2012 Winter Culture Shock
Mansie Remembered
By Andrew MossI first met Mansie Chew when a practice sheet of written Chinese characters fell out of her father's papers in the Asian-American Studies Collection at Berkeley.
Four Roads to Berkeley
Sometimes getting to Berkeley is as difficult as getting into Berkeley. The University attracts from all the world’s pathways, be they paved or unpaved, clamorous or still, open or closed—a dazzling array of brainpower hitched to goodwill. Of all the people from around the globe who study or work at Cal, or do both, we have […]
Fiat Lux Again
The University’s take on Ansel Adams’s take on the University. In 1964, Ansel Adams, the great landscape photographer, was commissioned by UC President Clark Kerr to produce a portfolio celebrating the University, its work, its people, its prospects. Kerr was casting against type. Adams, a balding, bearded, crooked-nosed man, Rabelaisian, excited by ideas, self-taught, a lapsed […]
Practice Makes Perfect
Learning a skill could improve our brains. The way to get to Carnegie Hall is practice, practice, practice, so the saying goes. It’s an idea that resonates deeply with Allyson Mackey, a Berkeley doctoral student in neuroscience, but the skills she’s interested in practicing are the building blocks of IQ, such as working memory, processing speed, […]
Out of Sight
A new drug could shed light on blindness. If the three blind mice that all ran after the farmer’s wife had consulted with Berkeley neurobiology professor Richard H. Kramer, they might have stood a chance of saving their tails. Kramer and his team of researchers at Berkeley, together with scientists from the University of Washington, Seattle […]
Democracy in Action
Controversy has surrounded the federal Endangered Species Act since its enactment in 1973. But in recent years, the debate has centered on one key provision that allows citizens including environmental groups, nonprofits, and members of the scientific community to petition for species to be listed. Critics argue the provision forces the Fish and Wildlife Service, […]
Refining Past Research
New studies add nuance to our understanding of the effect of climate change on species migration. When Toni Lyn Morelli went looking for Belding’s ground squirrels two summers ago, she didn’t think she would have much trouble. Anyone who has ever driven through Yosemite has seen the narrow-tailed, dun coated rodents standing sentinel above their holes […]
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