The Top 10 Insights from the “Science of a Meaningful Life” in 2014

Jeremy Adam Smith

It’s time once again for our favorite year-end ritual here at UC Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center: Our annual list of the top scientific insights produced by the study of happiness, altruism, mindfulness, gratitude–what we call “the science of a meaningful life.”

We found that this year, the science of a … More >

A reader weighs in on:

If black lives matter, end the War on Crime

Robert Hanna said:

I agree that we should stop the war on our values, which means reforming the criminal justice system so that it uses fairer procedures, closer to the ones the Framers envisioned: 1. Overrule or limit Bordenkircher v. Hayes, which allows prosecutors to bully defendants into plea bargains. 2. Apply stricter rules ... More >

Happy endings and promising starts on the environment

Dan Farber

In most ways, 2014 was a good year for environmental protection, with progress on several fronts. True, there are warning signs for 2015 — primarily the Republican sweep of the mid-terms and the Supreme Court’s puzzling decision to review toxics regulations for coal-fired power plants. And of course, there were … More >

Banning, yet institutionalizing, racial profiling

Jack Glaser

Whenever I tell people that I study racial profiling, they exclaim how timely the work is.  It is in fact not so much timely as timeless. It seems like there is always a story involving Black suspects and excessive policing.  When the specifics are shocking, as in the Garner case, … More >

Good energy reading for the beach?

Catherine Wolfram

I used to spend the week between Christmas and New Year’s Eve with my in-laws in Portland, Oregon. A couple years ago, it snowed for two days straight, and the city shut down. My brother-in-law has taken it upon himself to find a warm-weather holiday destination for the family ever since.

As … More >

Is Putin out to destroy the EU?

Gérard Roland

By Yuriy Gorodnichenko, Associate Professor of Economics; Gerard Roland, Professor of Economics; and Edward W. Walker, Associate Adjunct Professor of Political Science

Since Russia’s annexation of Crimea, tensions between Russia and the West have not abated. Nonetheless, it has been striking how much support Putin still enjoys in Europe, from intellectuals … More >

Pointergate: Where to point the blame in media bias

Rasheed Shabazz

What happens when a mayor of a major U.S. city points at a resident while posing for a photo? If that mayor poses with a black male, police officers might accuse that mayor of throwing up gang signs.

That’s what happened when Minneapolis Mayor Betsy Hodges, while canvassing for GOTV (Get … More >

The Big Bang. The Lean LaunchPad explodes at University of Maryland

Steve Blank

The University of Maryland is now integrating the Lean LaunchPad® into standard innovation and entrepreneurship courses across all 12 colleges within the University. Over 44 classes have embedded the business model canvas and/or Customer Discovery including a year-long course taken by every single one of its bioengineering majors.

It’s made a big … More >

If black lives matter, end the War on Crime

Jonathan Simon

From the perspective of tens of thousands of protesters around the nation this week, the deaths of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo. and Eric Garner in Staten Island reflected an unfathomable decision by white police officers to kill unarmed black men engaged in trivial criminal (if any) behavior. To thousands of … More >

What’s a university to do about climate change?

Severin Borenstein

About a year ago, I blogged about the fossil-fuel divestment movement at universities, arguing that it is unlikely to have any effect, and that even if it did it would be to raise fuel prices, which we could do more directly with a carbon tax.  I said that those of … More >