KQED Science News: Recent Episodes
KQED
KQED Science is the largest multimedia science and environment journalism and education unit in Northern California. KQED Science explores science and environment news, trends and events from the San Francisco Bay Area and beyond with its award-winning, multimedia reporting on television, radio and the Web. KQED Science also produces educator resources and actively engages in community outreach around science and environment issues.
As Americans light sparkers for the Fourth of July holiday, NASA celebrates two decades of Mars exploration.
Last year's never-ending winter will allow two California ski resorts to stay open through the holiday weekend.
It's a bit of a drive, but not that far to go, if you want to see the total eclipse in August.
California's biggest reservoir is the one you can't see -- and it's far from overflowing.
In state's polluted San Joaquin Valley, an air pollution control officer is under fire for allying with members of Congress who want to weaken the Clean Air Act.
Suicides in medical schools, as well as studies showing an alarming number of medical students consider ending their lives, have prompted schools and residency programs to provide more support for mental health.
State lawmakers and local officials want better answers before Oroville's disintegrated spillways are rebuilt.
An increasing number of professional athletes are stimulating their brains electrically to gain a competitive edge.
In his new book, Bay Area environmentalist Paul Hawken describes 100 ways to slow or even reverse climate change.
More and more people are opting for 'nonbinary' gender identities as they reject the concept of gender as only male or female.
A teenaged girl turned to internet videos to be like the cool kids. Here's the story of what went wrong.
Amidst the Sierra's jumbled geology, a leading expert says Oroville's spillways were not built on the most solid rock.
Green car expert Ron Cogan says automakers can meet tough new fuel economy standards by 2025 if their feet are held to the fire.
A new approach to flood control favors restoring natural floodplains along rivers whose aging levees are failing.
The California Coastal Commission's new Executive Director pledges to protect the state's coastline even as President Trump vows to rollback environmental regulations.
SETI Astronomer Seth Shostak says privatized space tourism, like SpaceX's moonshot for millionaires, will bring the price of space travel down for everyone.
Mushrooms foragers are harvesting buckets of fungi from wet forests, but its not just wild mushroom that are on the rise. Demand for commercial mushrooms is also skyrocketing.
California fishermen and marine biologists are working to revive the coast's disappearing kelp forest.
Sunnyvale resident Mark Chung came home from vacation to a huge energy bill. Figuring out what happened gave him an idea for combating climate change.
A clinical psychiatrist has studied the biographies of many mentally unstable musical legends to better understand how music can help heal the mind.
Why do nearly half of Americans still doubt the science? Researchers who study the question weigh in on the underlying fears and perceptions.
The state water board considers setting a limit for a dangerous chemical affecting drinking water across California.
With no background in science, these parents were able to identify the gene causing their childrens' rare disease.
Attach a thermal imaging camera to a drone and you have a powerful fire-fighting tool that can save precious minutes.
Trump's campaign rhetoric cast a dark cloud over solar and wind development -- but market forces and state commitments could maintain momentum for renewable energy.
Medical professionals and students are working to improve Wikipedia entries on health and medicine in hopes of providing more reliable information to the public.
Bernie Krause is widely known for his seminal work in the emerging field of natural soundscape ecology -- but he was also a pioneer in the music form we've come to call electronica.
Fires aren't all bad. Some fires help forests become healthier, but scientists say they're sorely lacking in California.
Even after six years of drought, tapping the sea for drinking water is proving to be a tough sell. Cost is a major obstacle.
Daniel Au Valencia had always gotten the message she talked wrong, stood wrong, looked at people wrong. So she signed up for an experimental trial on the efficacy of MDMA on social anxiety.
UCSF neuroscientist Adam Gazzaley says our brains can't multitask, and when we try to force them to, we lose focus.
California's stem cell agency is funding a clinical trial of a technology that relies on a patient's own stem cells to work effectively.
Self-driving cars are close enough to reality that federal regulators are sketching out policies for them, in areas from cyber-security to ethics.
Millions of women are suffering from a disease that poses as obesity. Most patients don’t know they have it, and doctors haven’t heard of it. Plus, dieting doesn’t work because the patients have abnormal fat cells that never go away.
Many primary care physicians have had enough of the traditional health care system, so they've broken away to create their own practices, where they don't take insurance and charge a monthly fee.
A deadly fungus is devastating frogs, but California scientists are trying out an experimental treatment against it.
Algae toxins have spread beyond urban waterways to pristine mountain lakes and alpine streams.
