Daily Archives: April 25, 2011
The Berkeley Wire: 04.25.11
The 1881 missing Californians from Cal’s freshman class [CA Progress Report]
Lawrence Hall of Science helps out at White House easter egg hunt [UC News]
Saturday dumpster fire forces 60 to evacuate apartment [CBS]
“Deli Summit” will debate future of the pastrami on rye [East Bay Express]
Artist creates modern day petroglyph [CC Times]
Berkeley Rep gala raises a record $587,000 [Stark Insider]
Acceptance of payment for Caldecott Tunnel prompts concern [Daily Cal]
Janet Napolitano talked cybersecurity at Cal today [ABC]
Photo: I am going to pass on this one, made on Worldwide Pinhole Day by Keoki Seu/Berkeleyside Flickr pool.
Berkeley police kill more deer than any other animal
The Berkeley Police Department’s slaying of a mountain lion last August and a dog in April drew criticism that the police were unnecessarily shooting animals.
The killings prompted the Berkeley Animal Care Commission to ask for a list of all the animals police officers have shot in the past five years. It turns out that police have shot more deer than anything else. Most of the time, those deer had been hit by cars. Police shot them to … Continue reading »
Rally planned to draw attention to library lawsuit
Dozens of church leaders, community activists, students, and library supporters plan to stage a rally outside city hall on Tuesday to call attention to a lawsuit they believe could stop construction of new libraries in the southern and western parts of Berkeley.
The group, which is calling itself New Libraries Now, plans to hoist pickets right before the City Council meeting. They want to let the members of Concerned Library Users, a small group that is suing the city … Continue reading »
Three cheers for robots at high school competition
If you only heard the sounds coming from the Wozniak Lounge at the University of California Berkeley’s Soda Hall on Saturday, you’d wonder if the engineering department had decided to host a martial arts competition: cries of, “Get it!”, or “Go to defense!”, mingled with loud cheers and groans.
Turn the corner into the room, however, and you discover 200-odd people cheering on a high school robotics competition. Twelve teams from nine East Bay high schools had entered the third annual Pioneers in Engineering Robotics Competition. This year’s competition pitted the programmable and drivable robots in a “pillow fight”, where they had to pick up pillows and deliver them into cages on the “playing field”.
Morning qualification rounds were used to rank the 12 teams, from BHS, Albany, Acalanes, Ralph J. Bunche, Head-Royce, Bishop O’Dowd, Pinole Valley, El Cerrito (with two teams) and Oakland Tech (with three teams). The top six teams then were able to choose their partners for the afternoon elimination rounds (robots competed in teams of two). … Continue reading »
Are plastics good or bad? An author explains
When Susan Freinkel decided to write a book about plastic, she vowed to spend an entire day not touching the stuff. The plan lasted about ten seconds. After she woke up, she walked into the bathroom to use the toilet. She suddenly realized the seat was plastic, which meant she couldn’t sit down. Freinkel quickly changed plans. Instead of not touching plastic for a day, she would write down all the plastic things she touched in a day. The list came to 195 objects.
In recent years, plastic has gotten a bad rap, with some good reason. No one is happy about the giant garbage patches in the world’s oceans, or the six-pack rings that regularly lodge around wild animals. Yet plastics have also helped revolutionize medical care and other industries. Freinkel, a San Francisco author, explored the complexity of plastic in her just-released book, Plastic: A Toxic Love Story. She will be talking about her findings tonight at Books, Inc on Fourth Street in Berkeley at 7:00 pm.
In Plastic, Frienkel uses eight plastic objects – the comb, the chair, the Frisbee, the IV bag, the Bic lighter, the grocery bag, the soda bottle, and the credit card – to explain the incredible popularity of the material, its benefits, and its downsides. It’s an important, yet entertaining, look at the issue. … Continue reading »
