Do-it-yourself biology at Biocurious. Photo credit: Maria Chavez.

Let’s say you want to do a little “do-it-yourself” biological tinkering. Maybe you have an idea to make bacteria that can sense or even break down mercury in the environment. Or you want to attract funding for your start up with a few choice experiments. Or you just always wanted to do some biology. Where can you turn?

For people like me, it’s easy. I work for Stanford’s Department of Genetics and so if I were so inclined, I’d have access to the labs there. But this obviously isn’t a typical situation.

For everyone else (at least here in the Bay Area), there is an organization called Biocurious. They are an open lab located in Sunnyvale where you can go and do some biology experiments.

For a monthly fee (currently around $100/month for a year subscription) they provide the equipment, a lab bench and office space. You also get free classes from experts to help you get started.

This lab space is great for folks with some previous lab experience and/or who have an idea of their own they’d like to get started on. The equipment is all there for them to get started and they even get 15% discounts on any reagents they need. Stuff like restriction enzymes, Taq polymerase, nucleotides, etc.

But at least for right now, the space/concept isn’t as useful for the uninitiated. If you just want to come and play, it can be hard to know what to do. Sort of like wanting to design a mobile app but having no experience and having never used one!

One thought I had was maybe membership can come with an optional, relatively simple project that can be done to get the member’s feet wet. Maybe using the mixable and matchable bits of DNA from BioBricks to create a unique, artificial gene. That way the member could create something new but not have it be some cookbook, high school experiment.

This was just one idea off the top of my head. The folks at Biocurious know this is a problem and are brainstorming solutions. Can you think of ways that might help a newbie get started? What would it take to entice you to come join the fun?

Great interview with Eri Gentry, founder of Biocurious

Portion of USGS Miscellaneous Field Studies Map MF-2337, "Geologic Map and Map Database of Parts of Marin, San Francisco, Alameda, Contra Costa, and Sonoma Counties, California"

As a child, I loved stories that featured secret passages and hidden rooms. I cherished the suspicion that there was a different world beneath this one—or around some corner where it was waiting to meet me. C. S. Lewis, H. P. Lovecraft, even Thoreau fed this feeling. Then I discovered geologic maps and felt something of the same thrill.

Consider the glimpse beneath San Francisco in the image above. Telegraph Hill stands out in the upper right corner, a near-island of old bedrock surrounded by artificial fill (Qaf). Once upon a time, North Point was really a point. What is that odd river of purple, marked by dotted lines? Isn't that big purple blob Potrero Hill? Isn't that orange patch Mount Sutro? The rocks in the two places must be completely different! And that light color marked "Qd"—that must mark the old sand dunes that got turned into Golden Gate Park and paved over everywhere else.

The map's explanation provides all the letter codes (and yes, Qd stands for Quaternary dunes) and keys to the symbols. It won't tell you everything; even all this detail is just a sketch. But it will give you a set of clues, in the form of literature citations, that you could pursue in a university library. And of course the map patterns are another set of clues that you could pursue in the field. Slowly, with the map's help, you can learn to perceive the hidden rooms of the landscape.

If this kind of thing excites you, then you owe yourself a visit to the Map Sales Room on the U.S. Geological Survey's campus in Menlo Park. Yes, most of these maps are available online at store.usgs.gov, but (1) the USGS store includes products from the state geological survey too, and (2) there is still something about well-selected inks on strong paper.

One map worth starting with is the "Geologic Map of the San Francisco Bay Region" poster. It's packed with explanation to help you get the most from the map. You can peruse the whole poster online in PDF or Google Earth formats and explore it directly by zoom and pan, but for seven bucks the paper version is a bargain.

Below I list a bunch of USGS geologic maps for the Bay Area that are mostly online-only.

USGS County geologic maps
Alameda (bedrock): Open-File Report 96-252
Alameda (young sediments): Open-File Report 97-97
Contra Costa (bedrock): Open-File Report 94-622
Contra Costa (young sediments): Open-File Report 97-98
San Mateo: Open-File Report 98-137
Santa Clara (southern part): Open-File Report 97-710
Santa Cruz: Open-File Report 97-489

Other areas
Parts of Marin/Sonoma/San Francisco/Contra Costa: Miscellaneous Field Studies Map MF-2337
Northeastern Bay Area: Miscellaneous Field Studies Map MF-2403
Oakland area: Miscellaneous Field Studies Map MF-2342
Point Reyes: Open-File Report 97-456
Southern San Francisco: Open-File Report 98-354
West Sonoma/Southern Mendocino: Miscellaneous Field Studies Map MF-2402

Quad Maps (30 x 60 minutes—see the key here)
Napa (young sediments): Open-File Report 98-460
Palo Alto: Miscellaneous Field Studies Map MF-2332
San Jose: Open-File Report 98-795

See more Bay Area maps from the USGS

Finally, the USGS helps you explore the whole state's geology (and every other state) at the Geologic Maps of U.S. States site.

I also highly recommend the state geologic map and database I keep on my iPod: Geograph_CA

Forty years later, the San Francisco Sidewalk Astronomers is still going strong, boasting a web site replete with a monthly star chart, specific for San Francisco, a calendar of monthly amateur astronomy events, a helpful "cheat sheet" of astronomical facts and answers to questions that routinely come up if you set up a telescope on your neighborhood sidewalk, and where to go if you want to borrow, build or donate a telescope.

Another great resource for the budding SF amateur astronomer is the Randall Museum, which hosts star parties, lectures by amateur and professional astronomers and classes for making your own Dobsonian telescope from scratch. The free public lectures at the Randall Museum take place on the third Wednesday of each month, sponsored by the San Francisco Amateur Astronomers.

Since 1952, the San Francisco Amateur Astronomers have been an invaluable resource for stargazers to learn about the choicest observing sites throughout the Bay Area, monthly star parties and make contact with a community of like-minded folks. Be sure to also check out their astrophotography web page, where they have uploaded photos and even videos shot with their telescopes of galaxies, comets, moons, planets and nebulae.

If you can't get enough of amateur astronomy clubs in the Bay Area, check out the Astronomical Society of the Pacific and the Astronomical Association of Northern California. The Astronomical Society of the Pacific, founded in the 19th century, has members from 70 countries and claims to be the largest astronomy society in the world. It also boasts educational outreach programs, such as Astronomy from the Ground Up, a National Science Foundation-funded program that helps informal science educators such as docents and volunteers by giving them the tools and training to more effectively communicate astronomy information to the public.

If you should need to buy equipment or talk with some very knowledgeable folks about the right telescope, accessories or CCD digital camera to begin your foray into astrophotography, check out Scope City, a retailer in San Francisco specializing in telescopes and binoculars.

Watch the "Amateur Astonomers" TV Story online, as well as find additional links and resources.


Sheraz Sadiq is an Associate Producer for QUEST on KQED Television.

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Do-it-yourself tabletop biosphere..

We started with a Table-Top Biosphere, or as MAKE called it, a "Tabletop Shrimp Support Module" or TSSM. The whole idea is to create an entirely self-sustaining aquatic ecosystem within a completely sealed jam jar. If you do it right, your freshwater shrimp "aquanaut" will be able to survive for months without your ever needing to feed it or even open the jar. The ecological balance you create supplies all the air, filtering and food for all the creatures within the jar to survive in perfect harmony. If only the real world was this easy.

Watch the "MAKE it at Home: Table-Top Biosphere" TV Story online, as well as find additional links and resources.

Here are the instructions to make your own table-top biosphere.

Chris Bauer is a Segment Producer for television on QUEST.