As the National Parks Service celebrates its 100th year, we look at challenges facing the parks over the next century.
Joshua trees could largely vanish in the national park that bears their name, but park officials are trying to save them.
Controversy swirls as hearings begin on the governor's legacy water project -- but this time voters are not likely to get a say.
There is some evidence showing unorthodox treatments like diets and supplements help, but the science is thin.
Consultant's analysis finds plan to ship coal represents significant health and environmental hazard.
Rains may delay fire season a bit, but after years of unprecedented drought, California forests are dense with dead trees.
And how "geographical engineering" with atomic explosives almost became a thing. What could go wrong?
UCSF scientists are on a mission to understand why black kids suffer from asthma much worse than white kids.
Automakers plan to roll out more electric cars in the next few years. But will there be enough stations to charge them up?
A bill now in Congress would require the federal government to investigate the chemicals in personal care products for the first time ever.
The measure would establish a $12 annual parcel tax to restore tidal marshes and help defend against sea level rise.
A small but persistent movement to bring the grizzly back to California is about to take it to the next level.
Many people with the rare blood disorder hemophilia never expected to be alive today. But many are now facing retirement thanks to improved treatment.
It'll be the largest battery factory on the planet and Tesla is betting it'll be revolutionary.
On sunny spring days, California's solar plants sometimes have to shut down because there's more energy on the grid than we need. But some innovators have better ideas.
California is adding solar and wind power at record levels. So it might seem odd that on some days, the state has to tell big solar farms to turn off.
Northern California's winter rains weren't enough to end the drought, but it's the most precipitation we’ve had in five years.
Californians have only gotten Zika traveling abroad, say public health officials, but there's plenty else to know about prevention.
While many stormwater capture projects remain on the drawing board, some residents aren't waiting around.
The state water board considers setting a maximum contaminant level for drinking water that contains a dangerous chemical affecting drinking water across California.
Advanced weather models could remove some the guesswork and leave more water behind dams.
The Sierra Nevada snowpack is crucial to the state’s water supply, and warmer winters are putting it at risk.
Many conditions affect whether a landslide happens, but the most significant risk factor is heavy rain on saturated ground.
State officials aren't giving up on the idea of snatching carbon emissions and stashing them underground, but investors and utilities might be.
After heavy rain, the Sierra snowpack is finally above average and reservoirs are gaining water, so when will the drought be over?
Scientists are deploying new tools to measure how noise affects a wide array of ocean denizens, from whales to snapping shrimp.
The low water in Millerton Lake, northeast of Fresno, reveals ancient geology that may help scientists solve mysteries of the Sierra.
For decades, California utilities have logged, but not repaired, thousands of pinprick leaks in pipelines criss-crossing the state.
This winter, solar companies and utilities are headed for a showdown. The question is, should homeowners who have rooftop solar pay more to help maintain the power grid?
Thirty years since the AIDS epidemic broke out, we're closer than ever to finding a cure. And Bay Area scientists are getting $20 million to help find it.
Scientists take to the air to find out more about atmospheric rivers, the rich plumes of Pacific moisture that feed California's winter storms.
World leaders will be hashing out a climate change agreement in Paris, but Governor Brown is showing up with one in hand.
A San Francisco biotech startup wants to make synthetic shark fin soup out of microbes.
A passel of state lawmakers spent the last couple of weeks Down Under, asking what drought measures could work here.
Earth bacteria are hardy little creatures. Could they hitch a ride to Mars and colonize a new planet?
Drowned by a big dam project decades ago, a legendary stretch of the Stanislaus is back -- and so is the man who was willing to forfeit his life to save it.
If El Niño brings heavy wind and rain, California's dead and dying trees could topple, threatening homes and people.
Some water districts are using maintenance funds to keep operating, but there is a better way.
As California looks to ramp up renewables like wind, concerns are mounting for federally protected eagles.
DNA testing, the same tech used in human health, could change the way biologists study the ocean.
In the year since the deadly South Napa earthquake, geologists have been digging in - sometimes literally - trying to better understand the puzzling West Napa fault zone.
Scientists are studying the cause of a toxic algae bloom that stretches from the California coast to Alaska.
One climate scientist postulates that the high pressure behind freakishly warm northern waters could put a flow restrictor on El Niño.
The Food and Drug Administration last Friday advised U.S. medical facilities to stop using a pump that has cyber security flaws.
For millennia, plants have made fuel out of sunlight and carbon dioxide. But it's not so easy to do in the lab.
