Research & Innovation

Psychopathic personality is measured with a 1970s checklist. A Berkeley psychologist says it’s time to upgrade.

June 12, 2025
By Anne Brice

If someone asked you to imagine a psychopath, who would you picture? Many of us might conjure an image of a violent criminal who will do anything without remorse to get what they want. After all, we’ve seen such a character in countless movies and other depictions over the decades.

But this isn’t the profile for everyone with psychopathic personality disorder, says Keanan Joyner, a UC Berkeley assistant professor of psychology. Rather, it describes the most extreme cases of psychopathy.

Joyner runs the ...

https://news.berkeley.edu/2025/06/09/psychopathic-personality-is-measured-with-a…

UC Berkeley Undergrads Use Machine Learning — and Sharp Eyes — to Discover a New Asteroid

June 11, 2025
ULAB, UC Berkeley Physics

This article originally appeared on the UC Berkeley Physics website on May 30, 2025.

ULAB diagram featuring circular lines of varying colors against a black background

An image of the asteroid’s orbit when compared to other planets in our...

Hitoshi Murayama awarded 2025 Particle Physics Medal

June 11, 2025

Man wearing glasses standing outside in a dark coat

Hitoshi Murayama, professor at the University of California, Berkeley and the Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (Kavli IPMU), has been awarded the 2025 Particle Physics Medal by the...

https://physics.berkeley.edu/news/hitoshi-murayama-awarded-2025-particle-physics…

Are groovy brains more efficient?

June 4, 2025
By Robert Sanders

Many grooves and dimples on the surface of the brain are unique to humans, but they’re often dismissed as an uninteresting consequence of packing an unusually large brain into a too-small skull.

But neuroscientists are finding that these folds are not mere artifacts, like the puffy folds you get when forcing a sleeping bag into a stuff sack. The depths of some of the smallest of these grooves seem to be linked to increased interconnectedness in the brain and better reasoning ability.

In a...

https://news.berkeley.edu/2025/05/21/are-groovy-brains-more-efficient/

Linguistics professor explores the social consequences of biases in AI linguistics

May 29, 2025
By Jessica Park

Have you ever wondered why Siri can understand one’s voice over another’s?

Linguistics Professor Nicole Holliday has an answer. She explores how biases develop in speech AI — used in Siri and other applications — and its real world consequences.

Lack of representation in training data causes biases in speech AI, making the system work less for underrepresented groups such as the elderly, Black people and people who speak English as a second language, according to Holliday.

Her...

With lasers and magnets, Shimon Kolkowitz pushes time to new boundaries

May 22, 2025
by Alexander Rony

How do you house equipment so sensitive to external factors that a building’s windows and elevators affect its results? For Shimon Kolkowitz, the Roger Herst Professor of Physics, you spend a year and a half overseeing a state-of-the-art lab renovation that will enable some of the world’s most precise measurements.

Ahmad Nabhan: Bringing an Industry Perspective

May 21, 2025
Kirsten Mickelwait

This article originally appeared in the Spring 2025 MCB Transcript newsletter.

Headshot of Ahmad Nabhan wearing a blue t-shirt and glassesAssistant Professor Ahmad Nabhan, who joined MCB’s faculty in January 2025, brings some...

https://mcb.berkeley.edu/news-and-events/transcript/spring-2025-new-faculty-prof…

MCB Research Spotlight: Bronwyn Lucas

May 21, 2025
Kirsten Mickelwait

This interview originally appeared in the MCB Spring 2025 Transcript newsletter.

Headshot of Bronwyn Lucas with their arms crossed, standing in a lab in front of a machineSince joining MCB’s faculty in 2023, Assistant Professor Bronwyn Lucas has had a productive two years:...

https://mcb.berkeley.edu/news-and-events/transcript/spring-2025-research-spotlig…

UC Berkeley alums named 2025 Knight-Hennessy Scholars

May 15, 2025

Two distinguished UC Berkeley graduates have been selected as Knight-Hennessy Scholars at Stanford University, joining a distinguished cohort of 84 new scholars representing 25 countries. This prestigious fellowship awards students with "up to three years of financial support to pursue graduate studies at Stanford while engaging in experiences...

Why did medieval readers kiss, smudge and deface their books?

May 19, 2025
Anne Brice

on the left, two knights fight each other on horseback; on the right, the knight ask a woman for forgiveness after he killed her husbandAs a specialist in medieval French literature, Henry Ravenhall has examined hundreds of manuscripts from the Middle Ages. Every time he does, he sits quietly in a special library viewing room and gingerly turns each page with clean, dry hands, careful not to tear or otherwise harm these precious...

https://news.berkeley.edu/2025/05/13/why-did-medieval-readers-kiss-smudge-and-de…