Dara O'Rourke, a leading expert on global supply chains, will lead Amazon's new Sustainability Science team as senior principal scientist. Amazon has never published a sustainability report, but expects its sustainability operation to grow significantly this year.
California's Delta: On the Front Lines of the State's Water Issues
Few natural resources are as impressive, or as imperiled, as California's water. CNR professors and students are analyzing the problems and beginning the search for solutions.
Where Science Meets Activism
Breakthroughs magazine feature: The Center for Effective Global Action inspires on-the-ground interventions to change the lives of millions.
Growth Rings on Rocks Give Up North American Climate Secrets
Scientists have found a new way to tease out signals about Earth’s climatic past from soil deposits on gravel and pebbles, adding an unprecedented level of detail to the existing paleoclimate record and revealing a time in North America’s past when summers were wetter than normal.
Fighting Fire with Fire Benefits Forests, Watersheds
Tucked behind Half Dome, Mount Starr King and other natural walls of granite rock, the Illilouette Creek Basin in Yosemite National Park serves as one of just three areas in California where wildfires have been left to burn, for the most part, for decades.
New research in rural China may help improve drinking water quality and reduce air pollution
Alasdair Cohen’s collaboration with the China CDC allowed him to conduct the first known research study on household water treatments in China.
Ten-year Sierra Nevada Adaptive Management Project finds consensus on managing CA forests
ESPM scientists and their collaborators on the SNAMP project say there is a great need for forest restoration and fire hazard reduction treatments in Sierra Nevada forests.
Three new AAAS Fellows from UC Berkeley
Three UC Berkeley faculty members are among 347 new fellows named to the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) today. Election as a AAAS Fellow is an honor bestowed upon AAAS members by their peers in recognition of their achievements in advancing science or its applications.
The Secret Life of a Raindrop
Explore the Earth’s “critical zone” – where rock meets life. And discover how top climate researchers are exploring the secrets within a raindrop in order to better understand how the availability of water resources changes as a result of human activities.
Mushroom Discovery on Campus
Two researchers who recently named the first new species of mushroom from the UC Berkeley campus in more than 30 years are emphasizing the need for continued green and open space on campus, as well as a full-fledged catalog of all North American mushroom species.
Fungal Spore Regenerates Forests
An extensive study by a UC Berkeley graduate student has found that a rich, fungal spore bank under the devastating Rim Fire two years ago remained intact and sparked the rebirth of new plants, trees and seedlings.
Berkeley to Lead $12.3M Study of Crop Drought Tolerance
UC Berkeley is leading a $12.3 million project funded by the U.S. Department of Energy to examine the role of epigenetics in allowing plants to survive in drought conditions, an increasing concern for agriculture as the effects of climate change are felt in California and globally.
Berkeley Ranked Top Environment/Ecology University by U.S. News
In U.S. News & World Report‘s “Best Global Universities Rankings,” published this week, UC Berkeley tops the list in Environment/Ecology.
To the Rescue: Berkeley Names Faculty Climate Action Champion
Whendee Silver might not think of herself as an action hero, but the professor of environmental science, policy and management today was named UC Berkeley’s first Faculty Climate Action Champion.
How to beat the climate crisis? Start with carrots
To speed up progress in tackling climate change, policymakers need to build political support by investing in clean-energy industries rather than first penalizing polluters, according to a new policy paper by UC Berkeley researchers.
Millet Project shows grain isn’t just for the birds
Amrita Hazra, a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Plant and Microbial Biology, is on a mission — to introduce people to the benefits of eating millet, which primarily is used in the United States in bird feed.
Free Trade for Green Trade
In the run-up to the Paris talks at the end of the year, governments are preparing their strategies to negotiate national emissions reduction targets. But elsewhere, a different battle is unfolding as firms and governments compete to try to capture the benefits of the rise of the new green economy.
Clearing habitat surrounding farm fields fails to reduce pathogens
The effort to improve food safety by clearing wild vegetation surrounding crops is not helping, and in some cases may even backfire, according to a new study led by researchers at UC Berkeley.
Napolitano names Glenda Humiston to head Agriculture and Natural Resources
University of California President Janet Napolitano will propose to the UC Board of Regents that they approve a veteran administrator with decades of experience in agriculture, natural resources, and sustainability as the next leader of the Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources, she announced today (July 10).
Newfound groups of bacteria are mixing up the tree of life
University of California, Berkeley, scientists have identified more than 35 new groups of bacteria, clarifying a mysterious branch of the tree of life that has been hazy because these microbes can’t be reared and studied in the lab.