A meteorite killed the dinosaurs. Or was it volcanism? U.C. Berkeley scientists say the two were connected.
Will NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft find icy volcanoes or rivers of neon? Here’s a last image from New Horizons before it makes its closest contact, early Tuesday morning.
Farmers are turning to a new drought-proof water supply--tapping what goes down the drain in nearby cities.
Ashy black powders blow from open coal cars and pile on the Richmond dock, and no regulation prohibits it.
Researchers are seeking a treatment a bit less yucky, and more targeted, than the live bacteria in poop.
Fog and clouds are vital in keeping coastal temperatures down. But that benefit could be disappearing.
Starting today, the meter is running for cities trying to meet the governor’s strict new water conservation targets. Some businesses are drying up, while others are cashing in on the drought.
Women in science say the problem doesn't stem from women making choices between career and family -- it's plain, old-fashioned sex discrimination.
Water rights in California are based on who got there first. It’s as if you had to line up with all your coworkers to get a cup of coffee at work, and maybe the pot’s empty when the new guy gets to the front. Some are asking, in a drought like the one we’ve been having, is that really fair?
The state-mandated water conservation "tiers" assigned to local water agencies don't tell the whole story. Some cities are already there, some have a lot more work to do.
New drought restrictions are prompting cemetery managers to look at the water they use to keep lawns green. Some worry that for family members who visit this summer, parched grass might feel like insult on top of loss.
NASA's top scientist says she thinks evidence of life beyond Earth will turn up in the next couple of decades. Why so optimistic? Scientists have been discovering liquid water all around the solar system, and even though life on other planets might look different than it does here on Earth, scientists bet liquid water will be essential.
After four years of nowhere near enough rain, Californians are wondering where else to look for water, and many are talking about the ocean -- desalination. The problem is, it’s really expensive to turn salt water into drinking water. And it’s hard to do it in a way that’s friendly to sea life. But a group of mayors around Monterey Bay say they don't have any other options.
The State Water Resources Control Board is California's top arbiter of water supply conflicts. Lately it's been caught in a tug of war between those who would have it tread lightly with local water agencies and those calling for aggressive statewide rationing.
There's buried treasure here for tsunami hunters, but scarce funding may mean Hawaii remains vulnerable.
Engineers are betting they can ease a notoriously congested stretch of freeway in the East Bay. But only time will tell how "smart" the I-80 SMART Corridor can be.
Despite initial objections, most national monuments have withstood the test of time. We get some perspective from a leading authority on public lands law.
Even the best prosthetics today lack a natural sense that tells the brain where the body is in space. That makes it hard to comb the back of your hair, for example, or thread a belt.
Scientists hope a stubborn high-pressure bubble over the West Coast isn't a replay of the last two winters.
A microscopic pathogen got into the roots of some native plants at a restoration project in Alameda County, despite massive efforts to prevent it. Now officials are hoping to stop this microbe before it spreads.
Faced with a new Republican-led Congress, supporters of special protections for the area are taking their case to the president, urging him to create a new national monument. But there are no guarantees there, either.
In the annals of medical research, you won’t find many studies on the common hangover. But one intrepid Bay Area scientist has taken on the topic -- and even has an inexpensive remedy you probably haven't heard about.
Humans have been sending messages into outer space for decades, hoping some intelligent extra-terrestrial might come upon them. Now, for the first time in history, we have addresses. So, what should we say?
Here’s the thing: Water rights in California are based on who got there first. It’s as if you had to line up with all your coworkers to get a cup of coffee at work, and maybe the pot’s empty when the new guy gets to the front. Some are asking, in a drought like the one we’ve been having, is that really fair?
California homeowners are replacing Kentucky bluegrass with native species and other water-friendly options to try and cut back on outdoor watering. Depending on what replacement residents choose, water districts may offer a cash reward for tearing out that thirsty lawn.
Solar companies in California have long been able to tell homeowners they can save a lot of money on power bills by going solar. Now PG&E is proposing a rate change the company says will be more fair for everyone. But solar companies say it’s simply an attack on their industry.
Scientists say it’s possible California’s drought may last a lot longer than a few years. No one knows for sure, but we could all simply have to adjust to a drier climate. That could mean changing the way we build cities to make them more porous. The 'Hydramax,' a futuristic design, rises with the tide and captures water from the air.
Birds, salmon and snakes depend on marshes and rivers for survival and migration, and to propagate the species. But many wildlife species are unable to find the water they need as the drought shrinks rivers and dries up wetlands.
