warming
Steven Chu, director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory since 2004, is on a mission: challenging scientists to find environmentally friendly energy alternatives to fossil fuels. Here, Chu discusses the future of the world's fuel supply, what termite guts and manure piles can teach us, and why we shouldn't be writing off nuclear energy.
(03 October)

Study suggests benefits to extending child-only health insurance to parents
Extending health insurance for low-income children to their parents may help improve children's access to a regular source of care, according to a new UC Berkeley study. The findings in the journal Health Services Research come three years after California legislators approved the expansion of Healthy Families, the state's public health insurance program for those 18 and under, to parents of eligible children. The expansion was never implemented due to lack of funding.
(03 October)

Please don't nuke the chancellor
Efforts to create a research-safety culture on campus now include required annual safety training for all new grad students and staff employees whose research involves potential health or safety hazards. So far this semester, more than 400 researchers have attended the information-packed two-hour session provided by the Office of Environment, Health, and Safety (EH&S), covering lab-safety basics; safety-related procedures specific to the campus; and what to do in case of an earthquake, fire, or other emergency.

(29 September)

Talking straight while walking backward
Later this week a rare breed — folks who know by heart not only the number of bells in the tower's carillon but how many bones are in the Valley Life Sciences Building's T. rex — will gather at the foot of the Campanile to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the campus Visitor Center and the generations of student tour guides who have shared the campus, through their own eyes, with the public.

(29 September)

The maestro's greatest feat
As Cal Performances celebrates a full century of bringing world-class performing artists to Berkeley, its guiding spirit, Robert Cole, reflects on his 20 years at the helm.

(29 September)

Campus events to address depression
As part of Mental Health Awareness Week, UHS will present a number of events next week to reach members of the campus community in need of help and support.

(29 September)

Awards
Recent faculty and staff awards.
(29 September)

News Briefs
Shorter items of interest to the campus community.
(29 September)

Broken gas line prompts evacuation of Foothill, Stern residence halls
Foothill Student Housing and Stern Hall on the northeast side of campus were evacuated Monday afternoon (Sept. 26) following a gas leak caused by a delivery truck accident. No one was injured in the accident, and many students were already away from the residence halls at the time of the incident.
(26 September)

Protein "yoga" reveals secrets of complex enzyme folding
One way to figure out how proteins faithfully fold into complex, three-dimensional shapes is to carefully unfold them and then watch as they refold. This feat has now been achieved by UC Berkeley and QB3 researchers, who grabbed the ends of a small protein with optical tweezers and gently pulled and stretched: a process they refer to as "protein yoga."
(26 September)

Investment in energy R&D declines despite supply problems
With hurricanes interrupting the nation's energy supply, war amid the oil fields of the Middle East, and calls to drill in the nation's protected areas, it is ironic that investiments in energy research and development have steadily dropped in the last two decades, writes UC Berkeley's Dan Kammen. This decline is reflected in the federal budget and, to a greater extent, in investments by U.S. companies.
(26 September)

Point of view: What's the most important thing UC Berkeley could do differently?
Students share their suggestions for the university's areas of improvement.
(23 September)

Return to a lost world of 'upside-down mountains'
Energy and Resources Group professor Richard Norgaard's life's course was set in the "upside-down mountains" of Glen Canyon. Now, rather than fight to restore it, he teaches students to see the big picture.
(22 September)

Karen Kenney says goodbye to Cal
After more than 25 years on campus, Dean of Students Karen Kenney leaves Berkeley this week to become director of Girls Inc. of the Island City, in Alameda, where she lives and grew up. Berkeleyan writer Cathy Cockrell interviewed Kenney recently about her years at Berkeley.
(22 September)

Teaming up to tackle local problems
The sixth annual University/Community Partnerships recognition reception was held Wednesday, Sept. 14, at University House, to honor the achievements of individuals and groups from the Berkeley campus and the community whose joint efforts benefit local residents. Through creative collaborations, university and community members share information, research, and expertise as they work to address a variety of pressing problems.
(22 September)

