UC Science Today

The human brain is remarkably effective at tuning into certain sounds in noisy settings. But this can be challenging for those with hearing deficits because traditional hearing aids typically amplify all sounds in an environment. Now, researchers at the University of California, Berkeley are developing a hearing aid that would process sound the way the brain does.

"One of the things that people that wear hearing aids complain about is if you go into crowded places, that all the sounds are amplified, right, and it becomes really uncomfortable. It doesn't make the task of listening to the person next to you any easier. What our algorithm is doing is more in the realm of getting rid of the background noise and extracting the signal and the idea is that—signals such as speech have a signature which is different than the background sound."

Neuroscientist Frederic Theunissen adds that although testing is still in its early stages, he hopes that the hearing aid will be commercially available in the future.

"It’d be wonderful to be able to help people that have hearing difficulties and really design something that they’re happy to wear in conditions where they’re not happy to wear it now."

The amount of water in a standard can of beer is about 92 percent and for the brewing business, it’s not just the water going into the cans, it’s the water used to clean tanks. Charlie Bamforth, a distinguished professor of Malting and Brewing Sciences at the University of California, Davis says even before the drought in California, beer brewers were very conscience of how much water they used.

"You need a lot more water than ends up in the beer. Because you use water for cleaning, and you use water to make steam, which is used to heat the vessels. And you need water for cooling and so on. So the best run breweries are somewhere around three to one. Three barrels of water for every barrel of beer."

Bamforth says the more beer you make, the more efficient the water use.

"If you’re brewing beer, and you’re filling a tank, and that tank has a pipe attached to it and you’re serving it upstairs in a pub, that’s very different than putting beer into bottles. You use a lot of water when you’re bottling beer in terms of cleaning, if you’re pasteurizing to operate the pasteurizer and so on."

The amount of water in a standard can of beer is about 92 percent and for the brewing business, it’s not just the water going into the cans, it’s the water used to clean tanks. Charlie Bamforth, a distinguished professor of Malting and Brewing Sciences at the University of California, Davis says even before the drought in California, beer brewers were very conscience of how much water they used.

"You need a lot more water than ends up in the beer. Because you use water for cleaning, and you use water to make steam, which is used to heat the vessels. And you need water for cooling and so on. So the best run breweries are somewhere around three to one. Three barrels of water for every barrel of beer."

Bamforth says the more beer you make, the more efficient the water use.

"If you’re brewing beer, and you’re filling a tank, and that tank has a pipe attached to it and you’re serving it upstairs in a pub, that’s very different than putting beer into bottles. You use a lot of water when you’re bottling beer in terms of cleaning, if you’re pasteurizing to operate the pasteurizer and so on."

The amount of water in a standard can of beer is about 92 percent and for the brewing business, it’s not just the water going into the cans, it’s the water used to clean tanks. Charlie Bamforth, a distinguished professor of Malting and Brewing Sciences at the University of California, Davis says even before the drought in California, beer brewers were very conscience of how much water they used.

"You need a lot more water than ends up in the beer. Because you use water for cleaning, and you use water to make steam, which is used to heat the vessels. And you need water for cooling and so on. So the best run breweries are somewhere around three to one. Three barrels of water for every barrel of beer."

Bamforth says the more beer you make, the more efficient the water use.

"If you’re brewing beer, and you’re filling a tank, and that tank has a pipe attached to it and you’re serving it upstairs in a pub, that’s very different than putting beer into bottles. You use a lot of water when you’re bottling beer in terms of cleaning, if you’re pasteurizing to operate the pasteurizer and so on."

When did you last feel awe? This is Science Today. Psychologist Dacher Keltner of the University of California, Berkeley, directs the Berkeley Social Interaction Laboratory, which focuses on emotion, morality, power and culture. Keltner is now looking into how feelings of awe affect us.

"When we ask people, they’ll say, “when I first saw Notre Dame” or “when I went to Yosemite” – just all these experiences, it’s just this incredibly fertile area of human experience and people say that these experiences changes their lives."

And now Keltner’s lab is finding that feelings of awe actually reduce the body’s inflammation response.

