press releases

A photo collage that includes images of Taylor Swift, Bob Dylan, David Bowie and Ice Cube.

Humanities

From Bob Dylan to Ice Cube: Mapping 60 years of storytelling in pop lyrics

UC Berkeley researchers used machine learning to analyze more than 5,000 Billboard Hot 100 hits, finding that storytelling has been on the uptick since the 1990s thanks to the rise in popularity of hip-hop.

Research

A new ‘hypertropical’ climate is emerging in the Amazon

round purple things against a black background

Mind & body

All life copies DNA unambiguously into proteins. Archaea may be the exception.

blue and white bus with 'H2' and 'Hydrogen fuel cell bus' written on side

Research

How UC Berkeley is improving the affordability of hydrogen fuel

Lines of fire burn through a carpet of dried pine needles on a forest floor.

Prescribed burning helps store forest carbon in big, fire-resistant trees

an orange fish floats above a large group of purple sea urchins

Even moderate heat waves depress sea urchin reproduction along the Pacific coast

NASA’s ESCAPADE mission to Mars — twin UC Berkeley satellites dubbed Blue and Gold — will launch in early November

two grayish white birds with red beaks, one with orange cheeks

Finch chirps are more than mindless chatter. They actually convey meaning.

a hand inserted under a hood illuminated by blue light

Gel nail manicures come with exposure to skin-damaging UV. A UC Berkeley chemist has a solution.

UC Berkeley’s Omar Yaghi shares 2025 Nobel Prize in Chemistry

UC Berkeley Emeritus Professor of Physics John Clarke is pictured in a portrait, wearing a blue button-down shirt.

John Clarke, UC Berkeley emeritus professor, awarded 2025 Nobel Prize in Physics

transparent drawing of fish with bones visible, against background of Earth and black silhouettes of fish

Fossilized ear bones rewrite the history of freshwater fish

a young woman cinches up the green flight suit of an older woman

Former Air Force chief scientist to guide program development at Berkeley Space Center

a man in a brown leather jacket, blue shirt and glasses, with the Andromeda Galaxy in the background.

Nobelist George Smoot, whose satellite experiments validated the Big Bang theory, dies at 80

two women in colorful clothes walking through desert scrub, each carrying a plastic jerrycan on her head

Genetic study of nomadic herders in Kenya shows what it takes to adapt to desert living

a chimp sitting in a tree surrounded by fruit

In the wild, chimps likely ingest the equivalent of several alcoholic drinks every day

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