2020 Summer
She Was A Victims’ Advocate Long Before #MeToo
How Alumna of the Year Freada Kapor Klein changed the conversation around sexual assault ON SUNDAY MORNINGS IN THE EARLY ’70s, Freada Kapor Klein could be found sitting on her living room floor talking on the phone to strangers. She was an undergraduate at Berkeley and a trained peer counselor for Bay Area Women Against […]
The Legend of Indian Rock, Berkeley’s Bouldering Haven
For millennia, people have gathered at Berkeley’s rocks. They will again soon. THEY COME AT DAY’S END TO SCAMPER up the steps carved in the south face of the rock and sit and watch the sun set. Or they come earlier in the day, often bearing crash pads, to climb on the slightly overhanging face […]
Editors’ Picks: What to Read, Watch, and Listen to This Summer
Some of our favorite books, films, and performances, for your entertainment Our editors have curated a list of entertainment to indulge in this summer. Here are their top picks of TV series, novels, digital collections, and more, all produced by UC Berkeley faculty and alumni. The Other Madisons by Bettye Kearse Bettye Kearse grew up […]
Can We Cure Dementia?
Daniela Kaufer has reversed the effects of aging in mouse brains. Can she do it in humans? IT ALL STARTED WITH A MYSTERIOUS ILLNESS. In the 1990s, thousands of U.S. veterans returning from combat in the Persian Gulf began suffering from what became known as Gulf War Syndrome, an undiagnosed host of chronic neurological symptoms. […]
What Comes After the Pandemic?
Berkeley experts explain what will change—and what should. “The future will not, in crucial ways, be anything like the past, even the very recent past of a month or two ago,” the author Rebecca Solnit, M.A. ’84, wrote of the pandemic in the Guardian in early April. In a crisis, Solnit wrote, “Our focus shifts, […]
A “Killer-Type Virus” Ends the World!
Lately, I've been collecting news of wildlife appearing in deserted towns and cities around the world: Wild goats roaming shuttered Welsh villages, jackals skulking in the streets of Tel Aviv, Indian bison ambling along vacant highways in New Delhi, coyotes howling in North Beach. As we shelter in place, the animals are rushing into the void. And not just the charismatic megafauna, either. Witness the legions of dumpster-deprived rats battling nightly on Bourbon Street.
Michael Mann Fought Climate Denial. Now He’s Fighting Climate Doom.
The climatologist is taking on both the fossil fuel lobby and those who think the climate fight is futile. ONE AUGUST AFTERNOON IN 2010, Michael Mann was opening mail in his office at Penn State University when a dusting of white powder emerged from an envelope. At first he thought it was his imagination. “I […]
A (Virtual) Day in the Life of A Berkeley Student
Welcome to the social distance lifestyle Under shelter-in-place our lives have gone digital: distance learning, virtual conferences, online cocktail hours, and more. As Internet usage is up, bandwidth has been strained. According to BroadbandNow, which provides comparison data about Internet service providers, average download speeds in Berkeley dropped 15 percent between February and March. At […]
“Liquid Gold”: Meet the Alchemists of Berkeley
Campus lab scientists respond to the demand for COVID-19 essentials. Researchers Investigate How to Decontaminate Masks for Reuse Before the COVID-19 pandemic, N95 respirators, the closely fitted masks used by medical personnel to filter airborne pathogens, were meant for one-time use only. Now, however, the N95 masks are in short supply and healthcare workers, desperate […]
Eddie Hart Almost Became the World’s Fastest Man
I found out very early on that I could run fast.
Chancellor’s Letter: How Berkeley Is Responding to COVID-19
Finding strength, creativity, and resilience and in the face of the unknown The last literary essay I wrote was about dystopian fiction. At the time, in 2016, I had been struck by the publication, within the space of a few months, of a large number of novels offering visions of the future in which some […]
Editor’s Note: Adjust Your Eyes.
A word of advice to Berkeley’s graduating class of 2020 Let me begin with heartfelt congratulations to the 2020 graduates of Berkeley who, like their peers across the country, were deprived of their commencement ceremonies by the coronavirus and the need for social distancing. They deserved better. And yet, this ending to their undergraduate experience […]
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