http://newscenter.berkeley.edu/ Headlines from the University of California, Berkeley Steve McConnell - steve.mcconnell@berkeley.edu en-US http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2009/11/05_rapid_supernova.shtml Post-doc Dovi Poznanski was looking through seven-year-old data when he chanced upon a very strange supernova that flashed and was gone in less than a month, when 3-4 months is typical. The unusually rapid supernova appears to match the predicted behavior of a thermonuclear explosion on a white dwarf that has drawn helium from its companion. Published: 05 November http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2009/10/30_dino_demise.shtml Paleontologists Mark Goodwin and Jack Horner have dug for 11 years in the Hell Creek Formation of Montana in search of every dinosaur fossil they can find, accumulating specimens of all ages and stages of development. Their new report on the growth stages of dome-headed dinosaurs shows that two named species are really just young pachycephalosaurs. They say that perhaps one-third of all named dinosaurs may not be separate species, but juvenile or subadult stages of other known dinosaurs. Published: 30 October http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2009/10/27_ants.shtml Researchers have identified and synthesized the chemical cues by which Argentine ants distinguish colony-mates from rivals. By exploiting these chemicals, researchers have demonstrated that normally friendly Argentine ants can turn against each other and fight. Published: 27 October http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2009/10/26_natl_cancer_institute.shtml The National Cancer Institute is opening a new front in the war on cancer, funding 12 physical science-oncology centers across the country to see what engineers, mathematicians, chemists and physicists can learn about cancer cells. UC Berkeley's Jan Liphardt heads one center that will receive nearly $16 million over five years. Published: 26 October http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2009/10/22_greenhouse_treaty.shtml UC Berkeley Ph.D. candidate Stacy Jackson argues in Science that policymakers should plan a summit now to look at short- and medium-lived greenhouse pollutants, which range from soot to ozone and methane, and their near term impact on climate. Published: 22 October http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2009/10/22_bio_energy.shtml A team of 13 prominent scientists and land-use experts has identified an important but fixable error in legal accounting rules for bioenergy that could, if uncorrected, undermine efforts to reduce greenhouse gases by encouraging deforestation. Published: 22 October http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2009/10/15_DUSEL.shtml UC Berkeley's proposal to build lab facilities in a South Dakota mine has received an additional $29 million in support from the National Science Foundation. The funds, which are for a preliminary design, set the stage for later construction funds that would create the world's deepest underground laboratory for experiments in physics, geology and biology. Published: 15 October http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2009/10/15_cancer.shtml If susceptibility to cancer is the result of inherited genetic mutations, then all the body's cells should have these mutations. Since skin cells are easy to culture, argues cell biologist Harry Rubin, by observing the behavior of skin cells in a Petri dish it may be possible to detect those mutations that increase our cancer risk. Published: 15 October http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2009/10/08_sustainable_chemistry.shtml The College of Chemistry is moving toward sustainable "green" chemistry with a new emphasis on sustainability in its undergraduate courses, a new endowed chair in sustainable chemistry, and its participation in the campuswide Berkeley Center for Green Chemistry. Published: 08 October http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2009/10/05_meanders.shtml Restoring rivers to their natural state is now hit-and-miss, primarily because scientists don't really know what makes a river meander. A scale model using alfalfa sprouts to represent vegetation now shows that strong banks and fine sediment are key. Published: 05 October http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2009/10/05_telomerase.shtml Most of the work for which Elizabeth Blackburn, Carol Greider and John Szostak won this year's Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine took place at UC Berkeley, while Blackburn was a professor of molecular and cell biology and Greider was her graduate student. Published: 05 October http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2009/10/01_hlusko.shtml The groundbreaking discovery of the partial skeleton of Ardipithecus ramidus, a hominid species dating back 4.4 million years, is the latest in a long line of contributions UC Berkeley researchers have made toward the elucidation of the human ancestral tree. To learn more about what it's like to be a hominid fossil hunter, Sarah Yang from UC Berkeley Media Relations interviewed Leslea Hlusko, associate professor of integrative biology and the associate faculty member of the Human Evolution Research Center at UC Berkeley. Published: 01 October http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2009/10/01_ardiskeleton.shtml The oldest hominid skeleton found in Africa, dating from 4.4 million years ago, revolutionizes our understanding of how humans evolved from the last common ancestor of apes and humans. Published: 01 October http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2009/09/30_muscle.shtml A study led by UC Berkeley researchers has identified critical biochemical pathways linked to the aging of human muscle. By manipulating these pathways, the researchers were able to turn back the clock on old human muscle, restoring its ability to repair and rebuild itself. The findings provide promising new targets for stemming the debilitating muscle atrophy that accompanies human aging, the researchers say. Published: 30 September http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2009/09/17_endurancetraining.shtml After menopause, decreased estrogen and changes in body composition affect women's metabolism. But does this affect women's response to exercise? A new UC Berkeley study shows that postmenopausal women benefit as much as younger women do from endurance training, improving both cardiovascular and respiratory fitness. Published: 17 September