Berkeley researchers go global to document endangered languages
As the "Breath of Life" conference on California Indian language revitalization gets underway on June 8 on campus, UC Berkeley faculty and student linguists are fanning out around the globe to research and document other often endangered languages.
(06 June)

Ancient Nemea to host 2008 Olympic-like summer games
Just as the Summer Olympics get underway in Beijing on June 21, an ancient athletic stadium at a UC Berkeley archaeological site in Greece that was home to the original Panhellenic Games will once again come alive with competition in the 2008 edition of the Nemean Games.
(04 June)

Geographer David Hooson dies at age 82
David Hooson, a professor emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley, and a scholar of the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, national identities and the history of geographic ideas, died on May 16 at the age of 82.
(29 May)

Egyptologist Cathleen Keller dies at age 62
Cathleen "Candy" Keller, an associate professor of Egyptology in the University of California, Berkeley's Department of Near Eastern Studies, died of pancreatic cancer on April 18 at John Muir Medical Center in Walnut Creek. She was 62.
(07 May)

New study finds glamorization of drugs in rap music jumped dramatically over two decades
A new study finds that references to illegal drug use in rap music jumped sixfold in the two decades since 1979, the year when rap made its way from inner-city urban areas to a mainstream audience. Moreover, illegal drug use became increasingly linked during this time period to wealth, glamour and social standing, raising red flags about its potential influence on young listeners, said Denise Herd, UC Berkeley associate professor and author of the study.
(01 April)

Raising the profile of immigration studies
"Human history has always been about migration," says sociologist Irene Bloemraad, "but with ever-increasing globalization, the 21st century will be a century of people on the move." Over the past five years, she has worked to raise the profile of immigration studies at UC Berkeley, where a remarkable two thirds of students are foreign born or have at least one foreign-born parent.
(19 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)

Extra cash from government program linked to better child development, new study says
Children in impoverished families that received an extra amount of cold, hard cash from a government support program were taller, less likely to be overweight, and scored higher on cognitive, motor and language tests, compared with kids in families that received less money, says a new UC Berkeley-led study.
(06 March)

Bancroft Library archiving works of pioneering artist Gus Arriola
The "Gordo" comic strips, which beginning in 1941 introduced millions of people in the United States to life south of the border, is part of the rich archive of cartoonist Gus Arriola's work now residing at the University of California, Berkeley's Bancroft Library.
(29 February)

What do we mean when we talk of love?
Psychology prof Dacher Keltner investigates the many facets of everyone's favorite heartfelt emotion — from the passionate urges of early romance to the connections some people are able to feel for humanity at large.
(13 February)

Web conference takes on "silver tsunami"
As America scrambles to meet the retirement needs of 78 million aging Baby Boomers, UC Berkeley is cyber-surfing ahead of the so-called "silver tsunami" by launching its first-ever online conference to help create aging-friendly communities.
(12 February)

Avoid raising ungrateful kids
Reams of academic research abound across the country on how to raise happy children, but who has the time to read this myriad of findings, boil down the facts, and then turn them into practical parenting advice? UC Berkeley's Greater Good Science Center is taking on the job with its new Web site on how to foster joy and avoid brattish behavior in children.
(13 November)

Sleep loss linked to psychiatric disorders
In the first neural investigation into what happens to your emotions when you don't sleep, results from a UC Berkeley brain imaging study suggest that while a good night's rest can regulate your mood and help you cope with the next day's emotional challenges, sleep deprivation excessively boosts the part of the brain most closely connected to depression, anxiety and other psychiatric disorders.
(22 October)

Researchers caution against genetic ancestry testing
For many Americans, the potential to track one's DNA to a specific country, region or tribe with a take-home kit is highly alluring. But while the popularity of genetic ancestry testing is rising - particularly among African Americans - the technology is flawed and could spawn unwelcome societal consequences, according to researchers from several institutions nationwide, including UC Berkeley.
(18 October)

Marketing professor explores the responses viewers reap from scary movies
Eduardo Andrade of the University of California, Berkeley's Haas School of Business wondered why his wife loves scary movies that make him squirm. So, the assistant professor of marketing interested in consumer behavior teamed up with Joel B. Cohen, a professor of marketing and anthropology at of the University of Florida, to deconstruct what happens when people watch horror films.
(11 October)

Rejection sets off alarms for folks with low self-esteem
Few can tolerate such romantic or professional rebuffs as "It's not you, it's me" and "We regret to inform you that your application was not successful." But while a healthy dose of self-esteem can absorb the shock of rejection, poor self-esteem can trigger the primal fight-or-flight response, according to a new UC Berkeley study.
(10 October)

