Latest UC Berkeley Stories

University of Florida researchers are collecting marine invertebrates on the French Polynesian island of Moorea as part of a massive effort to inventory the DNA sequence of every living species there.The genetic information collected by scientists from UF's Florida Museum of Natural History is part of a whole-system approach that will be used to study ecological processes in depth across the entire island. Moorea's coral reefs in particular are considered crucial indicators of how natural...

But not the last, now that astronomers know where to lookAn extraordinarily bright, extraordinarily long-lasting supernova named SN 2007bi, snagged in a search by a robotic telescope, turns out to be the first example of the kind of stars that first populated the Universe. The superbright supernova occurred in a nearby dwarf galaxy, a kind of galaxy that's common but has been little studied until now, and the unusual supernova could be the first of many such events soon to be discovered.SN...

Meiosis "“ the pairing and recombination of chromosomes, followed by segregation of half to each egg or sperm cell "“ is a major crossroads in all organisms reproducing sexually. Yet, how the cell precisely choreographs these chromosomal interactions is a long-standing question.New findings by University of California, Berkeley, scientists show that the cell's cytoskeleton, which moves things around in the cell, plays a critical role, essentially reaching into the nucleus to bring...

Charting femtosecond energy flow could aid redesign of molecules to improve light captureUniversity of California, Berkeley, chemists have discovered the secret to the success of a jellyfish protein whose green glow has made it the darling of biologists and the subject of the 2008 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.The researchers' study of green fluorescent protein (GFP) and the structural changes it undergoes when it fluoresces is the cover story of the Nov. 12 issue of the journal...

Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, have received a five-year, $10.9 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to evaluate several interventions to combat diarrheal disease in developing countries.Dr. Jack Colford, professor of epidemiology at UC Berkeley's School of Public Health, will coordinate the project, working with the International Centre for Diarrheal Disease Research, Bangladesh (ICDDR,B) and Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA).An estimated 2.2...

School-based physical education plays a key role in curbing obesity and improving fitness among adolescents from low-income communities, according to a new study led by researchers at the University of California, San Francisco and UC Berkeley.The study, which identifies opportunities for adolescents to improve their health based on routine daily activities, finds that regular participation in PE class is significantly associated with greater cardiovascular fitness and lower body mass...

The National Cancer Institute (NCI) has awarded the University of California, Berkeley, $15.7 million over five years to allow physical scientists and engineers to open a new front in the war on cancer.UC Berkeley's Physical Sciences-Oncology Center, a collaboration with UC San Francisco (UCSF), Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) and San Francisco's Helen Diller Comprehensive Cancer Center, is one of 12 centers announced today (Monday, Oct. 26) by the NCI "to bring new...

The National Science Foundation (NSF) has authorized more than $29 million for the University of California, Berkeley, to create a preliminary plan for turning a former gold mine in South Dakota into the world's deepest laboratory.The grant, approved Sept. 24 by the National Science Board, is for a preliminary design of the Deep Underground Science and Engineering Laboratory (DUSEL), a facility at the former Homestake gold mine in Lead, S.D. The laboratory would consist of underground labs...

While some scientists have argued that cancer is such a complex genetic disease that you'd have to sequence a person's complete genome in order to predict his or her cancer risk, a University of California, Berkeley, cell biologist suggests that the risk may be more simply determined by inexpensively culturing a few skin cells.Harry Rubin, professor emeritus of molecular and cell biology at UC Berkeley, acknowledges that cancer cells have mutations in hundreds of genes, making it hard to...

A study led by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, has identified critical biochemical pathways linked to the aging of human muscle. By manipulating these pathways, the researchers were able to turn back the clock on old human muscle, restoring its ability to repair and rebuild itself.The findings were reported in the Sept. 30 issue of the journal EMBO Molecular Medicine, a peer-reviewed, scientific publication of the European Molecular Biology Organization."Our study...