Open clusters like Orion have low fertility rate
A detailed survey of stars in the Orion Nebula has found that fewer than 10 percent have enough surrounding dust to make Jupiter-sized planets. The study, one of the first using the new CARMA radio array, was conducted by astronomers at UC Berkeley, Caltech and the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.
(07 July)

Nature reserves attract humans, but at a cost to biodiversity, says study
Countering a perception that establishing nature reserves in developing nations drives away local communities, a new UC Berkeley study finds that human settlements are actually drawn to protected areas in Africa and Latin America. Unfortunately, the researchers also found a link between high rates of human population growth and illegal harvesting of timber, bushmeat hunting and species extinction.
(03 July)

First images of solar system's invisible frontier
NASA's STEREO spacecraft unexpectedly detected particles from the edge of the solar system last year, allowing UC Berkeley scientists to map for the first time the energized particles in the region where the hot solar wind slams into the cold interstellar medium.
(02 July)

Parasite vaccines within reach
Even though parasites are complex creatures, the mammalian immune response to them is surprisingly simple. This finding by UC Berkeley researchers provides hope that creating vaccines for parasitic diseases such as malaria may be more straightforward than initially thought
(02 July)

Genetic study reshuffles bird family tree
The family relationships among the world's 9,600 bird species have been thrown into question by a genetic comparion of bird DNA. According to UC Berkeley ornithologist Rauri Bowie, the study sheds a whole new light on birds' long evolutionary road from the dinosaurs.
(30 June)

Mars air once had moisture, new soil analysis says
A new analysis of Martian soil data led by UC Berkeley geoscientists suggests that there was once enough water in the planet's atmosphere for a light drizzle or dew to hit the ground, leaving tell-tale signs of its interaction with the planet's surface. The study's conclusion breaks from the more dominant view that the liquid water that once existed during the red planet's infancy came mainly in the form of upwelling groundwater.
(25 June)

Lancelet genome shows how genes quadrupled during vertebrate evolution
The ancestor of all chordates, a group that includes humans and other vertebrates, probably looked like a sand-dwelling invertebrate called the lancelet or amphioxus. Its newly sequenced genome confirms that, and shows how vertebrates evolved over the past 550 million years -- through a four-fold duplication of the genes of our primitive ancestors.
(18 June)

Biologist Gunther Stent has died at 84
Gunther S. Stent, a refugee from Nazi Germany who helped lay the foundations for the field of molecular biology and then moved into the study of neurobiology and consciousness, died June 12 of pneumonia at the age of 84.
(17 June)

Old muscle gets new pep in UC Berkeley stem cell study
When UC Berkeley bioengineers tweaked how adult stem cells reacted to biochemical signals regulating cell division, they gave muscle in old mice a shot of youthful vigor. The research sets the path for research on new treatments for age-related degenerative conditions, including muscle atrophy and Alzheimer's disease.
(16 June)

Astrophysicist Reinhard Genzel wins million-dollar Shaw Prize
Astrophysicist Reinhard Genzel, a UC Berkeley professor of physics and director of the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Garching, Germany, has been awarded the 2008 Shaw Prize in Astronomy for proving the existence of a black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy. The third UC Berkeley scientist to win the astronomy prize, Genzel will receive a cool million dollars.
(10 June)

Javan mud volcano triggered by drilling, not quake
On May 29, 2006, a mud volano erupted in East Java that to date has inundated five towns and displaced 30,000 people. It shows no signs of stopping. A new study confirms earlier suggestions that the eruption was triggered, not by a distant earthquake two days before, but by oil drilling.
(09 June)

Personal genomes may lead to personalized vitamin supplements
As the cost of DNA sequencing drops, it may become common for people to have their complete genomes sequenced. Personal genomes will not only tell people about their genetic susceptibility to cancer and heart disease, but also will tell them which vitamins can improve their health. Some day, we all may take personalized vitamin supplements.
(02 June)

Mathematician Murray Protter has died at 90
Murray Protter, a former chair of the mathematics department whose calculus textbook sold more than a million copies in the 1960s and '70s, died May 1 at his home in Berkeley of congestive heart failure. He was 90.
(02 June)

Low-cost EUV satellite shut down
A $14.5 million satellite launched just five years ago by NASA to study the sun's local environment has outlived its usefulness - and its funding -- and was shut down in April by its UC Berkeley operators.
(02 June)

5 new HHMI investigators to be announced May 27
Five UC Berkeley faculty members have received one of the most sought-after honors in biomedical research: appointment as Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) investigators with guaranteed research support for five, 10 or more years into the future.
(27 May)

Rapid escalation characterizes virus/host arms race
In the constant warfare between viruses and their hosts, escalation can be rapid. Looking closely at a small community of microbes collected from acid mine drainage, UC Berkeley researchers have found not only a sophisticated microbial immune system but a simple but effective counterstrategy adopted by viruses.
(22 May)

New Hubble, Keck images show turbulent Jupiter
The first images of Jupiter since it came out from behind the sun show that the turbulence and storms that have plagued the planet for the past two years continue. Whether or not this is a sign of global warming on the planet, the turbulence does seem to be spawning new spots.
(22 May)

