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Wednesday, 18 November 2009
1. UC protests to converge with vote on fee hikes
San Francisco Chronicle
November 18, 2009
As the University of California's Board of Regents considers steep fee increases today, students, faculty members and union workers on several UC campuses were preparing to leave their classes and jobs for the first of a three-day protest.
The combined labor strike and walkout of classes will target layoffs, furloughs and cuts to programs across the UC system in the wake of severe reductions in state funding for higher education.
Thousands of students and UC employees were expected to converge on BERKELEY'S SPROUL PLAZA for a noontime rally today, to be followed by a march, organizers said....
UC students from other campuses are expected to travel to Berkeley and UCLA to participate in the protests....
At UC Berkeley, two unions representing about 2,000 researchers, technicians and clerical workers are planning a two-day strike over what they say are unfair labor practices.
UC Berkeley officials said they would be ready and watchful during the three-day protest, but didn't expect the same turnout as the Sept. 24 demonstration, given upcoming finals and Saturday's Big Game against Stanford.
"It's hard to know," said UC BERKELEY SPOKESMAN DAN MOGULOF. "I don't think there's an expectation it will be as large."...
[Other stories on this topic appeared in the Sacramento Bee, NBC BayArea.com, KGO TV (link to video), KCBS Radio (link to audio), and KQED Radio's Forum with Michael Krasny (link to audio)] Full Story
2. Editorial: UC fee raises go beyond reason
San Francisco Chronicle
November 18, 2009
University of California regents are about to consider raising - or, in some cases, initiating - surcharges on certain graduate programs. This plan, while inevitable in the face of shrinking state support, is regrettable in many ways....
Those professional fees are about to go up dramatically next fall, if the regents approve these surcharges. For example, ENVIRONMENTAL DESIGN STUDENTS AT BERKELEY will pay an additional $6,000 professional fee - lifting the program's total cost to $20,172, higher than competing programs at Penn State or the University of Virginia.
In-state professional fees for UCSF's dentistry program will rise 15 percent (to $22,800); BERKELEY'S OPTOMETRY PROGRAM 10 percent (to $13,220) and the UC BERKELEY SCHOOL OF LAW by 22 percent (to $31,355).
All of these increases will impose strains on California families at a time when many are struggling in the recession....
However, one of the increases stands out as particularly onerous - and counter to the state's interest - because of the absence of any linkage with the economic value of the degree: Initiation of a professional fee (of $4,000) for the SOCIAL WELFARE PROGRAM....
The regents need to be extremely judicious in raising these professional fees on graduate students. The proposal to add $4,000 a year to the burden of students who want to take on the low paid but vitally important work of rescuing our most vulnerable children is an example of one that makes no sense. Full Story
3. UC Berkeley must scale back on downtown museum
San Francisco Chronicle
November 18, 2009
A shortage of funds has prompted UC BERKELEY to abandon its plan to construct a new BERKELEY ART MUSEUM AND PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE downtown.
The building, a distinctive and innovative design by Tokyo architect Toyo Ito estimated to cost $143 million, was to replace the museum's present, seismically endangered quarters on Bancroft Way, completed in 1970.
"While the architectural plans will change," CAL CHANCELLOR ROBERT J. BIRGENEAU said after the announcement, "what will not change is our shared goal of building a dynamic, welcoming and seismically safe new museum at the corner of Center and Oxford streets."
A defunct printing plant occupies the site of the proposed museum, and the university owns the property.
MUSEUM DIRECTOR LAWRENCE RINDER explained the decision to change course - taken by the chancellor, the museum's board president, its chairman and Rinder himself - as a consequence of the global economic downturn over the past two years....
Rinder said adapting the existing building at Center and Oxford streets to museum use is "one of the options we're considering. It's a bit premature to get into that. We'll figure that out in the next few weeks." He said that he hopes to announce an alternative plan for the museum by early January.
