✴︎ The
Hypothesis
The Online Edition of the Berkeley Scientific Journal
Research & Blogs Department
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Could newly uncovered DNA-elements be key in fighting climate change?
Assimilating genetic information from their hosts, Borgs are here to (potentially) act as our saviors! No, unfortunately, you didn’t just stumble into a really good Star Trek fanfiction.scientists speculate that these Borgs — large, linear sequences of DNA originating in some archaea — may be significant in addressing a global issue: climate change.
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Captured: How Technology Changes Filmmaking
We go to the movies to exist outside of our everyday lives and enjoy ourselves. This is the value of a film we seem to inherently accept. But why is that? How does movie magic work, and how does new film technology add or take away from the marvels of cinema?
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Mussel-Inspired Science: Sealing the Future of Fetal Surgery
In the world of medical science, the most innovative ideas often come from the most unexpected sources. From research by UC Berkeley Professor of Bioengineering Dr. Phillip Messersmith, a look into the adhesive properties of mussels provides hope to create a bio-inspired ‘glue’ that can seal delicate fetal membranes post surgery.
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Never Trust a Physicist
“The Cataclysm Sentence,” by Richard Feynman: “if, in some cataclysm, all of scientific knowledge were to be destroyed, and only one sentence was passed on to the next generation of creatures, what statement would contain the most information in the fewest words?” Feynman forces readers to evaluate: what can we define as “essential” knowledge?
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Living Machines of Tomorrow
Artificial intelligence and advanced biomedical research now have the capability to produce remarkable innovations in science. Looking into the realm of nanotechnology, scientists have pioneered a novel generation of artificial living cells. Created not by nature, but by machine. Introducing; Xenobots.
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Inconceivably Real, Infinitely Dear
Emotion is often regarded as an inborn ability among human beings, universal in both their expression and perception. However, a significant amount of human emotion is shaped by our social and cultural upbringing. How can it be that people from different cultures express emotion in such similar ways when humans differ widely in emotional experience?
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Ear-ly Bird Gets the Worm!
Think of a time when you had a tune or song stuck in your head. Was it catchy to the point it would continuously repeat? Did you feel the urge to hum or sing it? If so, you are not alone in experiencing what is called an “earworm.”
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Microplastics with Macro Effects on the Human Body
Pollution has caused adverse changes in the environment since the Industrial Revolution. Today, these human-made changes create a huge disturbance to life that directly impact our health.
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Classifications of the Modern Homo sapien
Once you reach the harbor gates in the game Disco Elysium, you will encounter a man called Measurehead. At this point in the story, your character has traipsed through the war-torn city of Revachol, come to terms with his alcohol-fueled amnesia, and observed the dead body he was apparently sent to investigate. Measurehead is simply…
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The Search for Life: Machine Learning Leads the Hunt for Alien Worlds
Eight planets in our solar system, billions of solar systems in the Milky Way, and hundreds of billions of galaxies in the observable universe. Life: one match found.
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Living in Death Denial
The unavoidable fact of life is that it will end—no single person has ever managed to circumnavigate this fate. The moment we first become aware of ourselves as being alive coincides with our first encounter with our own mortality. What happens after death is a mystery, and anxiety is a natural response to the unknown.…
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The link between sleep and Alzheimer’s
Video by Nanda Nayak Read the article version (“Sleep deprivation and Alzheimer’s disease: not getting enough sleep can have far greater negative ramifications than just exhaustion”) here!