Courtesy of UC Berkeley News Center By Carol Ness A forest-to-be of redwood trees and red-berried toyon shrubs sprouted on a hillside near Lawrence Hall of Science over the weekend, thanks to the hard work of 100 volunteers from the UC Berkeley campus and community. The saplings are native species, and were planted to replace [...]

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By Robert Sanders, UC Berkeley Naturally occurring bacteria in the Gulf of Mexico did a great job helping to clean up 2010’s huge Deepwater Horizon oil spill, but bacteria can do even heavier lifting. Routinely used to help clean up toxic metals at contaminated sites, bacteria and other soil microbes are fed to boost their [...]

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By Cathy Cockrell, UC Berkeley NewsCenter When Jeff Benca moved to Berkeley last month, he came so loaded with valuables he had to rent a truck. Make that a cargo van, air-conditioned to accommodate its contents — thousands of plant starts, many of them incredibly rare and entirely new to cultivation, all of them members [...]

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By Robert Sanders, UC Berkeley News Center Publicity over the past 25 years about the decline of amphibians worldwide has had one positive effect: More and more biologists began scouring the planet for new or lost species of frogs and salamanders and found thousands more. Nearly 3,000 new ones have been discovered, raising the number [...]

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A prestigious group of scientists from around the world have published a paper in in the June 7 issue of the journal Nature, warning that population growth, destruction of natural ecosystems, and climate change may be driving Earth toward a planet-wide tipping point with destructive consequences. The data suggests that there will be a reduction [...]

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Scientists at UC Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory’s FOLIUM Project, use light to convert the carbon dioxide and carbon from tobacco leaves into biofuels. Converting tobacco to a bio-energy crop would generate a new market for tobacco farmers.   Tweet

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Students at the University of California Berkeley have launched a year-long campaign to promote cycle power as the way to commute and kicked off the project with cycle-powered rock music and unique, specialized bicycles at the first Bike Day on campus. Ginger Jiu, an integrative-biology grad-student, is program manager for the Campus Bicycle Initiative, which [...]

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Global Warming: Science or Sensation? Feeling Warm Makes People More Likely to Believe University of California, Berkeley – Haas School of Business The debate over the veracity of global warming may be judged not by pure science but rather, perception. Being in a warm room can make the idea of global warming seem more likely, [...]

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By Robert Sanders, UC Berkeley In the developing world, reducing greenhouse gas emissions is often seen as being in conflict with alleviating poverty, since improving the standard of living is usually associated with increased energy use. A clean energy development initiative in rural Nicaragua, however, demonstrates that there are cost effective steps developing nations can [...]

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By Yasmin Anwar / UC Berkeley Dire or emotionally charged warnings about the consequences of global warming can backfire if presented too negatively, making people less amenable to reducing their carbon footprint, according to new research from the University of California, Berkeley. “Our study indicates that the potentially devastating consequences of global warming threaten people’s [...]

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