Tag: "QUEST"
Mammoths, Spears, and Marty Stouffer
Woolly MammothTwo years ago, the skeleton of a mammoth was discovered and excavated right near the San Jose airport. That may not change your world, but consider that when that mammoth was alive, there was no San Francisco Bay– global sea level was lower because of massive glaciers that covered the Northern Hemisphere. This time [...]
Post on Mar 01, 2007 by Nick Pyenson
Seafood choices? You, too, can use this cool tool
Last summer, while visiting family in Charlevoix, Michigan, I found myself with a crew of relatives at a stylish seafood restaurant on the lake. I was craving fresh seafood, so I pulled out my handy Seafood Watch Card (www.seafoodwatch.org) from the Monterey Bay Aquarium and prepared to order. "What’s that? What are you doing?" asked [...]
Post on Feb 28, 2007 by Amy Gotliffe from QUEST Northern California
Discuss the "Ladybug Pajama Party" TV story
Ladybug Ladybug Fly Away Home! Each year Ladybugs fly in by the millions to winter in the East Bay's Redwood Regional Park. We meet naturalist Linda Yemoto who explains this phenomenon. But how these beetles know where to go is still one of nature’s mysteries. Green Burials and California’s High Speed Rail (episode #104), which [...]
Post on Feb 27, 2007 by Chris Bauer
Discuss the "California's High Speed Rail" TV story
A little-known state agency is drawing up a plan to radically reshape California's transportation system by constructing a 700-mile long high-speed rail system that would send sleek bullet trains whizzing at speeds of up to 220 mph from San Francisco to Los Angeles within a decade. The $37 billion idea is to stay ahead of [...]
Post on Feb 27, 2007 by Chris Bauer
Discuss the "Green Burials" TV story
Concerned about toxic embalming fluid, caskets made of rainforest hardwood, and bodies encased in vaults that never decompose, a small but growing number of undertakers is driving a new movement: green burials. We visit cemeteries in Marin and Sebastopol offering green burials, in which bodies are laid to rest in a simple pine casket or [...]
Post on Feb 27, 2007 by Gabriela Quirós
My Very Eager Mother Just Served Us Nachos
Whenever I talk about my astronomy research, I realize that for most people, the fascination begins with star-gazing. I can't say that I know much about the constellations (I do recognize the Big Dipper and Orion, and that’s about it) but it is a constant reminder of how little most people know what they are [...]
Post on Feb 26, 2007 by Kyle S. Dawson
The Home Planet
I've had all seven sacraments of the Catholic Church. I almost died when I was a baby and had the Last Rites before its name was changed to the Sacrament of the Sick. I was baptized, made my first confession when I was in second grade and during the rest of elementary school at St. [...]
Post on Feb 23, 2007 by Jim Gunshinan
Discuss the "Investing in Clean Tech" radio report
Silicon Valley investors are betting that clean power is the Valley's next boom. With solar and other alternative energy industries evolving into big business, how are the faces of the environmental movement changing? You may listen the “Investing in Clean Tech” Radio report online. Amy Standen is a Reporter for QUEST and Radio News at [...]
Post on Feb 23, 2007 by Amy Standen
Zen and the Art of Mud Snail Eradication
Recently there's been much in the news about the quagga mussel, a native of the Ukraine that, with its cousin the zebra mussel, has wreaked havoc in the Great Lakes and has now been found in Lake Havasu. Experts fear the mussels could find their way into the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta– part of what is [...]
Post on Feb 22, 2007 by Ann Dickinson
Albany Bulb – A different kind of wilderness
I remember the first time I saw the "Sniff" paintings at the Albany Bulb. They were on sheets of plywood. Each was painted with surrealistic scenes such as drunken wolves driving hot rods and debauchery in the land of the dead. Each was signed by the mysterious art collective "Sniff." At least 15 of them [...]
Post on Feb 21, 2007 by Donovan Rittenbach
Discuss the "San Francisco Conservatory of Flowers" TV story
Take stroll through San Francisco's Conservatory of Flowers with Executive Director Dr. John Peterson and learn about the building's Victorian history and rare collection of exotic Dracula orchids. Condors vs. Lead Bullets and Genetic Testing (episode #103), which includes this short story, airs tonight on QUEST at 7:30pm on KQED 9, and KQED HD, Comcast [...]
Post on Feb 20, 2007 by Chris Bauer
Discuss the "Genetic testing through the Web" TV story
As more and more information on our genes has become available in the past 10 years, genetic testing has joined the arsenal of tools routinely used by health professionals. Today a San Francisco company called DNA Direct is bringing genetic testing directly to consumers. Tests to diagnose your risk of developing diseases such as breast [...]
Post on Feb 20, 2007 by Gabriela Quirós
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
