New course to tap UC Berkeley’s diversity and maker spirit
Robert Full wants to tap the diverse experiences of UC Berkeley undergraduates to teach them the fun of discovering biology’s secrets and the innovations that can spring from hacking them. …
Professor Dacher Keltner talks about the science of happiness
There’s a science to happiness. And one of the centers for its study is right here in the Bay Area. The Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley studies human happiness, compassion and altruism. KALW’s Hana Baba wanted to find out the formula, so she went to the center and sat down with its co-director […]
Public Matters
The history of scientific discovery and innovation has been punctuated by disbelief, mistrust, and at times, outright fear. The 17th century persecution of Galileo serves as one of the most dramatic examples—found guilty in a trial for heresy over his scientific observations, Galileo was sentenced to house arrest until his dying day. Such unfortunate history […]
UC Berkeley-conceived online tool finalist for SXSW award
ChronoZoom, a UC Berkeley-conceived online tool that organizes historical information, is presenting at the SXSW Festival in Austin, Texas, this week as a finalist for the Interactive Educational Resource Award.
Lecture Lust: A list of famous courses at Cal: A sample of classes that students of all majors can appreciate.
Public Policy C103 “Wealth and Poverty” taught by Professor Robert Reich, Secretary of Labor under President Bill Clinton, is always packed with students and auditors. Reich guides the class through the factors that contribute to the gap between the rich and poor and the policies aimed at shrinking it. Many who’ve taken this class agree […]
Can a group of scientists in California end the war on climate change?
In 1964, Richard Muller, a 20-year-old graduate student with neat-cropped hair, walked into Sproul Hall at the University of California, Berkeley, and joined a mass protest of unprecedented scale. …
Thinking About Not Thinking: Buddhism, Meditation, and Film (3/2/09 to 4/27/09)
PFA is pleased to cosponsor with UC Berkeley’s Center for Buddhist Studies the film-lecture series Thinking About Not Thinking: Buddhism, Meditation, and Film. Like Film 50, this series is in conjunction with an undergraduate course (offered in the College of Letters & Science Discovery Course program), and is open to the public as space permits. […]
Italy’s geologic history becomes a personal tale in Walter Alvarez’s new book
BERKELEY — Italy’s mountains, from the Apennines to the Alps, have fascinated University of California, Berkeley, geologist Walter Alvarez for more than 35 years, resulting in a new book, “The Mountains of Saint Francis,” that traces Italy’s billion-year geologic history with a focus on Italian geologists and their groundbreaking – and often overlooked – discoveries. […]
Physics the Next President Needs to Know
Physics has a history of intersecting with politics in ways both large and small, from the creation of the atomic bomb to nuclear meltdowns to terrorist methods. And now, with more specialized, high-tech issues to tackle than ever before, it is increasingly important that world leaders have an understanding of the underlying scientific concepts. But […]
Ancient Bodies, Ancient Lives: How can we use material traces of past lives to understand sex and gender in the past?
Ancient Bodies, Ancient Lives is a book published in 2008 by Thames and Hudson. A product of my teaching an interdisciplinary course, “Archaeology of Sex and Gender”, in Berkeley’s Discovery Course program, the book is an experiment in making archaeological knowledge available to others interested in teaching about sex and gender, from anthropological, historical, archaeology, […]