UC Science Today

For the first time, scientists have identified a link between specific deep sleep rhythms and beta amyloid, a toxic protein associated with Alzheimer’s disease. Postdoctoral fellow Bryce Mander of the University of California, Berkeley co-led the study. He says they also found that the buildup of beta amyloid disrupts the part of sleep that’s critical for promoting the retention of long-term memories.

"So the more of these Alzheimer’s disease toxins that were building up in certain parts of your brain, the more specific sleep rhythms were disrupted, and the more those sleep rhythms were disrupted, the worse people’s memory was."

Mander says these findings are promising because it can lead to new treatment opportunities.

"It’s promising because it suggests there may be specific places we can target, to develop new treatments, to intervene and help promote better more robust sleep, in people who are at risk for developing Alzheimer’s disease, and perhaps even rescue some of the cognitive impairments associated with Alzheimer’s disease."

Want to brew beer or bake bread in your backyard using sunlight? It may soon be possible with a breakthrough artificial system of nanomaterials and living organisms that mimics photosynthesis. Professor Christopher Chang of the University of California, Berkeley co-led a team that developed the system, which is the size of a semiconductor chip.

"The interesting thing about the biological organisms that we're using for these studies is that they're essentially the same types of organisms that you would use to brew beer, bake bread, and so because you can do fermentation, it provides a very sustainable type of process instead of having to use an input that would be not sustainable or not renewable."

Chang says his team wants to target value added household products for now, but it can also be used to make biofuels and pharmaceuticals.

"So there are many, many different types of possibilities, but what we're thinking, is that it's much more practical to have in this case, high value types of materials or compounds."

For the first time, scientists have identified a link between specific deep sleep rhythms and beta amyloid, a toxic protein associated with Alzheimer’s disease. Postdoctoral fellow Bryce Mander of the University of California, Berkeley co-led the study. He says they also found that the buildup of beta amyloid disrupts the part of sleep that’s critical for promoting the retention of long-term memories.

"So the more of these Alzheimer’s disease toxins that were building up in certain parts of your brain, the more specific sleep rhythms were disrupted, and the more those sleep rhythms were disrupted, the worse people’s memory was."

Mander says these findings are promising because it can lead to new treatment opportunities.

"It’s promising because it suggests there may be specific places we can target, to develop new treatments, to intervene and help promote better more robust sleep, in people who are at risk for developing Alzheimer’s disease, and perhaps even rescue some of the cognitive impairments associated with Alzheimer’s disease."

Want to brew beer or bake bread in your backyard using sunlight? It may soon be possible with a breakthrough artificial system of nanomaterials and living organisms that mimics photosynthesis. Professor Christopher Chang of the University of California, Berkeley co-led a team that developed the system, which is the size of a semiconductor chip.

"The interesting thing about the biological organisms that we're using for these studies is that they're essentially the same types of organisms that you would use to brew beer, bake bread, and so because you can do fermentation, it provides a very sustainable type of process instead of having to use an input that would be not sustainable or not renewable."

Chang says his team wants to target value added household products for now, but it can also be used to make biofuels and pharmaceuticals.

"So there are many, many different types of possibilities, but what we're thinking, is that it's much more practical to have in this case, high value types of materials or compounds."

For the first time, scientists have identified a link between specific deep sleep rhythms and beta amyloid, a toxic protein associated with Alzheimer’s disease. Postdoctoral fellow Bryce Mander of the University of California, Berkeley co-led the study. He says they also found that the buildup of beta amyloid disrupts the part of sleep that’s critical for promoting the retention of long-term memories.

"So the more of these Alzheimer’s disease toxins that were building up in certain parts of your brain, the more specific sleep rhythms were disrupted, and the more those sleep rhythms were disrupted, the worse people’s memory was."

Mander says these findings are promising because it can lead to new treatment opportunities.

