2021 Summer
Dexterous Robots Will Do the Work That Once Required Human Touch
How deep-machine learning is being used to meet the growing demand for package handling and product shipments. Asked to choose a superpower, few people would think “suction.” But it turns out that robots with suction hands can achieve superhuman sorting performance, a capability that could soon revolutionize e-commerce warehouses. In March, Ambi Robotics, a company […]
CRISPR/Cas9 Sets Its Sights on Sickle Cell
Genetic engineering gets the green light to treat the disease. When the gene-editing technology CRISPR/Cas9 was discovered in 2012 by Berkeley biochemist Jennifer Doudna and collaborator Emmanuelle Charpentier, it changed genetics forever. “We’ve been able to read and write DNA for a long time. We have machines to sequence it (read); and to synthesize it […]
SETI@Berkeley Has Their Ears Tuned to the Stars
And they could use your help. SETI, or the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, is alive and well at Cal. Researchers at the Berkeley SETI Research Center are collaborating on Breakthrough Listen, the largest ever scientific search for alien communications, using an array of telescopes and observatories to gather artificially generated, electromagnetic signals from across the […]
Uncovered Letters Reveal a Forgotten and Tumultuous Journey
ON A JANUARY EVENING, sorting through family memorabilia in my basement, I stumbled on a sealed manila envelope, addressed to me in Berkeley, sent by my grandmother. It was postmarked October 2003. I had no idea why I’d never opened it. Inside, I discovered photocopies of four letters that my Uncle Ken had written to his […]
Death, Life, and The Right to Draw Your Own Line
Can the right to die breathe more life into one’s final weeks, months, and years?
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