The last of the Coast Guard's big icebreakers departs San Francisco Bay this week, a rare sight on the Bay and a reminder that the U.S. is falling behind in the race for polar dominance -- and knowledge.
A California woman recently became the first person in the West to receive a new type of bionic eye, an implant that will help her see for the first time in nearly three decades.
Scientists in California's Central Valley are testing the nutrient content of fruits grown with less-than-normal amounts of water. And the findings so far are raising a question: will consumers buy fruits that are just as nutritional, or sometimes higher in antioxidants, if they aren't as pretty?
Bay Area taxpayers have spent billions of dollars over the last quarter-century to make our bridges, water pipes and power supplies safer in an earthquake. Experts say that means the Bay Area is much better off now. At the same time, the work is far from over.
Wearables and health apps made a multi-billion-dollar industry out of healthy peoples' desires to count calories and rack up steps. Now can this technology make the transition to a medical setting, to help people with chronic illnesses?
Used to be that medical researchers came up with a theory, recruited subjects, and gathered data, sometimes for years. Now, the answers are already there in data collections on the cloud. All researchers need is the right question.
The South Napa Earthquake revealed how much we've yet to learn about seismic faults in the Napa Valley.
California water districts are eyeing a potential new source of water: trees. After a century of fire suppression, Sierra Nevada forests are more dense than ever before. And those pine trees are taking up a lot of water that might otherwise run off into California rivers.
Scientists at UC Davis are scouring the globe to find new viruses that can jump from animals to humans. Their goal is to prevent the next pandemic.
The peculiar set of ocean conditions is known as a California rainmaker -- but El Ni¤o's reputation has been greatly exaggerated.
People who hear auditory hallucinations say the voices can be quiet or cacophonous, singular or crowd-like, but they are almost always harsh and disapproving.
For two generations, psychiatrists have treated schizophrenia by medicating its most obvious symptoms: delusions and hallucinations. Were they wrong?
A psychotic break can lead to social isolation, hospitalization or medications with sometimes disabling side effects. Now some clinics are taking a controversial approach and trying to intervene earlier.
The state can't set speed limits on trains. It can't tell railroads to choose less hazardous routes. It can't tell oil companies not to bring trains carrying volatile crude through cities.
Activists are hoping local residents will do what state legislators haven’t done -- shut down the controversial oil production technique known as hydraulic fracturing.
Marbled murrelets are rare seabirds that lay just one egg a year, and those eggs are a favorite food item for another bird: Steller’s jays. Scientists are hoping to trick the jays into avoiding the murrelet eggs using decoy eggs with a rude surprise inside.
Australia's nine-year "millennial drought" transformed attitudes toward water. Could California duplicate the gains without the pain?
Fights are breaking out over controversial water sales. Some farmers say they need the water to keep trees alive, while others say groundwater pumping depletes supplies for neighboring farms, and could threaten California's already-stressed aquifers.
Mountain meadows that would normally be covered with wildflowers have nothing to offer the bees this year, as the flowers lie dormant in the drought. Beekeepers are looking at drastically reduced production, and in some cases are just trying to keep their bees alive.
Hospitals use saline for everything from wound care to surgeries, but it could be next year before drug companies can catch up with demand. Turns out, it's not as simple to manufacture salty water as you might think.
The unrestrained race to drill new wells could put California's biggest water source in jeopardy.
More than a quarter-million veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have been treated for post-traumatic stress disorder, but younger vets aren't the only ones dealing with it. Even today, veterans from conflicts as far back as World War II struggle with symptoms.
Seasonal firefighters started training months earlier than usual this year. It may seem like common sense that it's dry out there, but there is a science to knowing how dry, and to knowing when the threat of wildfire is at its worst.
San Francisco's California Academy of Sciences opens a skull exhibit this week, featuring the work of Ray Bandar, a man who has devoted 60 years to cleaning the skulls and bones of some of California's most beloved animals.
Personal genetics companies that offer health insights are working to satisfy federal regulators and keep up with changing science.
With California deep in a drought, communities are cracking down on water wasters, right? Demanding that residents take shorter showers and stop watering their lawns? Not exactly.
Farmers are looking to the sky for the latest water-saving tool. But will aviation authorities allow it?
Chevron is looking to launch a billion-dollar construction project at its Richmond refinery. It’s a slimmed down version of a project that environmentalists stopped with a lawsuit a few years ago.
As water supplies tighten for California farmers, some are looking to an unlikely new source: a water recycling project in one of the state's oldest oil fields.
