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Cal running back and rising senior Patrick Laird is known for more than just his walk-on career and impressive collection of awards. An avid reader since childhood, Laird isn't afraid to flaunt his bibliophilia—on the football field and now, in the classroom.
Break out the vuvuzelas The World Cup is underway in Russia, and the Americans aren’t there. Team USA failed to qualify after losing to Trinidad and Tobago. As some wag observed, it clearly wasn’t fair: We shouldn’t have to play two countries at once. For American soccer fans wondering who to root for, the Daily […]
Ongoing volcanic eruptions in Hawaii and Guatemala are leading to speculation that volcanism in general may be on an upswing. The anecdotal evidence, at least, is tantalizing: There have been about 25 major eruptions around the world from 2000 to 2018, compared to 65 for the entire 20th Century. Most volcanologists are withholding judgment, but […]
When Matías Tarnopolsky steps down at the end of this month after nine years as executive and artistic director of Cal Performances in order to take the reins of the Philadelphia Orchestra, he’ll be leaving behind a lot of people who are sad to see him go. “The Philadelphia Orchestra is likely not even aware […]
There’s more to dusty old bones than meets the eye. For more on what fossils can teach us about climate change and evolution, watch Part 2, What’s in a Fossil?
Artist Alicia McCarthy, who got her MFA in art at UC Berkeley in 2007, had a big year in 2017. A part of the Bay Area art scene for 20 years, McCarthy is best known for being a key figure of the acclaimed Mission School, a group of artists associated with the San Francisco Art […]
Hatching Elements The Campanile has a trio of new peregrine falcon chicks nesting on it, and their names are Californium, Lawrencium, and Berkelium, after three of the 16—count ‘em, 16!—elements discovered at the Lawrence Berkeley Lab. California’s Krissy Eliot wrote about last year’s chicks, Fiat and Lux. As she explained then, the hatchlings face a […]
Elon Musk has taken some heat over the past few months for selling flamethrowers through his firm, The Boring Company. The devices aren’t actual flamethrowers, though, hence their name: Not a Flamethrower. They’re more like hypertrophied blowtorches, perfect for caramelizing a crème brulee the size of a garbage can lid, perhaps, but thankfully unsuited for […]
When most people think of Watergate, they likely think of the hotel break-in, the Saturday Night Massacre, or the Nixon tapes. But few know that, at its heart, Watergate was a campaign finance scandal. The Watergate Hotel burglars were paid with campaign funds, and the subsequent investigation uncovered millions in illegal payments to the Nixon […]
CRISPR Wars UC Berkeley’s Jennifer Doudna has chalked up another award for her discovery of the revolutionary CRISPR-Cas9 gene-editing tool. The Kavli Prize in nanoscience is worth $1 million and will be shared among the three recipients, which includes Doudna’s collaborator, Emmanuelle Charpentier of the Max Planck Institute. Meanwhile, the legal battle between UC and […]
Earlier this month, California became the first state to require all new homes to have solar power. The mandate, which comes from the California Energy Commission (CEC), will take effect in 2020, making solar power even more common in a state that already boasts about half the country’s solar generating capacity. Part of the motivation […]
Now that a few days have passed, the decision by National Football League owners to fine teams with players who do not “stand and show respect to the flag and the [national] anthem” hardly seems Solomonic; rather than ameliorating tensions, it almost assures another football season marked by player protests, discord both inside and outside […]
At first glance, the work of Alicia McCarthy and Ruby Neri couldn’t be more different. McCarthy’s intersecting swaths of color, “weaves” as she calls them, are hypnotizing and prismatic, calling to mind 1960s Op Art. In contrast, Neri’s recent body of work is quite literally that: giant ceramic figures—mostly female nudes—in striking, even grotesque postures. […]
A lot has changed since the 1992 Summer Olympics brought worldwide attention to the northeast Spanish region of Catalonia and its capital, Barcelona. Today, Catalonia—the birthplace of architect Antoni Gaudí and painter Salvador Dalí, and one of Spain’s wealthiest regions—is in a bitter political struggle with the central government in Madrid over the issue of […]
For a journalist it seemed the ultimate dream gig: working for the Great Gray Lady herself, the New York Times—but operating from a lovely California beach town, not the dreary main newsroom in Manhattan. And indeed, Mike McPhate appreciated his position as producer of the Times’ newsletter, California Today. He had, after all, paid his […]
Compared to the opulent and tranquil UC Berkeley Morrison Library, the modest adjoining art storage room, at first glance, isn’t much to write home about. But looks can be deceiving; what it lacks in appearance, it makes up with cultural richness. The Graphic Arts Loan Collection (GALC)—peeling white shelves, offset by dusty linoleum floors—houses more than […]
It’s as ugly as a box of rocks and a literal scum-sucker to boot. But don’t judge a fish by its exterior: The dietary proclivities of the South American armored catfish excite aquarium hobbyists, who employ the homely bottom feeders to hoover up the algae and slime that accrete to their tanks. People can get […]
In 2012, Babette Café opened at the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA) brutalist-style structure on Bancroft. It was quickly celebrated for its inspired NorCal take on breakfast and mid-day offerings made by chefs Joan Ellis and Patrick Hooker. The married couple had at first thought “Babette’s Table” would work, but later settled […]
The three-day strike of UC’s ten campuses and five medical centers is over, and the 24,000 service employees represented by AFSCME Local 3299 have, presumably, gone back to work, cleaning buildings, preparing and serving food in the dorms, and generally performing all the quotidian and often dreary chores required to keep the greatest public university […]
