Subscribe to our monthly email newsletter, The Cal Connection.
On Wednesday, theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking died at his home in Cambridge, England at age 76. In his brief history of time on Earth, Hawking arguably became one of the most pivotal figures in science—known most widely for his calculations showing that the surface of black holes emit radiation (known as “Hawking radiation”) that makes them […]
Elizabeth Swaney’s day-to-day life is not unlike that of any other Olympic athlete. She trains with a coach in Park City, Utah, and spends hours practicing her sport, freestyle skiing. She works multiple jobs—eight, at one point, by her count—in order to make ends meet. And just like any other Olympian, she expected all that […]
U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ recent lawsuit against the State of California over immigration isn’t just about immigration, of course. More fundamentally, it’s about the limits of states’ rights. The move could be a harbinger of other attempts by the Trump administration to muscle obstreperous states that don’t conform to its agenda. And that begs […]
In an era when menus often double as moral statements, how refreshing it is to have Maria Zizka and her dozen joyful cookbooks out there, celebrating food without sermonizing to readers. The Berkeley local and Cal grad was recently named to Forbes 30 Under 30 “redefining the way we eat, drink, and think about food.” […]
UC Berkeley researchers have cautioned for some time that climate change-driven sea level rise will inundate much of the Bay Area’s low-lying regions, but a new study indicates the threat is particularly acute for landfill developments such as Treasure Island and Foster City. The study, published this week in the journal Science Advances by researchers […]
In early 1918, a 26-year-old Russian émigré named Maurice Fruit enrolled as a freshman at UC Berkeley. He threw himself into campus politics, helping organize a socialist club and announcing to a dean that he was “thoroughly in sympathy” with the Bolsheviks who had just seized power in Russia. He also claimed to have been […]
The kids seem to have made a difference this time, likely because they weren’t toddlers and pre-teens.
The robot and I met at the southwest corner of Center and Shattuck. It was 3 p.m. on a Wednesday, and the streets were bustling. The robot was small and boxy, something like a cooler on wheels. I knelt down at what I presumed was the robot’s front end. It winked a pixilated eye. Following […]
At Eagle Elementary School, located in a suburban district in New York’s Capital Region, 12 fourth and fifth-graders are inventing. Two students are trying to work the bugs out of a miniature electronic sliding door. Another team is setting up the tiny equivalent of a washing machine drum. Still others are building a robotic fan. […]
The news cycle is spinning with such ferocity that it may be hard to remember that it was only a couple of weeks ago that infrastructure was Topic A, with the Trump administration announcing a new initiative to fix America’s potholed roads, repair its spavined bridges, and spiff up its energy delivery systems. But even […]
Is AR the future of journalism—or dead on arrival? That could all depend, say UC Berkeley experts, on whether the journalism industry as a whole is open to both new technology and new ideas about sharing information and news.
The UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive exhibition Way Bay is a love letter to the Bay Area. Showcasing works created by local artists, or else inspired by the bay and the artist’s journey through, it runs until June 3, 2018, with several community participation events along the way. Works will be switched […]
California’s Lost Coast isn’t that hard to find—just drive south on a narrow, twisting road from the Humboldt County town of Ferndale. The landscape is extreme in its beauty, wending across ridge top meadows that plunge eastward to forested gorges and roll to the cobalt blue Pacific to the west. The route skirts miles of […]
We accept that what goes up must comes down. What we don’t always understand is why. Like countless financial shakeups throughout history, this week’s stock market plunge has sparked widespread debate as to its causes. While there are no hard-and-fast answers, there are educated insights. California magazine rang up Terrance Odean, Rudd Family Foundation Professor […]
The Citizen, a not-so-well-known publication from South Africa, tells us that 2018 might be the time for us to rethink monogamy. An accompanying photograph shows marchers in Toronto promoting consensual non-monogamy, or CNM. A lifestyle on the fringe? Well, CNM—the practice of intimate relationships involving more than two people, with the knowledge and consent of […]
Last week, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents raided 77 Northern California businesses, in what’s being called the largest localized ICE sweep since Trump was elected. So far, no one has been arrested. In response to earlier rumors of impending ICE raids, California Attorney General Xavier Becerra held a press conference on January 18 in […]
It seemed like a good idea at the time. Cultivating some dynamite weed, that is. In 2015, UC Berkeley grad, former Daily Cal photographer, and superstar digital engineer Mike Lovas purchased a 70-acre farm near Brandon, Oregon, with his wife, Donna, and his stepson, Nick. Their goal: sustainable and, they hoped, profitable agriculture. The first […]
Exit Yellen “In a more just world,” writes the New Yorker’s John Cassidy, Fed chief (and Berkeley professor emeritus) Janet Yellen “would have been given a second four-year term, as most of her (male) predecessors were.” But it isn’t and she wasn’t. Meanwhile, Cassidy observed that, in his first State of the Union, President Trump […]
