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As drought continues to crisp up the state—increasing the potential for catastrophic fire and further taxing plants already competing for water resources—many conservationists are supporting a plan by UC Berkeley, the city of Oakland and East Bay Regional Parks District plan to cut, chop, mulch and deter the future growth of many non-native trees. This […]
If you’ve ever sat in a rocking chair, you understand why every grandparent seems to own one. The gentle rocking mimics the soothing motion of a crib. It’s an ingenious, old-fashioned piece of seating bliss. Now imagine a rocking chair that even a Millennial might settle into: Not only does it relax you, but it […]
Brittany Maynard’s battle with virulent brain cancer was compelling and heartbreaking, but today it wasn’t enough to sway key California lawmakers. Her decision to end her life last year at age 29 galvanized a campaign to make it legal for doctors to prescribe lethal drugs for terminally ill patients, but this morning the sponsors of […]
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.
In March of last year, Alice Waters, the food activist and owner of the Chez Panisse restaurant, surprised everyone by prematurely announcing the University of California’s plans for a major, sweeping initiative to take on the many problems in the food system—not just on campuses but around the globe. University officials scrambled to release as […]
Want to sell that stuffed kudu head you inherited from your Uncle Duane, and sell it fast? Put a round number on it: Say, $300. On the other hand, if you want the top dollar possible for that exemplary example of the taxidermist’s craft, list it for a precise figure—maybe $329. That would be the […]
A new startup founded by two UC Berkeley Haas Business School students aims to give homeowners going solar the leverage to affect more than just the environment. Window Street Financial—which emerged last fall from an idea generated by Johnny Gannon and Ben Purvis—wants to give them the option of taking a solar loan made up […]
In the beginning, David Breslauer’s office was infested with spiders—lurking in the corners, hunkered down on their webs, crawling up his arms. “I had one right above my desk, and it pooed on my computer like a pigeon,” he says. And these were large, long-legged beasties, too: Nephila clavipes, an orb-weaving species commonly used in […]
Enacting one of the toughest vaccine mandates in the country, California Gov. Jerry Brown has signed a bill to require virtually all California school children to be vaccinated against potentially deadly diseases—or be home-schooled. His quick action Tuesday morning was the final step for the new law, which had passed both the state Senate and […]
On a softball diamond near Capitol Hill tonight, the umpire will yell “Play ball!” and a bipartisan team of Congresswomen will take on their arch-rivals, the women of the DC press corps (aka The Bad News Babes), in the seventh annual Congressional Women’s Softball Game. “The first year, the members of Congress played against their […]
Dacher Keltner is a huge fan of Pixar’s Inside Out. The UC Berkeley psychologist and co-director of the Greater Good Science Center had already seen the quirky animated flick several times before its official release in theaters this weekend. “I think it’s amazing,” he says. “I really was astounded at how much truth they reveal […]
It’s the kind of subject that lends itself to the lowest of low humor, but we’ll try to resist that temptation. Because at bottom (sorry), it’s among the most serious of subjects, speaking as it does to basic survival. We’re talking about water (again), of course. But more specifically, we’re talking about blackwater: Sewage. And […]
Brianna Mercado is tired of telling the same old story. “It’s a cookie-cutter cancer story and I’m so much more than that,” she told a crowd last year at a TEDx talk. Today, the 24-year-old UC Berkeley graduate and inspirational speaker has been asked to tell the story so many times that it’s become rote. […]
So what do you do when you’re a co-producer of one of the best-selling video games of all time—more than that, a video game that has become a pop culture icon, so ubiquitous that it earned the ultimate gaming accolade? You do whatever you want, of course. And for Charles Huang, that means more of […]
Good vs. bad. Right vs. wrong. Human beings begin to learn the difference before we learn to speak—and thankfully so. We owe much of our success as a species to our capacity for moral reasoning. It’s the glue that holds human social groups together, the key to our fraught but effective ability to cooperate. We […]
As the drought deepens and associated angst spikes, a variety of solutions have been bruited about our parched state: New reservoirs. Rigorous (even draconian) conservation. Recycling. Hauling icebergs from Alaska. Fervent prayer. And marine desalinization. “Desal,” of course, is nothing new. Over the past 30 years, the notion of processing salty sea water into usable, […]
It turns out that a sleepless night may cost you more than a morning of grogginess—it could be giving the proteins believed to cause dementia easier access to your brain. Scientists at UC Berkeley’s Sleep and Neuroimaging Lab have discovered evidence that missing out on deep non-REM (rapid eye movement) sleep may leave the brain […]
For most people, clouds are mere grist for metaphor, as with Joni Mitchell’s “Both Sides Now.” But clouds have deep implications beyond late 1960s pop music lyrics. Geophysical implications. Their frequency, type, direction, density and velocity all say a great deal about weather, climate—even atmospheric ozone depletion. The problem is that it’s hard to draw […]
The Lair of the Golden Bear lost one of its best friends, Moraga lost one of its founding fathers, the law lost an eminent scholar and practitioner, many worthy causes lost one of their biggest benefactors, a remarkable family lost its beloved patriarch, and Top Dog lost its best customer on February 22, when Bob […]
