Archive for 2007
Discuss the “Condors vs. Lead Bullets” TV story
Once hunted to the brink of extinction, with only 20 birds left in the wild, California condors have slowly began recovering in number after 25 years of careful breeding and scientific work to reintroduce them to the wild. There are now more than 200 condors in California. But as more of them fly free, the [...]
Post on Feb 20, 2007 by Chris Bauer
Baby steps towards personalized medicine
breast cancerLast week the FDA approved a new weapon in a doctor’s arsenal against breast cancer. This genetic test doesn’t help doctors find the cancer early. Or figure out who is more likely to get it. What this test does is help doctors decide whether to prescribe chemotherapy AFTER surgery. Right now doctors often recommend [...]
Post on Feb 19, 2007 by Dr. Barry Starr
Discuss the "Urban Heat Islands" Radio report
Climb into a black car on a hot day and you can feel a key principle of physics at work: dark colors retain heat. Now magnify that across an entire city of asphalt roofs, blacktop roads and parking lots–and you have what scientists call an "urban heat island;" an effect that triggers a vicious cycle [...]
Post on Feb 16, 2007 by Andrea Kissack
Pluto’s Wink
Pluto (center, largest) and its moons Charon, Nix, and Hydra captured by the Hubble Space Telescope.In the past year, the quiet and unassuming Pluto has been having its moments of fame. First was the attention brought by the launch of NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft, the robot that, when it arrives at Pluto nearly a decade [...]
Post on Feb 16, 2007 by Ben Burress
Oh the shark has pretty teeth dear…
Photo by Terry Goss, copyright 2006 Surfers call the area of water enclosed by Ano Nuevo, Point Reyes and the Farallon Island the Red Triangle. This geographic delineation also doubles as an ominous symbol for one of the most famous predatory fish of our coast, the great white shark (Carcharodon carcharias). Known also as the [...]
Post on Feb 15, 2007 by Nick Pyenson
Discuss the "Forensic Identification" TV story
Chelsey Juarez is a doctoral student in forensic anthropology at UC Santa Cruz. She is developing a database of soil profiles that would help identify the bodies of migrants who die crossing the U.S.-Mexico border. To develop her database, she has been analyzing teeth. Our teeth contain information that shows what kind of soil we [...]
Post on Feb 13, 2007 by Gabriela Quirós
Discuss the "Plug-In Hybrid Cars" TV story
Some hybrid owners may be satisfied with 50 mpg. But a new breed is working on 100 miles per gallon or more. CalCars, a Palo Alto-based non-profit group of entrepreneurs, environmentalists and engineers, is tinkering with and lobbying for new technology that will add batteries to a typical Toyota Prius, tweaking the electrical system, so [...]
Post on Feb 13, 2007 by Gabriela Quirós
Discuss the "San Francisco Bay Debris" TV segment
We clean up our parks and streets. Who cleans up the bay? The military. Every month. In 1942, while on a flight from Hawaii to Washington DC, a seaplane carrying Admiral Chester Nimitz attempted to land in San Francisco Bay. The plane hit a piece of floating trash in the water and flipped, killing the [...]
Post on Feb 13, 2007 by Amy Miller
Hubble Space Telescope Suffers a Major Setback
Not for a lack of competition from a certain astronaut who shall not be named, the biggest news of the last couple weeks in the astronomy community has been the tragic loss of the Advanced Camera for Surveys on Hubble Space Telescope. For those of you who haven't heard, the most important camera on the [...]
Post on Feb 12, 2007 by Kyle S. Dawson
Discuss the "AB32: California's New Global Warming Law" Radio report
Last fall, Governor Schwarzenegger signed a landmark piece of legislation– the first in the nation– to reduce greenhouse gas emissions across the state. The Global Warming Solutions Act made headlines around the world. But signing the bill was the easy part. As we continue our series, "Quest," exploring local environmental and science issues, Amy Standen [...]
Post on Feb 09, 2007 by Amy Standen
How is a butterfly like a polar bear?
Gulf Fritillary Butterfly (Agraulis vanillae)I awoke on Saturday morning to a sign that the deep freeze that had locked me into seasonal emotional torpor might be lifting: I saw a butterfly. She was a Gulf Fritillary, sunning her wings on the passion vine outside my window. The warmth had brought out my pollinating friend, as [...]
Post on Feb 09, 2007 by Amy Gotliffe
Gorillas in the mist? Try elephant seals in the fog
Male Elephant Seal with a harem groupWe don't often think of California as looking anything like Africa, but California biodiversity ranks right up there in terms of evolutionary uniqueness and richness. And that's true both on land and in the ocean, where you find, among other beasts unique to this coast, sea otters, gray whales, [...]
Post on Feb 08, 2007 by Nick Pyenson
The new Cal Academy building: laying down roots
At no other time, in the short history of our species, have humans faced greater hurdles to our continued existence. We are threatened on all sides by disasters of our own making including global warming, the imminent collapse of the ocean’s fisheries, and the destruction of the world’s rainforests. That’s why it’s the perfect time [...]
Post on Feb 07, 2007 by Donovan Rittenbach
Discuss the "NASA Ames Rocket to the Moon" TV segment
It may sound like Buck Rogers fantasy, but it's real. Scientists at NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View are developing a spacecraft they will deliberately crash into the moon as part of an attempt to find water there. Early lunar missions found hydrogen, and scientists have speculated that there may be ice in the [...]
Post on Feb 06, 2007 by Chris Bauer
Discuss the "What's Killing the Sea Otters" TV segment
Sea otters, the fuzzy mascots of the California coast, have fought back over the past 75 years from near-extinction. From the 1970s to the 1990s, their numbers steadily grew. But recently, their population growth has stalled. Scientists aren't sure why, but they are alarmed. One key suspect: house cats. In a study published in 2002, [...]
Post on Feb 06, 2007 by Amy Miller
Energy independence through genetics?
Like an ever growing number of Bay Area folks, I drive a Prius. The other day I was thinking why this is. Certainly part of it is doing my bit to at least slow down global warming. But another big reason is to do my part to wean the U.S. off foreign oil. I’m convinced [...]
Post on Feb 05, 2007 by Dr. Barry Starr
Me and Bio D
Two years ago, my husband David and I decided that we needed to make a concerted effort to live as green a lifestyle as possible. Being avid surfers, we have seen first hand how pollution and a non-sustainable world are affecting the environment and our health. So it made sense that when our trusty van [...]
Post on Feb 02, 2007 by Elizabeth Pepin
Rocks From Space
Think you have a rock from space? Lately, a flurry of people have come to me with a rock or chunk of metal they hope is a meteorite. Whether by the circumstances of the finding or the appearance of the rock or its magnetic properties, the finders thought they might have something. A couple in [...]
Post on Jan 31, 2007 by Ben Burress
Something Salty, Something Sweet
Four years ago, a recent transplant to the Bay Area, I am standing atop the Marin Headlands, gazing across the expanse of San Francisco Bay. By swiveling a little, I can see–right there–the vast Pacific. Bay and ocean. The two seem part and parcel. That’s how I grew up thinking of the Bay: as a [...]
Post on Jan 31, 2007 by Ann Dickinson
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