An ancient human skeleton called Kennewick Man, found on the banks of the Columbia River in 1996, has been at the center of a dispute between Native Americans and scientists on the disposition of the remains. A new analysis of DNA from the bones by a team that includes Professor Rasmus Nielsen concludes that the man probably was an ancestor of local Native American tribes. Read More

Cold-blooded and other animals that are unable to regulate their internal temperature may have a hard time tolerating global warming, according to an analysis by biologists from the University of California, Berkeley, and San Francisco State University.

Berkeley, California - Two thousand California honey bees may have a story to tell.  So too, more than 10,000 deer mice, and 3,000 oaks. Specimens of these plants and animals populate massive collections in Berkeley’s renowned research museums, and are now being enlisted as guides to past episodes of habitat and climate change.

Plant ecologist David Ackerly has calculated that some animals and plants would need to migrate as much as four miles a year to track their preferred temperature in a rapidly warming climate.

“Our goal was to diagnose which species are vulnerable in the modern world, using the past as a guide,” said lead author Seth Finnegan, an assistant professor of integrative biology at UC Berkeley. “We believe the past can inform the way we plan our conservation efforts. However, there is a lot more work that needs to be done to understand the causes underlying these patterns and their policy implications.”

Research by Professor Robert Dudley and postdoc Victor Ortega is featured in a segment on KQED Science about Hummingbirds in a wind tunnel.

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Lindsey Dougherty’s love of the sea eventually led her to UC Berkeley, where she is now a graduate student focusing on one of the ocean’s more unusual critters: a clam that flashes in the deep.

This behavior earned it the nickname ‘disco clam,’ and Dougherty is working with UC Berkeley’s Roy Caldwell, professor of integrative biology, to explore how and why it flashes its mirrored lips.

Dr. Tyrone Hayes, an assistant professor of integrative biology at the University of California, Berkeley, will present "From Silent Spring to Silent Night: A Tale of Toads and Men." He will discuss the harmful impacts of chemical contaminants on amphibians and humans in Bowling Green State University's 2015 Jean Pasakarnis-Buchanan Lecture Tuesday 7 p.m. in 112 Life Sciences Building on campus.

Professor Montgomery Slatkin has been selected by the Academic Senate to be one of two lecturers for the 2015 Martin Meyerson Faculty Research Lectures.  The lecture, titled “Population Genetics of the Neanderthal Genome Project" will take place on Wednesday April 1. 
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The whirling, winged seeds of today's conifers are an engineering wonder and, as University of California, Berkeley, scientists show, a result of about 270 million years of evolution by trees experimenting with the best way to disperse their seeds.

Anthony D. Barnosky is a Professor in the Department of Integrative Biology, Curator in the Museum of Paleontology, and Research Paleoecologist in the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology at the University of California, Berkeley.