Concrete knowledge
11/01/13 — Berkeley scientists have learned the secret of exactly what makes Roman seawater concrete so durable.
Research
Check your head
11/01/13 — Researchers have developed affordable technology to help diagnose brain injuries in real time.
Artificial forest
11/01/13 — Berkeley researchers have developed an “artificial forest,” a model that directly converts sunlight into chemical fuels in a process that mimics photosynthesis.
Researchers developing brain-controlled prosthetic devices
10/31/13 USA Today — Scientists at the UCSF-UC Berkeley Center for Neural Engineering and Prostheses are among many teams nationwide working on brain-machine interfaces, promising bionic limbs controlled by users' thoughts. "We're still very far from decoding thoughts," says Berkeley bioengineer Amy Orsborn of the CNEP team. "These devices are not for mind control. They're for providing new means of control for sensory processes."
Berkeley to house NSF-funded nanoscale microscope
09/20/13 QB3 — Researchers using a new tool in QB3-Berkeley's Biomolecular Nanotechnology Center will investigate matter on an unprecedented scale, thanks to a $2 million NSF grant for the purchase and installation of a new ORION Nanofab microscope.
March of the ‘zombie vortices’
09/11/13 — A team led by Philip Marcus, a mechanical engineering professor and computational physicist, shows how variations in gas density lead to instability, which then generates the whirlpool-like vortices needed for stars to form. According to the researchers' models, the change in density is what triggers the violent birth of a new star, upending an otherwise stable dead zone of gas-or what Marcus calls ‘zombie vortices'
Cypriot BioE student receives HHMI award
09/11/13 — Elena Kassianidou left her home to come study in the United States seven years ago. Now pursuing a Ph.D. in bioengineering at Berkeley, she recently became the first student from Cyprus - and the first Berkeley-UCSF bioengineering student - to be awarded the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's (HHMI) prestigious International Predoctoral Fellowship.
Academic-industrial team to uncover innovations in systems engineering
05/30/13 iCyPhy — UC Berkeley has partnered with Caltech, IBM and United Technologies Corp. to launch Industrial Cyber Physical Systems (iCyPhy), a Berkeley-based research consortium that will identify and develop new engineering techniques to make it easier to successfully build products and services that combine complex software, hardware and mechanical components.
Oxford-bound
05/13/13 — Graduating senior Daniel A. Price, a double major in bioengineering and electrical engineering and computer sciences with a minor in physics, was selected as one of this year's Rhodes Scholars. Next fall at Oxford University, Price will pursue research in medical diagnostic equipment. Here he tells us more about his studies, his research and future plans.
Engineering benchmarks for cap-and-trade
05/01/13 — The Mechanical Engineering Laboratory for Manufacturing and Sustainability is helping the California Air Resources Board to develop methodologies for determining CO2 allocations for companies to help reduce the state's overall CO2 emissions to 1990 levels by 2020.
To a fault
05/01/13 — Civil engineers have found that determining how long a fault has healed between seismic events help them predict the type of shaking that will occur when it ruptures again.
A hot spot
05/01/13 — Led by engineering professor Robert Ritchie, researchers have created a facility where scientists can test ceramic composites at extremely high temperatures.
Mind readers
05/01/13 — Researchers were able to infer sensitive information—such as credit card PINs, birth months and home locations—from participants wearing brainwave-reading headsets that are typically used for hands-free gaming.
Everlasting clock
05/01/13 — An eternal clock that would always keep accurate time, even after the heat-death of the universe, is no longer just an intriguing concept, thanks to a team of scientists, led by ME professor Xiang Zhang.
Experiential ed.
05/01/13 — Many hands-on labs, shops and workspaces around campus allow students to learn by doing.
Paris, San Francisco choose Inria and CITRIS to conduct ‘smart city’ research
04/05/13 CITRIS — The mayors of Paris and San Francisco recently signed an agreement focusing on the digital economy and smart cities, and designated France's Inria (National Institute for Research in Computer Science and Control) and UC's CITRIS (Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society) to carry out joint research on the topic.
Computers that can identify you by your thoughts
04/05/13 I-School — Instead of typing your password, in the future you may only have to think it, according to a study by School of Information researchers and an EECS undergrad that explores the feasibility of brainwave-based computer authentication.
Beyond genomics – mining the proteome
04/03/13 Berkeley Research — Amy Herr, associate professor of bioengineering and a 2013 Bakar Fellow, is on the front lines of proteomics research – the ambitious effort to determine the variety and function of all human proteins.
Mind over matter
03/26/13 Berkeley Research — Neuroengineer Jose Carmena and bioengineer Michel Maharbiz do research in BMI, an emerging technology for retraining the brain to operate a prosthetic device such as an artificial limb. They are supported by the campus's new Bakar Fellows Program, which helps early-career faculty pursue innovative research with commercial potential.
Simulations yield clues to how cells interact with surroundings
03/22/13 Berkeley Lab — Cells interact constantly with their surroundings, but it's very difficult to observe the main player in this interaction – a protein called integrin. Mohammad Mofrad, associate professor of bioengineering and mechanical engineering, and bioengineering graduate student Mehrdad Mehrbod have developed a computer model of integrin that gives researchers a new way to explore how the protein connects a cell's inner and outer environments.