January 15, 2014: Funded my the National Science Foundation, UC Berkeley scientists will receive $4,900,000 over the next five years to study the nearly 10,000 square kilometer Eel River watershed in Northern California and how its vegetation, geology and topography affect water flow all the way to the Pacific Ocean.
What the researchers uncover will help improve global climate models and modeling tools that can be used by state or regional decision makers to guide planning. Their discoveries may eventually allow scientists to predict the impact of changing climate and land use on future droughts, floods and supplies of water for drinking and agriculture.
January 13, 2014: Researchers from California State University, Long Beach (CSULB) and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have launched “Kelp Watch 2014,” a scientific campaign designed to determine the extent of radioactive contamination of the state’s kelp forest from Japan’s damaged Fukushima nuclear power plant following the March 11, 2011, earthquake and tsunami.
--Lawrence Berkeley National Lab
Jan 9, 2014: A new development by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, could lead to curtains and other materials that move in response to light, thus eliminating the need for batteries.
“The advantages of this new class of photo-reactive actuator is that it is very easy to make, and it is very sensitive to low-intensity light,” said research team leader Ali Javey, a faculty scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. “The light from a flashlight is enough to generate a response.”
--Berkeley News Center
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