"It’s because of how it changes your immune profile, so we are in conversation with programs that take stressed-out kids to the woods and now we can have a sense of the benefits that will arise out of that. So it’s really exciting."

When did you last feel awe? This is Science Today. Psychologist Dacher Keltner of the University of California, Berkeley, directs the Berkeley Social Interaction Laboratory, which focuses on emotion, morality, power and culture. Keltner is now looking into how feelings of awe affect us.

"When we ask people, they’ll say, “when I first saw Notre Dame” or “when I went to Yosemite” – just all these experiences, it’s just this incredibly fertile area of human experience and people say that these experiences changes their lives."

And now Keltner’s lab is finding that feelings of awe actually reduce the body’s inflammation response.

"It’s because of how it changes your immune profile, so we are in conversation with programs that take stressed-out kids to the woods and now we can have a sense of the benefits that will arise out of that. So it’s really exciting."

The Lawrence Livermore Microbial Detection Array can detect, within 24 hours, viruses and bacteria with the use of 388 thousand probes that fit on a one inch wide, three inch long glass slide.

"All the DNA sequences that it corresponds to, those thousands of viruses and bacteria are printed in this glass slide. So, it’s really a lab on the chip."

That’s biologist Crystal Jaing, part of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory team that developed this breakthrough technology. Jaing says it can be used for many different applications.

"Because this device can analyze any of the sequenced pathogens, we can use in biodefense; public health and drug safety and food safety."

The technology is even being tapped to analyze ancient pathogens …

"We recently used this technology to identify a plague victim from 1348. So, that was really interesting because those samples are so degraded and so old and we can pick up that pathogen, which is really amazing."

The Lawrence Livermore Microbial Detection Array can detect, within 24 hours, viruses and bacteria with the use of 388 thousand probes that fit on a one inch wide, three inch long glass slide.

"All the DNA sequences that it corresponds to, those thousands of viruses and bacteria are printed in this glass slide. So, it’s really a lab on the chip."

That’s biologist Crystal Jaing, part of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory team that developed this breakthrough technology. Jaing says it can be used for many different applications.

"Because this device can analyze any of the sequenced pathogens, we can use in biodefense; public health and drug safety and food safety."

The technology is even being tapped to analyze ancient pathogens …

"We recently used this technology to identify a plague victim from 1348. So, that was really interesting because those samples are so degraded and so old and we can pick up that pathogen, which is really amazing."

Cooling and energy technologies are usually installed on rooftops because of their direct exposure to sunlight. And while walls don’t receive the same amount of sunlight as roofs, scientists at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory’s Heat Island Group say that walls can be just as important as roofs when it comes to cooling buildings and cities.

"One of the interesting things about walls, is while a wall, per unit area, gets less sunlight than a roof because it’s not in the sun all day, the insulation in a wall is usually only about half that as much in a roof. So per unit area, the benefit to making a wall cool, is about the same as the benefit of making a roof cool."

Lead scientist Ronnen Levinson says that the group will be assessing a variety of coatings that reflect sunlight and help cool buildings in China. He explains that cool walls could be an important factor for energy efficient buildings in cities with taller buildings.

"When you have a tall building, you just have much more wall area than you have roof area. So for walls, we also want to create some guidelines for use both in the U.S. and China."

How you view your social rank, such as financial status, may lead to a variety of mental health problems. These were the findings of a new study led by Sheri Johnson of the University of California, Berkeley. Johnson explains that there are mental health concerns for people on both sides of the spectrum.

"When people were experiencing very low levels of power and a sense of being subordinated, we saw that people were more vulnerable to depression and anxiety. Interestingly, though, being at the top of the hierarchy wasn’t always a good thing. People were a little more prone to manic-like behaviors when they had high power, including a little bit more of a tendency towards psychopathy."

Johnson adds that one way to deal with these issues is to pursue goals that are intrinsically meaningful.

"Pay a little bit more attention to those moments that are meaningful for you, that are quietly satisfying for you, that help you re-center. Sometimes that just means slowing down and striving a little else and paying a little more attention to your inner world."