In a publication appearing today in the journal Science Translational Medicine, University of California, Berkeley, and Ben-Gurion University scientists report that senile mice given one such drug had fewer signs of brain inflammation and were better able to learn new tasks, becoming almost as adept as mice half their age.
The IB Insight Fall 2019 newsletter is here! Learn all about what’s new in IB, our new faculty, and what our IB alumni are up to here.
Monarch butterflies eat only milkweed, a poisonous plant that should kill them. The butterflies thrive on it, even storing milkweed toxins in their bodies as a defense against hungry birds. For decades, scientists have marveled at this adaptation. On Thursday, a team of researchers announced they had pinpointed the key evolutionary steps that led to it...
The Department of Integrative Biology (IB) at the University of California, Berkeley invite applications for a full-time tenure-track position in vertebrate physiology at the Assistant Professor level. The expected start date is July 1, 2020.
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For many people, including women, the answer is yes, which spurred dozens of paleontologists around the world – all of them women – to glue on beards for photos now being exhibited at the Lawrence Hall of Science (LHS) at the University of California, Berkeley. The ironic message of the Bearded Lady Project is that, contrary to the persisting stereotype, you don’t have to be a man to love fieldwork and contribute to science; in fact: many field scientists are not.
New research from IB Professor Robert Full and scientists from the Department of Engineering and Tsinghua University in China have created a soft robot nearly as the cockroaches that inspired its design. At 20 to 65 milligrams, these robots are able to carry loads 6 times their weight and withstand the pressure of a 60-kilogram human step.
In the future, these robust, small-scale robots could be useful for search and rescue missions and for fitting into tight, dangerous spaces.
A new consensus statement published in Nature Reviews Microbiology raises awareness of the alarming consequences of global climate change on microbes, which have critical functions in animal and human health, agriculture, the global food web and industry.
“It’s always dinosaur bones,” says Pat Holroyd, feigning exasperation. She handles Vertebrate Collections for the UC Museum of Paleontology. Leslea Hlusko, a professor in the department of integrative biology, interjects: “But it’s actually better ... dire wolves!”
Daniela Kaufer, professor of integrative biology at the University of California, Berkeley, shared progress toward addressing another cause of cognitive decline: dysfunction of the blood-brain barrier. The blood-brain barrier ordinarily protects the brain, but Kaufer’s work shows that when the barrier falters, itself a sign of aging, proteins can enter brain cells called astrocytes, which causes inflammation in the brain and leads to cognitive impairments.