UC Berkeley professor Dr. Walter Alvarez will be honored with the prestigious Vetlesen Prize for his theory on the final wipe-out of dinosaurs and other pre-historic Earth-dwellers. One giant meteor, he says. Funny, the theory sounds a bit familiar to us. [KCBS]

UC researchers criticized Governor Schwarzenegger for cutting labor funding for the Miguel Contreras Labor Program by 100 percent. That’s $5.4 million less money than expected that lab workers will be seeing. Hoo-ha, that’s a lot of money. [Cal Aggie]

Ex-UC Berkeley employee just earned himself eight years in the slammer. Apparently, it isn’t a good idea to send “disturbing child pornography” through a university computer, even if your partner won’t allow it at home. [Mercury News]

Earlier: Blood and Bloodlessness

Is there ever a day when UC Berkeley doesn’t get shiny accolades thrown at its feet? From Rhodes Scholarships to National Book Awards, these past few months have been quite a heavenly awards season for the geniuses among us.

Luckily for the admissions office, here are a few more distinguishing honors to add to the recruitment brochures.

* Discover Magazine released its top 100 most breakthrough science stories of 2007, and two UC Berkeley researchers are on the list. One did something important for the future of nanoscale optical imaging. The other took an interestingly morbid glimpse at the death positioning of fossilized dinosaurs.

* Last week, the Writer’s Guild of America nominated Lowell Bergman–a professor at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism–for three awards. We’re hoping a J-School tuition boost doesn’t follow.

* Surprise! We have grants, grants, and more grants. Silly British Petroleum hogs the spotlight, but thanks to the California Institue for Regenerative Medicine, we can afford to carry on with stem cell research. UC Berkeley will also assist in the improvement of national math and science education in an ironic move funded by Exxon Mobil.

* Lastly, people graduated! It isn’t exactly an award, but it’s a stellar accomplishment. Bravo.

The Clog offers our congratulations to all, and to all–happy finals.

 

 So after the emotional jolt of the Vols victory we play, um, (yawn) “Colorado State”. We’ll be referring to this as a trap game because that’s only way to trick readers into paying attention to a blah contest. Here are the questions:1. Who’s going to punt to HIM? We think you know who we mean. We hope that the “Wizard of Returns” gets the opportunity to practice his black magic. Hmm, does “Colorado St. and the Wizard of Returns” not have a Harry Potter book ring to it? Anyway, it’s hard to shank punts all game. Jackson will get his shot.2. Will D-Jax also become the wizard of receiving? DeSean was doubled frequently last week and thus was rarely thrown to. In order for the Clog’s favorite player to snag a Heisman, he needs to put up some WR numbers. Let’s see if he can’t top 100 yards against so-so competition this week.3. What’s with this CSU team? Well, (flipping through our Clog notes, checking the Web, etc.), we don’t know much about them. They lost against their rival, while running into the ground (40 times for a 3.5 avg.). Since the Cal D faired all right versus the run, this bodes well for us. So, if Cal can easily shut down the CSU ground game, score more points than the other team and win the game, we should be in good shape.4. Can we withstand the Caleb Hanie onslaught? The CSU QB’s name is so unintimidating it’s startling. And he threw more picks than TDs last year. We should be fine. Then again, a dude with a broken pinky completed 60,000, of his first 60,001 passes against the Cal D last week…Image Source: Shamim Pakzad, Daily Cal