The drought is putting a spotlight on water use around California, including for hydraulic fracturing. How much water does fracking use and will it increase as companies tap into the Monterey Shale, estimated to be the largest oil resource in country?
Getting sick in space is no picnic. So scientists are sending bugs to the International Space Station, hoping to better predict some of the physical challenges that may befall astronauts when NASA eventually sends the first human mission to Mars.
Earlier this year, managers at a hatchery near Vancouver, Canada said they lost three years' worth of scallops -- 10 million animals -- to acidic waters. Ocean acidification is worse off the West Coast than anywhere else in North America.
Scientists are finding that dust storms in Asia and Africa influence how much snow falls in the Sierra Nevada. The research could help make weather forecasting more accurate and improve how California manages its water supply.
While scientists study whether "electroceuticals" might treat depression or chronic pain, among other ailments, DIY "brain hackers" (including this reporter) are trying it out on themselves.
Just as salmon are being returned to the San Joaquin River, the extreme drought is bringing political heat to one of the most ambitious environmental restoration efforts in the state.
The East Bay city of Pittsburg is considering a new oil terminal to supply crude to Bay Area refineries, but some locals are concerned about the safety of the project.
Some are calling for bottle deposits on wine and liquor bottles to solve the deficit in the state’s recycling fund, but the industry says its recycling rates are already high.
As California's drought gets worse, farmers and conservationists are teaming up to create temporary wetlands for birds migrating on the Pacific Flyway.
David Perlman, the San Francisco Chronicle's science editor has been on the job for more than a half-century. He covered the launch of the space age and the unfolding of the computer age, and his career has spanned Pluto's entire life as a planet, from its discovery in 1930 to its demotion to sub-planet.
A small beach in Half Moon Bay has become ground zero for a drawn-out legal battle between locals and one Silicon Valley billionaire who would like to keep the public out.
There’s no doubt about it – it’s dry out there. 2013 ended as the driest year ever recorded in many parts of California. So water managers are trying to squeeze out every last drop with an old technology: cloud seeding.
Despite its deserved reputation for climate leadership, California will have to hustle to make its own long-range emissions goals.
49ers fans may miss the cold weather at Candlestick Park, but can look forward to solar panels, bicycle parking and grass watered with recycled water. Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara is being touted as the greenest stadium in the NFL.
Governor Jerry Brown's Bay Delta Conservation Plan is now open for public comment. State officials say the water supply for 25 million Californians from the Bay Area to San Diego is at stake, as is the health of the largest estuary on the West Coast. But before it can move forward, the project needs money and buy-in from wary water district managers and skeptical federal regulators.
San Mateo County faces up to its high-water future--and get some tips from one of climate adaptation's go-to guys.
Comet ISON may not have survived its close brush with the Sun, but astronomers are still going to "study the heck out of it," says Foothill College astronomy professor Andrew Fraknoi.
After the massive destruction of the 1971 Sylmar earthquake, state lawmakers passed a law to prevent new buildings from being developed on top of active earthquake faults. But that requires knowing where they are. Mapping earthquake faults is both time-consuming and costly, and the state has a long way to go.
People who fight and study fire generally agree that one of the best tools for preventing massive wildfires is prescribed burning: intentionally setting smaller fires before the big ones hit. But there are major challenges to fighting fire with fire.
The crisis of post-traumatic stress disorder -- both for newly returned vets and Vietnam vets who have lived with PTSD for decades -- is forcing the US military to explore some unorthodox treatments, including "compassion meditation."
The global battery race is on and Silicon Valley - and the rest of the Bay Area - are in it to win.
In recent years EEGs, devices that measure brain waves, have gotten easier to use and much less expensive. They used to be mainly for scientific and medical research, but now developers are coming up with ways to harness them for fun.
Drivers hit thousands of animals every year on California freeways, often killing the wildlife, and sometimes killing or injuring the human, too. Several western states have built fencing and other infrastructure to help wildlife cross freeways safely, and critics say California could be doing a lot more of the same.
The NIH has launched a five-year, $25 million dollar effort to explore what may be one of the great ethical dilemmas of the 21st century: Just because we can do genetic testing on infants, should we?
The city of Watsonville has an expensive problem on its hands: toxic algae stirred up from the bottom of Pinto Lake makes the lake poisonous to humans and deadly to birds, fish, and even the otters in Monterey Bay, where the lake water eventually empties into the sea. Knowing how to clean it is one thing; paying for it is another.
