🌱 Patch AM: What the Caribou Biosciences shutdown means for 87 Berkeley workers.

Cheers Berkeley! We're back, helping you stay up to date with what's happening. Let's take on the day together! ☀️

In today's newsletter:

• What the Caribou Biosciences shutdown means for 87 Berkeley workers.
• Why a convicted Berkeley workplace poisoner is asking to clear his record.
• How a visiting artist fell for Solano Avenue and UC Berkeley.

Also on today's calendar: Grin & Bear It Featuring Daniel Franzese and 9 more events.

Today's riddle: Why do some birds fly south for the winter? 🤔 (Answer below!)

Weather forecast:

• Monday: Partly sunny and cool, with a high of 69 and low of 49 degrees.
• Tuesday: Areas of low clouds, then sun, temps: high: 75, low: 51.
• Wednesday: Mostly sunny and pleasant, with a high of 75 and low of 51 degrees.

📰 News we're reading

1. Why is Caribou Biosciences ending CAR-T development before a planned phase (business-news-today.com) — Berkeley residents should know that local biotech firm Caribou Biosciences is shutting down its Berkeley operations, with 87 jobs slated for permanent elimination in December as the company winds down and seeks a buyer or merger. Despite having over $100 million in cash, management says it can't responsibly fund late-stage trials, so most staff will depart this quarter while a small team handles closures and potential transactions.
   

2. Video of Bay Area man convicted of poisoning co-worker released as he seeks to dismiss ruling (abc7news.com) — A disturbing poisoning case tied to a Berkeley engineering firm is back in the spotlight as convicted former employee David Xu heads to Alameda County court Monday seeking to dismiss his felony conviction. Hidden-camera video from nearly a decade ago, now shared publicly, shows him tampering with a co-worker's water bottle, which police say contained cadmium at extremely dangerous levels that nearly killed her.
   

3. SF Bay Area, Part 4: Berkeley (blogspot.com) — A visiting sketch artist spent several days staying in a walkable Berkeley neighborhood, drawing local trees, homes, and scenes around Solano Avenue's restaurants, shops, and cafes. They also toured UC Berkeley's campus, admired its architecture and historic buckeye tree, and left eager to return and explore more of the city's distinctive streets and scenery.
   

4. Independent sets and sphere packings: a symbiotic relationship (berkeley.edu) — A Simons Institute event at UC Berkeley explores surprising links between independent sets in graphs and dense sphere packings, touching on questions from mixing times to phase transitions. For Berkeley residents interested in math, physics, or theoretical computer science, it's a chance to hear how ideas developed on campus connect abstract models to real-world structures in high dimensions.
   

5. On Zeros and Algorithms for Disordered Systems (berkeley.edu) — A new Simons Institute talk at UC Berkeley dives into cutting-edge algorithms for estimating partition functions in complex Ising models, a core problem in statistical physics and computer science. While highly technical, it highlights frontier research happening right on the Berkeley campus that shapes how scientists understand randomness, complexity, and phase transitions in large systems.
   

📸 Around Berkeley

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🗓 Upcoming Events in Berkeley

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★ Featured events ★

Friday October 16
• Grin & Bear It Featuring Daniel Franzese →
  SF Eagle, 398 12th St, SF
  7:00 pm
Saturday October 31
• San Francisco Halloween Pub Crawl: Crawloween →
  Mayes Oyster House, 1233 Polk St, SF
  2:00 pm

Want to see your event featured? Click here!

Other local events

Wednesday October 14
• UC Berkeley Howison Lecture with David Z Albert →
  Alumni House, Toll Room — UC Berkeley Campus, Alumni House, Berkeley
• 2026 CEE Community Highlights Event →
  Grimes Engineering Center, 230 Bechtel Drive, Berkeley
  4:00 pm
• A Body in the Bookshop →
  Book Society, 2945 College Ave, Berkeley
  6:00 pm
• Marion Nestle →
  David Brower Center, 2150 Allston Way, Berkeley
  6:00 pm
Friday October 16
• 'Joye des Violes': Lisa Terry and Lynn Tetenbaum play music for two viols →
  Saint Mary Magdalen Church, 2005 Berryman Street, Berkeley, CA 94709
  6:30 pm
Saturday October 17
• Move With Pleasure | A Sensual Movement And Somatic Practice →
  Moon Landing Meditative Arts, 3725 Grand Ave, Oakland
  10:30 am
• Afternoon Social at Kosta Browne →
  Kosta Browne Winery, 200 Morris St, Sebastopol
  3:00 pm
• Telegraph Quartet, presented by Berkeley Chamber Performances →
  Lafayette Library, 3491 Mt Diablo Blvd, Lafayette, CA 94549
  7:30 pm
Sunday October 18
• Journaling Club →
  Book Society, 2945 College Ave, Berkeley
  10:00 am
• The 5th Annual Berkeley Bird Festival →
  Brower Center, 2150 Allston Way, Berkeley
  12:00 pm

📣 Berkeley Shout Outs!

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Have we missed something on our calendar? Add an event yourself! As always, before attending confirm event details to ensure accuracy.

 

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💬 Chatter

What your neighbors are talking about on social media

• Update: Pet Reunited
  Charley/zoe, a cat who went missing in Oakland, CA, has been safely reunited with their family after 18 hours, 37 minutes. Message from Owner: … (Nextdoor Claremont Hills)
• Meet a famous chubby street cat from the Ziverbey neighborhood in the Kadıköy district of Istanbul.
  He used to hang out and watch the world go. After he died, the city honoured him with his very own statue. (Nextdoor Lorin District)

• Albertsons Company posted a job opening for Deli Clerk in Berkeley. Apply here.
• Silverado posted a job opening for Full Time Housekeeper (AM) in Berkeley. Apply here. You can search for other jobs near Berkeley here.

Ok Berkeley! So now you're in the loop about what's happening today. Thanks for reading, and see you in your inbox next time! Oh -- and if you like what you're reading, invite a friend to Patch AM!

-- The Patch AM Team

P.S. The answer to today's riddle: "Why do some birds fly south for the winter?" — Because it's too far to walk..! (Thank you Theresia F. for sending it in!)
Got a good riddle for PatchAM? Submit it here!

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