Tag: "QUEST"

Restoring the Earth's "Kidneys"

Restoring the Earth's "Kidneys"

Urban development is impeding the ability of native wetlands to serve as natural filters, but efforts are underway in some places to reverse the damage.

 
Outsourcing Your Compost: Soil Without The Stink

Outsourcing Your Compost: Soil Without The Stink

From Door to Spore: a reporter explores a new service that strives to make household composting easier.

 
Debate Over on Climate Change, Says Chief UN Climate Negotiator

Debate Over on Climate Change, Says Chief UN Climate Negotiator

A United Nations expert recalls the exact moment she first witnessed the impact of climate change–and sees a concerted global effort as the only way to turn down the heat.

 
Are Doughnuts Destroying Forests?

Are Doughnuts Destroying Forests?

A conversation with a forestry expert reveals doughnuts as unlikely contributors to global deforestation.

 
Top KQED Science & QUEST Stories from 2012

Top KQED Science & QUEST Stories from 2012

From the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to killer whales, bicycles to cheese — it's been another year of diverse storytelling from the KQED Science and Environment team. Here's a round-up of the top 10 stories shared on our website (based on page views) that you've enjoyed in 2012.

 
Tracing the Origins of the Durian’s Stench

Tracing the Origins of the Durian’s Stench

Researchers in Germany have identified compounds in durian that might be responsible for its unique smell.

 
Creepy Yet Compelling: Blood Vessels Blown in Glass

Creepy Yet Compelling: Blood Vessels Blown in Glass

Halloween means time for gore! Blood, bones, brains and more! Severed fingers, severed toes, eyeballs and organs galore! But how accurate are all these loose bits of human anatomy in our front yards, costumes and punch bowls? Can we use that skeleton in the corner to bone up for a biology exam–or are we missing out on a tremendous opportunity to learn medical science?

 
Women in Science: Meet a Mathematician, a Physicist and a Geologist Through Art

Women in Science: Meet a Mathematician, a Physicist and a Geologist Through Art

There's nothing like role models for inspiring the scientific spirits of women, today and tomorrow! And Marie Curie isn't the only one out there–history is rife with lesser-known but no less fabulous female scientists, engineers, and mathematicians.

 
Information Is Beautiful Competition: San Francisco Design Company Takes Top Prize

Information Is Beautiful Competition: San Francisco Design Company Takes Top Prize

The Bay Area is a magnet for both artistic spirits and data freaks. So, although the inaugural Information is Beautiful award competition drew entries from around the world, perhaps it isn't too surprising that the ultimate prize was snagged by San Francisco design company Stamen.

 
Saving Bighorn Sheep, One Mural At a Time

Saving Bighorn Sheep, One Mural At a Time

Sierra Nevada bighorn sheep are animals worth seeing. With their bright white rumps and the rams' remarkable headgear, they bound and leap over seemingly impassable alpine terrain. But you may have a tricky time spotting one–there are only about four hundred in existence.

 
KQED Climate Watch team

KQED Science News Coverage Expands

KQED Science coverage expands to include award winning Climate Watch team, Craig Miller and Molly Samuel.

 
Illustrating Science: Translating Knowledge Into Pictures

Illustrating Science: Translating Knowledge Into Pictures

Allison Bruce has a wonderful job: she spends all day making pictures for scientists. Bruce started out in science herself, earning a chemistry degree from UC Davis. After college, she worked in an environmental lab, but she didn't enjoy it and turned to art classes "to keep from losing my mind," she says.

 
Creative Use of a Cancer Mutation May Improve Nylon Production

Creative Use of a Cancer Mutation May Improve Nylon Production

Chemists want to reengineer metabolic proteins and pathways in microbes so they can convert sugar into commodity chemicals. Now a mutant protein found in cancer cells provides clues to help scientists improve a protein that could help microbes create a precursor to nylon. In science, as in so much of life, inspiration can come from unusual places.

 
Science and the Flu: A Little Learning Is A Dangerous Thing

Science and the Flu: A Little Learning Is A Dangerous Thing

The first sniffles of flu season are upon us: a friend of mine was struck down, and couldn't join me in attending a science dialogue on Sunday night. This was darkly humorous, as the topic of the evening was pandemics.

 
California Wildlife Mural Celebrates Its Third Birthday

California Wildlife Mural Celebrates Its Third Birthday

In 2009, after West Valley College built its brand new biology building, a group of faculty stood in the natural history lab staring at a blank wall. "It's too empty," they agreed. "How about a mural?" suggested biology and genetics instructor Molly Schrey.

 
H2-Whoa: Computing With Water Instead of Electrons

H2-Whoa: Computing With Water Instead of Electrons

Superhydrophobic surfaces enable simple water-based data storage and logic.

 
Scientific Whimsy: The Magical Art of Tiffany Bozic

Scientific Whimsy: The Magical Art of Tiffany Bozic

Tiffany Bozic, the first Artist-in-Residence at the California Academy of Sciences, named her first child after a rare bird found in Southeast Asia: Tesia olivea.

 
Facebook and Frank Gehry: Will the New Building Be A Marriage of Sustainability?

Facebook and Frank Gehry: Will the New Building Be A Marriage of Sustainability?

Facebook hired Frank Gehry to design its new building. Why? If the 'book wanted a green building (and who'd dare to build in the Bay Area without "a big emphasis on being eco-friendly"?), Gehry is a less than obvious choice.

 
Starbucks' Food Waste Fuels Experimental Biorefinery

Starbucks' Food Waste Fuels Experimental Biorefinery

Most of our plastics come from petroleum-based chemicals. Now, thanks to engineered microbes, similar materials might be made using food waste from Starbucks.

 
Squid Skin: Why Pigment (But Not Glitter) Will Dance to the Beat

Squid Skin: Why Pigment (But Not Glitter) Will Dance to the Beat

Squid and their relatives–a group of animals known as cephalopods–have the world's best skin. And it's not because they moisturize, lack pimples, or tan without ever burning. It's because their skin is a canvas of endless possibilities.