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Cover of the latest California Magazine issue.
Latest Issue

2022 Summer

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The Man Who Loved DDT

Berkeley biochemist Tom Jukes was an ardent conservationist and life member of the Sierra Club, but he just didn’t get 1960s environmentalism. The thing that bugged him most about the movement was its “emotional binge” against the pesticide DDT.
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Featured

Revolutionary Thought: Two Cheers for the George on the Wrong Side of Independence

Ever since I was a little boy I've been in love with history, especially American history, and my favorite holiday has been the Fourth of July.

She Thought She Would Change Her Community as a Lawyer. Instead, She Did it with Mac and Cheese.

Erin Wade got a law degree from Berkeley in 2008, but quickly realized that she hated being a lawyer. Instead, she turned to her childhood love: mac and cheese.

Current Issue

2022 Summer

Everything You Need to Know About Ukraine

By Dhoha Bareche

A discussion on the conflict in Ukraine.
(Kelley L Cox- KLC fotos)

Look Up

By Pat Joseph

Ask an astronomer and they’ll tell you we’re living in a kind of golden age.

The Man Who Loved DDT

By Elena Conis

Berkeley biochemist Tom Jukes was an ardent conservationist and life member of the Sierra Club, but he just didn’t get 1960s environmentalism. The thing that bugged him most about the movement was its “emotional binge” against the pesticide DDT.
Photo by Dexter Hake

Into the Ishi Wilderness

By Laura Smith

To get to the Ishi Wilderness you’ll want a full tank of gas and four-wheel-drive. Even then, you should be willing to ditch the car and walk. The approximately 41,000-acre wilderness area is located in the Lassen National Forest in a remote part of the southern Cascade foothills northeast of Chico, within sight of Mount Lassen.

Top Stories

A Personal Perspective on Guns—and a Modest Proposal

The kids seem to have made a difference this time, likely because they weren’t toddlers and pre-teens.
Image source: Photos courtesy of iStock, Wikimedia Commons // Collage by Leah Worthington

Will the Bubble Burst? Inside Berkeley’s Boba Tea Craze

These days, you can hardly throw a rock in Berkeley without hitting a boba shop.

Election Polls Are Only 60 Percent Accurate, Which Is 0 Percent Surprising.

For many Americans, Donald Trump’s 2016 victory came as a shock, especially considering how much he’d trailed Hillary Clinton in the polls. Even FiveThirtyEight founder and famed pollster Nate Silver got it wrong. But UC Berkeley business professor Don Moore thinks we should cut Silver some slack.

Losing Joan Didion

Writer Joan Didion, who graduated from Berkeley in 1956, died on December 23, 2021, at age 87. She will be remembered as one of the most distinctive voices not only of her generation but in all of American letters. 

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California magazine's Laura Smith and Leah Worthington host The Edge, a podcast for surviving today's modern world.

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Quick Reads

Celebrating Children’s Literature Legend, Beverly Cleary

It was a quiet morning at Sather Gate Book Shop in Berkeley during World War II. Beverly Cleary, who was working at the shop, idly picked up a children’s book. “‘Bow-wow. I like the green grass,’ said the puppy,” she read, as she later recalled in a memoir. “How ridiculous,” she thought. “No puppy I had known talked like that.”

Out with a Bang

If a star dies in the universe and no one is around to see it, does it make an explosion? Scientists can now confirm that it does. 

Turns Out Nice Folks Don’t Finish Last After All

Turns out nice folks don’t finish last, after all. A UC Berkeley-led study published in August in the Proceedings of the National Academies of Science found that “disagreeable individuals,” defined as those with combative, selfish, and manipulative traits, don’t achieve greater career success than their kinder counterparts. 

I Learned What Blockchain Is So You Won’t Have To

Blockchain is all the rage right now, but most people don’t know what it is. Sure, we get that it’s somehow revolutionary, but it’s mostly strange and confusing—much like watching a Lars Von Trier movie or eating a Japanese water cake.

From the Archives

Black Cop, White Cop: What can two Berkeley police from the century before tell us about race relations in America today?

It was Berkeley in the 1920s. “The Fighting Swede” was driving through town, feeling even more pugnacious than usual. That’s because he was drunk. The Swede had carved out a reputation as a barroom brawler in the waterfront dives on both sides of the Bay, and he was always more than willing to defend his title—especially when he had a snootful of booze.

Fun with Fungi: Food Business is Still Mushrooming for Two Berkeley Grads

It was already their final semester at UC Berkeley, but Nikhil Arora and Alejandro Velez had never met. Both were sitting in a business ethics class when something the professor said caught their interest: It might be possible to grow gourmet mushrooms from used coffee grounds. Just a few weeks later, the two were practically best friends, brought together by an idea.

No Rest for the Wikied

You’ve probably been told, “Wikipedia is not a source. Don’t cite it. Don’t use it.”
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