Berkeley News

A digitized side angle of a human head, surrounded by data center walls, indicating the connection between computers and human sentience.

Research

As chatbots get smarter, humans’ unique language abilities are becoming less special

UC Berkeley researchers say large language models have gained “metalinguistic ability,” a hallmark of human language and cognition no other animal has displayed.

Ezra Klein

Events at Berkeley

Berkeley Talks: Ezra Klein on building the things we need for the future we want (revisiting)

A furry brown bat hangs upside down from a piece of fruit.

Mind & body

UC Berkeley scientists uncover neural mechanisms behind long-term memory

an embryonic zebrafish colored blue, green and magenta

Mind & body

Repairing the heart: If zebrafish can do it, why not humans?

Spotlight: Community-Engaged Research

A group of students sits in a large yellow disposal bin that is filled with small twigs and branches. The bin is on a hilly street next to a white house.

Wildfire season is here. UC Berkeley scholars are helping Bay Area communities prepare.

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

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

A group of 14 people who are involved in Coco Auerswald's project involving young people who experienced homelessness in the research process stand in front of a screen that reads

To understand youth experiencing homelessness, this UC Berkeley professor hires them

Research

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.

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

Research

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

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?

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 line of Indian women in colorful saris, with their children

Mind & body

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

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

Przemyslaw Jeziorski, in an atrium bright with natural light, speaking casually with student after class

Berkeley Haas mourns the sudden loss of marketing professor Przemyslaw Jeziorski

B&W photo of smiling woman standing at chalkboard

Pioneering theoretical physicist Mary K. Gaillard has died at 86

Campus & community

Sarah Gold McBride and Christine Palmer face one another at a desk, smiling at each other, conveying their close friendship

This class traces the evolution of American friendship

People visit the Reading Room in The Bancroft Library, with shelves of books lining the halls.

UC Berkeley outlines plans to account for The Bancroft Library’s namesake

More Campus & community