Multimedia
Above, Chris Somerville, professor of plant and microbial biology and director of the Energy Biosciences Institute, discusses the future of cellulosic biofuels.
In addition, ABC 7 News recently featured Somerville and David Zilberman, professor of agricultural and resource economics, in an excellent piece on Responsibly creating new plant biofuels (video).
Managed by UC Berkeley, the the Blue Oak Ranch Reserve is home to mature, gnarled blue oaks, valley oaks and two species of live oak, not to mention endangered California tiger salamanders, Foothill yellow-legged frogs, native trout and river otters. It is the newest of 36 California reserves overseen by the 10-campus UC system's Natural Reserve System for research and education.
The reserve's faculty director is Todd Dawson, professor of environmental science, policy and management, and of integrative biology.
Dr. Rajiv Shah, director of Agricultural Development at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, delivers an overview of the Foundation’s programs that addressing global poverty and hunger, and a panel of experts from the College of Natural Resources responds by discussing the challenges and opportunities to improving the lives of smallholder farmers and their families through philanthropy, technology, and policy. With questions from the audience.
Want to play golf like Tiger Woods? The trick may be to play against him. A study conducted by Agriculture and Natural Resources Ph.D. candidate Jennifer Brown has shown that golfers may actually play better when pitted against a superstar like Woods. Brown analyzed over twenty thousand golf matches and factored in weather and course conditions to determine that golfers played an average of one stroke better when facing off against Woods.
by Dean Keith Gilless
Frozen pipes never concern San Francisco residents, but Minnesotans insulate the pipes around their homes every winter. The West Nile virus scares many Californians but doesn't alarm Scandinavians at all. Where you are in the world goes a long way toward determining the things you worry about.
Some Californians shy away from using wood for fear of contributing to the deforestation so frequently associated with global warming. But relying on imported goods means burning fossil fuels to bring those goods to market, which increases greenhouse gas emissions. The arguments to promote "locally grown" are no more or less valid when considering one's consumption of lumber and other forest products.
Professor Tasios Melis is unlocking the chemical power of green algae to create clean hydrogen fuel that eliminates air-polluting fossil fuels in its production. Check out "Power of Green," a segment from Fueling America, the latest episode of USDA CSREES video magazine.
In the middle of the South Pacific, about 12 miles west of Tahiti, is a tropical island that soon will emerge as a model ecosystem, thanks to the efforts of a U.S.-French research team led by University of California, Berkeley, biologists.
Video: Cataloging an ecosystem |
Moorea, home of the UC Berkeley Richard B. Gump South Pacific Research Station and France's Centre de Recherches Insulaires et Observatoire de l'Environnement (CRIOBE), will be the site of an ambitious project to create a comprehensive inventory of all non-microbial life on the island. Supported by a new $5.2 million grant from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, the Moorea Biocode Project over the next three years will send researchers climbing up jagged peaks, trekking through lush forests and diving down to coral reefs to sample the French Polynesian island's animal and plant life.
By Yasmin Anwar, UC Berkeley Media Relations
A UC Berkeley student is among six young North American environmental leaders to win a 2007 Brower Youth Award for her work in boosting funding for environmental sustainability on the UC Berkeley campus.
Rachel Barge, 21, a junior majoring in conservation and resource studies and minoring in forestry, has been honored for spearheading such campus projects as The Green Initiative Fund (TGIF), which finances clean energy and transportation, water conservation and improved recycling and composting programs.
Continue reading "CNR Student Receives Environmental Leadership Award" »
Alifah Sri Lastari, Indonesia |
Tahir Rasheed, Pakistan |
Emmanuel Wirsiy, Cameroon |
Alifah Sri Lastari, a participant in the 2007 Beahrs Environmental Program, discusses her work on projects to provide clean water to Indonesian villages and to reduce that country's illegal logging activity, as well as how the UC Berkeley summer program has influenced her skills and ideas. Click here for videos featuring other ELP participants.
The Beahrs Environmental Leadership Program offers a unique learning opportunity for mid-career environmental professionals and decision-makers to gain expertise, enhance skills and broaden perspectives on environmental and natural resource management and leadership. Established in August 2000 with seed funding from UC Berkeley alumni Carolyn and Richard Beahrs, the ELP offers an annual 3-week summer certificate course in Sustainable Environmental Management at UC Berkeley, and coordinates an active and growing Alumni Network. The ELP also supports post-training collaborative projects with alumni through its Small Grants Initiative.
California farmers depend on bees to pollinate the state's multi-million dollar fruit and nut crops, but last season thousands of bee colonies disappeared around the country.
The KQED science program Quest recently featured CNR ecologist Claire Kremen, and her research on bee pollination. In addition, an online-only special features the urban bees of entomologist Gordon Frankie.
Better Bees: Super Bee and Wild Bee
Devastating over 1 million oak trees across Northern California in the past 10 years, Sudden Oak Death is a killer with no cure. But biologists including CNR's Matteo Garbelotto are looking to the trees' genetics for a solution.
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By studying marbled murrelet specimens collected around the early 1900s, biologists now have reconstructed the seabird's rates of reproduction and survival before its dramatic decline, providing for the first time a baseline measure of health by which contemporary populations can be compared.
Continue reading "Biologists shed light on health of marbled murrelet population in early 1900s" »
Enter the Treehugger.com "Convenient Truths" contest to create an inspiring video about ending climate change!
The contest offers great prizes valued close to $30,000, and the inside scoop is that there have been very few entries so far, so the odds are in your favor!
The contest is endorsed by former Vice President Al Gore, who called it "a great way to spread the word and bring the issue into our daily lives."
Entries should be 1- to 2-minute original videos on everyday solutions to climate change. Winners will be selected based on how inspiring, pragmatic and compelling they are.
Don't wait -- the deadline to enter is February 28th!
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A campus colloquium on "Energy Self-Sufficiency in the 21st Century" recently took the global climate crisis as the starting point for a freewheeling discussion among some of the world's top thinkers. Issues covered included the urgent need to make conservation a national way of life, getting the U.S. public to accept nuclear reactors, and persuading the U.S. government to serve as a world leader in developing clean, renewable energy sources.
Watch the event
(2-hour webcast)
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Continue reading "Tours begin of eco-friendly "green apartment"" »
On Homecoming weekend, Professor Marc Hellerstein presented major themes of his current research in nutritional sciences, including working with complex systems, promising research in ALS (Lou Gherig's Disease), and harnessing the health benefits of caloric restriction and exercise.
Continue reading "Biochemical Moving Pictures: Homecoming Podcast" »