Sir Peter Hall, UC Berkeley emeritus professor of city planning, wins 2005 Balzan Prize
Sir Peter Hall, professor emeritus of city and regional planning at the University of California, Berkeley, is one of six winners of the 2005 Balzan Prize, recognized for his contributions to the study of the social and cultural history of cities since the start of the 16th century.
(22 September)

Berkeley thinks new opera is da Bomb
As a "buzz" as animated as an electron field spins around John Adams' new opera, Doctor Atomic—set to have its world premiere by the San Francisco Opera company on Oct. 1—the UC Berkeley campus is joining a Bay Area-wide conversation on the nuclear age with a handful of fall courses and a series of campus happenings.
(22 September)

UC Berkeley, Stanford host lecture series commemorating '06 quake
Next April 18 is the 100th anniversary of the Great San Francisco Earthquake, a disaster as tragic as the recent devastation of New Orleans. To commemorate the event and discuss lessons learned from it, UC Berkeley and Stanford University are hosting a series of lectures, many of them repeated on each campus.
(22 September)

Researchers reveal twists and turns of Spiroplasma bacteria's movements
UC Berkeley researchers have discovered that the movements of Spiroplasma, tiny helical bacteria that infect plants and insects, resemble a kink moving down a spiral phone cord. The findings describe for the first time a new form of movement for bacteria, and could help researchers find ways to disrupt the pathogen's ability to infect other organisms.
(22 September)

Berkeley physician treats the wounds – medical and psychological – inflicted by hurricane
Heeding the call for physician volunteers, Dr. Ameena Ahmed provided medical care and counseling at places including the New Orleans Convention Center parking lot, a makeshift clinic in a motel breakfast room, and rural churches where every pew had become a bed. But it was the victims' precarious mental health that most troubled Ahmed and prompted her to action.
(21 September)

The poetic commuter
HR director and poet David Scronce—self-described as "analytic by training and synthetic by nature"—pens his verses in transit.
(21 September)

News Briefs
Shorter items of interest to the campus community.
(21 September)

UC Berkeley opens new youth violence research center
The Institute for the Study of Social Change at the University of California, Berkeley, has been awarded a $4.3 million grant to open a new center to study youth violence. The new center at UC Berkeley is one of eight approved by the CDC as part of its program to foster academic excellence in the area of youth violence prevention.
(21 September)

13- and 14-year-old siblings enter UC Berkeley as junior transfer students
Charles Pierce really likes playing video games. He practices piano and violin. He used to study aikido, but lately he's been more interested in taking up fencing. Lately, however, the 13-year-old has mostly been hitting the books. Charles is the youngest transfer student this fall at the University of California, Berkeley, where he's now in his junior year. His 14-year-old sister, Mayumi, also transferred in this fall as a junior.
(21 September)

Tales from the Astrodome: 'A little bit of everything'
In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, UC Berkeley education professor Glynda Hull traveled to Houston to help evacuees as a Red Cross volunteer. She sent back a series of dispatches about her "amazing, humbling, stressful and life-changing" experiences at the Astrodome.
(20 September)

Fall events celebrate California natives, both people and plants
This fall, a series of events at the University of California, Berkeley, will celebrate California's native history in terms of its plants and its people. California Indian Day launches the series on Friday, Sept 23.
(20 September)

Bancroft Library adds rare Second Biblia Rabbinica, Hebrew Bible
The University of California, Berkeley, has obtained a rare Hebrew Bible that has served as the foundation for almost all Bibles published since its own printing in the early 1500s.
(20 September)

Three young faculty members named MacArthur "genius" fellows
Three young UC Berkeley faculty members - a geophysicist, a neuroscientist and a geneticist - are among 25 new MacArthur "genius" fellows announced this week by the MacArthur Foundation. Each will receive $500,000 over five years to use as they please.
(20 September)

