Health
“We Are in A Race”: Surviving the Next Phase of the Pandemic
California periodically touches base on the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic with John Swartzberg, a UC Berkeley Public Health Clinical Professor and a globally respected authority on infectious diseases and vaccinology. In February, Dr. Swartzberg was highly optimistic about the rollout of several effective vaccines and opined that the coronavirus might be largely contained by the summer. Things […]
In the Navajo Nation, Fighting COVID and Years of Neglect
The scene is familiar: A hospital bed, a respirator, medical personnel in full PPE. But while the attending doctor is from San Francisco, California, the hospital is located 1,000 miles away, in the middle of 27,000 miles of vast, desert land. The Navajo Nation, which spans Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico, is self-governed but receives […]
We All Waste Food. One Researcher Wants to Know Why and How We Can Waste Less.
One July morning in 2016, in the predawn quiet of a Nashville suburb, Laura Moreno and her team of assistants looked more like investigators on a clandestine raid than scientists. With goggles, gloves, and coordinated efficiency, they removed garbage bags from every bin on the block, just barely beating the garbage truck to the spoils. […]
“Our Stories Aren’t Told”: A Discourse on Anti-Asian Hate and How to Move Forward
The recent surge in attacks on Asian, Asian-American, and Pacific Islander (AAPI) communities, including the racially motivated shootings at three Atlanta spas, has sparked a nationwide movement to “Stop AAPI Hate.” There is, perhaps, no better place to discuss this than UC Berkeley, which was the home of the original Asian-American movement that began 50 […]
The Edge Episode 11: A Completed Life
Five years after 29-year-old, terminally ill Brittany Maynard makes national news by choosing to end her life early, medically assisted death continues to face enormous legal and social barriers. And yet public support of the practice is high. As life-expectancy and palliative care improve, we face new questions: Under what circumstances are people allowed to choose when and how they die?
We’re Four Months Into COVID Vaccines. Here’s What We Know So Far.
We’re well into the COVID vaccine rollout, and if you have more questions than ever, you’re not alone. On Monday, March 15, Berkeley Events and the UC Berkeley School of Public Health invited four experts to a virtual public forum to discuss the ongoing vaccination strategy, focusing especially on questions of vaccine access, safety, and […]
How COVID Is An Opportunity to Address Deep Anti-Vax Sentiment
As much as anyone in the world, Berkeley anthropology alumna Heidi Larson is confronted by public resistance to the COVID-19 vaccines. Larson is founder and director of the London-based Vaccine Confidence Project, a nonprofit that conducts global surveys monitoring public confidence in immunization programs. With the Project, Larson helps quantify vaccine approval by measuring people’s […]
The Edge Episode 10: A Shroom of One’s Own
Half a century after the counterculture movement swept through the Bay Area and “mind altering substances” were banished from the laboratory, researchers at the new Berkeley Center for the Science of Psychedelics are reviving a long-buried field of research. Is this the beginning of a psychedelic renaissance?
Smooth Sailing? A Public Health Expert Is Hopeful About the Vaccine Rollout
California periodically touches base on the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic with John Swartzberg, a UC Berkeley Public Health Clinical Professor Emeritus and an international authority on infectious diseases and vaccinology. In October, Dr. Swartzberg was hopeful that forthcoming vaccines would be at least 70 percent effective; as it turned out, they far surpassed that figure, with both […]
Online, Offline, On Life: A Berkeley Student In the Time of COVID
In March 2020, UC Berkeley joined the ranks of other universities moving to entirely virtual learning. Undergrad Carly Tran takes us into the life of a student, reflecting on a year of endless Zoom calls and surprising joys.
The Edge Episode 8: Control-Alt-Meat
After an unsettling encounter with a turkey, Laura resolves to eat less meat and takes Leah on a journey through the alternative meat industry. Will real, flesh and blood meat be obsolete in 15 years, as one industry leader suggests?
A Social Media Celebrity Talks Leaving Twitter, Finding Joy
By Anthony James WilliamsFriends have called me “Twitter famous,” but you’ve probably never heard of me. One night in 2015 I fell down an internet rabbit hole.
