Homegrown Particle Accelerators
QUEST journeys back to find out how physicists on the UC Berkeley campus in the 1930s, and at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center in the 1970s, created "atom smashers" that led to key discoveries about the tiny constituents of the atom and paved the way for the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland.
Video on Jul 27, 2010 by Gabriela Quirós from QUEST Northern California
Web Extra: Restoration of the San Joaquin River Slideshow
QUEST traveled along the San Joaquin River to produce our story on the restoration of more than 150 miles of the San Joaquin River, California's second-largest river. See behind-the-scenes photos in our narrated slideshow of the journey we took to document the historic comeback of the mighty San Joaquin.
Video on Jul 20, 2010 by Jon Fromer from QUEST Northern California
Restoration of the San Joaquin River
Flowing 330 miles from the Sierras to the delta, the San Joaquin River is California's second longest river. But since the construction of Friant Dam near Fresno in the 1940s, most of the San Joaquin's water has been siphoned off to farmland in the Central Valley. Now, after years of lawsuits, a new effort to restore the river is offering hope that fish and farmers can co-exist.
Video on Jul 20, 2010 by Jon Fromer from QUEST Northern California
Science on the SPOT: Science of Fog
San Francisco's fickle summer weather has earned it the nickname "Fog City." Science on the SPOT asks UC Berkeley's Todd Dawson to clear up the mysterious origins of this weather phenomenon, and share his research on how fog is integral to our state's ecology.
Video on Jul 20, 2010 by Jenny Oh from QUEST Northern California
Your Photos on QUEST: Ron Wolf
Think there's nothing new to see outside? Take a closer look. Photographer Ron Wolf leads us on a hunt for fungi and slime molds, with their surprisingly ornate and elegant patterns, at Rancho San Antonio Open Space Preserve in Los Altos.
Video on Jul 13, 2010 by Lindsay Kelliher from QUEST Northern California
Ants: The Invisible Majority
Most of us think ants are just pests. But not Brian Fisher. Known as "The Ant Guy," he's on a mission to show the world just how important and amazing these little creatures are and in the process, catalog all of the world's 30,000 ant species before they become casualties of habitat loss. But he can't do it without our help.
Video on Jul 13, 2010 by Amy Miller from QUEST Northern California
Science on the SPOT: Marine Sanctuary Patrol Flight
The Channel Islands, Monterey Bay, Gulf of the Farallones and Cordell Bank National Marine sanctuaries cover more than 9,500 square miles of ocean habitat. Patrolling such an immense area by boat would take days, but now sanctuary managers are taking to the air in a rugged de Havilland DHC-6 Twin Otter bush plane to get a bird's eye view.
Video on Jun 17, 2010 by Chris Bauer from QUEST Northern California
Web Extra: Exploring the Bay Lab
Join the Bay Lab field trip as fifth graders study the San Francisco Bay's mudflats and eelgrass beds with the help of seine nets, hip wader boots, microscopes, and mud core samplers.
Video on Jun 04, 2010 by Lauren Sommer from QUEST Northern California
Amazing Jellies
They are otherworldly creatures that glow in the dark, without brains or bones, some more than 100 feet long. And they live just off California's coast. Join two top marine biologists who have devoted their careers to unlocking the mysteries of jellyfish and alien-like siphonophores.
Video on May 25, 2010 by Gabriela Quirós from QUEST Northern California
Science on the SPOT: Skulls at the Cal Academy
In our second episode of Science on the SPOT, join us on a behind-the-scenes trip deep into the massive collection of marine mammal skulls at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco. You'd be surprised how much you can learn about an animal's life– and death– by reading their bones.
Video on May 19, 2010 by Craig Rosa from QUEST Northern California
Video on May 18, 2010 by Amy Miller from QUEST Northern California
Journey Into The Sun
Scientists at Stanford University and Lockheed Martin are playing pivotal roles in a nearly billion-dollar NASA mission to explore the sun. A spacecraft launched in early 2010 is obtaining IMAX-like images of the sun every second of the day, generating more data than any NASA mission in history.
Video on May 18, 2010 by Sheraz Sadiq from QUEST Northern California
Web Extra: Music of the Sun
In this QUEST web extra, Stanford University astrophysicist Todd Hoeksema explains how solar sound waves are a vital ingredient to the science of helioseismology, in which the interior properties of the sun are probed by analyzing and tracking the surface sound waves that bounce into and out of the Sun.
Video on May 18, 2010 by KQED QUEST staff from QUEST Northern California
Hepatitis C: The Silent Epidemic
Hepatitis C is a virus that causes cirrhosis of the liver and liver cancer. It's the leading cause for liver transplants in the U.S., and an estimated 4 million Americans have the disease. Current treatments are difficult to tolerate and are often ineffective, but recent breakthroughs from Bay Area scientists may soon produce a cure for the disease that claims more than 10,000 American lives each year.
Video on May 11, 2010 by Jon Fromer from QUEST Northern California
The Great Migration
For thousands of years and countless generations, migratory birds have flown the same long-distance paths between their breeding and feeding grounds. Understanding the routes these birds take, called "flyways," helps conservation efforts and gives scientists better knowledge of global changes, both natural and man-made. QUEST heads out to the Pacific Flyway with California biologists to track the rhythm of migration.
Video on May 05, 2010 by Chris Bauer from QUEST Northern California
QUEST Lab: Bridge Thermometer
The roadway across the Golden Gate Bridge rises and falls as much as 16 feet depending on the temperature. When the sun hits the bridge, the metal expands and the bridge cables stretch. As the fog rolls in, the cables contract and the bridge goes up. Curators from the Outdoor Exploratorium in San Francisco have set up a scope two miles away so you can see how the bridge is moving up or down depending on the weather.
Video on May 04, 2010 by Chris Bauer from QUEST Northern California
Cool Critters: Dwarf Cuttlefish
What's the coolest critter in the ocean under 4 inches long? The Dwarf Cuttlefish! These little guys can change their color and texture, and feeding time is a show like no other. Get an up-close look at these tiny underwater aliens as QUEST visits them at the California Academy of Sciences.
Video on Apr 27, 2010 by Chris Bauer from QUEST Northern California
Science of Taste
Did you know that about 95 percent of what we think is taste is actually smell? Or that the way we perceive flavor comes from a complex relationship between our senses, emotions and memories? As scientists decode how our taste and olfactory receptors work, top California chefs are taking that knowledge and creating alchemy in the kitchen.
Video on Apr 27, 2010 by Sarah Kass from QUEST Northern California
Web Extra: City Egg, Country Egg
Is there a difference in taste between eggs gathered right from the farm and ones bought at the supermarket? Sebastian Nava, Research Assistant at the Culinary Institute of America, Greystone, presents his ongoing study of store-bought eggs and their country cousins.
Video on Apr 26, 2010 by Jenny Oh from QUEST Northern California
Plastic in the Pacific
Imagine every person on earth had 100 pounds of plastic. That's how much new plastic will be manufactured in 2010. Sadly, much of that will end up in the ocean within a massive area dubbed the Pacific Garbage Patch. Can anything be done to clean it up?
Video on Apr 20, 2010 by Jon Fromer from QUEST Northern California