Chancellor, ASUC president sign multicultural center agreement
Chancellor Robert J. Birgeneau and new ASUC President Manuel Buenrostro signed a memorandum of understanding Sept. 16 outlining the operation of a new student multicultural center at UC Berkeley. Birgeneau praised the center as a "place where students will learn about each other."
(16 September)

The accidental activist: Born into 'the Family,' transfer student Daniel Roselle hopes to find a new community at UC Berkeley
How Daniel Roselle ended up starting his junior year here reveals the diverse and singular paths that many students take to UC Berkeley. In 1995, at age 20, he left his parents and younger siblings in the Los Angeles area with only a bus ticket, $50, and the address of a grandmother who he barely knew. His formal education had stopped with first grade, and his only work experience consisted of taking care of other children and selling religious pamphlets. But his biggest challenge was leaving not just his immediate family, but The Family International -- a religious group or a cult, depending on who you ask.
(16 September)

UC Botanical Garden offers "Waterwise" guide and plant sale
With winter rains around the corner, now may seem an unlikely time to ponder planting drought-tolerant plants, but experts at the University of California Botanical Garden say fall is the ideal season to get a head start on smart Bay Area gardening. Its publication, "Waterwise Gardening Tour," offers a colorful, carefully mapped out guide to 100 drought-resistant plants thriving among the 34-acre public garden's collection of more than 12,000 kinds of plants. It also offers practical tips on how to design a garden using these plants.
(16 September)

Update: Stolen laptop recovered
A stolen laptop computer that contained sensitive information on more than 98,000 University of California, Berkeley, graduate students and others was traced to South Carolina and has been recovered by campus police, UC Berkeley officials announced today (Wednesday, Sept 14).
(15 September)

Leon Litwack Rocks
Renowned historian and campus veteran Leon Litwack is about to make his live theatrical debut in the first show of the Department of Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies' 2005-06 season, the proletarian musical The Cradle Will Rock. Written in the mid-1930s by musician/composer Marc Blitzstein, it addresses (and was meant to aid and abet) the labor-movement struggles of its time while exploring themes still relevant today — war profiteering, attacks on labor, and religious demagoguery, to name a few.
(14 September)

Still revolting, after all these years
Merrill Markoe, who studied art at Berkeley and found fame as the creator of Stupid Pet Tricks, sports the smartest mouth in The Aristocrats, a documentary about the world's dirtiest joke. If you're a Markoe fan, though, hold out for the DVD.
(14 September)

Going solo, but not alone
When Kay Trimberger, a visiting scholar at the Institute for the Study of Social Change, realized in the early '90s that she would probably remain single for the rest of her days, she responded as any good sociologist would. She organized a study.
(14 September)

Opening the garden's gates
For close to two decades, leaders and supporters of the University of California Botanical Garden have been talking about, and at times earnestly planning for, a safe and welcoming entrance to the world-renowned living- plant museum. That era came to its official end on Sunday, when more than 150 garden enthusiasts poured through its new craftsman-designed wrought-iron gates, walking under its fresh redwood trellis and onto a landscaped plaza for a ceremony to mark the completion of a new entranceway.
(14 September)

Researchers recover typed text using audio recording of keystrokes
A new security threat revealed by computer scientists at UC Berkeley may be enough to drive some people away from their computer keyboards and back to pen and paper. The researchers show that a 10-minute audio recording of those keyboard clicks can betray the text you just entered, from passwords to secret love notes.
(14 September)

UC-community partnership programs honored
Chancellor Robert Birgeneau will honor five joint university-community education programs at a reception Wednesday (Sept. 14) as embodying the public service goals of the campus as they improve the lives of local residents.
(13 September)

California stem cell institute awards training grants, but money will have to wait
The state stem cell agency established in the wake of Proposition 71 has awarded its first grants: nearly $39 million for training students, post-docs and physicians. UC Berkeley received one of the 16 grants, and the only one to address the legal, ethical and social issues surrounding stem cell research and treatment.
(13 September)