[Another story on this topic appeared in the San Francisco Business Times] Full Story
4. Now, Pressure Is for Players Not to Play After a Concussion
New York Times & International Herald Tribune (*requires registration)
November 18, 2009
Berkeley, Calif. — Messages sent to the UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA ATHLETIC OFFICE over the past two weeks have not implored team doctors to put the Bears’ star running back, JAHVID BEST, back on the field to help Cal against archrival Stanford this Saturday.
Instead, they generally scolded the university and coaches for allowing Best, currently sidelined with a concussion, to play Nov. 7 against Oregon State....
“The consistent theme is, What kind of example are we setting here for my son who’s in high school, who looks up to Jahvid as a role model, when he is sent back to play after supposedly a concussion of some severity?” said DR. BRAD BUCHMAN, CAL’S SUPERVISING TEAM PHYSICIAN. “The impression from the public is that he was quote-unquote sent back too fast.”...
The primary point of contention around Berkeley is whether Best had sustained a concussion in the game before his more serious injury. Best remarked to the news media after missing two days of practice that trainers had told him he had sustained a concussion. Buchman and the ASSOCIATE FOOTBALL TEAM PHYSICIAN, DR. CASEY BATTEN, however, said that they later determined that Best’s headache and dizziness were merely from a cold, and that he was cleared for the Arizona State game appropriately....
The news that Best would not play this Saturday against Stanford was delivered by BEARS COACH JEFF TEDFORD, who said at a luncheon that there was “no chance” of him playing.... Full Story
5. A Coach's Job Begins Off the Court
Coach Joanne Boyle has built the Cal women's basketball program by treating team members as people as well as players.
East Bay Express
November 18, 2009
When JOANNE BOYLE BECAME HEAD COACH OF UC BERKELEY'S WOMEN'S BASKETBALL TEAM, her program was an afterthought. Cal had gone twelve seasons without a winning record or a finish in the top half of the Pac-10 conference. During games, Haas Pavilion was another quiet place students could go to and study.
But in the four years since, Boyle has resurrected Cal's program. Since 2005, her teams have won at least twenty games three times, and made NCAA tournament appearances every year. Last season, the Bears had the best season in the university's history, winning 27 games and advancing to the NCAA Sweet 16 for the first time ever....
Boyle stood by a simple pitch, and made it stick in her daily interactions with the team: "I know how to do this. We can do it together."
Yet along with her easygoing mantra, she also required her players to have perfect class attendance, physically demanding workouts, and daily practices topped off with unappealing study sessions. Boyle didn't sugarcoat it, but instead helped her players find the joy in the grind. "She never let them operate at a level one iota removed from what was expected," Gottlieb said. "And they appreciated that." While other Cal students found their stride more casually, blending academics and social interactions, Boyle led her team on a structured path, forcing them to find peace in concert with each other.
The women's basketball team became a family, with Boyle as the surrogate parent.... Full Story
6. Empathy and Stress Levels May be Coded Into Our Genes
U.S. News & World Report Online
November 18, 2009
Corvallis, Ore. – Researchers have discovered a genetic variation that may contribute to how empathetic a human is, and how that person reacts to stress. In the first study of its kind, a variation in the hormone/neurotransmitter oxytocin’s receptor was linked to a person’s ability to infer the mental state of others.
Interestingly, this same genetic variation also related to stress reactivity. These findings could have a significant impact in adding to the body of knowledge about the importance of oxytocin, and its link to conditions such as autism and unhealthy levels of stress.
Sarina Rodrigues, an assistant professor of psychology at Oregon State University, and LAURA SASLOW, A GRADUATE STUDENT AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY, published their findings in the current issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS)....
NATALIA GARCIA, OLIVER P. JOHN AND DACHER KELTNER, ALL WITH UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY, also contributed to the research, which was funded by the Metanexus Institute and the Greater Good Science Center. The studies were conducted in the laboratory of Dacher Keltner.
[Another story on this topic appeared in Discover Magazine Online] Full Story
7. NewsHour: In China, a Struggle for Rights, but Hope for Future
Jim Lehrer speaks with a human rights activist and a China expert about the state of the struggle for human rights in China.
