Unlike the above video, the best theory for what causes this type of supernova requires two white dwarfs instead of one.
In a nutshell, UC Berkeley astronomers happened upon some data that classified a supernova (later creatively named SN2002bj) discovered in 2002 as Type II, which turns out to be pretty common, and realized the brightness and duration were closer to read more »
It seems like the Lawrence Berkeley Lab is always getting in the news for something or other. Now, it’s for getting a pretty sweet cut out of the Recovery and Reinvestment Act pot—$7 million, to be vaguely precise. And this time the funding is for geothermal energy research.
“Now wait a minute, Clog,” you suspiciously ask. read more »
Posted by Cassie Myers on Saturday, October 31, 2009 08:00 pm
2012 (the movie but also the year) is rapidly approaching, and with it comes the first of the doomsday predictions: It’s possible that one-third of all named dinosaur species never existed. Okay, so it’s a retroactive prophecy (and also a “wild guess”), but still kinda spooky.
UC Berkeley paleontologists, with all their badass technology and intelligence, recently published a paper that retroactively “wiped out two species of dome-headed dinosaur.” read more »
Posted by Cassie Myers on Thursday, October 29, 2009 07:23 pm
Research universities may sound boring, but you never know exactly what those crazy guys will be up to. Perhaps they will be teaching Argentinian ants to hate each other, for example.
That’s right, you heard correctly. Researchers from UC Berkeley have just figured out that certain chemical cues will cause normally friendly ants to turn on each other. They isolated the chemicals that promote fighting behavior and the ants attacked. “‘The enemy chemicals read more »
Posted by Jill Cowan on Thursday, October 29, 2009 07:04 pm
You see all those people above, leaning seemingly inexplicably to their left? You know why they’re leaning? It’s because they’re stoked. Super, super stoked. You know why they’re stoked? Because they just signed a historic Memorandum of Understanding … and Friendship … for Everyone!
OK, maybe we made those last bits up, but they did sign on to a very special partnership with the Building Trades Council of Alameda County that will allow four lucky electrical apprentices to try their hands at their craft in the high stakes electrical world of a national laboratory.
And all under the glaring lights of scrutiny focused unflinchingly upon them by reality television cameras. Do they have what it takes? ONLY TIME WILL TELL. OK, we made that up too. But seriously, it sounds like a pretty cool program. Way to streamline resources, Berkeley Lab and Alameda County!
Image Source: Roy Kaltschmidt, LBL site Berkeley Lab Launches Apprenticeship Program for Electrical Resources [LBL]
Posted by Jill Cowan on Monday, October 26, 2009 06:59 pm
Earlier today, our old (like, old as in silver fox old, of course) buddy Steven Chu, Secretary of Energy and hero of the universe, visited the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab to catch up with his former colleagues.
He talked to them about all sorts of fun things, like the future of energy research, $151 million in funding for awesome ambitious projects and Wayne Gretzky. True story–just watch the webcast and check out the PowerPoint presentation he made … all by himself. D’awww.
Add another Berkeleyan to the growing list of people winning prizes for being awesome. This time it’s Geoff Marcy, astronomy professor and planet hunter extraordinaire. Yes, that’s right, he freaking hunts god damn planets for a living. Planets. How’s that for a line on the good ol’ resumé?
Professor Marcy won this year’s Carl Sagan Prize for Science Popularization this time. We say “this time” as some may remember when he shared the million dollar read more »
Posted by Jill Cowan on Sunday, October 25, 2009 08:09 pm
Don’t worry, though. A team of researchers, including UC Berkeley’s Daniel Kammen, figured out the solution, which–from the looks of things–basically involves tweaking a few things in the way a few different climate treaties (not just the Kyoto Protocol) account for the impact of biofuels and land use.
Apparently the problem comes from “the misapplication of guidelines established by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC),” that exempted carbon dioxide emissions resulting from bioenergy use. According to an article Kammen and others published in a science journal aptly named Science, this kind of exemption without evaluating the biomass sources that are used for the bioenergy could cause unnecessary deforestation. Which would be bad. read more »
If you’re anything like us—which we’ll assume you are—you’ll be almost-literally-but-not-really-because-that-would-be-abuse-of-wording dying to go see a panel discussion on dark energy. AS IT SO HAPPENS, dear readers, you’re in luck!
Coincidentally, the Lawrence Berkeley Lab will be hosting just such a panel next Monday. Speakers include Saul Perlmutter, who heads the Supernova Cosmology Project, David Schlegel, the “principal investigator of Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS),” and Alexie Leauthaud, a Chamberlain Fellow at the lab.
Where: Berkeley Repertory Theatre, 2015 Addison St. When: Monday, Oct. 26 at 7 p.m. Cost: FREE!
Image Source: Balakov under Creative Commons Dark Secrets: What Science Tells Us About the Hidden Universe [LBL]
Posted by Cassie Myers on Tuesday, October 20, 2009 10:14 pm
Keep doing what you’re doing, eco-friendly Berkeleyans. Toil away at your green projects, even when the rest of the country whispers maliciously that we’re all a little cuckoo for cocoa puffs. Joe Biden is backing you up.
Now you might say, that Delaware guy is nice and all, but what’s he got to do with us? Well, in 2007 Berkeley initiated a plan to finance solar panels in homes. It’s been spreading like environmentally-friendly wildfire to various cities across the nation, and now the federal government wants a piece. The plan is now set to be a national model for conserving energy.
The new national model, called Recovery Through Retrofit, “creates a read more »
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Don’t worry, though. A team of researchers, including UC Berkeley’s Daniel Kammen, figured out the solution, which–from the looks of things–basically involves tweaking a few things in the way a few different climate treaties (not just the Kyoto Protocol) account for the impact of biofuels and land use.