The Rim Fire is calling attention to a big problem: California’s forests are overloaded with fuel after a century of putting out fires. There’s a new push to use that fuel to make renewable energy, but it's sparked a heated debate.
It's common sense: If you want to study the brain, open it up and take a look. That's not an opportunity scientists often get. One rare exception: patients with severe epilepsy, who volunteer their time as research subjects in the course of their treatment.
Scientists are finding that in the not-too-distant past, forest fires were much larger than they are today, and forests burned more often. The difference is that the forests bounced back much more readily.
By the end of the century, the Bay Area's landscape could look more like Southern California's, raising tough questions for land managers trying to preserve parks and open space.
Fertility apps are the newest high-tech trend in helping people conceive. There are dozens of apps on the market that help women find their fertility window. One high-profile app is going a step further, and asking some very personal questions.
In California, polling shows that most people think climate change is already having an effect. But scientists are concerned that politicians are not acting fast enough. Now a UC Berkeley professor is urging other scientists to speak out.
Shasta Lake is the largest reservoir in California, and government officials are completing plans to make it even larger by raising the height of the dam. But the expansion has sparked intense debates among local residents, Central Valley farmers, environmentalists, tribal groups and developers.
Valero wants to start using trains to bring crude oil to its Bay Area refinery. But the project is raising concerns about congestion, safety and air pollution in the East Bay city of Benicia – and the connection it may have to Canada’s controversial tar sands.
In some alcoholics, the act of overriding one's better judgment to have another drink can be traced to a specific network in the brain. The question is, can you make it do something else?
When you're cooking dinner, the air inside your kitchen can sometimes be just as harmful as smog. Range hoods are designed to capture cooking fumes, but even some expensive models aren’t very effective. Researchers are trying to fix that.
Though engineers can purify sewage water to make it cleaner than what’s coming out of your tap, there's a bigger challenge: convincing people to drink it.
After controversy over a threatened species delayed several large solar projects, state officials are trying to broker an agreement between conservation groups and solar companies on a path forward for renewable energy.
Proposition 65 is enforced by, among others, a small and little-known subculture of "private enforcers," and their attorneys who profit from settlements with businesses found to be in violation of the law. Critics call it a "cottage industry;" others say it's an efficient way to protect consumers from toxic chemicals.
Proposition 65 was passed by voters in order to reduce Californian's exposure to toxic chemicals. Now there's an effort in Sacramento to revise the law, amid charges that it's prompted a flood of frivolous lawsuits that make millions of dollars for a select few and cause undue headaches for thousands of California businesses.
A proposal to cut 100,000 eucalyptus trees or more has stirred up controversy, and now, a long-running battle over the plan is coming to a head.
Lead poisoning is a major obstacle to recovery for the endangered California condor, but a bill to address the problem has gun owners up in arms.
Drone enthusiasts in Silicon Valley are going beyond military and spy applications, exploring new uses for science and the environment.
Currently, doctors have almost no physical tests for mental illness, which cost the country more than 300-billion dollars a year. It’s a problem Bay Area researchers are working to solve.
Earlier this year, geologists in Yosemite Park came to the sad conclusion that one of California's iconic glaciers, the Lyell, had ground to a halt, having lost too much mass to sustain its downward movement. Knowing that California's approximately 130 glaciers will not be around forever, Tim Palmer spent a summer on a personal quest to climb and photograph as many of these frozen giants as he could manage.
Solar power is booming in California. The state is home to more than half of all rooftop solar projects in the country. Trouble is, as more Californians generate their own power, it poses a threat to the state's big utilities. KQED Science reporter Lauren Sommer tells us how the electric companies are planning to insulate themselves from "solar shock" and yes, it could show up on your bill.
Snow runoff from the Sierra Nevada provides about a third of the state's water supply. Current estimates of how much water is in the mountains combine patchy measurements with a kind of sophisticated guesswork. But that may be about to change with new technology that's currently being tested.
Now that scientists are starting to get a handle on what kinds of microbes live in the human body and, roughly, how those populations differ from one individual to another, a key question will be whether there is such a thing as an “ideal” microbiome.
Just north of the Bay Area is a vast and varied expanse of land and water that could be in line for new federal protections. The proposed Berryessa-Snow Mountain National Conservation Area would link wilderness zones and other lands in five counties. But it’s been a tough sell in some parts.
Obama's BRAIN Initiative directs $100 million in public money toward basic brain research. But what's the goal?
As the whale migration season reaches its peak, new concerns arise over naval training exercises off the California coast.
