contents

features
14 Reading between the genes
Charting a course through the dark genome
by Azeen Ghorayshi

21
21 Baby lab How we learn to learn
by Jacqueline Chretien

26 Drowning in mud Scientists confront an ongoing eruption

by Keith Cheveralls

44 Murky waters Science, money, and the battle over atrazine

by Sisi Chen and Mark DeWitt

53 Perchance to dreamUncovering the role of the unconscious mind

by Naomi Ondrasek
14

60 Access granted Unlocking the scientific literature

by Jacques Bothma

60
© 2011 Berkeley Science Review. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted in any form without the express permission of the publishers. Financial assistance for the 2010-2011 academic year was generously provided by the Office of the Vice
Chancellor of Research, the UC Berkeley Graduate Assembly (GA), the Associated Students of the University of California (ASUC), and the Eran Karmon Memorial Fund. Berkeley Science Review is not an official publication of the University of California, Berkeley, the ASUC, the GA, or
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. The views expressed herein are the views of the writers and not necessarily the views of the aforementioned organizations. All events sponsored by the BSR are wheelchair accessible. For more information email sciencereview@gmail.com.
Letters to the editor and story proposals are encouraged and should be emailed to sciencereview@gmail.com or posted to the Berkeley Science Review, 10 Eshleman Hall #4500, Berkeley, CA 94720. Advertisers: contact sciencereview@gmail.com or visit sciencereview.berkeley.edu.

2 Berkeley Science Review Spring 2011

 berkeley
Spring 2011 Issue 20

departments
1
From the Editor
66 Faculty profile
Mina Bissell

4
by Adrienne Greene
Labscopes

68 Book review
Touchy feely
by Mohan Ganesh
Kids First
The sight of sound Professor David L. Kirp
by Monica Smith by Joseph Williams
Wireless water
by Sharmistha Majumdar
69 Toolbox Information theory

6
Winey pests by Robert Gibboni
by Molly Sharlach

current briefs
6 Sun storms
Modeling solar phenomena
by Alireza Moharrer

8
What’s the antimatter?
Probing the origins of the
universe with antihydrogen
by Denia Djokic

9
Hormonal hassle
How stress can hurt your sex drive

53 by Michael Cianfrocco

10 It’s a bird... it’s a

plane... it’s a robot!
Machines that fly themselves
by Claudia Avalos

12 Smart circuits
Making electronics
that remember
by Chris Holdgraf

26 COVER: Histone proteins (yellow), the spools around which DNA (green) is wrapped, are
critical for turning genes on and off. The modENCODE project is generating genome-wide
maps of dynamic chemical marks (red) on the histones to uncover the rules that allow an
animal to develop from a single cell.
Clockwise from top-right: NASA; Paul Sapiano; Steve Axford; Marek Jakubowski; Joe Kloc; marek jakubowski
Spring 2011 Berkeley Science Review 3