X-ray outburst leads to all-out study of supernova
NASA's Swift satellite caught the rare birth of a supernova earlier this year, allowing astronomers to rapidly deploy ground-based telescopes to follow its evolution and learn about normal stellar explosions. UC Berkeley astronomers have analyzed the data to conclude that the original star was more than 30 times the mass of the sun, but only slightly larger, when its core ran out of fuel and imploded, blowing the star to smithereens.
(21 May)

CIRM awards $20 million for stem cell research facilities
The California Institute for Regenerative Medicine has awarded $20.18 million to UC Berkeley to build centralized stem cell laboratories in a new research building, the Li Ka Shing Center for Biomedical and Health Sciences, now under construction.
(07 May)

CIRM awards $20 million for stem cell research facilities
The California Institute for Regenerative Medicine has awarded $20.18 million to UC Berkeley to build centralized stem cell laboratories in a new research building, the Li Ka Shing Center for Biomedical and Health Sciences, now under construction.
(07 May)

New study analyzes why endangered parrot population isn't recovering
A new study led by a UC Berkeley biologist sheds light on the factors influencing the stalled growth of the severely endangered Puerto Rican parrot, and in turn, provides an analytical tool that could help pinpoint the biggest factors hindering the recovery of other endangered species.
(06 May)

Glowing sugars light up zebrafish
Using artificial sugar and some clever chemistry, UC Berkeley researchers have made glow-in-the-dark zebrafish whose internal light comes from the sugar coating on their cells. The technique is a new tool for researchers, and will lead to a better understanding of the role of cell-surface sugars in health and disease.
(02 May)

Three faculty members elected to National Academy of Sciences
Three faculty members of the University of California, Berkeley, are among 72 new members and 18 foreign associates elected to the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), one of the nation's most prestigious societies of scholars engaged in science and engineering research.
(29 April)

Refining the date of dinosaur extinction
Thanks to a recalibration of the argon-argon dating technique, geochronologists at UC Berkeley and the Berkeley Geochronology Center have established a more precise date for the dinosaur dieoff at the end of the Cretaceous period: 65.95 million years ago, give or take 40,000 years.
(24 April)

Unprecedented conservation map maximizes species protection on biodiversity hot spot
An international team of researchers led by UC Berkeley biologists has developed a remarkable new roadmap for finding and protecting the best remaining holdouts for thousands of rare species that live only in Madagascar, an island nation considered one of the world's jewels of biodiversity. The new plan not only includes lemurs – those large-eyed, tree-hopping primates that have become poster children for conservation – but also species of ants, butterflies, frogs, geckos and plants.
(10 April)

"Math girl" makes music
A wide variety of music will echo across campus on Cal Day, but Nicole Campbell's got a niche all her own. The long-haired, acoustic guitar-strumming, third-year UC Berkeley student will be in Room 1015 of Evans Hall performing songs she wrote about math and science.
(03 April)

Dr. Robert Mishell, professor emeritus of immunology, dies at age 73
Dr. Robert Mishell, a professor emeritus of immunology who discovered the first method of developing antibody-producing cells in vitro, died March 6 at age 73.
(02 April)

Octopus lovemaking more sophisticated than previously assumed
For decades, scientists have considered octopuses to be unromantic loners. But new research from UC Berkeley has found that at least one species of octopus engages in such sophisticated lovemaking tactics as flirting, passionate handholding and keeping rivals at arms’ length.
(31 March)

Growth hormone also guides brain wiring
A human hormone known to stimulate the growth of cells throughout the body has a new role - helping to set up the proper nerve connections in the odor center of the brain, according to UC Berkeley neuroscientist John Ngai.
(26 March)

Mathematician, puzzle lover David Gale has died
David Gale, a puzzle lover and professor emeritus of mathematics who made fundamental contributions to economics and game theory, died March 7 at the age of 86.
(18 March)

Gecko's tail key to preventing falls, aerial maneuvers
While recent research has focused on the gecko's unusual toes as the key to climbing walls and hanging from ceilings, UC Berkeley biologists have found that its tail plays a critical role in preventing it from falling when it slips and maneuvering to solid surfaces when it does fall.
(17 March)

New oak woodland reserve near San Jose
The new Blue Oak Ranch Reserve, a 3,260-acre oak woodland just east of San Jose, will provide a research site for UC scientists and an educational outpost for local college and K-12 students.
(13 March)

UC Berkeley and Stanford University launch joint stem cell research
Two leaders in biomedical research – UC-Berkeley and the Stanford School of Medicine – will join forces in a new stem cell initiative that will catalyze research and serve as a magnet for scholars from around the world. The Siebel Stem Cell Institute, established by the Thomas and Stacey Siebel Foundation, is a joint initiative between the Berkeley Stem Cell Center and the Stanford Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine Institute.
(12 March)

Carbon calculator provides personalized footprint
Anyone concerned about global warming will want to check out UC Berkeley's new carbon calculator to see how their lifestyle contributes to their personal carbon footprint, and to find ways to reduce their greenhouse gases emissions.
(28 February)

EBI director's talk on demystifying cellulosic biofuels can been seen on YouTube
In a talk that can be seen on YouTube, Chris Somerville, the director of the new Energy Biosciences Institute (EBI), discussed why cellulosic biofuels can have major environmental and economic advantages over today's corn-based ethanol.
(28 February)

