UC Berkeley

Scientists at UC Berkeley have homed in on exactly which phase of sleep seems to best keep anxiety levels in check. The research suggests sleep deprivation lowers activity in the prefrontal cortex, a brain region that helps regulate our emotions.

Scientists have used the CRISPR gene-editing tool to give fruit flies a new evolutionary advantage – the ability to eat poison and store it in their bodies.

Researchers from the University of California Berkeley have developed a device that can wring drinkable amounts of water out of even the driest air.

Not only do cockroaches give many people the creeps, but often when you step on one of the critters, it just keeps on scurrying. Such resilience would be a good feature for mini-robots designed to scout disaster sites – among other applications – which is why scientists have created such a device.

​Killing up to 200,000 people annually, schistosomiasis is one of THE most deadly parasitic diseases in the world, second only to malaria. Soon, however, prawn aquaculture could be used to control the snails that spread it – and to provide revenue for people in developing nations.

Saturn sports an impressive ring system, but Uranus also has some, although they’re usually too faint to see without a powerful telescope. Striking new images shows these rings in very clear detail thanks to thermal imaging, allowing astronomers to measure their temperature for the first time.

In an effort to scale up the manufacture of biomaterials, researchers at UC Berkeley have combined bioprinting, a robotic arm, and flash freezing that may one day allow living tissue and even whole organs to be printed on demand.

​Ordinarily, robots are precisely programmed to perform certain tasks. Robots that run on artificial intelligence, though, learn tasks through a process of trial and error. The Blue robot is specifically designed for the latter, and it should be much more affordable than other AI machines.

Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is a major driver of shifts in the Earth’s climate, and in the past too little CO2 has been associated with triggering ice ages. Now a team of scientists has found a surprising new mechanism that could lead to ice ages: Tropical tectonic activity.

In the world of gene-editing, CRISPR and Cas9 usually go hand in hand, but that might not necessarily be the best pairing. Now, researchers at UC Berkeley have tested a new candidate, CasX, which seems to have a few advantages of its own.

UC Berkeley researchers have developed a wireless, autonomous, closed-loop neurostimulator that sits outside the head, monitoring electrical activity in the brain and intervening with electrical stimulation to ward off seizures.

​The superhero-like abilities of the humble gecko have inspired countless avenues of scientific research, and biologists have uncovered yet another incredible talent to add to the list – the enterprising lizard species also has the ability to run on water.