Faculty members mobilize to aid relief effort; students and alumni offer assistance on campus
UC Berkeley faculty members are organizing their efforts to help rebuild New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, moving quickly to help the victims and emergency relief agencies and to provide insight and perspective on the disaster. In addition, student and alumni organizations have set up orientation and mentoring programs for displaced students, and campus fund-raising efforts continue to gear up, with the Katrina Emergency Fund raising more than $12,000 in just three days.
(12 September)

School of Information Management Systems offering an all-star speaker series on Internet search engines
This fall, the UC Berkeley School of Information Management and Systems (SIMS) is offering a new course that examines Internet search engines and that features lectures by an all-star cast of experts from academia and industry.
(12 September)

Arts and the A-bomb
The Atomic Age will undergo artistic scrutiny and rethinking through an upcoming series of events coordinated by the University of California, Berkeley's Consortium for the Arts.
(12 September)

Memory loss in older adults due to distractions, not inability to focus
For those 60 and over, memory lapses seem a given; an inevitable consequence of aging. A new study shows that there are indeed changes in the aging brain that affect short term memory. The problem, however, is not with focusing on relevant information, but with filtering out distractions.
(12 September)

Founder of UC Berkeley's linguistics department, American Indian language survey, dies
Murray Barnson Emeneau, emeritus professor of linguistics and Sanskrit at the University of California, Berkeley, an expert in "language areas" and the Dravidian languages of south and central India, and founder of the Survey of California and Other Indian Languages, died on Aug. 29 at the age of 101. He died in his sleep in his Berkeley home.
(09 September)

Campus launches Katrina Emergency Fund
Dozens of college students displaced by Hurricane Katrina and temporarily attending classes at UC Berkeley are struggling with the cost of starting over on a new campus. To provide these undergraduate and graduate students with emergency funds for everything from housing to books to clothing, the campus has set up the Katrina Emergency Fund. It will be administered by the Office of Student Life and is set up for online donations.
(09 September)

Campus memorial service to once again honor the past year's losses
In what has become an annual tradition, the Berkeley campus will gather on Thursday, Sept. 15, to remember those of its own who have died during the past year. More than 60 members of the community — among them faculty and emeriti, students, staff, and staff retirees — will be honored at the fourth annual campus memorial. The ceremony, which will include a reading of the names of the deceased, vocal and instrumental music, and dance, will be held from 12:10 to 12:50 p.m. at the flagpole west of California Hall, and is open to all to attend.
(08 September)

Constitution Day the Berkeley way
A host of happenings with a decidedly Berkeley bent are scheduled for the campus's initial commemoration of Constitution Day, mandated by a new federal law. Gay marriage, the PATRIOT Act, and the effectiveness of the 218-year-old U.S. Constitution will be the topics of conversation at events taking place at Berkeley to mark the Sept. 17 holiday.
(08 September)

Francis Violich, emeritus professor of city planning and landscape architecture, dies
Francis Violich, professor emeritus in city and regional planning and in landscape architecture at the University of California, Berkeley, and a founder of the Telesis Group, which lent a progressive status to city planning in the Bay Area, died Aug. 21 of natural causes at his home in Berkeley. He was 94.
(07 September)

Indian plays' return to UC Berkeley stage
Nearly a century has gone by since an Indian play was performed at the University of California, Berkeley. That was back in 1914, when an Orientalist interpretation of a 10-act Sanskrit play graced the Greek Theatre, complete with decorative circus elephants, oxen and camels.
(07 September)

Tasty chocolate program at UC Berkeley's Hearst Museum of Anthropology
Experts will explore cacao's origins in Mesoamerica, its medicinal qualities and its starring role in gourmet cuisine and contemporary society during a "Culture of Chocolate" forum at the University of California, Berkeley's Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology on Sunday, Oct. 9.
(07 September)