Small "helper" stars needed for massive star formation
Massive stars form rarely, but have a large influence on a galaxy like the Milky Way. They seed galaxies with most of their heavy elements, for example. A UC Berkeley astrophysicist looking into the formation of massive stars finds that stars the size of the sun must form first to set the stage for formation of a single, huge star perhaps 100 times the mass of the sun.
(27 February)

Genome of marine organism tells of animals' one-celled ancestors
A ubiquitous but little-known marine organism, the choanoflagellate, is the last one-celled ancestor of humans and offers clues to how cells learned to assemble into multicelled organisms. The genome of the choanoflagellate Monisiga has now been sequenced and, according to UC Berkeley's Nicole King, offers clues to the origin of the glue that holds many-celled animals together.
(14 February)

Tracking gliding behavior in the "flying" lemur
Among the gliding animals, the colugo or "flying" lemur of Southeast Asia is the champ. It's able to glide the length of two football fields with its doormat-sized skin flaps. UC Berkeley researchers are strapping backpacks to these animals to find out how they do it.
(07 February)

Anna's hummingbird chirps with its tail
Male Anna's hummingbirds can now be seen in many West Coast backyards and fields executing theirdisplay dives to seduce females and drive away intruders. UC Berkeley students have now shown that the characteristic chirp at the bottom of the male's dive, thought by many to be vocal, is produced by a split-second flaring of the tail feathers.
(30 January)

Engineers create new adhesive that mimics gecko toe hairs
A new anti-sliding adhesive developed by UC Berkeley engineers may be the closest man-made material yet to mimic the remarkable gecko toe hairs that allow the tiny lizard to scamper along vertical surfaces and ceilings. The researchers say that such an adhesive could one day be used to outfit a small robot that could climb up walls.
(29 January)

Rich nations' environmental footprint falls on poor
In the first-ever global accounting of the financial costs of environmental damage caused by human activities in high-, middle- and low-income nations, UC Berkeley researchers have found that rich nations disproportionately impact poor countries, exacting a cost that exceeds what the poor owe the rich.
(22 January)

Parasite morphs ant into ripe red berry
Parasites occasionally change the behavior or looks of their host, but a nasty tropical nematode alters both, making its ant host's parasite-filled abdomen resemble a ripe red berry. According to UC Berkeley and Univ. of Arkansas biologists, this behavior is a strategy the nematode evolved to entice birds to eat the ant's abdomen and spread the parasite in their droppings.
(16 January)

Teen pregnancy the norm among dinosaurs
Until recently, paleontologists had found only one dinosaur fossil that was identifiably female: a T. rex that was 18 and pregnant when it died. UC Berkeley researchers now report two more - fossil bones from a 10-year-old female Allosaurus and an 8-year-old female Tenontosaurus - that together indicate dinosaurs grew quickly and became sexually mature before reaching their adult size. Because these dinosaurs typically lived only 30 years, female dinosaurs got pregnant and laid eggs in adolescence.
(14 January)

Orphaned bear cub snuggles into new home at UC Berkeley's Sagehen reserve
A 1-year-old orphaned black bear cub was relocated to UC Berkeley's Sagehen Creek Field Station on Jan. 3, joining two other orphaned bears who were successfully relocated to the reserve in 2005.
(03 January)

SETI@home looking for more volunteers
The longest-running search for radio signals from alien civilizations is getting a burst of new data from an upgraded Arecibo telescope, which means the SETI@home project needs more desktop computers to help crunch the data.
(02 January)

Donald Kaplan, expert on plant shapes and forms, dies at 69
Donald Robert Kaplan, UC Berkeley professor emeritus of plant biology and an influential expert on the development of the diverse forms and shapes of plants, has died at the age of 69. Fellow botanists credit Kaplan's detailed studies and analyses of leaf development for setting the standard in the field of plant morphology.
(21 December)

New biochip could replace animal testing
The drug industry, the cosmetic industry and the chemical industry in general generate scads of new products each year, and each must be tested for human toxicity. Since animal testing of some products, like cosmetics, will soon be banned, a rapid and inexpensive way to test new chemicals for toxicity is needed. Enter the DataChip and MetaChip, two quarter-sized biochips developed by chemical engineers at UC Berkeley and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
(18 December)

UC Berkeley research is part of Discover magazine's Top 100 Science Stories of 2007
Two UC Berkeley research discoveries – one on a hyperlens with a unique way of altering light and the other on the body positioning of dinosaurs in the throes of death – were honored as two of this year's top 100 science stories by Discover Magazine.
(14 December)

Stem cell grant will spur research on rejuvenating muscle
Irina Conboy, a young assistant professor who hopes embryonic stem cells can rejuvenate aging muscles, is the recipient of a $2.25 million research grant from the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM).
(14 December)

Moss genome tells of origin of land plants
Sequencing of the genome of a dainty green moss is telling scientists how aquatic plants learned to survive on land.
(13 December)

THEMIS probes view auroral substorms, bowshock explosions
As the five THEMIS probes approach an optimal lineup for studying magnetic substorms that tickle the Northern Lights, they already have revealed new information about how solar energy leaks into the Earth's magnetosphere and about explosions generated at the magnetosphere's bowshock.
(11 December)

