Turns out in my ScienceMatters@Berkeley online research digest, I've recently profiled the work of two of the just-announced 2005 MacArthur Fellows, recipients of $500,000 "genius" grants:
Lu Chen, UC Berkeley
UC Berkeley neurobiologist Lu Chen believes that one of the best ways to learn about the brain is to build one of its key components. She and her colleagues are exploring how synapses form between neurons to make the circuits of the nervous system. Their approach is to identify the fewest ingredients necessary to create a synapse, mix them together in a "test tube" of non-neuronal cells, and let biology do the rest.
LinkMichael Manga, UC Berkeley
The hulking steel volcano simulator in UC Berkeley professor Michael Manga's laboratory is a far cry from the baking soda-and-vinegar science fair projects of our youth. Of course, that's to be expected. What's unusual is that Manga, a professor of earth and planetary science, is trying to answer the same question posed by the quintessential science class experiment: Why do volcanoes erupt?
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