Berkeley opens classrooms, dorm rooms, and arms to welcome students displaced by hurricane
This afternoon, 36 New Orleans-area college students displaced by Hurricane Katrina and admitted to UC Berkeley as visitors got a crash course in all things Cal. The three-hour orientation that covered everything from housing opportunities to how to use their Cal ID card.
(06 September)

Bose-Einstein condensate runs circles around magnetic trap
Bose-Einstein condensation typically happens inside a magnetic trap, yielding a nebula of supercold gas. UC Berkeley physicists found that a gentle nudge was enough to launch a blob into a circular orbit - the first BEC storage ring.
(06 September)

Passive smoking as deadly as active smoking for Chinese women, researchers find
Exposure to secondhand smoke kills as many women in China as does smoking, according to new study findings by researchers at UC Berkeley.
(04 September)

Bay Area's black workers face crisis of low-wage jobs, says new UC Berkeley study
A University of California, Berkeley, study of San Francisco Bay Area black workers between 1970 and 2000 shows a significant percentage of black workers holding low-wage jobs, a situation that is increasingly acute for young black men.
(04 September)

Economic recovery marked by more jobs but falling wages, Labor Center study finds
In the face of job growth in California and the country, a new analysis by UC Berkeley's Center for Labor Research and Education nevertheless finds a slack labor market and wages taking a turn for the worse.
(04 September)

If Moscow's nuked, go to Plan B
A diverse group of thinkers gathered recently to consider the aftermath of a nuclear explosion in Moscow. What they said, weighty as it was, may not be as important to the campus as the way they worked together.
(01 September)

A showcase for Berkeley's best
Although a redesigned California Monthly won't appear until January, the magazine's new editor, Kerry Tremain, has already made his mark on the California Alumni Association's membership publication. The one-time executive editor of Mother Jones is infusing the Monthly with a sense of mission and purpose that closely tracks his own diverse interests. The Berkeleyan sat down with Tremain last week for a talk about the Monthly's future and the way his thinking about Berkeley — and the campus's potential contributions to public discourse on challenging issues — will shape that future.
(01 September)

Tenured sí, tethered no
Having prevailed in the tenure case heard 'round the world, Berkeley biologist Ignacio Chapela is not taking victory lying down. In fact, he expects to remain a thorn in the university's side well into the foreseeable future.
(01 September)

Campus chefs play 'Beat the Clock'
Cal Dining's four executive chefs gave a gold-medal-winning performance at this summer's American Culinary Federation's (ACF) competition in Amherst, Mass., with dishes they described as "very honest and straightforward, while also elegant."
(01 September)

Sneak preview of coming attractions this fall
The new semester at Berkeley is off to a flying start, with September and October jam-packed with events the campus community won't want to miss. NPR's Ira Glass, novelist Isabel Allende, the National Ballet of China, poet Al Young, and violinist Hilary Hahn will all visit Berkeley this fall.
(01 September)

Planet hunter Geoffrey Marcy shares $1 million Shaw Prize in astronomy
Geoffrey Marcy, whose planet-hunting team has discovered the majority of the 150+ known extrasolar planets, is being honored this week with the Shaw Prize in astronomy, dubbed the "Nobel Prize of the East." At a ceremony Sept. 2 in Hong Kong, he and Swiss planet hunter Michel Mayor will receive the $1 million prize and medals honoring their pioneering work that began nearly 20 years ago.
(01 September)

Hurricane Katrina experts available for interviews
The following University of California, Berkeley, experts are available for media interviews related to the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
(01 September)

Old Blues cheese it up for football ad campaign
The recipe for football marketing success for the 2005 Golden Bears mixes a pair of crusty but charming characters, a wagonload of Cal paraphernalia and more than a century of gridiron traditions
(30 August)

Minimum wage bill would boost wages of 2.35 million state workers, study says
Proposed legislation to raise California's minimum wage would boost the pay of 2.35 million workers in the state, with minimal costs to businesses and $2 billion in taxpayer savings, according to a new study by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley's Institute of Industrial Relations.
(30 August)