Early warning system predicted shaking from Oct. 30 quake
An earthquake early warning system now being testing throughout the state correctly predicted ground shaking in San Francisco from October's 5.4 magnitude Alum Rock quake a few seconds before the ground started moving.
(10 December)

$5.2 million grant from Moore Foundation funds ambitious project to barcode an entire ecosystem
UC Berkeley researchers are leading an ambitious, first-of-its-kind effort to inventory all non-microbial life on the South Pacific island of Moorea. Supported by a new three-year, $5.2 million grant from the Moore Foundation, the Moorea Biocode Project will turn the island into a model ecosystem that promises to provide insight into the effects of climate change, invasive species, habitat destruction and other global challenges.
(06 December)

Nobelist Smoot launches new cosmology center
George Smoot, winner of the 2006 Nobel Prize in Physics, has put $500,000 of his prize money with $7.6 million in other gifts and support to jump-start a new cosmology center at UC Berkeley to explore cosmic questions of dark energy and dark matter.
(04 December)

Paleontologist Joseph Gregory has died at 93
Joseph T. Gregory, a professor emeritus of paleontology at UC Berkeley who was well known for his studies of fossil amphibians and reptiles as well as for his contributions to the history of vertebrate paleontology, died Nov. 18 in Houston, Texas, at age 93.
(29 November)

Global warming sends salamanders packing
During two past episodes of global warming, salamanders moved back and forth between North America and Asia as they sought cooler climes. This long march for such a slow-moving creature has been reconstructed by UC Berkeley biologists from genetic and climatic data.
(27 November)

Fin whales' big gulp
When it comes to big gulps, baleen whales take the prize. Scientists have measured the volume of water engulfed when fin whales lunge after prey, and calculate it to be about the size of a bus.
(27 November)

New technique captures chemical reactions in a single living cell for the first time
A team of UC Berkeley bioengineers have developed a technique that for the first time enables the detection of chemical signals from biomolecules in a single living cell with unprecedented resolution. By coupling metallic nanoparticles with biomolecules, researchers can obtain information critical to cell-based drug discovery, early disease detection and biomedical diagnostics.
(19 November)

Energy Biosciences Institute contract signed
With a final signature today (Nov. 14) from BP president Bob Malone, the Energy Biosciences Institute has become reality. The EBI partners - BP, the University of California, Berkeley, the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign - embark on a critical mission to explore the potential of biofuels to help forestall the effects of global warming.
(14 November)

Chocolate drinks - probably fermented ones - popular long before previously thought, says anthropologist
Mesoamerican menus featured cacao beverages - probably fermented ones - at least as early as 1100 B.C., some 500 years earlier than previously documented anywhere, according to new research published in the latest issue of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
(13 November)

Donald Kennedy on the control of scientific knowledge
In the first of three Clark Kerr Lectures, the editor-in-chief of Science,
former head of Stanford University, and FDA commissioner for President
Jimmy Carter traces the current state of university science to a Bush in
FDR’s White House.
(08 November)

Record 5th planet found around nearby star
A record-breaking fifth planet has been discovered around 55 Cancri, a yellowish star only 41 light years from Earth. The discovery implies that the star has even more planets that are smaller than the gas giants found so far and possibly include a rocky, Earth-like planet.
(06 November)

Single nanotube makes world's smallest radio
Wielding a single carbon nanotube 10,000 times smaller than a human hair, UC Berkeley and LBNL physicists have constructed the smallest radio yet. With such a small receiver or transmitter, you could put a tracking collar on a bacterium.
(31 October)

Social standing influences how far elephants travel for food, study finds
A study of African elephants led by UC Berkeley researchers finds that dominant elephants will trek significantly fewer miles in search of food during the dry season compared with their less dominant counterparts. The findings highlight the influence of social standing on elephant movement.
(29 October)

Ten scientists named fellows of AAAS
Ten UC Berkeley faculty members have been named fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the nation's premier scientific organization and publisher of the weekly journal Science. This brings the campus total to 205.
(26 October)

Students pursue program promoting science, math teaching
Science and math education in the United States may be viewed as flawed experiments lately, but some 200 University of California, Berkeley, students majoring in math, science and engineering may help fix that through a new program promoting teaching of these crucial subjects.
(25 October)

Memorial for late yeast expert Robert Mortimer
An Oct. 28 memorial service will honor Robert K. Mortimer, a yeast expert and UC Berkeley professor emeritus of molecular and cell biology who died Aug. 10 at the age of 79. Mortimer was key to making yeast an important organism for studying the action of genes and chromosomes, and investigated the yeast strains that give wine complexity.
(23 October)

Methane drizzle on Saturn's moon Titan
Near-infrared images from Hawaii's Keck Observatory and Chile's Very Large Telescope show for the first time a nearly global cloud cover at high elevations on Titan, Saturn's largest moon, and a widespread and persistent morning drizzle of methane on the flanks of Titan's major continent, Xanadu.
(11 October)

Subatomic particles and giant magnets
Like Stanley Hall itself, Berkeley's new NMR facility is already helping to shorten the distance between disciplines in the quantitative sciences.
(03 October)