A new approach to small-scale water "banking" could relieve stress on both the water supply and levees in California's San Joaquin Valley.
The Exploratorium, a San Francisco icon, will soon reopen as a stunning, new, energy efficient building on the city's Embarcadero.
San Jose is trying to lead the country in clean tech innovation. So how is the city doing?
They're out there... lurking in Earth's magnetic fields and damaging any satellite in their path.
The scientist dubbed "Dr. Doom" for his dire pronouncements about California's Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta is retiring after 33 years working on the troubled ecosystem that's central to California's water supply.
Not that long ago California’s herring population came perilously close to collapse. While their numbers are increasing, herring in the Bay are still struggling to return to their once prolific numbers.
For the first time in the Sierra Club's 120-year history, its national head was arrested for an act of civil disobedience. It signals a new, more aggressive stance for the organization spawned by John Muir.
They may sound like faulty plumbing, but male northern elephant seals have a unique communication system that's all about reputation.
Under a strategy known as "managed retreat," San Francisco gets ready to let the ocean reclaim a cherished stretch of Pacific coastline.
In November, California voters overwhelmingly passed Proposition 39, closing a corporate tax loophole and using the savings to create the largest state energy efficiency initiative in the country. Now the debate over how to use the money begins.
It's not the frenzy of 1849, but gold mining is quietly making a comeback in California. While some communities are concerned about the environmental costs, others see the chance for a "greener" gold rush.
Hydropower provides a good chunk of California's electricity. It relies on a balance of heavy snow in the winter and heavy runoff in the spring. Climate change threatens to throw that balance out of whack, a problem the government isn't examining.
It's no secret that concussions are endemic in American football at every level, from peewees to the pros, but little is known about the hits that cause them. Stanford University is searching for answers.
One of the giants of climate science talks about extreme weather...and trashes California's plan to cut emissions.
The controversial drilling technique known as hydraulic fracturing has created an oil and gas boom around the country – and that’s left state governments grappling with how to regulate it. Now, California is wading into that fight.
The new oil-and-gas boom that’s sweeping the country may be coming to California. With it comes the controversy over the drilling technique known as hydraulic fracturing – or fracking.
KQED Science explores the growing pains of building an electric car charging network and the fledgling new industry rising up to meet the challenge.
Chevron's Aug. 6 fire re-ignited questions many Richmond residents have asked for years. What does it mean to live next to the largest refinery on the West Coast? What are people living in the city breathing?
This week, California rolls out the heavy artillery in its attack on climate change with a program called “cap-and-trade.” It’s like a stock exchange for carbon emissions, where the state’s biggest polluters have to buy the right to emit greenhouse gases. It’s the most ambitious climate change policy in the country, but not everyone is happy with it.
Federal officials have put trade tariffs on Chinese solar panels. American solar companies are split on whether it will be good or bad for the industry.
The National Ignition Facility in Livermore, California, has been called a modern-day moon-shot, a project of "revolutionary science," and "the mother of all boondoggles." NIF, as it's known, is a five-billion dollar, taxpayer-funded super laser project whose goal is to create nuclear fusion – a tiny star – inside a laboratory. But so far, that hasn't happened.
Green building and sustainable design are a trend in California, but nowhere is the urgency greater than in China, where hundreds of millions of people are moving to cities in pursuit of a better life.
The crisis of mental disorders such as PTSD has forced the military to rediscover therapies that would have considered from-the-fringes a generation ago.
One of California's oldest environmental battles is on the San Francisco ballot. Hetch Hetchy Valley in Yosemite National Park holds most of San Francisco's water supply. But some environmental groups want to turn back the clock.
A group of West Oakland students treks up to the Sierra to try to help a small mammal that may be threatened by climate change.
For years, farms and cities have pumped water out to meet their needs. But now, as water supplies dwindle, there’s a major movement afoot to put some water back.
Scientists say the waters off the West Coast could be hit hard by ocean acidification, but thanks to the natural conditions, it's a good place to study how ocean species might adapt.
California's warming climate is having a big impact on farmers. Find out more from our multimedia series, "Heat and Harvest."
Nail biting-- like skin picking and hair tending-- stems from an evolutionarily adaptive behavior: grooming. But in "pathological groomers," as they're known in in the world of psychiatry, that healthy urge goes haywire.
Proposition 37 could make California the first state in the country to require "Made with GMO" labels on genetically-engineered foods. But would the labels inform people? Or scare them?
