BNHM Graduate Student Becca Carter was recently interviewed by CNN for her work as a volunteer teacher at San Quentin Prison. In the interview, Ms. Carter talks about the positive influence education can have in reforming the lives of prisoners.

See the video on the CNN website and Becca Carter's website

(posted on September 4th, 2008)

The latest addition to the UC Natural Reserve System and Berkeley Natural History Museums, Blue Oak Ranch Reserve, was gifted to the University last December. It comprises 3,260 acres of ecologically diverse oak woodland savanna situated on the west slope of Mt Hamilton between the city of San Jose and Joseph Grant County Park. Reserve Director Mike Hamilton has already installed a new wireless network to provide virtual access to real-time environmental sensors, a user-controllable webcam, and the capacity to support future wireless connections to networked instrumentation throughout the reserves ecosystems.

See the Blue Oak Ranch Reserve Website.

(posted on August 21st, 2008)

David Ackerly, Curator of Ecology at UC/JEPS and Professor of Integrative Biology, was the leader of a team that analyzed current distributions of over 2,000 California endemic plants based on data from the Consortium of California Herbaria and the Jepson Flora Project. The team projected these distributions into the future under various climate change models, and discovered that many of these species are in great danger unless they can move to new localities with appropriate climate.

See the UC Berkeley Press Release

(posted on June 25th, 2008)

The Grinnell Resurvey Project was recently featured on KQED's Quest Program. This project documents 100 years of change in the fauna of California. You can watch the television spot online.

(posted on May 5th, 2008)

The Berkeley Natural History Museums Research Map displays locations of all major research projects within member museums and field stations. Feel free to browse the map to find research projects and who is working on them. Thanks go out to the many staff, faculty, and curators who contributed project descriptions to this map.

View the Research Map. (posted on March 31st, 2008)

The MVZ is 100 years old in 2008, and to celebrate we have several exciting events taking place throughout the year. In particular, we are having an Alumni Symposium, "MVZ @ 100: Celebrating Vertebrate Diversity" on March 14th and 15th.

For more information visit the MVZ Centennial homepage. (posted on January 29th, 2008)

"Darwin Day at Cal is dedicated to informing the public about evolution and its importance as a unifying concept in all of biology. This year a variety of campus events are scheduled around Darwin's birthday."

For more information visit the Darwin Day Homepage. (posted on January 24th, 2008)

"High-level Iranian officials made a rare visit to the University & Jepson Herbaria and the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology in mid-December, seeking to augment ongoing scholarly collaboration with UC Berkeley scientists and students."

View the UC Press Release and the The American-Iranian Botanical Program Homepage (posted on January 2nd, 2008)