Neuroscientists connect neural activity and blood flow in new brain stimulation technique
UC Berkeley neuroscientists have for the first time measured the electrical activity of nerve cells and correlated it to changes in blood flow in response to transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), a noninvasive method to stimulate neurons in the brain. Their findings, reported in the Sept. 28 issue of the journal Science, could substantially improve the effectiveness of brain stimulation as a therapeutic and research tool.
(27 September)

Tracing a spidery family tree
Insect biologist Rosemary Gillespie’s research has taken her from Scotland to Hawaii to Berkeley. Here, at least, she doesn’t have to capture specimens with a tuning fork.
(26 September)

NASA resurrects NuSTAR mission to image massive black holes
NuSTAR, a NASA mission canceled in 2006 a year before its planned launch, has been resurrected by the agency as it moves toward more small class explorer missions. UC Berkeley will collaborate with Caltech in building the black hole imager, and will serve as mission operations center.
(21 September)

Pleasant odors perceived the same by different cultures
Are people's taste preferences totally dependent on culture, or are there universal likes and dislikes? A cross-cultural study by UC Berkeley and Israeli neurobiologists shows that the odors people perceive as pleasant or unpleasant are the same around the world. In fact, they've created a way to predict the degree of pleasantness of new chemicals.
( 20 September )

Young innovator in cancer research chosen for NIH award
A young UC Berkeley researcher with ambitious plans to identify tissue-specific cancer drugs has been chosen to receive a National Institutes of Health New Innovator Award, one of 29 to be announced Sept. 19.
(18 September)

New grants to help researchers improve nuclear detection, domestic security
A pair of grants from the Academic Research Initiative, a partnership between the National Science Foundation and the Department of Homeland Security's Domestic Nuclear Detection Office, will help UC Berkeley researchers improve domestic security by developing better methods of detecting nuclear material.
(14 September)

Ancient whale fall found from Año Nuevo Island
When a whale dies and falls to the bottom in the deep ocean, it attracts a weird community of mollusks, crabs and worms that feed on its oil-rich bones. A 15 million-year-old fossilized whale discovered on Año Nuevo Island is the first fossil whale fall discovered in California, and one of the youngest and most complete fossil whale falls ever found.
(13 September)

Physicists pin down atomic spin for spintronics
UC Berkeley physicists have successfully measured the atomic spin of an isolated atom, one of the necessary steps on the road to quantum computers and spintronic devices.
(12 September)

Astronomers eager to add to Sky in Google Earth
Since Sky in Google Earth debuted two weeks ago to let the public explore the heavens from their computers, two UC Berkeley astronomers have jumped at the chance to populate Google's sky with the most recently discovered heavenly objects, including new exoplanets, gamma-ray bursts and supernovas.
(06 September)

Whales evolved biosonar to chase squid into the deep
Sperm whales, dolphins and other "toothed" whales today chase squid so deep in the ocean that they have to rely on biosonar instead of their eyes to find them. Two UC Berkeley paleontologists have come up with a likely evolutionary scenario to explain how these whales developed their echolocating "biosonar" over the past 40 million years.
(05 September)

John Gofman, anti-nuclear activist & lipid researcher, has died
John William Gofman, a professor who first discovered the role of LDL and HDL in heart disease and went on to document and publicize the health dangers of low-level radiation, died Aug. 15 of heart failure at his home in San Francisco. He was 88.
(04 September)

Flies prefer fizzy drinks
Fruit flies like a splash of soda water in their drinks, according to UC Berkeley neuroscientist Kristin Scott and her colleagues. They discovered that the insect has specialized taste cells for carbonated water, probably to encourage them to binge on food with microorganisms like yeast and bacteria that give off carbon dioxide.
(29 August)

Keck, Hubble provide new view of Uranus' rings
Astronomers discovered 30 years ago that Uranus, like Saturn, has a set of rings comprised of rocks, pebbles and dust, and Voyager 2 snapped the first and best pictures of the rings in 1986. With more powerful ground based telescopes and the Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers are now primed to learn even more about the rings as they swing edge-on to Earth, a perspective that Earth gets only once in 42 years.
(23 August)

Savanna habitat drives birds to cooperative breeding
Birds of a feather stick together, but for African starlings, this is true primarily in savannas, where cooperation improves survival in the unpredictable habitat, according to researchers from UC Berkeley and Cornell. Cooperative breeding, where helpers forego breeding to gather food for the offspring of others in the group, seems to be a successful survival strategy in the highly variable rainfall of the savanna.
(16 August)

Scientists honored by technology magazines for scientific and technological innovation
Chemical engineer Rachel Segalman, synthetic biologist J. Christopher Anderson and Tapan Parikh, who is bringing high-tech to the developing world, are among Technology Review's top innovators over the age of 35, while chemist Alex Pines was named one of R&D Magazine's top 100 innovators of the year.
(15 August)

UC Berkeley: Seismologists confirm mine collapse caused temblor
A 3.9 magnitude temblor recorded at the time of a mine collapse in southern Utah on Aug. 6 was not caused by an earthquake, but more likely was the result of the collapse itself, according to an analysis by UC Berkeley seismologists.
(09 August)

Frog-killing fungus could be greater threat, finds new genetic analysis
A new study led by UC Berkeley researchers suggests that a frog-killing fungus may be harder to fight because of the pathogen's ability to spread over long distances and possibly persist in the environment as a consequence of sexual reproduction. The fungus has already decimated populations of mountain yellow-legged frogs in the Sierra Nevada.
(06 August)

