Theoretical chemistry

Rethinking the Tree of Life with new tools

January 17, 2022

Morning Glory Pool, Yellowstone National Park

Finding Archaea: Archaeans inhabit some of the most extreme environments on Earth. Woese and Fox’s genetic analysis led them to redraw the Tree of Life, incorporating this third domain. (Photo: Morning Glory Pool, Yellowstone National Park; Jim Peaco; March 2015; Catalog #20008d.)

Professor Sung-Hou Kim and his colleagues...

Charge into Water Triggered by a Quick Light Pulse

May 21, 2023

 laser laboratory in the ZEMOS research building at Ruhr University Bochum

This study was made possible by the use of a new laser laboratory in the ZEMOS research building at Ruhr University Bochum (RUB), where all external interference signals are minimized. Image Credit: RUB, Marquard

New research from a consortium of Ruhr-Universität Bochum and UC Berkeley scientists has found that a proton can be released...

Professor Teresa Head-Gordon awarded the Humboldt Research Award

April 30, 2024
Professor Teresa Head-Gordon has been honored with a prestigious research award from the Humboldt Foundation.

In memoriam: Phillip Geissler (1974-2022)

July 27, 2022

Phillip Geissler 2013

Phillip Lewis Geissler (Ph.D. '00, Chem), the Aldo De Benedictis Distinguished Professor of Chemistry at UC Berkeley and a renowned physical chemist, passed away on July 17, 2022. He was 48 years old. He was preceded in death by his father...

How do nanoparticles grow? Atomic-scale movie upends 100-year-old theory

July 28, 2022

Video of nanoparticles in movement

New video footage captured by Berkeley Lab scientists reveals for the first time that nanoparticle growth is directed not by difference in size, but by defects. (Credit: Haimei Zheng/Berkeley Lab....

Study answers questions about an elusive tiny molecule

March 15, 2022

Artistic rendering of N2O5 molecules colliding with water droplets in the atmosphere.

Artistic rendering of N2O5 molecules colliding with water droplets in the atmosphere. Image credit: Vinícius Cruzeiro.

A new study with implications for atmospheric chemistry has answered some long-...

Beloved colleague Andrew Streitwieser has passed away

February 24, 2022

Andrew Streitwieser in his office, 1970s

Portrait of Andrew Streitwieser in his office, 1970s. (Photo Dennis Galloway)

We are sorry to share the sad news that Andy Streitwieser, beloved colleague and professor emeritus of chemistry, passed away on February 23, 2022 at the age of 94.

Andy was born in Buffalo, New York in 1927. He...

What happens when your discovery becomes personal?

August 22, 2019

Richmond Sarpong

Until this year Robert Harris and Robert Bergman have been esteemed colleagues at the College. Recently however, when they were at an event discussing an interview Bergman had done with Professor William Lester, they made a very interesting personal discovery. Their lives had more than crossed as children living in Chicago’s Hyde Park. In fact, they had lived about 100 yards from each other across an alleyway.