Cal Alumni Association

UC Berkeley appoints Rachel Morello-Frosch as inaugural associate provost for energy, climate, and environment

From sea level rise adaptations to international microplastics treaties, UC Berkeley researchers are at the forefront of addressing the existential environmental issues of our time. Now, a new ...
Cal Alumni Association

UC Berkeley’s student center will no longer bear Cesar Chavez’s name

UC Berkeley has removed Cesar Chavez’s name from a student center after a New York Times investigation detailed serious allegations of sexual abuse by the late labor leader. Soon after the report, ...
Cal Alumni Association

Scientists discover how algae colonized corals — a symbiosis that fueled the growth of the world’s reefs

The reefs scattered throughout the tropics arose only after algae took up full-time residence in coral cells, supplying corals with abundant food and enabling them to build extensive shallow-water ...
Cal Alumni Association

Two centuries later, performance spaces still struggle with ‘soft censorship’

In 1821, two free Black men from the West Indies — playwright William Alexander Brown and actor James Hewlett — opened what’s considered the United States’ first Black theater in New York City. When ...
Cal Alumni Association

In ‘Project Hail Mary,’ Ryan Gosling encounters aliens. How likely is that?

In the sci-fi book and now movie Project Hail Mary, astronaut Ryland Grace, played by Ryan Gosling, encounters three different alien lifeforms in the vicinity of Earth. He joins forces with one of ...
Cal Alumni Association

For 21 years, enthusiasts used their home computers to search for ET. UC Berkeley scientists are homing in on 100 signals they found.

For 21 years, between 1999 and 2020, millions of people worldwide loaned UC Berkeley scientists their computers to search for signs of advanced civilizations in our galaxy. The project — called ...
Cal Alumni Association

NASA’s ESCAPADE mission to Mars — twin UC Berkeley satellites dubbed Blue and Gold — will launch in early November

UPDATE 11/13/25: After two launch delays because of weather and a solar storm, New Glenn launched from Cape Canaveral at 3:55 p.m. EST Thursday, Nov. 13. The twin satellites successfully separated ...
Cal Alumni Association

The nose knows: Electric schnoz can smell when your food’s gone bad

Most of us have used the sniff test to decide whether a slightly expired bottle of milk or a week-old box of takeout is still good to eat. But while the human nose can be quite astute, it doesn’t ...
Cal Alumni Association

High cost of living suppresses California population growth, UC Berkeley study finds

The pandemic-era exodus of Californians to other states has eased, but the sometimes shocking cost of living continues to press thousands of residents to leave for less expensive locations, according ...
Cal Alumni Association

A breakthrough in electron microscopy delivers sharper images of our body’s tiniest proteins

Nearly 100 years ago, a seemingly simple discovery revolutionized the microscope. The introduction of phase-contrast, which garnered a Nobel Prize in 1953, brought into clear view structures inside ...
Cal Alumni Association

Newly identified fossil sheds light on evolutionary history of saber-toothed cats

Fossils tucked away in a museum drawer and identified merely as “feline” are actually from a very ancient and enigmatic saber-toothed cat that inhabited North America more than 5 million years ago.
Cal Alumni Association

New process makes ‘biodegradable’ plastics truly compostable

Biodegradable plastics have been advertised as one solution to the plastic pollution problem bedeviling the world, but today’s “compostable” plastic bags, utensils and cup lids don’t break down during ...