PBS
November 17, 2009
Jim Lehrer: That follows, from President Obama's talk of human rights in China, a look at what rights the ordinary citizens of China actually do have.
It comes from XIAO QIANG, a Chinese human rights activist who now edits China Digital Times, a bilingual Web site. HE ALSO IS AN ADJUNCT PROFESSOR AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA'S GRADUATE SCHOOL OF JOURNALISM IN BERKELEY. And Winston Lord, a longtime China expert who was the U.S. ambassador to China in the late 1980s, and was most recently there in May.
...Jim Lehrer: Mr. Qiang, what would you -- how would you summarize the situation now?
Xiao Qiang, China Digital Times: Well, I generally agree that China has been moving further and further away from the totalitarian days of the Mao era. Chinese people are in general living in a much more prosperous and have increasingly personal freedom society.
However, it still is an authoritarian regime, that fundamental human rights, particularly political and civil rights, are still routinely being violated, and system -- systematically being abused, and the Chinese Communist Party, yes, still a monopoly of political power....
[Link to video and audio] Full Story
8. Democracy Now!
Amidst California Fiscal Crisis and Political Gridlock, Scholar and Activist George Lakoff Proposes Ballot Measure to End 2/3 Rule in State Legislature
Democracy Now! [Radio/TV program]
November 18, 2009
...Amy Goodman: We turn now to the budget crisis here in California. The state faces a projected deficit of $21 billion, according to a new report from the state’s budget analyst. The prospect for further cuts loom.
I’m joined now from Berkeley, California by a man who says the real cause of the state’s fiscal problems is its “dysfunctional system of government.” GEORGE LAKOFF, an author, progressive activist, PROFESSOR OF COGNITIVE SCIENCE AND LINGUISTICS AT UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY, he has sent the attorney general a ballot proposition for the 2010 ballot that he says can end the gridlock in the state legislature. It’s called the California Democracy Act and reads, quote, “All legislative action on revenue and budget must be determined by a majority vote.” It changes two words in the state’s constitution, turning “two-thirds” to “majority” in two places. It would roll back the two-thirds majority needed to pass a budget and, Lakoff argues, end the gridlock created by minority rule in the state.
George Lakoff, joining us now from the University of California, Berkeley, I welcome you to Democracy Now! Lay out what your proposal is, Professor Lakoff.
George Lakoff: It’s a pleasure to be here, Amy.
The proposal is very simple: namely, end minority rule by simply having the majority decide on economic—day-to-day economic issues. That’s what this says. It says, on revenue and budget, let the majority in the legislature, you know, decide these things, just as happens in forty-seven other states. California is the only state in the union that is completely—that has minority rule in the legislature on both issues....
[Link to audio, video, and transcript] Full Story
9. Bits Blog: Andy Grove’s Prescription for Health Care
New York Times Online (*requires registration)
November 18, 2009
Andrew S. Grove, the 73-year-old former chief executive of Intel, has long brought a piercing intellect and a personal passion to the subject of health care....
He talked about his new mission during an interview on Tuesday. Mr. Grove is focusing on the shortcomings in the medical innovation pipeline. “Why doesn’t technology give us medical treatments,” he asked, “that are better, faster, cheaper? A system that works, heaven forbid, like the chip world.”
An answer, Mr. Grove says, lies in a concept called “translational medicine.” For years, the National Institutes of Health has been funding research projects into translational medicine, and definitions seem to vary. Mr. Grove, characteristically, offers a crisp one. “It’s the art of taking laboratory, one-off discoveries and putting them into mass production — in higher volume and at lower cost than previous treatments.”
To promote the concept, Mr. Grove is advocating a new master’s degree program in translational medicine. And he’s prodding the UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY, and the University of California, San Francisco, to begin offering such a joint-degree program.
