Berkeley News

An illustration shows a ring of small purple particles, representing disease proteins, sitting on a surface. The ring is partially covered by a droplet of liquid containing enlarged cartoons of plasmonic particles.

Research

From COVID to cancer, new at-home test spots disease with startling accuracy

A new technology created by UC Berkeley engineers uses the “coffee-ring effect,” paired with plasmonics and AI, for rapid diagnostics.

B&W photo of smiling woman standing at chalkboard

Milestones

Pioneering theoretical physicist Mary K. Gaillard has died at 86

Students point toward poster paper on the wall during an exercise about the ways to better understand chronic absenteeism among students.

Education

With high schoolers’ help, UC Berkeley researchers investigate why so many students are chronically absent

Professor Lining Yao with models created in the Morphing Matter Lab.

Research

Inspired by nature, this engineering professor’s designs fold, move and morph

Spotlight: Commencement 2025

Two students hug each other wearing their regalia in the bleachers at UC Berkeley's 2025 campuswide commencement on May 17.

At UC Berkeley’s campuswide commencement, grads were grateful for their personal growth — and four Big Game wins in a row

A young woman holds her graduation cap and smiles. She is wearing a white dress and a gold-and-navy sash

Majoring in gender and women’s studies helped this graduate find her voice

Priyanka D’Souza, pictured sitting on one of the wheeled stools installed as part of her MFA exhibition, before various works created for the exhibition mounted on a shelf viewable at seated height.

This Berkeley MFA exhibition probes how museums and institutions exclude disabled bodies

Research

line drawing of a woman with eerie-looking ghosts coming out the back of her partially missing head

Politics & society

When warnings never cease, can we still trust our instincts?

At a time when anxiety and threats feel omnipresent, our instinct to react quickly to danger — while powerful — can become unreliable. UC Berkeley political scientist Marika Landau-Wells says there are ways to help us avoid overreacting to false alarms without missing real threats.

A horizontal poster of two blue-black hands cupped and holding the words,

Campus news

‘We hold these truths’: UC Berkeley law dean leads bi-partisan pro-democracy project

a line of Indian women in colorful saris, with their children

Mind & body

Scientists complete the most thorough analysis yet of India’s genetic diversity

Jack Tseng stands on the second floor of the Valley Life Sciences Building looking down on a replica of a T. rex

Research

A T. rex with feathers? Scientists say dinosaurs were likely different from what most of us picture

a female caregiver, apparently of middle age, feeds an elderly woman with a spoon

Politics & society

Proposed Medicaid cuts could have a ‘far-reaching, disproportionate’ impact on older workers

Arts & culture

A group of seven UC Berkeley scholars stand in front of an art piece during their travel seminar to Senegal

Creative Berkeley scholars traverse the globe to experience international art

A painting by Chiura Obata called Sunset, Watertower, March 10, 1943, was done in ink, color and mica on paper while he was in an internment camp. It shows a vibrant sunset behind a watertower in a desolate landscape. There are telephone lines in front of the tower and mountains in the far distance.

Legacy of Chiura Obata, artist and former UC Berkeley professor, endures on campus

More Arts & culture

Podcasts

rows of packaged junk food in a grocery store

Berkeley Talks: How the tobacco industry drove the rise of ultra-processed foods

illustration of a person leaning against a tree writing in a journal

Science of Happiness: How to feel hope in a time of uncertainty

People

Noah Whiteman

‘The freedom to be fully human’: A Berkeley biology professor’s take on Pride and thriving in academia

Dean Jenny Chatman pictured at the entrance to Berkeley Haas.

Professor Jennifer Chatman named dean of Berkeley Haas

Campus & community

Color photo of Ned and Carol Spieker, smiling at the camera, wearing blue and white and a little gold.

Historic gift secures future of Cal Men’s Aquatics programs

In this black and white photo, UC President Robert Gordon Sproul laughs with Harold Ellis, who opened the UC's first news bureau in 1925. They are both wearing suits and wire-rimmed glasses.

UC Berkeley’s central news office marks 100 years of telling the university’s story

More Campus & community