Ruth Huenemann, public health nutrition and childhood obesity expert, dies at 95
Ruth Lois Huenemann, pioneer in the field of public health nutrition, professor emerita and founder of the public health nutrition program at UC Berkeley, died Friday, Aug. 19, at the Lake Park Retirement Residence in Oakland, at the age of 95. She was one of the first researchers to recognize the importance of systematically studying the longitudinal development of obesity in children.
(29 August)

Study shows humans have ability to track odors, much like bloodhounds
Will humans some day vie with dogs and pigs in the ability to track odors? UC Berkeley neuroscientist Noam Sobel and graduate student Jess Porter think we've got a shot at the prize. They have shown that humans have an untapped ability to localize odors in the same way we localize sounds, and they're putting this ability to the test.
(29 August)

UC Berkeley announces record fundraising year
UC Berkeley raised a record $318.3 million in private gifts in the fiscal year 2004-05.
(26 August)

Singing the praises of tomorrow's teachers

(25 August)

A new spin on the breadth requirement
Undergraduates in the College of Letters and Science have long been required to fulfill a breadth requirement, a condition many greet less than enthusiastically. But Discovery Courses, a new program within L&S, is designed to add bona-fide breadth to students' liberal-arts education.
(25 August)

How do you move a rare-books collection?
This summer, after more than a year of planning, Bancroft Library staff began moving the collections to temporary quarters while their building undergoes a general upgrade and seismic renovation, scheduled for completion in 2007. The move has been as extensively choreographed as a ballet.
(25 August)

Big science
Some of the greatest minds in physics and cosmology, including 18 Nobel laureates, will explore the great challenges of 21st-century science at "Amazing Light: Visions for Discovery," a three-day international symposium to be held at Berkeley from Thursday, Oct. 6, through Saturday, Oct. 8.
(25 August)

Course about autism and product design highlights fall offerings in Disability Studies
An experimental course in which students will design products for people with autism is being offered this fall at the University of California, Berkeley, and is one of several new classes in the interdisciplinary Disabilities Studies program that critically examine the experiences of disabled people.
(25 August)

California's poet laureate, Ferlinghetti and Mary Karr in Lunch Poems lineup
The popular Lunch Poems series kicks off on Sept. 1, with readings this year by California Poet Laureate Al Young, beat poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Saskia Hamilton, Mary Karr and others.
(25 August)

Back-to-school highlights
Students arriving at the University of California, Berkeley, for the fall 2005 semester will find new housing, one-of-a-kind classes, expanded student services and an effort aimed at making students better neighbors. UC Berkeley expects to have 33,050 students enrolled this fall, including 4,030 entering freshman, 1,981 new transfer students and 2,750 new graduate students.
(25 August)

New faculty-in-residence program launched
Associate Professor George Chang and his wife have moved into a University of California, Berkeley, residence hall as the pioneers of the new Faculty Residence program.
(25 August)

Neighbors, campus and students join to ease tensions
A new task force comprised of University of California, Berkeley, students, campus neighbors, and city and campus officials is taking steps to make the neighborhoods near campus a more welcoming and peaceful place for both permanent residents and students who live there.
(25 August)

Nationwide survey of medical groups defines high and low performers

(25 August)

"CAL Prep" opens to East Bay 6th, 7th graders
CAL Prep, a new charter school collaborative between the University of California, Berkeley, and Aspire Public Schools, opened its doors today for East Bay 6th and 7th graders.
(24 August)

Wisdom of the sages
Who better to give advice on capitalizing on the Berkeley experience than those who have just survived — and thrived — here? The NewsCenter asked graduates from the Class of 2005 to share their hard-earned wisdom with incoming students.
(24 August)

'A beacon for other businesses': Berkeley alum Daryl Ross takes budget organic mainstream
Daryl Ross owns five eateries on or around the Berkeley campus, all extremely popular for their combination of low-key ambience and carefully prepared, mostly organic food at budget prices. A philosophy major at Berkeley, he has adopted as his guiding ethos that "quality, organic, sustainable ingredients not only taste better, they're better for the world all around."
(24 August)