The degree would combine the talents mainly of the engineering and medical schools, with some business know-how tossed in. Students with engineering backgrounds would take tailored courses in anatomy, physiology and cell biology. Students from the medical school would take courses in project management, the engineering process and clinical trial design. Core courses, taken by all students, would have a business-school flavor, including cost-accounting, organizational behavior, and navigating regulatory and patent laws.... Full Story
10. Academe and the Decline of News Media
Chronicle of Higher Education
November 15, 2009
Newspapers, newsmagazines, and broadcast-news outlets are drastically cutting staff members, bureaus, page counts, and news holes—that is, when they're not simply going out of business. The Chronicle Review asked some prominent thinkers on issues of education, communications, and news and cultural literacy how the decline of those news media will affect higher education. Here are excerpts from their answers:
... NEIL HENRY, DEAN, BERKELEY GRADUATE SCHOOL OF JOURNALISM
The digital age is witnessing an evisceration of American newsrooms, and with it erosions in content and traditional journalistic standards. But this crisis also presents challenges and opportunities for universities. For one thing, the university has long been a significant source of news and information for the press. With the collapse of our traditional systems of news, how will that information reach the public in the future, and in what form and quality?...
Not long ago a major report on the decline of the press conducted by two experts for Columbia University (please see the essay by the report's authors, Michael Schudson and Leonard Downie: University-Based Reporting Could Keep Journalism Alive) put forth a host of recommendations for reinvigorating journalism. Among those was a call for greater support for nonprofit journalism, including efforts to harness the potential of universities and graduate schools of journalism to provide public-service reporting.
Supported by the Carnegie-Knight initiative and other foundations, many journalism schools like ours at BERKELEY are already doing just that, producing news content in digital media to serve the nation and neglected local communities. In a sense, journalism schools have become vital keepers of a flame for professional values and high-quality journalism in an age of tremendous industry struggle and transformation....
[Link by subscription only] Full Story
11. Op-Ed: Embedding Journalists in Academe
Chronicle of Higher Education (*requires registration)
November 15, 2009
Can universities rescue ailing newspapers? More precisely, can universities sustain and support the construction and distribution of serious news and analysis of current affairs?...
The most valued journalism doesn't just expose the news but explains it. In this "explanatory" genre of journalism, writers with a commitment to a subject—think [UC BERKELEY PROFESSOR] MICHAEL POLLAN on food, John Markoff on computers, Barbara Ehrenreich on the poor—serve as "brokers" for mass audiences to a world of scholarship and specialized knowledge that might otherwise be inaccessible. ...
One marriage of journalism and scholarship was announced in September: a partnership between KQED, the San Francisco public broadcaster, and the BERKELEY GRADUATE SCHOOL OF JOURNALISM. The nonprofit editorial partnership is being underwritten at a cost of $5-million by the philanthropist Warren Hellman.
The KQED-university marriage has some obvious hurdles. Because universities aren't used to embracing partisan politics (and are, in fact, forbidden to do so), newspapers' tradition of advocacy could probably not endure. Journalists have also played a longstanding watchdog function. Especially in the political realm, they have tried (or at least pretended) to hold power to account. That is another longstanding news-media function that universities would seem unlikely to practice. As it turns out, citizen activists, exercising their own right to public information, are as effective as, if not better than, journalists are in monitoring public power....
[Link by subscription only] Full Story
12. Op-Ed: University-Based Reporting Could Keep Journalism Alive
Chronicle of Higher Education (*requires registration)
November 15, 2009
When the first U.S. school of journalism opened its doors at the University of Missouri in 1908, so did a new daily newspaper, the University Missourian (now the Columbia Missourian), that the school runs to this day. Professional editors manage a staff that, especially in the midst of a deep recession, has a great business advantage: cheap labor. The reporting in the paper is produced by students at the school who receive neither salary nor benefits for their work. Their rewards are academic credit and marketable experience. The newspaper, says the school's dean, Dean Mills, loses money, but it is still "a bonus, not a drain" for the school because it is a laboratory for students to test out their knowledge, it keeps the school closely tied to the community, and it puts the school before the public daily in a way attractive to donors....
