Tag: "Science"

Discuss the "Plug-In Hybrid Cars" TV story

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 [...]

 
Discuss the "San Francisco Bay Debris" TV segment

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 [...]

 
Hubble Space Telescope Suffers a Major Setback

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 [...]

 
Discuss the "AB32: California's New Global Warming Law" Radio report

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 [...]

 
How is a butterfly like a polar bear?

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 [...]

 
Gorillas in the mist? Try elephant seals in the fog

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, [...]

 
The new Cal Academy building: laying down roots

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 [...]

 
Discuss the "NASA Ames Rocket to the Moon" TV segment

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 [...]

 
Discuss the "What's Killing the Sea Otters" TV segment

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, [...]

 

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 [...]

 
Me and Bio D

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 [...]

 
Rocks From Space

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 [...]

 

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 [...]