UC Science Today

In the last two decades, astrophysicist David Schlegel of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory has explored the uncharted universe via space mapping. Using special imaging cameras, his team is creating the largest possible map of the sky to study a mysterious force called dark energy.

"I like to call myself one of the world leading experts on dark energy, which is – it’s easy to be because we know so little about it. We’re not just mapping dark energy directly, but we’re really just mapping its effects on the size of the universe."

Einstein’s theory of gravity suggests the universe’s expansion should gradually decelerate. But it seems that dark energy is beating out dark matter, a particle believed to slow this expansion. Schlegel’s team will use their map for the DESI project, or Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument.

"And what DESI will be doing is it will be taking these two-dimensional maps of the sky and then turning that into a three-dimensional map."

One thing we love covering on Science Today is anything and everything to do with the human brain – how it develops, how it works and of course, what happens when things go wrong.

A while ago, we interviewed neuroscientist Steve Finkbeiner of UC San Francisco about his work studying the brain’s role in learning, memory and neurodegeneration. It was a great conversation, but we took advantage of the opportunity to ask him some basic questions about memory. Here’s that memorable conversation.

To get a better sense of how the brain is organized to allow us to make successful movements, cognitive neuroscientists at the University of California, Santa Barbara’s Action Lab are using functional magnetic resonance imaging, or fMRI. Graduate student Deborah Barany studies the brain dynamics of goal-directed action.

"A goal-directed action is basically anything that involves the brain when you move. And so you can think of this in contrast to an involuntary movement or a reflex, where these can happen just with your spinal cord’s involvement."

Using fMRI, Barany says they can get a better sense of this whole network of brain regions and how they’re involved in movements.

"If my goal is to try to see how the brain differentially represents say, a right movement from a left movement. I can’t answer that question with a standard analysis because you would see the same amount of brain activation in both cases. So we can use these more advanced techniques to try and parse that out and figure out exactly what’s going on in these underlying patterns of brain activity."

One thing we love covering on Science Today is anything and everything to do with the human brain – how it develops, how it works and of course, what happens when things go wrong.

A while ago, we interviewed neuroscientist Steve Finkbeiner of UC San Francisco about his work studying the brain’s role in learning, memory and neurodegeneration. It was a great conversation, but we took advantage of the opportunity to ask him some basic questions about memory. Here’s that memorable conversation.

To get a better sense of how the brain is organized to allow us to make successful movements, cognitive neuroscientists at the University of California, Santa Barbara’s Action Lab are using functional magnetic resonance imaging, or fMRI. Graduate student Deborah Barany studies the brain dynamics of goal-directed action.

"A goal-directed action is basically anything that involves the brain when you move. And so you can think of this in contrast to an involuntary movement or a reflex, where these can happen just with your spinal cord’s involvement."

Using fMRI, Barany says they can get a better sense of this whole network of brain regions and how they’re involved in movements.

"If my goal is to try to see how the brain differentially represents say, a right movement from a left movement. I can’t answer that question with a standard analysis because you would see the same amount of brain activation in both cases. So we can use these more advanced techniques to try and parse that out and figure out exactly what’s going on in these underlying patterns of brain activity."

To get a better sense of how the brain is organized to allow us to make successful movements, cognitive neuroscientists at the University of California, Santa Barbara’s Action Lab are using functional magnetic resonance imaging, or fMRI. Graduate student Deborah Barany studies the brain dynamics of goal-directed action.

"A goal-directed action is basically anything that involves the brain when you move. And so you can think of this in contrast to an involuntary movement or a reflex, where these can happen just with your spinal cord’s involvement."

Using fMRI, Barany says they can get a better sense of this whole network of brain regions and how they’re involved in movements.

"If my goal is to try to see how the brain differentially represents say, a right movement from a left movement. I can’t answer that question with a standard analysis because you would see the same amount of brain activation in both cases. So we can use these more advanced techniques to try and parse that out and figure out exactly what’s going on in these underlying patterns of brain activity."

One thing we love covering on Science Today is anything and everything to do with the human brain – how it develops, how it works and of course, what happens when things go wrong.

A while ago, we interviewed neuroscientist Steve Finkbeiner of UC San Francisco about his work studying the brain’s role in learning, memory and neurodegeneration. It was a great conversation, but we took advantage of the opportunity to ask him some basic questions about memory. Here’s that memorable conversation.

Bioengineers at the University of California, Berkeley made headlines when they developed a “heart-on-a-chip”. This silicone device, which houses human heart tissue derived from adult stem cells, could someday replace animal models as a drug safety screening tool. But how does something like this actually work? We asked bioengineer Kevin Healy, who led the research.

"The chip is made similarly to how one makes a computer chip and that’s called microfabrication. So, we use microfabrication technology to make a small portion that’s like a chamber to hold cells; and then another portion that’s like a blood vessel to allow fluid to bathe the cells and deliver the drug and also nutrients and removal of waste."

The team has tested about six or seven cardiac drugs using their chip.

"Now it’s starting to look at a much wider array of drugs that would be known to cause a clinical failure and seeing if we can pick that up with the cardiac chip."

Bioengineers at the University of California, Berkeley made headlines when they developed a “heart-on-a-chip”. This silicone device, which houses human heart tissue derived from adult stem cells, could someday replace animal models as a drug safety screening tool. But how does something like this actually work? We asked bioengineer Kevin Healy, who led the research.

"The chip is made similarly to how one makes a computer chip and that’s called microfabrication. So, we use microfabrication technology to make a small portion that’s like a chamber to hold cells; and then another portion that’s like a blood vessel to allow fluid to bathe the cells and deliver the drug and also nutrients and removal of waste."

The team has tested about six or seven cardiac drugs using their chip.

"Now it’s starting to look at a much wider array of drugs that would be known to cause a clinical failure and seeing if we can pick that up with the cardiac chip."

Bioengineers at the University of California, Berkeley made headlines when they developed a “heart-on-a-chip”. This silicone device, which houses human heart tissue derived from adult stem cells, could someday replace animal models as a drug safety screening tool. But how does something like this actually work? We asked bioengineer Kevin Healy, who led the research.

"The chip is made similarly to how one makes a computer chip and that’s called microfabrication. So, we use microfabrication technology to make a small portion that’s like a chamber to hold cells; and then another portion that’s like a blood vessel to allow fluid to bathe the cells and deliver the drug and also nutrients and removal of waste."

The team has tested about six or seven cardiac drugs using their chip.

"Now it’s starting to look at a much wider array of drugs that would be known to cause a clinical failure and seeing if we can pick that up with the cardiac chip."