Ichthyologist, animal behaviorist George Barlow has died
Preeminent U.S. ichthyologist George W. Barlow, who studied parenting behavior and aggression in fish and was a well-known expert on cichlid fishes, died July 14 at the age of 78.
(30 July)

Eminent biochemist Daniel Koshland has died
Daniel E. Koshland Jr., an eminent biochemist and energetic guardian of UC Berkeley's research preeminence, died on July 23 following a massive stroke. A former editor of the journal Science, Koshland was 87.
(24 July)

Rise of dinosaurs not so rapid after all
The ancestors of dinosaurs seemed to disappear before the dinosaurs took over the Earth, suggesting to many that dinosaurs were so successful that they rapidly outcompeted their ancestors and drove them extinct. New fossil finds in New Mexico, however, show that this was not true -- dinosaurs and their ancestors lived side by side for 15-20 million years in the Late Triassic before the dinosaur precursors vanished.
(19 July)

Researchers at UC Berkeley and LBNL share $500,000 Gruber Cosmology Prize for discovering universe acceleration
Researchers at the UC Berkeley and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) have been awarded the 2007 Gruber Cosmology Prize for their role in the seminal discovery that the expansion of the universe is accelerating.
(17 July)

Researchers witness natural selection at work in dramatic comeback of male butterflies
When an invasive bacteria ravaged the male embryos of the Blue Moon butterfly, it left populations that were nearly entirely female. But in an extraordinary example of natural selection at work, the males made a comeback, going from 1 percent of the population to 39 percent in the span of one year, or 10 generations. Researchers at UC Berkeley and elsewhere witnessed this evolutionary event and credited it to the rise of a suppressor gene that stopped the male-killing bacteria in its tracks.
(12 July)

Anemone genome gives new view of multi-celled ancestors
The genome of the sea anemone is nearly as complex as the human genome, according to UC Berkeley researchers who have completed the first analysis of the animal's genes. Because of this similarity, it is providing major insights into the common ancestor of not only humans and sea anemones, but of nearly all multi-celled animals.
(05 July)

DOE awards LBNL, UC Berkeley and partners $125 million for biofuels research
Berkeley and the Bay Area cemented their position as the nation's center of alternative "green" energy research with the announcement June 26 by the Department of Energy of a $125 million, five-year grant to Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, UC Berkeley, and four other partners to develop better biofuels.
(26 June)

Drug resistance argues against mutation theory of cancer
Most cancer researchers are convinced that cancer results from a handful of genetic mutations that kick a cell into uncontrolled growth. UC Berkeley genetics researcher Peter Duesberg disagrees, and finds support for his "chromosomal" theory of cancer in the development of drug resistance by many cancers.
(26 June)

Strong evidence that Mars once had an ocean
UC Berkeley geophysicists are providing strong evidence that Mars once had an ocean. Naysayers have argued that what appear to be ancient coastlines are too warped to be true seashores. The reseachers claim, however, that this anomaly resulted from the tilt of Mars' spin axis 2 to 3 billion years ago, possible because the weight of surface water made the planet tip like a weighted top.
(13 June)

Chemist Gabor Somorjai to receive Priestley Medal
The American Chemical Society will bestow its highest honor, the Priestley Medal, on Gabor A. Somorjai, University Professor and professor of chemistry at the UC Berkeley, for his "extraordinarily creative and original contributions to surface science and catalysis."
(12 June)

Geochemist Harold Helgeson has died at 75
Harold C. Helgeson, who rose from gold and diamond prospecting to become the world's foremost geochemist and the father of theories about where to look for ore and oil, died May 28 at the age of 75.
(11 June)

Agonized pose tells of dinosaur death throes
Like investigators out of CSI or Cold Case, UC Berkeley and Montana paleontologists find clues to a dinosaur's demise in its peculiar death pose. They argue that the open-mouthed, head-back posture of many dinosaur fossils tells of an agonized death from brain damage and suffocation.
(06 June)

Team reports 28 new exoplanets
The world's largest and most prolific team of planet hunters announced on May 28 the discovery of 28 new planets outside our solar system, increasing to 236 the total number of known exoplanets. The bounty of new planets, not to mention 7 new brown dwarfs, allows the astronomers to draw conclusions about how planets form and how planet systems evolve.
(29 May)

Ultra-cold gas makes great magnetometer
The universe's coldest state of matter is the Bose-Einstein condensate, a 50 nanoKelvin-above-absolute-zero gas of frigid atoms that behaves like a superfluid. UC Berkeley physicists have found a way to use these ultra-cold atoms to measure very small magnetic fields, which could be applied to mapping brain waves.
(18 May)

New teaching, research building gets go-ahead
The outdated and seismically poor Warren Hall is set for demolition in 2008, to be replaced by a modern, five-story teaching and research building that will house stem cell research as well as work on infectious diseases, cancer and brain disorders. The Li Ka Shing Center for Biomedical and Health Sciences should open for business in 2011.
(17 May)

Chemist Peidong Yang wins NSF Waterman Award
Peidong Yang, a 36-year-old chemist who is a pioneer in the creation of nanowires, has been awarded the $500,000 Waterman Award, the National Science Foundation's top prize for young researchers. Yang's work could lead to miniaturized labs-on-a-chip, nano-scale electronic circuits and inexpensive, flexible solar cells.
(15 May)

