Golden Nuggets: Topless Gladiators, Drunk Bees, and a new park in Berkeley

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Hello and welcome to Golden Nuggets, our weekly recap article where we try to highlight all the fun, funny, or interesting things you might have missed roughly over the last week across Bear Territory (the whole damn world of course). Think of it like a cheat sheet for small talk about Cal.

ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED?

Our lead store this weeks comes to us from the Smithsonian, recapping research by Alfonso Mañas, a sports historian at UC Berkeley. In a new paper recently published, Mañas “may have identified a depiction of a female hunter—known as a venatrix—in an ancient Roman mosaic”

“Women fighting beasts in arena games are attested by the written sources, but no visual source is known to show their image,” writes study author Alfonso Mañas, a sports historian at the University of California, Berkeley. As such, this mosaic may be “the first and only known image of a woman fighting beasts in the Roman arena.”

Read more about his paper here.

Hot Links

Flying Under the Influence

New research out of UC Berkeley found that those busy bees out pollinating your roses or wildflowers right now are probably doing it a bit buzzed. “A study by researchers at the University of California Berkeley has found that ethanol is surprisingly common in floral nectar, the sugary fuel that keeps pollinators alive. Yeast feeding on those sugars produces trace amounts of alcohol, and in this study, it showed up in 26 of the 29 plant species sampled.” Read more here. Now we understand a bit about why hummingbirds are always a little angry when they show up and your bird feeder is empty. I had similar reactions walking home some nights in Berkeley to find Bongo Burger was closed.

Off to the Races

Big story out of the East Bay this week is that Golden Gate Fields, the horse track facility in Albany is up for sale and might be purchased to be a new park. Berkeleyside covers the pending sale ($175M!) this week. Give it a read here.

Small Bites

• Bruce Jenkins was named to the Daily Cal Hall of Fame

• UC Berkeley is closing the math readiness gap

• Berkeley Alumni are finding new lives for plastic

This Week in e-Commerce

Wake up a new Gold Out piece just dropped.

This week in e-Commerce we highlight a new entry into the marketplace belt buckles! This would look great as part of your gold out ensemble! Get it on eBay for $55.

Golden Bear Honors

• Tonya Paulsson (Women’s Gymnastics) is your ACC All-Around Champion

• Despoina Drakotou, Feline Voordouw, and Julia Bonaguidi (Women’s Water Polo)were named to the Cutino Award Watch List

• Yamato Okadome took gold in the 100M Breaststroke with the second pest time in program history and is now an National Champion

• Annalise Newman-Achee (Women’s Gymnastics) was named to the WCGA All-American Second Team

• Tonya Paulsson (Women’s Gymnastics) was named the WCGA All-American Second Team

• Hideki Prather (Baseball) was named to the Buster Posey Award Midseason Watch List

• Jett Kenady (Baseball) was named to the Baseball America Midseason Freshman of the Year Watch List

• Otto Espinoza (Baseball) was named a Perfect Game Freshman Midseason All-American!

• Jett Kenady (Baseball) was named a Perfect Game Midseason Freshman All-American!

Cal Pros Recap

Baseball

Six Golden Bears wound up on opening day rosters (Andrew Vaughn with the Brewers, Dylan Beavers with the Orioles, Korey Lee with the White Sox, Lucas Erceg with the Royals, Marcus Semien with the Mets, and Bob Melvin with the A’s.)

Golf

Collin Morikawa withdrew from the Texas Open with back spasms, leaving a Masters return in doubt.

Basketball

Jaylen Brown is back after missing a few games with achilles tendinitis.

And so we find ourselves again at the end of another beautiful, perfect, Golden Nuggets. Thanks again for reading and see you next week!