Say what?
11/01/13 — A Berkeley research team has created a computer program that can rebuild protolanguages - the ancestral languages from which modern languages evolved - in days or even hours.
News
Bend it like Wu
11/01/13 — Materials science and engineering professor Junqiao Wu and Berkeley Lab colleagues have created a microscale actuator that's smaller than the width of a human hair and can bend like a finger.
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.
Diving to the edge of darkness
11/01/13 — At Hawkes Ocean Technologies, alum Adam Wright builds manned submarines capable of underwater flight.
Creek life
11/01/13 — Grad student Aysha Massell works to restore the storied Strawberry Creek on campus.
Building a super bowl
11/01/13 — An insider's look into the construction of the new Levi's Stadium, the NFL's first LEED Gold stadium and among the fastest ever constructed.
Alumni notes
11/01/13 — News and photos of Berkeley Engineering alumni from decades past.
Farewell
11/01/13 — Obituaries for Berkeley Engineering faculty and alumni
Cracked encryption? Back doors? Cellphone snooping may be easier than ever
10/31/13 NBC News — Computer science professor Vern Paxson weighs in on the National Security Agency's interception of wireless communications, noting that even modern encryption may have flaws if done incorrectly. He also worries about allegations that the NSA is vacuuming up information at a heretofore unimagined scale.
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 crowdfunding symposium produces international research agreement
10/23/13 — The first international agreement to share research data on crowdfunding - an increasingly popular financing model that allows entrepreneurs to raise capital using social media - was framed during an Oct. 17–18 symposium organized by the College of Engineering's Fung Institute for Engineering Leadership.
Luck, smarts lead from Uganda to UC Berkeley
10/22/13 San Francisco Chronicle — The amazing journey of Christopher Ategeka, who went from teenage orphan and human scarecrow in Uganda to mechanical engineer at UC Berkeley (two degrees down, one more in the works), winning honors and prizes, founding a nonprofit and a biotech company, even giving a TED talk.
Campus information security office works to stay ahead of hackers
10/18/13 Daily Californian — UC Berkeley's Information Security and Policy Office, aided by EECS graduate students and professors, is undergoing a three-year overhaul to strengthen the campus's online security.
A carbon map to development
10/15/13 Daily Californian — In a Daily Cal op-ed, Dean Shankar Sastry calls for an international roadmap for economic growth, job creation and poverty alleviation that also contributes to controlling greenhouse gas emissions.
Randy Schekman awarded 2013 Nobel Prize
10/07/13 — Randy W. Schekman, professor of molecular and cell biology, has won the 2013 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his role in revealing the machinery that regulates proteins in our cells. He shares the prize with James E. Rothman of Yale University and Thomas C. Südhof of Stanford University.
Dean Sastry appointed to United Nations scientific advisory board
10/04/13 UNESCO — On Sept. 24, the first day of the UN General Assembly, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon announced his decision to create a Scientific Advisory Board to inform international decision-making on sustainable development. Dean S. Shankar Sastry will serve as one of two U.S. representatives on the 26-member board, which includes leading figures in the natural, social and human sciences. “We must strengthen the interface between science and policy,” said Ki-moon, “so that the latest scientific findings are reflected in our high-level policy discussions.” Ki-moon made the announcement during the inaugural meeting of the High Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development, a platform created to realize the vision adopted at the UN's Rio+20 conference in 2012. He has entrusted UNESCO's Director-General to establish the advisory board.
The talk that wasn’t
09/27/13 Scientific American — A story from the Heidelberg Laureate Forum about EECS professor emeritus Manuel Blum -- a scientist, a teacher, a human, and "a person with a genuine curiosity about everything."
Flood fate: What Colorado’s disaster can teach us
09/24/13 California Magazine blog — Trying to plan and prepare for the kind of disastrous flooding that recently inundated Boulder, Colo., is a futile effort, says UC Berkeley hydrologist and assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering Sally Thompson. "Rainfall events like that are simply off the charts,” she says.
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.