Scholar activist bridges the distance between the barrio and the Ph.D. seminar room
As a teen he got a taste of back-breaking yard maintenance, as a day laborer in Malibu. Now his Ph.D. research focuses on immigrant gardeners in L.A.'s vast informal economy.
(05 October)

Black workers face low wages, advancement obstacles, report says
A new report by UC Berkeley's Center for Labor Research and Education finds that more than half of black workers in the United States have jobs that don't pay well, provide retirement and health benefits, or offer avenues for advancement.
(04 September)

Harassment, predatory behavior spell trouble at River High
Doing sociological fieldwork, C.J. Pascoe infiltrated the macho, homophobic world of adolescent boys.
(29 August)

Professor emeritus Peter Lyman dies at age 66
Peter Lyman, a professor emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley's School of Information and a former university librarian, whose legacy includes pioneering research on online information, ethnographic analyses of online social relationships and communities, and helping bring university libraries into the digital era, died Monday (July 2) at his Berkeley home. He was 66 and had battled brain cancer.
(05 July)

Researcher offers steps to help doctors move past anger with patients
A UC Berkeley bioethicist addresses the challenge when anger or frustration enters into a doctor-patient relationship. She provides guidelines to help physicians empathize with their patients, particularly when faced with negative emotions.
(08 May)

Islamic scholars receive Carnegie grants
Anthropologists and Islamic scholars Saba Mahmood and Charles Hirschkind have been named Carnegie Scholars and will receive $100,000 each to research themes relating to Islam and the modern world.
(04 May)

Scholars to receive William Sloane Coffin Awards for moral leadership
The first Berkeley William Sloane Coffin Jr. Awards recognizing moral leadership tied to the University of California, Berkeley, community will be bestowed on UC Berkeley scholars Robert N. Bellah and Nancy Scheper-Hughes in a ceremony on Monday, April 12.
(05 April)

Researchers debunk conventional wisdom on trial witnesses
A new study authored in part by a University of California, Berkeley, professor of public policy and law throws cold water on a common theory that a confident witness who errs in trial testimony is still more credible than a less confident witness who similarly slips up.
(12 March)

First Terner Prize for affordable housing awarded
The inaugural I. Donald Terner Prize for Innovation and Leadership in Affordable Housing — named for the late Berkeley professor and founder of Bridge Housing in San Francisco — has been awarded to Central City Concern for a building that provides 180 units of housing for nearly 700 formerly homeless residents in the historic Pearl District of Portland, Ore.
(28 February)

Battling today's crime problems, discussed at AAAS this morning by UCB law professor
A UC Berkeley law professor will discuss his new research on the nation's 1990s crime decline, the longest and deepest drop in crime since World War II, during a presentation in San Francisco, Friday, Feb. 16, at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Professor Franklin Zimring, of UC Berkeley School of Law (Boalt Hall), contends that the decline provides important, instructive lessons for policy makers and law enforcement officials grappling with today's toughest violent crime problems.
(16 February)

Thomas G. Rosenmeyer, professor of Greek and comparative literature dies
Thomas G. Rosenmeyer, a professor emeritus of Greek and of comparative literature at the University of California, Berkeley, died at his home in Oakland on Feb. 6. He was 86.
(14 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)

Bog bodies in art and literature
Karin Sanders, a University of California, Berkeley, associate professor and chair of the Department of Scandinavian, was just an infant when two well-preserved bodies from the Iron Age surfaced in peat bogs in her native Denmark. She was a teen when “The Bog People,” a scientific detective story by P.V. Glob about the discoveries, became a European best-seller. So it may be little wonder that her fascination with the likes of Tollund Man, found in 1950 and one of the most famous of all “bog bodies,” led her to extensively research displays of them in museums around the world and depictions of the mysterious mummified or skeletal remains of people believed to have been sacrificed or murdered.
(05 February)

Nobel laureate Kahneman to deliver Hitchcock Lectures
Eminent psychologist and behavioral economist Daniel Kahneman will deliver the Hitchcock Lectures for spring 2007. His lectures will address the topic "Explorations of the Mind."
(26 January)

Psych department's RSVP program invites scientists and subjects to join in demographically diverse exploration
The Research Subject Volunteer Program, or RSVP, a sort of online matchmaking service for scientists and subjects, has allowed psychology department researchers to open up their experiments to a far broader — and more demographically representative — population.
(25 January)