Archive for July, 2008
Messages from Mercury
MESSENGER is the space probe that NASA sent to Mercury to give the Solar System's innermost planet the first up-close look since 1975, when Mariner 10 flew by. The MESSENGER's main mission will begin in earnest when it returns to Mercury and finally settles into an orbit around the planet, on March 18th 2011.
Post on Jul 30, 2008 by Ben Burress
Producer's Notes: How Edison Got His Groove Back
I love the idea that he was just listening to the radio one day and heard that the Library of Congress was failing in its struggle to preserve a significant portion of our nation's music and sound heritage. Haber basically thought, "well, as a designer of instrumentation for particle physics, I think I can help." And that's what he did.
Post on Jul 29, 2008 by Josh Rosen
Producer's Notes: Science Flexes its Muscles
Our QUEST story on the science of steroids, how they affect the body, and the super-smart sleuths who are using science to catch the cheaters who abuse them, turned up some interesting information. For one thing, I was surprised to learn that according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse's fact sheet about anabolic-androgenic steroids, nearly 2 percent of 10th graders (both boys and girls) admitted to using steroids at some point…
Post on Jul 29, 2008 by Sheraz Sadiq
Producer's Notes: Why I Do Science
I had the pleasure of briefly meeting Dr. Robert Drewes, the esteemed Curator and Chairman of the Department of Herpetology at the California Academy of Sciences, upon his return from the Gulf of Guinea where he has been leading research teams over the past decade to study the unique flora and fauna of the islands.
Post on Jul 29, 2008 by Jenny Oh
Reporter's Notes: Disappearing Plants
Marin will look Baja. Berkeley like Bakersfield. That's the projection of climatologists for the end of this century, if global warming continues on its current path.
Post on Jul 25, 2008 by David Gorn
Hiking Through Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve
California's plant life is reducing as the climate changes. A hike through Jasper Ridge Biological Reserve in Woodside, California, reveals that some plants have a better chance at surviving than others.
Post on Jul 25, 2008 by Shuka Kalantari
Nobel Winner Used Stars to Map History of the Universe
Sitting in a small, non-descript room in the basement of the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab in Berkeley, astronomy graduate student Hannah Swift and physicist Saul Perlmutter are searching for supernovae, stars destroyed in huge explosions millions or billions of years ago.
Post on Jul 23, 2008 by Gabriela Quirós
Watching the Water
While at sea, I've seen common Alaskan wildlife. Humpbacks have spouted and breached, raven and eagles have dived at the water for a dinner of spawning salmon. But I keep looking at the water, hoping to glimpse Orcas.
Post on Jul 23, 2008 by Cat
Producer's Notes: Tracking Raindrops
So, I was curious how scientists like Fung and Dawson, whose research leads to predictions of widespread climatic chaos and environmental meltdown, are able to cope with their frequently depressing findings. And what do they hope to do with their results?
Post on Jul 22, 2008 by Amy Miller
Surviving Chromosomal Rearrangements
Last blog I talked about the Transcaucasian mole vole. This little burrowing mammal has lost its Y chromosome over time. Now both males and females have only a single X. I focused on how scientists can't yet figure out how there are any male mole voles running around. This week, I want to focus on what this means from an evolutionary perspective.
Post on Jul 21, 2008 by Dr. Barry Starr
The Asteroid Hunters
On July 14th, 2008, an almost Hollywood-like drama took place in space nearby: a "double," or binary, asteroid whizzed past Earth, grazing by at a distance of only 1.4 million miles. One of the rocks is over 200 meters across, the other a whopping 600 meters– about half the size of Half Dome in Yosemite!
Post on Jul 18, 2008 by Ben Burress
Go Bioneers!
Over the past 8 years of being a Bioneer, I have learned that mushrooms might save the world and that Biomimicry was in action when a man who found a cocklebur stuck to his sock invented Velcro.
Post on Jul 16, 2008 by Amy Gotliffe
Producer's Notes: California's Water Future
Could the future of potable water in California be in recycling wastewater? The Orange County Water District thinks so. In February of this year it opened its advanced water treatment plant, which produces 50 million gallons of potable water per day. It took them 13 years to finish the project. They spent a lot of [...]
Post on Jul 14, 2008 by Gabriela Quirós
Reporter's Notes: Drugs In Our Drinking Water
It's tricky to talk about pharmaceuticals in the drinking water without risking two really unfortunate side effects: 1) Make people panic that their tap water is unsafe. 2) Send listeners running to Costco to buy pallet-loads of overpriced, highly packaged, and often dubiously-sourced bottled water. You can never really say enough about everything that's wrong [...]
Post on Jul 11, 2008 by Amy Standen
Quest Picks: Talking Elephants at the Oakland Zoo
Can elephants feel seismic waves? Scientists have known for years that elephants can communicate. By using low frequency vocals, called rumbles, elephants can 'talk' with eachother, sometimes communicating from very long distances. But the new question being asked by some scientists is: can elephants feel those rumbles in the earth? Biologist Dr. Caitlin O'Connell-Rodwell from [...]
Post on Jul 11, 2008 by Shuka Kalantari
Water Becoming California’s Gold
For those in the East Bay, a lush green lawn for lounging may become a thing of the past. Photo Credit Michele Nikoloff It was the talk of my Wednesday morning Pilates class. "I'm letting my lawn die, but saving the plants. Plants are harder to replace." "We only lived in our house six months [...]
Post on Jul 11, 2008 by Jim Gunshinan
Weather Mystery: Warm Rain and Icy Hail?
For this past patriotic weekend, I was on the other side of the coast. Namely, driving from Washington DC into the rural wilderness of Virginia for a get away. It was not the man-made fireworks that grabbed my attention but the activity of thunderclouds. I was reading out loud as we drove down I-64 towards [...]
Post on Jul 10, 2008 by Cat
Why no Y? Gender-bending Transcaucasian mole voles
I've always been fascinated by weird animals. Especially those with out-of-the-ordinary genetics. Transcaucasian mole vole. Image Courtesy of Heike HimmelreichOne of my favorites is a little burrowing mammal called a Transcaucasian mole vole. These guys live in the Caucasus Mountains of Armenia, Iran, Turkey, and Azerbaijan. There they are born, live, have babies and die. [...]
Post on Jul 07, 2008 by Dr. Barry Starr
A fishy odyssey through the delta
Talk about a wild ride. Every year, millions of fish make a strange and harrowing detour through the Skinner Fish Facility, part of the State Water Project's facilities in the Delta. In my last post, I wrote about my visit to the Banks Pumping Plant, whose giant pumps slurp water from the Delta to help [...]
Post on Jul 07, 2008 by Ann Dickinson
Planetary Robotic Roundup
NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft at Mercury-artist concept. Photo by: NASA I've been waiting for the "whole story" on Martian ice at the Phoenix lander site to unfold more completely, but the chemical analyses have not yet run their full courses-so I've decided to widen the focus on this blog to give a status report on current [...]
Post on Jul 04, 2008 by Ben Burress
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