Mathematician Emma Lehmer dies at 100
Emma Trotskaya Lehmer, a member of UC Berkeley's mathematical community since 1940, died peacefully in her sleep on May 7 at the age of 100.
(11 May)

Largest, brightest supernova announced
UC Berkeley astronomers report the most luminous supernova ever detected, the result of the explosion of a super-massive star in a galaxy 250 million light years away. The scientists estimate the star was 150 times larger than our sun, and argue that it is similar to the massive stars that populated the universe shortly after its birth.
(07 May)

Generating pressures at the cores of giant planets
UC Berkeley, LLNL researchers have developed a technique that could generate pressures of more than a billion atmospheres, the equivalent of the pressure at the center of a supergiant planet.
(02 May)

UC Berkeley's 'Tree of Wisdom' featured in Vanity Fair
UC Berkeley's Nobel Prize winners and Chancellor Robert Birgeneau are featured as part of Vanity Fair magazine's "Green Issue," hitting national newsstands today.
(10 April)

Massive star burps, then explodes
Two and a half years ago, a distant star burped - producing a bright flash called a supernova imposter - then two years later, exploded for real. With the help of two NASA satellites, astronomers have now determined that when the star initially hiccupped, it spewed a shell of gas that the supernova shock wave later rammed, producing copious X-rays.
(04 April)

Campus animal facilities earn gold star
Calling the University of California, Berkeley's animal care and use program "exemplary," the international organization that inspects and accredits facilities that use animals in research has given the campus another gold star.
(29 March)

Binary asteroid revealed as twin rubble piles
The asteroid Antiope is among the few known binary asteroids discovered in recent years, visible through even the Earth's largest telescopes as merely two bright blobs orbiting one another endlessly. By harnessing the power of larger telescopes and the eagerness of amateurs with smaller instruments, UC Berkeley and Paris Observatory astronomers have constructed a detailed picture of two rubble-piles in a perpetual pas de deux.
(29 March)

Chemists strike gold with gold catalysts
Few people look beyond gold's glitter and rarity, but chemists have found that its chemical properties are just as interesting, making it a unique catalyst for producing unusual organic molecules. A UC Berkeley leader in the area of gold catalysis attributes these properties to relativistic effects in the gold atom.
(22 March)

Goal of nanoscale optical imaging gets boost with new hyperlens
UC Berkeley scientists have created a hyperlens capable of projecting a magnified image of a pair of nanowires spaced 150 nanometers apart onto a plane up to a meter away. The development brings them a giant step closer to the goal of nanoscale optical imaging.
(22 March)

Origins of the universe: Stephen Hawking's J. Robert Oppenheimer Lecture
The is the text of the J. Robert Oppenheimer Lecture in Physics, delivered March 13, 2007, by Stephen Hawking, the Lucasian professor of mathematics at Cambridge University. Hawking spoke at Zellerbach Hall on the campus of the University of California, Berkeley.
(16 March)

Famed paleoanthropologist Clark Howell has died
Paleoanthropologist F. Clark Howell, who turned the field of human origins into a scientific study by drawing in researchers from all fields, ranging from ecology and geology to ethnography, has died at 81.
(13 March)

Sharing genes a common affair, studies show
Bacteria are known to share genes among different species, but how common is it in other organisms, including mammals like us? Two new studies show that most bacteria have genes or large groups of genes shared by other bacteria, and even among higher organisms, gene sharing is the rule rather than the exception.
(08 March)

Faculty and undergrads get on the same page
Superstar cosmologist Stephen Hawking's visit to campus — four years in the making — finally becomes a reality this Tuesday. If you haven't been caught up in the excitement, well, the explanation could have something to do with black holes.
(07 March)

Galaxy survey focuses on "pre-teen" years
A massive project to generate an all-color map of the galaxies in a small area of sky is yielding new information about the universe's "pre-teen" years and the early evolution of galaxies and galaxy clusters.
(06 March)

Looking for life on Jupiter's moon Europa
If life exists on other planets, it almost certainly will be found where there's water. While many scientists pin their hopes on Mars, paleobiologist Jere Lipps yearns to probe Jupiter's moon Europa, because its jumbled ice cover reminds him of the Antarctic ice sheets that are home to abundant life on Earth.
(22 February)

National Academy of Engineering elects three Berkeley faculty
Three members of the Berkeley faculty have been elected to the National Academy of Engineering (NAE), one of the highest professional distinctions for an American engineer.
(21 February)

Successful launch of UC Berkeley’s THEMIS satellites positions NASA mission to answer key questions about Earth’s auroras
After a picture-perfect launch into clear, blue skies on Saturday, Feb. 17, the five THEMIS probes appear to be healthy and in their expected orbits. THEMIS is NASA's first five-satellite mission and the first to investigate a key mystery surrounding the auroras, or Northern and Southern lights: When, where and how are they triggered?
(18 February)

