Compromised cognitive states such as fatigue, lack of sleep, stress, and age-related cognitive decline can severely impact mental and physical performance, often contributing to accidents and significant health costs. To address this challenge, UC Berkeley researchers have developed an in-ear electro-mechanical device for monitoring brain activity. This innovative apparatus features a main body made of a compliant material with an internal electronics housing, a conical tip, and a plurality of dry electrodes. A key feature is the placement of the dry electrodes: some are formed on the surface of the conical tip, and others are on the surface of the main body's second end. The technology also includes methods for three-dimensional printing an electrode base sized for the ear, followed by forming successive layers of base, intermediate, and final metals. Furthermore, the invention encompasses a sophisticated methodology for training a machine learning model to predict a user's cognitive state based on these in-ear brain activity measurements. This is achieved by correlating in-ear brain activity measurements with objective and subjective cognitive state measurements taken during a known control task, identifying a "triggering event," and using that data to train the model to predict cognitive state for generic users.

The challenge in utilizing α-Linolenic acid (ALA) for medical adhesives has been its poor water solubility and the high hydrophobicity of poly(ALA), typically necessitating elevated temperatures, organic solvents, or complex preparation methods for tissue application. UC Berkeley researchers have developed ALA-based powder and low-viscosity liquid superglues that overcome this limitation by polymerizing and bonding rapidly upon contact with wet tissue. The versatile adhesives are formulated using a monomeric mixture of ALA, sodium lipoate, and an activated ester of lipoic acid. These adhesives demonstrate high flexibility, cell and tissue compatibility, biodegradability, and potential for sustained drug delivery as a small molecule regenerative drug was successfully incorporated and released without altering the adhesive's properties. Additionally, the inherent ionic nature of the adhesives provides high electric conductivity and sensitivity to deformation, enabling their use as a tissue-adherent strain sensor.

Current α-linolenic acid (ALA)-based medical adhesives are limited by ALA's poor water solubility and poly(ALA)'s hydrophobicity, often requiring elevated temperatures, organic solvents, or complex preparations for delivery to biological tissue. This innovation reports on ALA-based powder and low-viscosity liquid superglues that polymerize and bond rapidly upon contact with wet tissue. Developed by UC Berkeley researchers, the versatile adhesives use a monomeric mixture of ALA, sodium lipoate, and an activated ester of lipoic acid, which grants them high flexibility as confirmed by stress-strain measurements on wet adhesives. The adhesive is cell and tissue-compatible, biodegradable, and can sustain drug delivery as a small molecule regenerative drug was successfully incorporated and released without altering its physical or adhesive properties. Furthermore, the inherent ionic nature of the adhesive gives it high electric conductivity and sensitivity to deformation, enabling its use as a tissue-adherent strain sensor.

Current methods for 3D printing high-resolution, large-scale designs often face a trade-off between feature size and build area, limiting the scalability of intricate structures. This invention developed by UC Berkeley researchers addresses this by providing a scanning projection system and related method that enables high-resolution, large-scale 3D printing. The system achieves this by employing an advanced optical train with moving optics to project a final image onto a curable resin located on a projection plane. The optical system includes an illumination device, a collimating lens, a first movable reflection mirror, a movable focusing lens, a second movable reflection mirror, and a movable projection lens. By mounting one or more parts of this system on motion stages, the system can scan and project a final image across a large area while maintaining a fine feature size (e.g., 20 micrometers). This approach offers superior resolution and scalability compared to fixed-optics systems, potentially enabling the fabrication of complex structures for applications previously constrained by size or detail limitations.

Traditional hydraulic actuators can be rigid, bulky, and difficult to integrate into flexible or small-scale applications, limiting their use in emerging fields like soft robotics and haptic feedback. This innovation, developed by UC Berkeley researchers, is a Flexible Hydraulic Actuator Based on Electroosmotic Pump. It addresses this limitation with a compact, flexible design that uses an electroosmotic pump (EOP) to achieve controlled shape changes. This unique structure allows the actuator to be configured to change its shape, color, and optical characteristics with low power consumption, offering a distinct advantage in flexibility and miniaturization over conventional actuators.

The oncogenic transcription factor MYC is implicated in a vast number of human cancers, yet it has proven exceptionally difficult to target using conventional small-molecule inhibitors due to its intrinsically disordered nature. This innovation, developed by UC Berkeley researchers, addresses the urgent need for a novel therapeutic strategy by introducing a class of compounds and pharmaceutical compositions that achieve the stereoselective covalent destabilizing degradation of the MYC protein.

The challenge in carbon dioxide utilization is efficiently converting it into valuable, multi-carbon chemicals. Current carbon dioxide electroreduction methods often suffer from low selectivity and yield towards desirable products like two-carbon oxygenates, such as ethanol and acetate, which are key platform molecules for the chemical industry. This innovation, developed by UC Berkeley researchers, addresses this by using a novel Copper-Silver (CuAg) tandem electrocatalyst within a membrane electrode assembly (MEA) cell to efficiently upgrade carbon dioxide into two-carbon oxygenates. This technology offers significantly enhanced selectivity and efficiency for two-carbon oxygenate production directly from carbon dioxide compared to conventional single-metal or mixed-metal catalysts, presenting a more sustainable and economically viable route for chemical synthesis.

The reliable spatial mapping of epitopes (antigenic sites) in tissue sections is a cornerstone of pathology, diagnostics, and biomedical research. However, conventional tissue processing and the harsh epitope denaturing agents necessary for downstream molecular analysis often destroy or displace the very epitopes being studied, leading to unreliable results and artifacts. UC Berkeley researchers have innovated a Method for Preserving Epitope Locations in Tissue During Degradation Steps that addresses this critical problem. This method employs a key stabilization step before the application of the denaturing agent. This essentially locks the epitope's location into the stable tyramide-tag, which can then be detected by a tertiary probe after the degradation steps have occurred. This innovation ensures high-fidelity spatial resolution and greater preservation of location information compared to alternatives that rely solely on reversible or less stable preservation techniques.