2012 Spring Piracy
Heart of Japan
The sharply dressed man on television bows, then proceeds to talk in a soft, polite voice. I can understand perhaps a quarter of what he’s saying—mostly just conjunctions and pronouns. I miss all the essential nouns, like, oh, radiation, nuclear meltdown, and disaster. Lucky for me, he has a model of the Fukushima reactor in […]
High Flier
CAA’s 2012 Alumnus of the Year Eric Schmidt, M.S. ‘79, Ph.D. ‘82, is a man of unusual hobbies as well as talents. If you’re curious about Eric Schmidt, M.S. ’79, Ph.D. ’82, there’s really no need to read on. As Schmidt himself says, “Just Google me.” He’s still a scientist, yes, and still the computer geek […]
Strange Brew
A small group of enthusiasts revive a forgotten beverage. The first thing to understand about the ginger beer plant is that it is not a plant. The second thing is that it is not, nor does it contain, ginger. Given those two facts, it’s difficult to imagine how the “plant” got its name. And yet it […]
Savor La Serenissima
Get to know Venice by strolling along the canals. “It is by living there from day to day that you feel the fullness of her charm; that you invite her exquisite influence to sink into your spirit,” wrote Henry James. For today’s casual tourist, who typically spends a few days in Venice, the highlights too often […]
Navigating the Law
Professors Caron and Scheiber pilot the Law of the Sea Institute through the shoals of international legal issues. Covering more than two-thirds of Earth’s surface, the oceans have always been a vast no-man’s-land—despite our quixotic efforts to claim and control them. Even mighty Julius Caesar once found himself kidnapped by Cilician pirates. Told they intended to […]
Hiding in Plain Sight: A Scientist Trains the Immune System to Attack Cancer from Within
Update: James Allison has won the 2018 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. The Berkeley News Center reports on the announcement here. The early 1990s were a heady time for immunology. Researchers had identified a “commander” molecule that launches the body’s white blood cells, called T cells, into battle against invaders such as viruses or […]
Fiat Lucre
Ideas are UC Berkeley’s greatest asset. If only you could bank on them. The wolf may not be butting against Academe’s door, but it is sniffing around in the front yard. Money, especially for public universities, is tight and getting tighter. Although there’s no satisfactory substitute for public funding, many academics insist some bootstrapping is in […]
The 1% Solution
Robert Reich speaks up for everyone else. America’s great cultural schism is deepening, with Tea Partiers partying hearty on one side and Occupiers flying their 99 percent colors on the other. But these are mere expressions of a deeper discontent, one born from a stark, unifying realization: We were robbed. All of us—left, right, and center; vegan […]
Cyber Grift
As the ways to get online proliferate, so too do the ways to get suckered online. Recently, I received an email from my dear friend Gloria Steinem. (In truth, our only contact was in 2005 when I persuaded her to write an essay for this magazine.) Flattered to discover that the iconic feminist still thinks of […]
Reel Life
In the depths of the Great Depression, Louise Thompson Patterson ‘23 led a group of aspiring African-American actors to the U.S.S.R. Louise Thompson ’23 looked through the window of her train on June 25, 1932, as it pulled into Leningrad and beheld a wonder. “Such a reception we were given!!” she wrote home. “A brass band […]
Tail Spin
Robots learn a thing or two from lizards. Just like cats, lizards can use their tails to right themselves so they land on their feet. Now this neat little trick is the basis of a new robot design, thanks to graduate student Thomas Libby ’02 and a team of Berkeley researchers. Called “Tailbot,” the device was […]
Water Works
If using plasma as a disinfectant sounds like the stuff of fiction, think again. After hearing intriguing anecdotal reports about the long-lasting antimicrobial powers of water treated with plasma, Berkeley chemical engineering professor David Graves teamed up with colleague Douglas Clark to investigate. To their surprise, they discovered that the water could stay active for up […]
A Matter of Perspective
All fraudulent photos have their secrets. A Berkeley professor uses geometry to uncover them. As digital imaging advances, an increasing number of manipulated photographs are finding their way into the lab, the courtroom, and the newsroom. But if those photos show objects and their reflections, Berkeley computer science professor James O’Brien and his colleague Hany Farid […]
Bushwhacked
Saving wild animals could put children at risk. Gorilla heads on plates. Basketfuls of tangled lemur legs. These stark images have become emblematic of what some conservation groups consider an ecological nightmare: hunting wild (and often endangered) animals for food, a practice in many African countries and other developing nations. Now Christopher Golden, MPH ’10, Ph.D. […]
Explore the
Archives
View All Issues
