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The Chalk Market: Where Mathematicians Go to Get the Good Stuff

Filmmaker Kyung Lee never dreamed she’d become a dealer. But bringing her first feature-length documentary to fruition required money she simply didn’t have. What she did have, however, was a direct line to the source of high-quality product and access to exclusive clientele.

Hagoromo chalk is a bit thicker than standard American chalk. It has been called the Rolls Royce of chalk—even the Michael Jordan of chalk.

Posted on June 17, 2019 - 9:33am

First Response to Ebola? Inoculate Against Rumor

On March 29, 2019, fifteen cases of Ebola were reported in the Democratic Republic of Congo. It was the biggest one-day spike in an outbreak that started last summer and was deeply worrisome for a few reasons: Ebola has a mortality rate of at least 50 percent, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), and spreads quickly through contact with bodily fluids. Also, the sudden uptick in cases could presage a rapid expansion of the virus throughout the entire Congo Basin and beyond.

Posted on May 22, 2019 - 10:11am

Game Changer: Introducing Cal Alumnus of the Year, Kevin Chou

A lot of people talk about giving back. Kevin Chou did it.

Along with wife Connie Chen, Chou ’02, gave $25 million to his alma mater to help build Haas-Berkeley’s 80,000-square-foot Chou Hall, which is now hailed as a “state of the art learning laboratory” for the renowned business school, and one of the greenest buildings in America.

Posted on May 22, 2019 - 10:10am

So, About That “Well-Regulated Militia” Part of the Constitution

Bay Area demonstrations by right-wing groups scheduled over the weekend fizzled in face of massive opposition protests, defusing fears that Charlottesville-like violence could erupt in San Francisco and Berkeley. Indeed, protests in San Francisco were peaceful, and the few scuffles that did occur in Berkeley seemed instigated by black-garbed Black Bloc protestors, according to many reports.

Posted on May 21, 2019 - 1:12pm

Burning Passion: Photographer Noah Berger on Shooting Fire

Noah Berger admits he wasn’t the most diligent student when he attended UC Berkeley back in the early 1990s. He simply didn’t feel cut out for academe. In fact, there was only one thing that really engaged his interest during his freshman year in 1992: taking photographs for the Daily Californian.

Posted on May 17, 2019 - 11:46am

And the Rest Is (Oral) History

Among those appalled by the 2014 publication of Forcing the Spring was Martin Meeker, a historian with UC Berkeley’s Oral History Center. Subtitled Inside the Fight for Marriage Equality, the book, by Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Jo Becker, spotlighted high-profile attorneys and what proved a limited, statewide victory.

Posted on April 29, 2019 - 9:34am

Meet the Women of Berkeley’s Pop-Up Food Scene

For the five women running the food stalls in UC Berkeley’s Student Union, to cook is to connect, and a quick bite of lunch can hold as much history as it does flavor. As graduates of La Cocina, an SF-based incubator for restaurant entrepreneurs, they’re promised a spot at the Student Union for one academic year. The pop-ups offer a sampling of the Bay Area’s diverse food scene: a Vietnamese joint, a soul food spot, an empanada lady, a Syrian mom-and-pop, and a boutique cake shop.

Posted on April 29, 2019 - 9:34am

I Just Don’t Get It: Why Do So Many People Treat Pets as Human Equals?

This rumination begins with a phone call from my brother, but it’s really about domestic animals, dogs and cats mostly, and our changing mores about them: How they are now viewed as peers and family members rather than pets, how we’ve come to define ourselves as their guardians rather than their owners, whether our growing obsession with them is somehow a simulacrum for the complicated and messy human relationships that formerly dominated our lives, and whether apotheosizing them somehow minimizes our sensitivity to human suffering.

Posted on April 29, 2019 - 9:33am

Incunabula, VHS Tapes, and Silverfish: Unpacking the Bancroft

Sometimes the rough draft of history isn’t a newspaper, but a pile of them. Along with moldering manuscripts, reams of correspondence, posters and handbills, memoranda fastened together with rusty paper clips, all of it stuffed into decaying cardboard boxes. Rodents may or may not be involved.

Posted on April 25, 2019 - 4:48pm

Q&A: Roe v. Wade Is on the Stand. Could a Grassroots Movement Save It?

Roe vs. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision that recognized abortion access as a fundamental right, has been contested by conservative activists and legislators since it was passed. And while the decision remains popular 45 years later, with 71% of voters opposed to overturning Roe, Trump’s recent appointments to the Supreme Court indicate there may be an opening to do just that. The size of that opening, and the stakes involved, are being hotly debated.

Posted on March 26, 2019 - 1:10pm

The Twin Tunnels Are Out—Berkeley Experts Say That’s a Good Thing

The extravagantly wet winter notwithstanding, California’s water woes are far from over. But recent moves suggest Governor Gavin Newsom is leading the state into a new era of water policy. Last month, he decided to scale back his predecessor’s decades-long effort, the Twin Tunnels, to deliver water from Northern to Southern California.

“Really, the idea that two massive tunnels would be built in the Delta was always—well, a pipe dream,” says Peter Gleick.

Posted on March 12, 2019 - 5:14pm

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