Passing over potential candidates like "refugee" and "microaggression," UC Berkeley linguist Geoff Nunberg has chosen "a little word that has tracked the rise and fall of the great American job” as his Word of the Year 2015.

A grad student of resource economist Max Auffhammer has been analyzing swear words and emoticons used on Twitter to gauge how heat affects human happiness. Read Auffhammer's musings on this work, on the Berkeley Blog.

Two New Jersey cities have pursued radically different strategies for turning around their failing schools. Education professor David Kirp contrasts the two approaches, and what they suggest about educational reform, in a widely shared New York Times opinion piece.

Detailed analysis covering the past 120,000 years reveals new pattern of wetter-than-normal summers

The number of students seeking freshman and transfer admission to UC Berkeley for 2016-17 has reached a new high, breaking the 100,000 mark.

Brain scans during communication game pinpoint areas where minds meet

Gene Luen Yang, a Berkeley computer science graduate who has a gift for connecting with kids through his comics and graphic novels, has a message for them as the nation's new ambassador for youth literature: Read things outside your comfort zone.

Astronomers from RIT, UC Berkeley find invisible galaxy predicted by new field of 'galactoseismology'

The Bay Area's job market is saturated. But two Berkeley alumni have set out to streamline the local job search by creating Localwise, a site that connects local businesses with local applicants.

Cloey Hewlett, a graduate of Berkeley and Berkeley Law, takes the reins as executive director.

Data on current carbon emissions will help cities meet goals set at Paris climate summit, and show people how they contribute to global warming.

International organ traders "exploit the desperation of both buyers and sellers," UC Berkeley medical anthropologist Nancy Scheper-Hughes, director of Organs Watch, writes in the Washington Post.

In a first, a graphic novelist has been picked as the new national ambassador for Young People's Literature. And the honor goes to a recent UC Berkeley graduate in computer science, Gene Leun Yang.

Acclaimed journalist Paul Grabowicz has passed away.

Landmark advance to usher in new era of ultrafast communications

Spinrad set numerous records for discovering the most distant galaxy, pushing the limits of telescopes from California to Hawaii

Nation's top honors in science and technology go to Berkeley Lab director

Oxford Dictionaries has named an emoji known as "Face with Tears of Joy" as its 2015 Word of the Year. But is it a word, and what does it say about our times? Berkeley philosopher Alva Noë considers Oxford's unconventional choice on the NPR blog 13.7.

As always, the year brought challenges and triumphs on every front. Here's the photographic evidence

The 307-foot tower has a rich history with many stories to tell — here's a glimpse at a few of its remarkable tales to commemorate its 100th year.