Faculty

A new UC Berkeley study shows that the so-called love hormone, oxytocin, is also critical for the formation of friendships.

Oxytocin is released in the brain during sex, childbirth, breastfeeding and social interactions and contributes to feelings of attachment, closeness and trust. Never mind that it’s also associated with aggression; the hormone is commonly referred to as the “cuddle” or “happy” hormone, and people are encouraged to boost their oxytocin levels for better well-being by touching friends and loved ones, listening to music and exercising.

But recent studies...

Roughly two-thirds of all emissions of atmospheric methane — a highly potent greenhouse gas that is warming planet Earth — come from microbes that live in oxygen-free environments like wetlands, rice fields, landfills and the guts of cows.

Tracking atmospheric methane to its specific sources and quantifying their importance remains a challenge, however. Scientists are pretty good at tracing the sources of the main greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide, to focus on mitigating these emissions. But to trace methane’s origins, scientists often have to measure the isotopic composition of...

For UC Berkeley’s Jennifer Doudna, the revolutionary discovery of CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing began 15 years ago with a meeting at the campus’s Free Speech Movement Cafe.

“This is a quintessential story about Berkeley,” begins Doudna, a professor of molecular and cell biology and of chemistry, in a lecture she gave on campus in April. “The research that I’ll talk about today wouldn’t have happened … if I had been working anywhere else. And that’s because we have a really collaborative environment on our campus.”

At the cafe, Doudna listened while a Berkeley colleague described...

The Vallee Foundation recently announced the appointment of six new Vallee Scholars(link is external), including UC Berkeley scientist James Nuñez. The Foundation celebrates its thirteenth year of providing unrestricted support to national and international early-career researchers at a pivotal stage of their tenure-track careers. Since 2013, the Foundation has invested more than $20 million to...