2023 Fall/Winter Archives - Cal Alumni Association

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2023 Fall/Winter

_{Unabomber Cabin, Sacramento, CA, 1998}

The Man Who Shot the Unabomber’s Cabin

By Leah Worthington

The hideout was evidence, a symbol, and in Richard Barnes’s photos, art.

Ken Goldberg Isn’t Scared of Artificial Intelligence

By Coby McDonald

Robots can do a great many things, but they can’t make art. That view, common even among AI boosters, has taken a hit.

What’s on Your Berkeley-Inspired Playlist?

By Pat Joseph

While music may not be the first thing most people think of when they think of Berkeley, both the campus and town have been home to an enormously influential and eclectic music scene across the years, one with deep roots in the folk and blues revivals of the mid-20th century.

How the Pac-12 Meltdown Sent Cal Packing

By Margie Cullen

It was July 25, and the schools of the Pac-12 were anxious and restless.

_{Architect, I.M. Pei / Institute of Personality and Social Research}

Spying the Secrets of Creativity

By Coby McDonald

In late January of 1958, five of America’s most renowned writers converged in a repurposed frat house just off the Berkeley campus for what promised to be a long, strange weekend.

_{NATIONAL PARK SERVICE}

Walk of Life

By Pat Joseph

According to what has long been the dominant theory, the first humans to settle North America arrived via the Aleutian land bridge from Asia sometime between 16,000 and 13,000 years ago, after Ice Age glaciers receded.

_{istockphoto/urfinguss}

Blog Calls out Bogus Data

By Pat Joseph

It was a new wrinkle in a bombshell story. Not one, but two superstar researchers appear to have independently faked data for two separate, highly publicized studies about (irony of ironies!)

_{ISTOCKPHOTO/OLICLIMB}

How to Turn Desert Air Into Water

By Esther Oh

Metal organic frameworks offer solutions to "the greatest problems facing our planet."

_{ISTOCKPHOTO/ANDREA NICOLINI}

What Your Brain Sounds Like On Music

By Pat Joseph

Using artificial intelligence software, Berkeley scientists successfully reconstructed the Pink Floyd song “Another Brick in the Wall” from recordings made of electrical activity in patients’ brains as they listened.