Work on new parking structure & rec field will close Underhill lot this month
Construction of a replacement parking structure and recreation field at Underhill, the large parking area between Units 1 and 2 south of campus, is scheduled to begin at the end of August. The Underhill parking lot will be closed starting August 29 for the duration of construction, scheduled to continue through Spring 2007.
(23 August)

Officials agree on plan that could lift alcohol ban
University of California, Berkeley, officials, working with student fraternity and sorority leaders, have reached agreement on a plan that could lead to a gradual lifting of the current ban on alcohol consumption in effect since spring, campus officials announced today (Tuesday, Aug. 23). A key component of the agreement is holding the Greek community more accountable for self-regulation.
(23 August)

Voice mail changes coming
Berkeley staff and faculty can dial into new messaging services this fall as the campus rolls out its Unified Communications initiative, including the ability to receive voice mail on computers and e-mail by phone. New passwords and greetings will be needed before the new system can be accessed.
(23 August)

The Class of 2009 moves in
All across the UC Berkeley campus, the scene was one of controlled chaos as the 4,000 or so incoming Cal freshmen set up their homes away from home for the next year. With a slide show of a few possessions that the Class of 2009 can't imagine living without.
(23 August)

Federal ethanol program tragically misguided, UC Berkeley's Tad Patzek argues at National Press Club forum
The use of ethanol as a gas additive is "one of the most misguided public policy decisions to be made in recent history," argued UC Berkeley professor of civil and environmental engineering Tad Patzek at an August 23 National Press Club forum.
(23 August)

Caltrans awards $2.25 million to UC Berkeley-based center to study seismic safety of transportation systems
In an effort to improve the seismic safety and reliability of California’s highway system, the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) has awarded $2.25 million to the Pacific Earthquake Engineering Research Center (PEER), headquartered at UC Berkeley. The five-year grant from Caltrans will support multi-disciplinary studies that bring together geologists, seismologists and geotechnical and structural engineers from academia, private industry and government agencies.
(22 August)

"Big Bang Project" explores nuclear threat
The cover story for the latest issue of "California Monthly" details on a report on the unimaginable -- detonation by terrorists of a 10-kiloton nuclear explosion in Moscow and its devastating aftermath
(22 August)

Gov. Schwarzenegger gets taste of UC 'brain power' in visit to LBNL
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger traded in political science for a look at the future of physical science Aug. 19 at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, where he toured the Advanced Light Source and praised the "brain power in our UC system."
(19 August)

CHP seeking witnesses to accident that killed 3 grad students
California Highway Patrol officials are seeking witnesses to the violent Interstate-80 pileup on July 16 that killed three promising UC Berkeley graduate students. Police say there is evidence that reckless driving by a group of other vehicles may have led to the fatal early-morning crash.
(18 August)

Professor emeritus Donald Shively, expert on Japanese life and cultures, dies
Donald Shively, considered a founding father in the post-World War II development of Japanese studies in the United States, died Saturday, Aug. 13, at age 84.
(17 August)

Researchers develop technique to use dirty silicon, could pave way for cheaper solar energy
A research team led by engineers at UC Berkeley has developed a new technique to handle metal defects in cheap, low-grade silicon, an advance that could dramatically reduce the cost of solar cells. Instead of removing the impurities -- a difficult and costly solution -- the researchers are leaving them in but manipulating them to reduce their detrimental impact on the solar cell efficiency.
(15 August)

UC Berkeley part of NSF-funded center to study e-voting
Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, will join colleagues at five institutions nationwide in a bold, new effort to improve the reliability and trustworthiness of electronic voting technology. The National Science Foundation today (Monday, Aug. 15) announced that it will provide $7.5 million over five years for the new endeavor called A Center for Correct, Usable, Reliable, Auditable, and Transparent Elections (ACCURATE). UC Berkeley is expected to receive approximately $1.3 million of the funds.
(15 August)

