These Butterflies Evolved to Eat Poison. How Could That Have Happened?
Submitted by rhkayen on Thu, 10/03/2019 - 09:26Monarch 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...
Faculty Position in Vertebrate Physiology
Submitted by khansen on Fri, 09/13/2019 - 15:12The 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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IB graduate students traverse the globe for summer research projects
Submitted by Krystin Ventura on Mon, 08/26/2019 - 16:29For the graduate students of Integrative Biology, the summer months bring a wealth of opportunities to embark on critical research projects and present their findings all over the world. Forty-four graduate students were able to carry out their field and laboratory research, thanks in part to three competitive awards sponsored by the Integrative Biology department: Dissertation Completion Award, Summer Grant, and Research Award. A broad range of projects are funded by these awards, from understanding UV radiation tolerance in desert mosses to studying how the shapes of turtle beaks relate to their diet and habitat over evolutionary time.
Women don beards to highlight gender bias in science
Submitted by rhkayen on Fri, 08/16/2019 - 11:59For 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.
Novel tech to combat Alzheimer’s with light
Submitted by mjalbe on Fri, 08/16/2019 - 11:30IB graduate student Ngoc Mai Nguyen is a scientist turned entreprenuer thanks to her work in the UC Berkeley CITRIS Invention Lab. Read more...
Full: You can’t squash this roach-inspired robot
Submitted by Krystin Ventura on Wed, 07/31/2019 - 19:36New 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.
Meet our recent IB PhD graduates
Submitted by Krystin Ventura on Fri, 06/28/2019 - 17:55Please join us in celebrating the accomplishments of our most recent PhD graduates and welcoming them as important members of the IB alumni community!
You can view individual alumni profiles highlighting their achievements, professional plans as well as some interesting personal projects here.
Koskella: When it comes to climate change, don’t forget the microbes
Submitted by Krystin Ventura on Tue, 06/18/2019 - 18:31A 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.
Field Genomics course brings cutting-edge research techniques to UC Berkeley freshmen
Submitted by Krystin Ventura on Wed, 06/05/2019 - 17:33With recent advancements in portable, reliable, and low-cost scientific instruments, biological field research is flourishing. Now, a group of UC Berkeley undergraduates is newly equipped to investigate the natural world in real time with these new tools at their disposal.
From May 20-28, 2019, the Department of Integrative Biology’s inaugural Field Genomics summer course immersed first-year undergraduates in cutting-edge molecular biology techniques. The course provided thorough hands-on training in skills such as sample collection, nucleotide isolation, and portable nanopore DNA sequencing.