Meanwhile, the major engine of original news gathering since the 19th century—the daily newspapers—are producing less original news reporting than they did a decade ago. Few newspapers have actually shut their doors in the past few years, but many of them have sharply cut their budgets to survive. ...
Journalism schools, thanks to the Internet, can help fill the gap. Florida International University now has an arrangement in which the Miami Herald, Palm Beach Post, and South Florida Sun-Sentinel use the work of student journalists. Columbia's Stabile Center for Investigative Journalism has in its few years of existence had students produce work that has appeared in The New York Times, the Albany Times Union, Salon, and on PBS and NPR. STUDENTS AT THE BERKELEY GRADUATE SCHOOL OF JOURNALISM have produced work for the public posted on the school's news Web sites. It is beginning another news Web site in cooperation with San Francisco's KQED public radio and television stations. ...
[Link by subscription only] Full Story
13. Real Time Economics Blog: Secondary Sources
A Holiday Gift to Uncle Sam, “Cash for Caulkers” and DeLong Warns of Great Depression 2.0
Wall Street Journal Online (*requires registration)
November 18, 2009
A roundup of economic news from around the web.
-Chance of Great Depression Now 5%: Writing on his blog, J. BRADFORD DELONG, A PROFESSOR AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT BERKELEY, says that “For 2 ¼ years now I have been saying that there is no chance of a repeat of the Great Depression or anything like it – that we know what to do and how to do it...I don’t think I can say that anymore. In my estimation the chances of another big downward shock to the U.S. economy...are about 5%...[and] if such a shock hits the U.S. government will be unable to do a d— thing about it.” Deficit spending, he goes on to say, is being blocked by both parties in Congress; bank recapitalizations have zero support among policymakers: “the right think it is an unwarranted intervention in the free market, the left thinks that it is a giveaway to the undeserving and feckless superrich, and the center is bewildered”. Full Story
14. Buttonwood: Paper promises, golden hordes
Economist [UK]
November 12, 2009
Two hundred metric tonnes of gold would occupy a cube of a little more than two metres on a side; it would fit into a small bedroom. But India’s purchase of that volume of gold from the IMF last month has had an outsize impact on the markets, helping push the price well above $1,100 a troy ounce....
Some of the more pessimistic commentators see the recent credit excesses as the inevitable consequence of a system based on paper money and call for the return of the gold standard to prevent future crises. This column has argued that the current system is unsustainable. Debtor countries like America and Britain have huge fiscal deficits, but retain at the same time the ability to depreciate their currencies and offer near-zero interest rates on their short-term debt. This does not look like a good deal for creditors.
A gold standard clearly protects the interest of creditors since it ties the value of money to a scarce resource. A government cannot create new gold. But the law of volatility applies. If you fix one part of the economic system, trouble has to show up elsewhere. When countries on the gold standard suffered a shock they had to let the real economy, rather than their currencies, take the strain.
...A recent paper* by BARRY EICHENGREEN OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY, and Douglas Irwin of Dartmouth College found that countries that abandoned gold not only had shorter recessions but were also less inclined to raise tariffs than those countries that retained the link....
* “The Slide to Protectionism in the Great Depression: Who Succumbed and Why?” by Barry Eichengreen and Douglas Irwin, July 2009 Full Story
15. Japan as number one: Land of the setting sun
Economist [UK]
November 12, 2009
Tokyo -- Japan’s economy was on course to surpass America’s. What happened?
It left American executives quaking in their loafers and cheered a generation of Japanese salarymen. “The extent of Japanese superiority over the United States in industrial competitiveness is underpublicised,” trumpeted Ezra Vogel of Harvard University 30 years ago in “Japan as Number One” ..., which became one of the most-discussed business books of its time....
Yet things didn’t quite work out the way Professor Vogel expected. Japanese industrial production rose by 50% in the decade after 1980—a remarkable trajectory for a country crammed into an area the size of Montana. But growth was driven by financial leverage and overinvestment. Property and share prices bubbled, rising as much as sixfold.
The bubble’s collapse, beginning 20 years ago this December, led to almost two decades of economic doldrums. ...
