Bromances may be good for men’s health

“A bromance can be a good thing,” said lead author Elizabeth Kirby, who started work on the study while a doctoral student at UC Berkeley and continued it after assuming a postdoctoral fellowship at Stanford. “Males are getting a bad rap when you look at animal models of social interactions, because they are assumed to be instinctively aggressive. But even rats can have a good cuddle – essentially a male-male bromance – to help recover from a bad day.”

Neurobiology: Rise of resilience

Stress can have a negative influence on the human brain, but increasingly it is the ability to withstand severe stress that is the focus of research.

IB Grad Student Competes in 2016 UC Grand Slam

Joyce Chery, a Graduate Student in Associate Professor Chelsea Specht's lab, is one of 10 UC Berkeley semi-finalists in the 2016 UC-wide Grand Slam Competition. She will give a 3 minute TED-style talk on March 28th. Please come out and support her!
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Brain scientist Marian Diamond subject of new documentary

Over the course of her career, Marian Diamond, a professor emeritus of integrative biology at UC Berkeley, demonstrated that an enriched environment builds better brains and helped establish the now accepted idea that the brain changes throughout our lifetimes and that we need to continually “use it or lose it.” She also conducted the first scientific analysis of Albert Einstein’s brain.

Worldwide bee epidemic linked to human cause: colony trafficking

To determine the course and source of the virus’s spread around the globe, a UC Berkeley researcher Michael Boots, professor of integrative biology, collaborated with colleagues at Exeter University in the UK to analyze the genomes of viruses collected from around Europe, Asia, Australia and North America.

“The key insight of our work is that the global virus pandemic in honeybees is manmade not natural,”

Cockroach Inspires Robot that Squeezes Through Cracks

“What’s impressive about these cockroaches is that they can run as fast through a quarter-inch gap as a half-inch gap, by reorienting their legs completely out to the side,” said study leader Kaushik Jayaram, who recently obtained his Ph.D. from UC Berkeley and is now a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University. “They’re about half an inch tall when they run freely, but can squish their bodies to one-tenth of an inch — the height of two stacked pennies.”

Enhancing the IB and MCB Undergraduate Experience at Cal

The IB and MCB Departments have partnered up to support undergrads and their love for the biosciences.

More than 200 students attended this exciting networking event held on Jan 21st from 2-5pm in the Li Ka Shing Lobbies. Even more incredible? That this event was made BY students (both IB and MCB) FOR students. A whopping 26 clubs and organizations dedicated their time and efforts to the student community.

Let them see you sweat: What new wearable sensors can reveal from perspiration

While health monitors have exploded onto the consumer electronics scene over the past decade, researchers say this device, reported in the Jan. 28 issue of the journal Nature, is the first fully integrated electronic system that can provide continuous, non-invasive monitoring of multiple biochemicals in sweat.

South America’s white-sand forests: poorly known and under threat

Paul Fine, a tropical biologist at the University of California, Berkeley, approached Biotropica with the idea for the special issue after helping organize a symposium at a 2013 meeting ATBC held in Costa Rica on white-sand forest ecology and evolution and coming away impressed by the breadth of the talks.

Humans began altering natural world 6,000 years ago

Scientists have found an abrupt change about 6,000 years ago in how terrestrial plant and animal species coexisted, right about the time human populations were ballooning and agriculture was spreading around the world.

Integrative Biology