✴︎ The
Hypothesis
The Online Edition of the Berkeley Scientific Journal
Research & Blogs Department
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Skincare: how much should we really care?
By Stephanie Jue Skincare has become all the rage –– Vogue skincare routines plaster YouTube homepages and bottles of similarly-branded products advertising the same age-reducing effects line the shelves of local stores. It seems like brands are always coming up with more and more permutations of the same ingredients you might religiously rub into your…
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Organic batteries: an unexpected potential renewable energy source
By Daniel Cui Imagine Tesla car company’s incredible renewable and sustainable energy capabilities jammed into a battery that’s smaller than the width of a single strand of your hair. This is exactly what the Liang Li and other researchers at the Beijing National Laboratory for Molecular Sciences have been trying to achieve, albeit in…
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A new partnership: deep learning and the path to Alzheimer’s diagnostic medicine
By Liane Albarghouthi Nowadays, you can unlock your phone just by glancing at the screen thanks to cutting-edge facial recognition biometrics. Just as infrared lights in your iPhone scan your face to unlock your phone or authorize tasks, scientists have echoed this concept into technology that can further our understanding of one of humanity’s most…
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Skyrmions: the next step for quantum computing?
by Meera Aravinth Quantum computing and ‘spin-tronics’ have been increasingly viewed as the next step in the world of computing, as the need for memory storage and computational power is limited by space constraints. A magnetic phenomenon known as a skyrmion is a potential path forward to devices that store information bits on electron…
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The powerhouse of Alzheimer’s
by Anjali Sadarangani Heart health. Exercise. Inflammation. All of these research areas have been associated with Alzheimer’s disease and claim to lead to the cure for this devastating disease, yet there is still no feasible treatment option for patients. In fact, Alzheimer’s numbers have been continuously increasing. According to the Alzheimer’s Association, currently 5.8…
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U.S. Measles Outbreak: Why is this still happening?
by Andrea He Measles has long been a disease that plagued developing countries in Africa and South America. In fact, it was declared eliminated in the United States in 2000, due to the consistent vaccination of American children – which makes the recent news of the outbreaks in the U.S. even more mysterious and…
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An unexpected form of pollution: light
by Andreana Chou From the warm orange glow of night lights when we were small children to the blue screens of our phones today, artificial light is embedded in every aspect of our lives. No longer are our work and leisure times constrained to the rising and setting of the sun. The creation of…
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What could scientists do with a telescope the size of the Earth? Image a black hole
by Isabelle Chiu Black holes have been a mystery to both scientists and the general public alike. But now, with new imaging technology, we have finally confirmed their existence. The very first image of a black hole (pictured above) was captured by the international Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) collaboration, with eight different ground-based radio…
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In Event (of) Horizon, Break Glass!
by Ethan Ward How do you see something that doesn’t want to be seen? This was the fundamental question facing scientists who worked on the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) project to produce the first ever picture of a black hole. If you want to know more about taking a snapshot of something that has the…
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Recovering a Lost Voice
By Arjun Chandran For most people communication is a necessity, imperative for connecting with others and sharing our thoughts, feelings, and emotions. However, those with neurological conditions often find it extremely difficult or cumbersome to fulfill this basic human necessity. To help those struggling with communication difficulty, a team of researchers from UC Berkeley…
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Superblooms: Photo and Pollinating Ops
by Xandria Ortiz Spring is here, and thousands are flocking to super blooms all around California. Thousands of people and bees, that is. Super blooms are defined as excess blooms of flowers. They are typically a rare occurrence, arising about once a decade; however, there have already been two in the past three years…
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Flight or Flight or… Freeze?
by Devina Sen Are we victims of circumstance? How much can we endure? Must we endure? When we are faced with a problem and work to solve it, there comes a point where we must question whether it’s worth it to keep going. We make a choice, to keep putting in effort or to give…