Why didn’t Japanese business regain momentum? Companies, accustomed to being protected, were too slow to change, says Karel Van Wolferen, author of “The Enigma of Japanese Power”, published 20 years ago this year. STEVEN VOGEL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA IN BERKELEY (and Professor Vogel’s son), blames regulators for failing to clean up the banking system until long after the crash.... Full Story
16. McAfee warns of Cold War-style computer attack
San Francisco Chronicle
November 18, 2009
The threat of warfare spreading into the digital realm is no longer just a possibility, according to a McAfee report released Tuesday.
The Santa Clara computer security firm concluded that countries like Russia, China, France, Israel and the United States have the technological capabilities to coordinate state-to-state online attacks and are quietly building their computerized arsenals.
"We believe we're seeing something a little like a cyber-Cold War, where these nations have the ability to integrate these capabilities to their military strategies but are still very hesitant to launch these attacks," said Dmitri Alperovitch, vice president of threat research at McAfee. "They know the Internet is the ultimate equalizer, and there's still a great chance of a strategic attack blowing back and affecting the country that launched it."...
"There's considerable evidence that vulnerabilities exist," said UC BERKELEY INFORMATION MANAGEMENT PROFESSOR DOUG TYGAR.... Full Story
17. Dinosaurs: How to exterminate a dinosaur
Economist [UK]
November 12, 2009
This is the fossilised ornamentation of a dinosaur called Stygimoloch spinifer. Except that if Jack Horner of Montana State University and MARK GOODWIN OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY, have their way, it isn’t. As they describe in the Public Library of Science, they think it, and another like it, Dracorex hogwartsia, are actually juvenile versions of a third, Pachycephalosaurus wyomingensis. These findings follow the eradication of a three-horned dinosaur, Torosaurus, at September’s meeting of the Society of Vertebrate Palaeontology, in Bristol, and the loss in recent years of many duck-billed dinosaur species. Dr Horner and Dr Goodwin argue that, like the antlers of modern deer, the skull ornaments of dinosaurs changed radically over their lifetimes and that this has led to an overestimate of the number of dinosaur species by as much as a third. Full Story
18. Collecting hard evidence for evolution
New Scientist
November 18, 2009
If a snake is a reptile and an eel is a fish, why do they look so similar? This was one of the questions that fascinated Charles Darwin as he wrote On the Origin of Species, published 150 years ago next week. In the ensuing years, scientists have continued exploring the questions that he raised. The answer to this particular puzzle lies in the versatile form shared by snakes and eels - the long, sleek body that enables eels to glide through the water and snakes to slither through grassland, jungle or across sand.
Darwin's voyage of discovery continues today. The snakes in this photo were collected last year on a trip to Burma - one of the world's biodiversity hotspots - by a team from the California Academy of Sciences (CAS) in San Francisco, the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC and Burma's forestry department, which set out to survey the country's reptiles. It was assumed that many snakes found across south-east Asia were of the same species, but genetic analysis of the specimens brought back from this trip showed otherwise. Many of the snakes turned out to be previously unknown species.
As expeditions like this show, collecting and preserving did not end with the Victorian naturalists. Evolutionary biologists are keenly aware of the potential to disturb an ecosystem by over-collecting, but taking photos of an animal is no substitute for taking a specimen. "Collections are needed for understanding the biology of the species and represent the first step to being able to conserve them," says GUIN WOGAN OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY, who was part of the Burmese expedition.... Full Story
19. Dark galaxy crashing into the Milky Way
New Scientist
November 18, 2009
The Milky Way's neighbourhood may be teeming with invisible galaxies, one of which appears to be crashing into our own.
In 2008, a cloud of hydrogen with a mass then estimated at about 1 million suns was found to be colliding with our galaxy. Now it appears the object is massive enough to be a galaxy itself.
Called Smith's cloud, it has managed to avoid disintegrating during its smash-up with our own, much bigger galaxy. What's more, its trajectory suggests it punched through the disc of our galaxy once before, about 70 million years ago....