"It’s promising because it suggests there may be specific places we can target, to develop new treatments, to intervene and help promote better more robust sleep, in people who are at risk for developing Alzheimer’s disease, and perhaps even rescue some of the cognitive impairments associated with Alzheimer’s disease."

Want to brew beer or bake bread in your backyard using sunlight? It may soon be possible with a breakthrough artificial system of nanomaterials and living organisms that mimics photosynthesis. Professor Christopher Chang of the University of California, Berkeley co-led a team that developed the system, which is the size of a semiconductor chip.

"The interesting thing about the biological organisms that we're using for these studies is that they're essentially the same types of organisms that you would use to brew beer, bake bread, and so because you can do fermentation, it provides a very sustainable type of process instead of having to use an input that would be not sustainable or not renewable."

Chang says his team wants to target value added household products for now, but it can also be used to make biofuels and pharmaceuticals.

"So there are many, many different types of possibilities, but what we're thinking, is that it's much more practical to have in this case, high value types of materials or compounds."

A fully robotic telescope called the Automated Planet Finder, or APF, has made its first detection of two planets that could change the way we find planetary neighbors in the future. Graduate student Lauren Weiss leads the search at the University of California, Berkeley, and says her team has been able to catch up on sleep thanks to the fully automated APF.

"So, we decided to automate the telescope so we graduate students could get more sleep and work on other science and data analysis, instead of just staying awake all the time."

Weiss says that the APF will look for low-mass planets five to ten times the mass of Earth. And because it can search every night, the APF will significantly speed up the search for new planets.

"We estimate that within the next three to five years, we will have as much scientific data from the Automated Planet Finder, as we’ve gathered in the past twenty years, on the Keck telescope."

Our natural curiosity of how the world works leads us to study complex subjects such as particle physics and astrophysics. And while they don’t always have immediate benefits for everyday life, physics professor Marjorie Shapiro of the University of California, Berkeley says that learning more about how the world works will eventually lead to practical applications in the future, even if it’s unclear what those applications will be.

"The history has always been that when you probe things in a new way, you learn stuff that’s useful. In the 19th century, people who were doing experiments with electricity and magnetism never would have thought about transistors, and the Internet, and computers. It just would have been completely inconceivable, but they said, “I want to know how charged particles work,” and so all of us believe that sooner or later, we will find applications, if we understand the world better."

Fortunately, Shapiro’s curiosity is fed by having access to the Large Hadron Collider, the world’s most powerful particle accelerator.

A fully robotic telescope called the Automated Planet Finder, or APF, has made its first detection of two planets that could change the way we find planetary neighbors in the future. Graduate student Lauren Weiss leads the search at the University of California, Berkeley, and says her team has been able to catch up on sleep thanks to the fully automated APF.

"So, we decided to automate the telescope so we graduate students could get more sleep and work on other science and data analysis, instead of just staying awake all the time."

Weiss says that the APF will look for low-mass planets five to ten times the mass of Earth. And because it can search every night, the APF will significantly speed up the search for new planets.

"We estimate that within the next three to five years, we will have as much scientific data from the Automated Planet Finder, as we’ve gathered in the past twenty years, on the Keck telescope."

Our natural curiosity of how the world works leads us to study complex subjects such as particle physics and astrophysics. And while they don’t always have immediate benefits for everyday life, physics professor Marjorie Shapiro of the University of California, Berkeley says that learning more about how the world works will eventually lead to practical applications in the future, even if it’s unclear what those applications will be.

"The history has always been that when you probe things in a new way, you learn stuff that’s useful. In the 19th century, people who were doing experiments with electricity and magnetism never would have thought about transistors, and the Internet, and computers. It just would have been completely inconceivable, but they said, “I want to know how charged particles work,” and so all of us believe that sooner or later, we will find applications, if we understand the world better."

Fortunately, Shapiro’s curiosity is fed by having access to the Large Hadron Collider, the world’s most powerful particle accelerator.