science wire

Floating robots use GPS-enabled smartphones to track water flow
Graduate student, Andrew Tinka, demonstrates the Floating Sensor Network water monitoring project in Walnut Grove, CA.   Video by Roxanne Makasdjian. A fleet of 100 floating robots took a trip down the Sacramento River today (Wednesday, May 9) in a field test organized by engineers at the University of California, Berkeley.

Steelhead trout lose out when water is low in wine country
The competition between farmers and fish for precious water in California is intensifying in wine country, suggests a new study by biologists at the University of California, Berkeley. The findings, published in the May issue of the journal Transactions of the American Fisheries Society , link higher death rates for threatened juvenile steelhead trout with low water levels in the summer and the amount of vineyard acreage upstream.

Scientists core into Clear Lake to explore past climate change
University of California, Berkeley, scientists are drilling into ancient sediments at the bottom of Northern California's Clear Lake for clues that could help them better predict how today's plants and animals will adapt to climate change and increasing population.

$60 million Simons Foundation grant to launch theory of computing institute
A groundbreaking $60 million award to the University of California, Berkeley, from the Simons Foundation will establish the campus as the worldwide center for theoretical computer science.

UC Berkeley passes management of Allen Telescope Array to SRI
A few of the 42 radio dishes of he Allen Telescope Array at the time of its dedication in October 2007.

Uok? Text messages — even automated ones — can soothe the disconnected soul
Text messaging often gets a bad rap for contributing to illiteracy and high-risk behavior such as reckless driving. But a social welfare professor at the University of California, Berkeley, has found an upside to texting, especially for people who feel stressed out, isolated and alone.

African Americans are more apt to blog than whites and Latinos
The blogging community is more racially diverse than one might think. Internet-connected African Americans are more likely to blog than their white and Hispanic counterparts, according to new research from the University of California, Berkeley. While African Americans as a whole are less likely to afford laptops and personal computers, Internet-savvy blacks, on average, blog one and a half times to nearly twice as much as whites, while Hispanics blog at the same rate as whites, according to a study published in the March online issue of the journal, Information, Communication & Society.

Fertilizer use responsible for increase in nitrous oxide in atmosphere
University of California, Berkeley, chemists have found a smoking gun proving that increased fertilizer use over the past 50 years is responsible for a dramatic rise in atmospheric nitrous oxide, which is a major greenhouse gas contributing to global climate change. Climate scientists have assumed that the cause of the increased nitrous oxide was nitrogen-based fertilizer, which stimulates microbes in the soil to convert nitrogen to nitrous oxide at a faster rate than normal.

Big grant for Big Data: NSF awards $10 million to harness vast quantities of data
The quest to capture the massive amounts of data being produced in our world - and in so doing unveil answers to some of society's most vexing problems - has gotten a $10 million boost from a National Science Foundation award to the University of California, Berkeley.

New material cuts energy costs of separating gas for plastics and fuels
A new type of hybrid material developed at the University of California, Berkeley, could help oil and chemical companies save energy and money - and lower their environmental impacts - by eliminating an energy-intensive gas-separation process.

ChronoZoom: A deep dive into the history of everything
This collage demonstrates how the time scales for the cosmos, Earth history and the histories of life and humanity span a range of a million billion, making it impossible to view them together on the same timeline.

Scientists tap the genius of babies and youngsters to make computers smarter
People often wonder if computers make children smarter. Scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, are asking the reverse question: Can children make computers smarter? And the answer appears to be 'yes.' UC Berkeley researchers are tapping the cognitive smarts of babies, toddlers and preschoolers to program computers to think more like humans.

Huts, artifacts in Jordanian excavation offer new perspectives on life 20,000 years ago
Excavation underway at Kharaneh IV site in eastern Jordan reveals 20,000-year-old huts and artifacts shedding new light on hunter-gatherers' lives. (Photo © by Lisa A. Maher) A  joint team of American, British, Danish and Jordanian archaeologists working in eastern Jordan has announced its discovery of 20,000-year-old hut structures, the earliest yet found in that country.

On-site worker rescue plan urged for confined spaces
Many employers are mistakenly relying upon public fire departments to rescue workers from confined spaces, such as water and sewer pipes, manholes and tunnels, according to an analysis by University of California, Berkeley, health researchers of hundreds of deaths in the United States over 13 years.