Many more such dark galaxies may be out there, says LEO BLITZ OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY. Simulations of galaxy formation suggest a galaxy the size of the Milky Way should feature about 1000 dwarf galaxies, but only a few dozen have been found so far. Some of the missing dwarfs may be dark galaxies that are all but invisible, he says. Full Story
20. Parents Frustrated By H1N1 Vaccine Shortage
KTVU
November 17, 2009
San Francisco -- Even as Bay Area clinics continued to offer H1N1 flu vaccinations Tuesday, frustration mounted among parents over vaccine shortages.
Many local residents who want to do what the government recommends and get their children or themselves immunized against the virus said they simply can't get the vaccine....
Senators Tuesday pressed the CDC to admit mistakes. They charged there have been more deaths and less available vaccine than officials estimated....
“I don't think there should be any finger pointing,” said DR. JOHN SWARTZBERG OF THE UC BERKELEY SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH. “I think there are places to improve and we need to learn from that. But I think everybody has done a pretty good job.”...
[Link to video] Full Story
21. Renewable Energy for $1 a Watt? Yes, Says Alphabet Energy
Greentech Media
November 17, 2009
San Francisco -- Alphabet Energy, a Lawrence Berkeley National Labs spin-out with a semiconductor that converts heat directly into power, says it can make devices that will produce power at close to $1 a watt.
Traditional waste heat converters cost around $20 a watt and are made out of bismuth telluride. Alphabet won't say what it's semiconductor is made from, but sources say it is silicon nanowires.
The company, one of the finalists for the Cleantech Open, hopes to get a prototype plant running in about 18 months. ...
The U.S. consumes around 100 quads (100 quadrillion BTUs) of energy a year and 55 to 60 quads get dissipated as waste heat, according to ARUN MAJUMDAR, THE UC BERKELEY PROFESSOR who came up with a lot of the technology behind Alphabet. He now runs ARPA-E, the advanced projects group inside the Department of Energy.... Full Story
22. John Muir letters available online
Sacramento Bee
November 18, 2009
A trove of some 6,500 letters to and from renowned California conservationist John Muir is now available on the Internet.
The University of the Pacific in Stockton, where the letters are housed, announced the new online access today in cooperation with UC BERKELEY'S BANCROFT LIBRARY. The project was funded with a $111,181 grant from the California State Library....
The archive of correspondence includes full-text transcriptions that can be viewed alongside images of the original Muir letters. Many of the letters involve discussions between Muir - considered a founder of the American environmental and parks movement - and other leading figures of the 19th and early 20th centuries.... Full Story
23. Algae Sex and Amoeba Smackdown - Best Microscopy Videos of the Year
io9
November 18, 2009
Ever wonder what it looks like when algae have sex? Now you'll find out in this winning video from the Olympus BioScapes Digital Imaging Contest. More winning entries in our gallery, which includes an amoeba vs. yeast cell smackdown.
Every year, the Olympus BioScapes Digital Imaging Contest invites imaging experts and amateurs to submit their best examples of microscopy - in still and video form. The results, as you can see, are incredible.
The top prize is $5,000 worth of Olympus imaging equipment. In addition, twenty-two of the 2009 winning and Honorable Mention images will also be displayed in a winners' tour that will travel to San Diego, California, New York City; suburban Washington DC; Philadelphia, Baltimore, and other cities. Additional exhibits of BioScapes images will simultaneously be touring cities across the U.S. and Canada throughout 2009-10....
[Caption accompanying photograph] Nucleus of a plant cell showing synaptonemal complex, a ladder-like protein structure that forms between pairing chromosomes during meiosis (the cell division required for reproduction). This may be the first-ever high-resolution 3D image of this complex ever captured with light microscopy. The two parallel axes of this complex, which run the length of each chromosome, are seen as two threads spaced 100-200 nm apart and twisting around each other in a helix. By CHUNG-JU RACHEL WANG, DEPARTMENT OF MOLECULAR AND CELL BIOLOGY, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY, USA. 2nd Prize....
[Link to graphic] Full Story