Press Releases

Visit Berkeley's Public Affairs site for a complete list of press releases from the Berkeley campus.

Dec 06, 2011 UC Berkeley NewsCenter Berkeley hosts manufacturing brainstorm

Representatives from government, industry and academia gathered at UC Berkeley to discuss strategies to re-establish the United States as a global leader in advanced manufacturing. Co-hosted by Berkeley and Stanford, the daylong Advanced Manufacturing Partnership regional meeting aimed to jump-start the national effort launched by President Obama in June. The mission of the AMP is to identify transformative opportunities for investments in research and development, public-private and intra-industry collaboration and shared facilities and infrastructure.

Nov 15, 2011 UC Berkeley NewsCenter Berkeley Engineering launches collaboration with Shanghai innovation hub

On November 11, 2011, the College of Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley announced a new partnership with the Shanghai Zhangjiang Hi-Tech Park, one of China's top high-technology parks, to develop a platform for expanding industrial and academic research collaborations in Asia and fostering global learning opportunities for Berkeley students.

Oct 27, 2011 UC Berkeley NewsCenter Transatlantic Science Week brings Norway to Berkeley to tackle global energy challenges

The launch of Transatlantic Science Week at the Brower Center was a call-to-action for greater collaboration in tackling global energy and climate challenges. More than 300 participants from academia, government and industry registered to attend the annual event, which came to the West Coast for the first time in its 10-year history. Hosted in conjunction with Berkeley and Stanford, this year's program of seminars, workshops, presentations and site-visits focused on the theme of innovation frontiers and pressed home the importance of partnerships that span government, academia and industry.

Oct 24, 2011 UC Berkeley NewsCenter BERC symposium energizes Cal students

Record attendance at last week's fifth annual Energy Symposium at UC Berkeley demonstrated the swelling interest among students on campus and nationwide in bridging the gap between universities' renewable energy research and the private sector. More than 450 students joined about 250 people from industry at the two-day conference.

Oct 21, 2011 UC Berkeley NewsCenter CalSol nears the finish line in Aussie solar race

CalSol, UC Berkeley's Solar Vehicle Team, is on the ground in Australia, and on Friday it was smelling the finish line of its first World Solar Challenge competition. If all goes as planned, Impulse, the solar vehicle built by Berkeley students, will reach Adelaide tomorrow, completing a 3,000-kilometer transcontinental race.

Oct 19, 2011 UC Berkeley NewsCenter Researchers turn viruses into molecular Legos

Researchers at UC Berkeley have turned a benign virus into an engineering tool for assembling structures that mimic collagen, one of the most important structural proteins in nature. The process they developed could eventually be used to manufacture materials with tunable optical, biomedical and mechanical properties. The researchers, led by Seung-Wuk Lee, UC Berkeley associate professor of bioengineering and faculty scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, describe their "self-templating material assembly" process in the Oct. 20 issue of the journal Nature.

Oct 17, 2011 UC Berkeley NewsCenter Robotic roach gets wings, sheds light on evolution of flight

When a team of engineers at UC Berkeley, led by electrical engineering professor Ron Fearing, outfitted a six-legged robotic bug with wings in an effort to improve its mobility, they unexpectedly shed some light on the evolution of flight. Even though the wings significantly improved the running performance of the 10-centimeter-long robot, they found that the extra boost would not have generated enough speed to launch the critter from the ground.

Oct 13, 2011 UC Berkeley NewsCenter CalSol ready to race for solar title in Australia

CalSol, UC Berkeley's Solar Vehicle Team, is on the ground in Australia, sweating through last-minute preparations for the upcoming transcontinental race against 36 other solar cars from all over the world this weekend. It's the first time CalSol has competed in the World Solar Challenge, and the race is the culmination of two years of work by 75 undergraduate students to design and build Impulse, a single-seat, low-to-the-ground all-solar vehicle.

Oct 10, 2011 UC Berkeley NewsCenter Kicking hybrids out of carpool lanes backfires, slowing traffic for all

The end of a California program granting free access to carpool lanes by solo drivers of hybrid cars has unintentionally slowed traffic in all lanes, according to transportation engineers at UC Berkeley's Institute of Transportation Studies. "Our results show that everybody is worse off with the program's ending," said Michael Cassidy, professor of civil and environmental engineering. "Drivers of low-emission vehicles are worse off, drivers in the regular lanes are worse off, and drivers in the carpool lanes are worse off. Nobody wins."

Oct 04, 2011 UC Berkeley NewsCenter UC Berkeley physics professor Saul Perlmutter awarded 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics

Saul Perlmutter, who led one of two teams that simultaneously discovered the accelerating expansion of the universe, has been awarded the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics, to be shared with two members of the rival team. Perlmutter, 52, a professor of physics at the University of California, Berkeley, and a faculty senior scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, led the Supernova Cosmology Project that, in 1998, discovered that galaxies are receding from one another faster now than they were billions of years ago.

Oct 03, 2011 UC Berkeley NewsCenter NSF awards $2 million to expand Sierra Nevada water sensors

California will soon get a clearer picture of its water supply thanks to a $2 million National Science Foundation grant. The four-year grant will allow researchers at UC Merced and UC Berkeley to install more than 1,000 sensors throughout the 2,000-square-mile American River Basin in the Sierra Nevada. Led by Steven Glaser, UC Berkeley professor of civil and environmental engineering, the project will enable remote monitoring of snow depth, stream flow, water content in soil and use of water in vegetation.

Sep 28, 2011 UC Berkeley NewsCenter At Berkeley, it's the students who have the Big Ideas

UC Berkeley is alive with big ideas. And for teams of students who come up with the most inventive ways to solve real-world problems, a $300,000 pot is up for grabs in this year's Big Ideas@Berkeley contest. Competitors will dream up and design potentially high-impact projects across a broad range of topics including global poverty alleviation, energy-efficient technologies, "creative expression for social justice," information technology, emerging and neglected diseases, improving student life and scaling up big ideas.