Advanced power-grid model finds low-cost, low-carbon future in West
The least expensive way for the Western U.S. to reduce greenhouse gas emissions enough to help prevent the worst consequences of global warming is to replace coal with renewable and other sources of energy that may include nuclear power, according to a new study by University of California, Berkeley, researchers.

Breakthrough in designing cheaper, more efficient catalysts for fuel cells
University of California, Berkeley, chemists are reimagining catalysts in ways that could have a profound impact on the chemical industry as well as on the growing market for hydrogen fuel cell vehicles.

Scientists decode brain waves to eavesdrop on what we hear
Neuroscientists may one day be able to hear the imagined speech of a patient unable to speak due to stroke or paralysis, according to University of California, Berkeley, researchers. Frequency spectrograms of the actual spoken words (top) and the sounds as reconstructed by two separate models based solely on recorded temporal lobe activity in a volunteer subject.

Restored wetlands rarely equal condition of original wetlands
Restored wetlands like this pond converted from agricultural use in Aragon, Spain, may look natural, but a new study shows that it can take hundreds of years for restored wetlands to accumulate the plant assemblages and carbon resources of a natural, undamaged wetland. Credit: David Moreno-Mateos/UC Berkeley Wetland restoration is a billion-dollar-a-year industry in the United States that aims to create ecosystems similar to those that disappeared over the past century.

Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life to open Jan. 22
The Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life at the University of California, Berkeley's Bancroft Library, the latest addition to the city's burgeoning downtown arts and culture district, is opening to the public on Sunday, Jan.

Howard Bern, expert on effects of hormones, has died at 91
Howard A. Bern, professor emeritus of integrative biology at the University of California, Berkeley, and a pioneer in understanding how hormones affect development, including that of the human fetus, died Jan.

Leaping lizards and dinosaurs inspire robot design
An African Agama lizard swings its tail upward to prevent pitching forward after a slip during take-off.

Study details how dengue infection hits harder second time around
http://www.berkeley.edu/news2/2011/12/dengue.flv As part of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's (HHMI) 2010 Holiday Lectures on Science, UC Berkeley's Eva Harris talked about her work with scientists and clinicians in Nicaragua on dengue over the past two decades. Here, several partners in Nicaragua talk about the impact of this collaboration.

Disaster looms for gas cloud falling into Milky Way’s central black hole
A simulated view of the gas cloud (red orbit) now approaching the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way Galaxy.

Climate change blamed for dead trees in Africa
Trees are dying in  the Sahel, a region in Africa south of the Sahara Desert, and human-caused climate change is to blame, according to a new study led by a scientist at the University of California, Berkeley. “Rainfall in the Sahel has dropped 20-30 percent in the 20th century, the world's most severe long-term drought since measurements from rainfall gauges began in the mid-1800s,” said study lead author Patrick Gonzalez, who conducted the study while he was a visiting scholar at UC Berkeley's Center for Forestry.

Research could help people with declining sense of smell
University of California, Berkeley, neuroscientists have discovered a genetic trigger that makes the nose renew its smell sensors, providing hope for new therapies for people who have lost their sense of smell due to trauma or old age.

"Everyday Dogs" book depicts allure of man’s best friend
A new book from the University of California, Berkeley's Bancroft Library now hitting the holiday bookstore shelves gives fresh meaning to the term "dog days" by celebrating the powerful connections between people and their canine companions.

Researcher takes on ‘empathy fatigue’ in the workplace
A nurse refuses to help an ailing alcoholic who is upset to find a hospital detox unit closed. A hospital clerk brushes off a deceased woman's grieving family as they try to pay her bills and claim her belongings.

Record massive black holes discovered lurking in monster galaxies
University of California, Berkeley, astronomers have discovered the largest black holes to date - two monsters with masses equivalent to 10 billion suns that are threatening to consume anything, even light, within a region five times the size of our solar system.

Moore Foundation awards $6 million for earthquake early warning research
The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation has awarded $6 million to three West Coast universities to create a prototype earthquake early warning system for the Pacific Coast of the United States. The grant will allow seismologists at the University of California, Berkeley; California Institute of Technology (Caltech); and University of Washington, Seattle, in collaboration with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), to learn about the science of earthquakes and the best way to capture and analyze seismic data.