Harriet Nathan, campus editor and oral historian, dies at 85
Harriet Nathan, a university editor and oral historian for nearly 40 years, died July 25 at age 85. In her work at the Institute of Governmental Studies and the Regional Oral History Office, Nathan, a 1941 Berkeley graduate, both observed a long chunk of university history and contributed substantially to its recording.
(12 August)

UC Berkeley health economist starts term as senior adviser on presidential council
William H. Dow, associate professor of health economics in the School of Public Health at the University of California, Berkeley, will begin a one-year stint in Washington, D.C., serving as a senior health economist advising members of President Bush's Council of Economic Advisors (CEA). During his term, which begins Monday, Aug. 15, he will be on leave from his position at UC Berkeley.
(12 August)

Berkeley staff craft alternate careers through hats, potions, and quilts
As much as they like their day jobs, these three UC Berkeley staff members also enjoy their nights and weekends spent sewing clochettes, stirring up batches of hemp seed oil, and making thousands upon thousands of tiny stitches. Carol Wood, Monica Hastings-Smith, and Jean Smith talk about their passion for their crafts.
(11 August)

Haas School alumnus gives $25 million for executive education building
An anonymous donor will provide $25 million toward a new executive education building for the University of California, Berkeley's Haas School of Business, marking the largest single gift in the school's 107-year history, Chancellor Robert Birgeneau announced today.
(10 August)

First triple asteroid system found
Using the Very Large Telescope in Chile, UC Berkeley and Paris Observatory astronomers have obtained images of the first triple asteroid system: two moonlets orbiting one of the largest of the main-belt asteroids, Sylvia. The discoverers have dubbed the moonlets Romulus and Remus, after the founders of Rome, the twin sons of the mythical Sylvia.
(10 August)

MEMO TO THE MEDIA
Researchers link Polynesians, California Indians
A UC Berkeley lecturer and a professor of anthropology at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo say linguistic and archaeological evidence points to Polynesians landing in Southern California between 400 and 800 A.D. and sharing their boat-building skills with Chumash and Gabrielino Indians in the region.
(09 August)

Business school to host leading research prize in socially responsible investing
The Haas School of Business announced today that the Moskowitz Prize, the only global award recognizing outstanding quantitative work on socially responsible investing, will come under the umbrell of the school's Center for Responsible Business.
(09 August)

Elephants in San Jose?
Oblivious to passersby, Mark Goodwin was on his knees in a muddy ditch near the San Jose airport, methodically removing clods of dirt to reveal the bones of one of the city's earliest residents, a mammoth. Goodwin, assistant director of the UC Museum of Paleontology at UC Berkeley, said the bones unearthed so far will help scientists learn more about the prehistoric denizens of the Bay Area.
(08 August)

New online course in alcohol awareness to be required of all new incoming students
UC Berkeley is requiring a new online course in alcohol awareness for its incoming students this fall. Its decision to include the AlcoholEdu for College program as part of its orientation is one of several campus efforts to address alcohol usage by students.
(08 August)

"Yosemite in Time" exhibit opens at Berkeley Art Museum
Two San Francisco photographers set out for Yosemite National Park with writer-historian Rebecca Solnit to retrace the steps of famed photographer Eadward Muybridge. Their work is on display at the UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, alongside photos by Muybridge, Ansel Adams, Edward Weston and Carleton Watkins.
(08 August)

Scientists exploit HIV's noisy genetics to force virus into latency
In a new paper, UC Berkeley scientists report how the "noisy" genetic circuitry of HIV can potentially be used to establish latent infections in T cells and suggest a way to possibly use this noise to foil HIV.
(08 August)

Young neurobiologist receives $1 million research award from W. M. Keck Foundation
Lu Chen, a young faculty member conducting research on the synapses nerve cells use to talk