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This week the UC Student Association board overwhelmingly voted to urge the University of California to divest from governments it says abuse human rights. And what countries would those be? One resolution specifically singled out companies doing business in Israel. A second called for divestment from a litany of other offending nations: Brazil, Egypt, Indonesia, […]
On New Year’s Eve 2012, having returned early from an East Coast holiday with our kids, and with an 8 p.m. dinner invite ahead of me and no one to say no, I drive to Pantoll to do a run to Stinson. I’ve been running the Marin Headlands for 41 years and this is something […]
What happens when the final fusillade of bullets echoes into silence and a violent conflict comes to an end? What of the unidentified victims heaved into mass graves, the children torn from their parents, the families driven from their pulverized homes, the women and girls traumatized by rape, the child soldiers scarred by what they […]
Eight years ago, UC Berkeley struck a historic but controversial deal with the British oil company BP: Berkeley would benefit from the oil giant spending $350 million to create a new Energy Biosciences Institute on its campus, and BP would reap the benefits of that institute’s research into biofuels. Now, with almost $100 million still […]
Yes, it’s true that there aren’t many women in the sciences. And the reason for the gender gap is predictable: Male scientists seem to like it that way. That, at least, was the conclusion of a 2013 Yale study that found physicists, biologists and chemists are inclined to view a young male scientist more positively […]
In the countdown to Sunday’s Super Bowl, suspense is building over the question on the mind of every devoted football fan: What will Marshawn Lynch say—or, more accurately, not say—to the media after the game? However popular the Seattle Seahawks’ running back is with Seattle fans, he has a lot fewer friends at NFL headquarters, […]
As a UC Berkeley School of Public Health emeritus professor specializing in infectious diseases, John Swartzberg knows viruses as well as other people know their lapdogs. So when he gets concerned about a bug, so should you. And right now he’s pretty concerned about measles. Anyone who has perused a news site or suffered through […]
I was 22, my sensitive vegan boyfriend had just dumped me, and my life was over. Now I circled the park in my running shoes, trying to smooth over the jaggedness of the past two hours. No such luck. Every footstep was a lonely echo, every smiling family I passed another cruel reminder. There was […]
Franklin Zimring calls it “scandalous.” The UC Berkeley law professor—one of the nation’s leading criminal justice experts—is referring to what he discovered when he set out to analyze four decades worth of FBI data on police and citizen killings. Incidents in which citizens killed on-duty police officers had been meticulously recorded. But when police killed […]
If you’ve noticed that the price for a carton of eggs has gotten a little steep, you’re not dreaming. This year, as California’s landmark chicken law goes into effect, agricultural economists predict that consumers will see a 10 percent to 40 percent hike in the cost of eggs. Some retailers were even seeing the economic […]
Whatever wariness has accompanied the collaboration between public universities and private sector profit-seeking, that horse appears well out of the barn, foaming at the mouth and galloping madly for the horizon. At UC Berkeley, academic/corporate “incubators” and “accelerators” are all the rage. Supporters focus on the upside: Creative researchers are able to launch start-ups that […]
Thomas Rice was a bit nonplused by all the fuss generated by a paper he published last year in the Emergency Medical Journal on the increased risk of car crash fatality due to obesity. “We had quite a little media frenzy,” says Rice, a research epidemiologist with UC Berkeley’s Safe Transportation and Research Center. “I […]
Danger is part of the territory for war correspondents. From the U.S. Civil War on, anyone who covered conflict knew that they could be shot just as dead (or, more recently, beheaded) as the grunt walking point on patrol. But now it’s not just the dashing combat reporter at risk—it’s the editor, the receptionist, and […]
Here in Northern California, the heart of the organic food movement, lentils are often taken for granted—a lowly shelf staple lacking the cult status of coffee, wine or artisan chocolate. But there is much to learn from these humble legumes, insists Liz Carlisle, a former country music singer and Harvard grad who is now a […]
The toxic aftereffects of the killing of unarmed 18 year old by a Ferguson, Missouri police officer have not only persisted but, if anything, intensified in the wake of similar disturbing cases. Taken together, they have fueled the perception that cops too often shoot young men of color in haste, and with insufficient cause. Simmering […]
From the fervid to the frivolous, the provocative to the inspiring, 2014 never left us at a loss for words, or story ideas. It was a year in which the nation debated requiring police officers to wear body cams, the state debated whether the University of California was morally obligated to divest itself of climate-imperiling […]
If you are looking to make ethical gift-giving decisions this holiday season, UC Berkeley environmental sciences professor Dara O’Rourke can help. O’Rourke is the co-founder of GoodGuide, a free app and website where close to 30 million consumers have gone for product ratings based on the items’ impacts on health, the environment and society. “We […]
Saying goodbye can be difficult—but how, exactly, does one say goodbye to 101,000 square feet of raw, reinforced concrete? For almost 45 years, the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive has been housed in a monumental structure across the street from UC Berkeley. This month the building will close, and the museum will begin […]
Todd Darling’s documentary has continued to gather buzz and bookings since its blockbuster Berkeley debut last year. And now it’s rolling back into the Bay Area as part of am extended series of screenings. See it at Oakland’s New Parkway Theater on March 31, or check the schedule for a showing near you. Todd Darling […]