Despite delay, prospects good for Friday's launch of THEMIS
A storm front that moved off the Gulf of Mexico through northern Florida on Tuesday, forcing a 24-hour delay in the scheduled launch of five UC Berkeley-built THEMIS satellites, was a mild inconvenience for many space scientists. But it proved a boon for their families, who spent Thursday further exploring the John F. Kennedy Space Center or splashing in the hotel pool in sunny, 70-degree weather.
(16 February)

Researchers convert heat to electricity using organic molecules, could lead to new energy source
UC Berkeley researchers have successfully generated electricity from heat by trapping organic molecules between metal nanoparticles, an achievement that could pave the way toward the development of a new source for energy.
(15 February)

Free-science movement gains a foothold at Berkeley
Berkeley biologist Michael Eisen, who co-founded the Public Library of Science in 2000 with the aim of making all scientific research findings freely available online, thinks it's "fantastic" that the $10 billion scholarly-publishing industry seems to be fighting back. "It's just evidence that open access is working," he says.
(14 February)

A plant-based diet for small-planet diplomats
In their own own species of botanical détente, U.S. and Iranian plant experts have been exploring the rich flora of Iran, and building professional connections, for close to a decade via the American-Iranian Botanical Program.
(14 February)

Chemist Paul Alivisatos named Lawrence Award winner
Paul Alivisatos, a chemist and materials scientist, has been named one of eight winners of this year's E. O. Lawrence Award of the U.S. Dept. of Energy. Alivisatos is one of the pioneers of nanotechnology, working with nanocrystals, nanorods and aggregates of nanorods that have promise as inexpensive and flexible solar panels.
(07 February)

Male sweat boosts women's hormone levels
Male sweat, and one particular chemical in male sweat, is known to influence women's moods, and even increase their sexual arousal. Now, a study by Claire Wyart at UC Berkeley shows that the chemical andrastadienone in male sweat also boosts levels of the hormone cortisol in women who sniff it. These findings suggest that andrastadienone may be a human pheromone, causing both behavioral and hormonal changes in women.
(06 February)

Biologists shed light on health of marbled murrelet population in early 1900s
UC Berkeley biologists studied marbled murrelets specimens collected around the early 1900s, and reconstructed the seabird's reproduction and survival rate before its dramatic decline. Their work provides for the first time a baseline measure of health by which contemporary populations can be compared.
(05 February)

Tribe of ancients
From prehistoric predators to modern poachers, the UC Botanical Garden's cycad species have seen it all.
(01 February)

Chemical engineer Donald Hanson dies at 88
Donald N. Hanson, professor emeritus of chemical engineering at the University of California, Berkeley, and an inspiring teacher and mentor, died on Jan. 11 in Orinda, Calif., following a year of illness and hospice care. He was 88.
(24 January)

Stephen Smale awarded Wolf Prize in mathematics
Stephen Smale, a Fields Medalist and a major contributor to many fields of mathematics, has received the prestigous Wolf Foundation Prize in Mathematics. Smale proved, among other things, that a sphere can be turned inside out without breaking it, or even leaving a crease.
(19 January)

Rotting leaf litter study could lead to more accurate climate models
Bags of decomposing leaf litter have allowed a research team led by scientists at UC Berkeley and Colorado State University to produce an elegantly simple set of equations to calculate the nitrogen released into the soil during decomposition, which in turn could significantly improve the accuracy of global climate change models.
(18 January)

NASA to launch THEMIS probes Feb. 15
Substorms in the Earth's magnetosphere turn the shimmering Northern and Southern lights into a dancing light show. A new NASA mission called THEMIS, designed and built by UC Berkeley scientists and scheduled for a Feb. 15 launch from Cape Canaveral, will field five probes that will lurk in Earth's shadow to determine where and how these substorms are triggered.
(17 January)

NASA funds instrument to probe life on Mars
A joint UC San Diego/UC Berkeley experiment to detect life on Mars that is scheduled to fly aboard the European ExoMars rover mission in 2013 will receive $750,000 in development funding from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), according to a NASA announcement this week.
(11 January)

Physics teaching award to astronomer Alex Filippenko
Astronomer Alex Filippenko, who late last year was named national Professor of the Year, has received an equally prestigious teaching award, the Richtmyer Award, from the American Association of Physics Teachers. After presentation of the award Jan. 9 at the association's annual meeting in Seattle, he delivered a talk on how supernovae have led to the mysterious concept of dark energy.
(09 January)

Rethinking last century's closest, brightest supernova
February will be the 20th anniversary of the nearest and brightest supernova humans have seen in 400 years. Called SN1987A, it burned for weeks in the Large Magellanic Cloud, and provided astronomers with new information that forced them to rethink theories of how massive stars explode. Now a UC Berkeley astronomer says that theory needs rethinking again.
(09 January)

Dust around nearby star like powder snow
A nearby star a mere 12 million years old is surrounded by a dusty disk reminiscent of the disk from which the Earth and other planets formed around our sun more than 4.5 billion years ago. Peering into this dusty disk, UC Berkeley astronomers have found that the dust is as fluffy as powder snow.
(08 January)

Peptide targets latent papilloma virus infections
Infection with the human papilloma virus, the major cause of cervical cancer, is forever -- the virus remains latent in skin cells, ready to flare up at any time to create warts on the skin or the genitals. A new finding, however, offers hope that a drug could halt spread of the virus into new cells, and perhaps even eliminate the virus from the body.
(02 January)