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Nothing is free, least of all money, so when Japan pledged $32 billion in support to Africa at the 5th Tokyo International Conference on African Development, what were the motives? Are they any different from those of China, currently one of Africa’s biggest investors? Experts and news sources speculate that in fact China’s increasing influence on […]
In the Summer Issue of California, due in mailboxes around June 18, we have some breathtaking photos by Joe Blum of the new East Bay span of the Bay Bridge and the brave men and women building it. We also have some equally breathtaking opinions on the structural integrity of some of the steel in […]
Today’s Supreme Court ruling allowing police to take DNA swabs as a routine part of any arrest has civil rights advocates issuing jeremiads about pending constitutional collapse. The American Civil Liberties Union claimed the decision from the deeply divided court constituted a “gaping new exception to the Fourth Amendment….” Though it’s hardly time to grab […]
California is positively crawling with insects, and entomologists have been collecting them for a long time. UC’s Essig Museum of Entomology, for example, has 6.5 million specimens. Similar hordes are housed at other museums and university campuses; altogether, between 30 to 35 million bugs have been preserved for posterity in the state’s major collections. The […]
Chase Livingston ’12 has been a musician all his life, and in December 2012 he released his first album, Black and White: We Are One. In large part, he says, the achievement was fueled by Berkeley professor of African music and dance, C.K. Ladzekpo (see our upcoming Summer 2013 issue for a profile of Ladzekpo). […]
As summer approaches, the potential for catastrophic wildfires looms large in California. Several big blazes already have scorched the south state, including one north of Santa Barbara that forced the evacuation of 4,000 campers and residents earlier this week. The National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, which coordinates wildfire fighting throughout the West, predicts above […]
We reported on Laurence Frank’s lion and hyena preservation programs back in 2009 – and on his generally gloomy perspective on the odds for African wildlife. Some things have happened in the intervening four years, however, to make the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology emeritus associate’s disposition a little sunnier. Certainly, Frank has logged some successes […]
Wednesday was the official unveiling of the new Mark di Suvero ’57 installation in Golden Gate Park, though it wasn’t exactly unviewable before that. After all, it’s hard to hide eight massive steel sculptures sprinkled across Crissy Field. Indeed, a handful of neighbors are reportedly already up in arms about the marring of their view, and […]
The Bay Area titans of tech are having a rough week, at least in the press. While news organizations reported on the billions of dollars in taxes that Apple has allegedly avoided paying by maintaining large foreign subsidiaries, the New Yorker’s George Packer pondered Silicon Valley trickle-down socio-economic theory. Indeed, Packer cites a 2011 paper […]
At least 24 people died in the tornado that struck Moore, Oklahoma yesterday, and damage could hit the $2 billion mark. It may be inaccurate – as well as hackneyed – to call the storm a “monster,” but it was certainly very big. On the Enhanced Fujita scale of EF-1 to EF-5, the twister hit […]
Director Baz Luhrmann’s film adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s 1925 novel The Great Gatsby was released in theaters on May 10 and has since grossed more than $60 million. But another interesting Gatsby-related work you may not have heard about was released a little over a year ago: The Great Gatsby Curve. Introduced in a speech by […]
While everyone is justifiably fretting and fussing over the subpar ironware on the new Bay Bridge, another infrastructure problem looms even larger. The Sacramento/San Joaquin Delta is crisscrossed with levees that protect farms and cities. Trouble is, virtually all are in dire disrepair, and several have broken in past years, leading to local flooding. But the […]
“He was like a bull, with speed,” said Ed White of his old teammate and fellow Cal alum Chuck Muncie, who died on Monday of a heart attack at age 60. The two played together at the San Diego Chargers in the early 80s, where Ed was an All-Pro offensive guard and Chuck was an […]
We contacted Professor Peggy Lemaux of the College of Natural Resources after today’s Supreme Court ruling upholding Monsanto’s seed patents, and asked her about genetically modified organisms, or GMOs. She acknowledges the heated passions raised by GMO food: “I’ve been involved in this since 1991, and the debate has remained essentially the same,” she says. “But what […]
The Supreme Court ruling today, in which all nine judges ruled in favor of Monsanto, might be a patent case, but it is one involving a contentious topic: genetically modified (GMO) foods. It is an issue that over the years UC researchers have tried to bring some perspective to, given that it hinges as much […]
There may be truth in wine, but as most Berkeley denizens know, there is solace and inspiration in beer—to a point, anyway. And of all the local venues for malted elixirs, perhaps the most popular is Triple Rock, conveniently holding down the northwest corner of campus on Shattuck. It’s also, by the evanescent standards of […]
A piece in today’s New York Times explores the possible ramifications of the Boston Marathon bombings for the professional legacy of FBI director Robert Mueller, especially in light of the fact that agents from the bureau had interviewed one of the suspects, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, in 2011. Journalist Trevor Aaronson has written The Terror Factory: Inside […]
Americans are critter-besotted. Dogs are surrogate children, kitten videos are almost as popular as porn on the internet, and animal-rights advocacy is de rigueur for up-and-coming (or down-and-declining) starlets hoping to establish some cred in the compassion and engagement departments. Tom McShane, a research associate with the Global Institute of Sustainability at Arizona State University […]
When Steve Wozniak (co-founder of Apple Computer) finally graduated from Berkeley in 1986, 18 years after beginning his college career in Colorado, the name on his diploma read “Rocky Clark,” taken from the first name of his dog, Rocky Raccoon, and the last name of his then-wife, Candi Clark. Wozniak’s other nicknames include “The Woz” and […]
