Will there even be an election in 2020? A panel of UC Berkeley experts in politics, public policy, cybersecurity and law, say yes. The constitution is clear about that. Can we predict the effect of the pandemic on results? Not yet. We can look at traditional indicators, the economy and the president’s approval rating, but […]

Science is all around us. Our science producer picked twelve programs that reflect the impact of science on both our daily lives and on complex global issues. We rely on facts, data and past results to inform decisions big and small. Enjoy! A Deep Look into COVID-19: Vaccines, Drugs and the Evolutionary Arms Race As […]

Infectious diseases are global challenges that need global solutions. The state of US-China relations are so hostile at the political level and increasingly at the public level, that the kind of pragmatic cooperation needed is lacking to deal with COVID-19. Many programs started under President Bush and continued under President Obama to increase on-the-ground knowledge […]

In general, animal song is thought to have several specific characteristics including being restricted to males, having a territorial purpose, and being used to attract a mate. But things might be different in the deep dark world that whales inhabit. Join marine acoustics expert John Hildebrand to learn how the singing characteristics in some whale […]

As the entirety of humanity grapples with the most serious global challenge in over a century nations and societies have responded, or not, by leveraging the only tool we have – the understanding that science gives us about the SARS-CoV-2 virus, its spread and the COVID-19 disease which it causes. The only path to managing […]

Gun control has been one of the most contentious issues in American life for the past forty years, and the debate raging shows no sign of abating. Polls consistently show a majority of Americans support stricter gun laws, yet gun control advocates are no match for the powerful pro-Second Amendment lobbies led by the National […]

There is an extremely high rates of added sugar overconsumption in the American public. It causes obesity which is at the root of silent epidemics such as type 2 diabetes and nonalcoholic fatty liver disease. Laura Schmidt, PhD, Professor of Health Policy at UCSF, argues that this is not an individual problem but rather it […]

Leading lives of mystery throughout the shadowy depths of all the world’s oceans, sharks have long fascinated the public, in large part because of how little is known about their lives and behavior. Popular media has often promoted images of large, aggressive predators, but as we learn more we find most sharks are not dangerous […]

Our planet has been continually bombarded by asteroids since its formation, 4.5 billion years ago. While the frequency of large impacts has decreased, many potential Near-Earth Object threats remain undiscovered, so if or when they will impact Earth remains unknown. The good news is that an asteroid impact is the only large-scale natural disaster that […]

Where did we humans come from? When did we become the dominant species on the planet? Evidence indicates that we all descended from a small population that arose in Africa about 200,000 years ago. Since then, that small population spread throughout the globe, interbreeding with other human-like species, picking up some of their DNA and […]