UC Berkeley (Audio)

Robotics at UC Berkeley have designed a small robot that can leap into the air and then spring off a wall, or perform multiple vertical jumps in a row, resulting in the highest robotic vertical jumping agility ever recorded. The agility of the robot opens new pathways of locomotion that were not previously attainable. The researchers hope that one day this robot and other vertically agile robots can be used to jump around rubble in search and rescue missions. Series: "UC Berkeley News" [Science] [Show ID: 31982]

When you're suddenly able to understand someone despite their thick accent, or finally make out the lyrics of a song, your brain appears to be re-tuning to recognize speech that was previously incomprehensible.

University of California, Berkeley, neuroscientists have now observed this re-tuning in action by recording directly from the surface of a person's brain as the words of a previously unintelligible sentence suddenly pop out after the subject is told the meaning of the garbled speech. The re-tuning takes place within a second or less, they found.

The findings will aid Knight and his colleagues in their quest to develop a speech decoder: a device implanted in the brain that would interpret people's imagined speech and help speechless patients, such as those paralyzed by Lou Gehrig's disease, communicate.

Series: "UC Berkeley News" [Science] [Show ID: 31962]

Christopher Bollas, psychoanalyst and writer, asserts that mental life is innately hazardous. The steps we take through childhood are marked by mentally painful episodes that constitute ordinary breakdowns in the self. Adolescence stands as the most painful such period, during which some of the major disturbances of self arise, including anorexia, schizophrenia, bipolarity, and sociopathy. Rather than approaching mental pain as a condition to be ignored, minimized, or suppressed through medication, Bollas examines it as a constitutive element of human psychic development. Presented by the Townsend Center for the Humanities at UC Berkeley. Series: "Writers" [Health and Medicine] [Humanities] [Show ID: 31943]

Steven Pinker, Professor of Psychology at Harvard, describes the uniqueness of human beings. Pinker discusses three distinct human traits which have led to the age of man. Series: "Excerpts" [Show ID: 32041]

Steven Pinker, Professor of Psychology at Harvard, describes the uniqueness of human beings. Pinker discusses three distinct human traits which have led to the age of man. Series: "Excerpts" [Humanities] [Show ID: 32041]

Sandra Epstein focuses on the history of the Haas Business School and its relationship to the Berkeley campus and to university business education. The Haas School of Business’ upward trajectory from a “College of Commerce” to its top-ranked position today owes as much to its place as it does to its people and culture. Its affiliation with the Berkeley campus has ensured rigorous academic scholarship and research as well as placed it in the forefront of innovative developments in business, technology, and society. Series: "Center for Studies in Higher Education" [Education] [Show ID: 31797]

UC Berkeley professors, Robert and Sally Goldman, led the 40-year project to translate the Sanskrit epic poem Valmiki Ramayana to modern English. Series: "UC Berkeley News" [Humanities] [Show ID: 31985]

This presentation explores a data-oriented history of UC Berkeley and the University of California system, including the demographic and geographic origin of students and faculty, faculty to student ratios, and budget sources. Data are based on digitizations of previously-published financial and administrative statistics as well as novel analysis of recently-digitized historical student records and course catalogs. Series: "Center for Studies in Higher Education" [Education] [Show ID: 31712]

State Senators Loni Hancock and Carol Liu discuss the future of California higher education and legislative process. How does the legislature advance its priorities in regard to higher education? What should be its policy objectives? Senator Loni Hancock chair of the Senate Committee on Public Safety and a 14-year veteran of the legislature as well as former mayor of Berkeley, represents District 9 in the East Bay. Senator Carol Liu, chair of the Senate Committee on Education and also a 12-year veteran of the legislature, and a Berkeley native, represents the 25th district in Southern California. Series: "Center for Studies in Higher Education" [Education] [Show ID: 31656]

Retiring UC Berkeley Goldman School of Public Policy Professor David L. Kirp gives an impassioned talk urging school administrators to give teachers the time and flexibility to figure out what works for their students, rather than imposing new standards every few years. He is joined by Janelle Scott of UC Berkeley's Graduate School of Education, former UC President Mark Yudof and Anthony Bryk, president of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. Series: "Richard and Rhoda Goldman School of Public Policy at UC Berkeley" [Public Affairs] [Education] [Show ID: 31629]