California is considering rules that would allow self-driving cars on the road, but making rules for robots is no simple task.
Many tomatoes have been bred to travel well and look appealing, but now researchers are focusing on making them more nutritious and better tasting.
Car companies and Silicon Valley tech companies pair up to make smarter cars. But what happens when the internet makes its way into our dashboards?
NASA's Curiosity lander has ended its 352 million-mile journey, landing safely on the surface of Mars. For scientists at NASA Ames in Moffet Field, the work is just beginning.
The legislature is considering a bill that would ban the use of hounds in both bear and bobcat hunting in the state.
More than 34 million people live with HIV/AIDS worldwide but only one person may have been cured of the virus. We look at promising, genetic research that is aimed at replicating this apparent cure.
Under a microscope many cancer cells look the same. And since cell lines used in cancer research are anonymous, often shared informally between labs, the only way to definitively know where they came from is with DNA. But many scientists don't do this.
NASA's newest space telescope, NuStar, will soon begin its hunt for black holes. Scientists are hoping to learn more about how they grow and why they're such messy eaters.
Ocean technology has come a long ways since the submersible Alvin made its first dive in 1964. Increasingly, scientists rely on robots, rather than manned subs like Alvin, to explore the earth's depths. But can remote-control exploration capture the thrill of science?
Meet "robo-squirrel." New technology in the emerging field of bio-robotics is helping biologists learn more about animal behavior.
This week we're back in Silicon Valley, with a program called NewME, or New Media Entrepreneurship. It's designed to encourage women and minorities to found technology companies. Seven participants from around the country shared a house in San Francisco for three months, got coached on their business plans and attempted to perfect the art of the pitch.
If you look around Silicon Valley, ideas all seem to be coming from the same kind of people. By a recent estimate, one percent of technology entrepreneurs were African American. Only eight percent of companies were founded by women. One program aims to change this by encouraging more women and minorities to launch companies.
California's Delta has a rich agricultural legacy, but farming there can be a risky business. Dozens of farms have been flooded over the past half century as aging levees have collapsed. Now, scientists are encouraging farmers to switch to a new crop. Instead of growing vegetables, they’d grow something that has all but disappeared in the Delta: wetlands.
California's Delta is a far cry from what it once was. About 97% of its historic marshes have been lost and scientists aren’t quite sure what the Delta once looked like. Now, a Bay Area group is working to reconstruct it through historical detective work.
The Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta has been the subject of a decades-long water war, but most Californians have never heard of it. Can the state break the water deadlock?
This year marks the 75th anniversary of an icon. When it opened in 1937, the Golden Gate Bridge was the longest suspension bridge ever built, constructed in one of the world’s most challenging settings. For the men who poured the concrete, and drove in each iron rivet, it was a life changing experience.
Planet hunters enter a new phase in their search for extra solar planets and alien life.
To comply with California law, furniture makers treat the foam in cushions with flame-retardant chemicals, up to two pounds of chemicals in an average-sized sofa. Those chemicals can turn up in household dust, blood, and breast milk. But efforts to remove them have been blocked by the chemical industry.
Lightkeeper Peter Berkhout takes QUEST radio reporter Craig Miller to see a genuine rarity: one of perhaps two or three remaining vintage foghorns anywhere in the U.S. that’s still in working order.
Biologists say more than 800,000 Sacramento Chinook are off the coast right now. It’s the biggest number they've seen since 2005.
Did you know the federal government has a clean tech venture fund? It's called ARPA-E, and QUEST talks with the head of the program about some potentially transformational energy ideas.
Just one year after the disaster in Japan, proposed budget cuts could impact the US tsunami warning program.
OR7, the lone gray wolf from a pack in Oregon, crossed back into his home state yesterday after two months of wandering in Northern California. With OR7’s arrival, California has been thrown into a national debate about how to manage wolves.
You could call it a sort of Silicon Valley approach to health: Campos has had his genome sequenced; he sleeps with a sleep monitor, and goes nowhere without his pedometer. He wants the same access to the information coming out of his own heart.
A third of Bay Area roads are in poor condition and funding is dwindling on the state and federal level. That’s something Congress is discussing in Washington this week. Meanwhile, researchers at two University of California campuses are trying to find ways to stretch those sparse dollars, by making pavement quieter, greener and more durable.
The addition of Rancho Corral de Tierra is historic, "the largest land acquisition for Golden Gate National Recreation Area pretty much since it began."
If you’ve ever spent time in Silicon Valley or among hi-tech entrepreneurs, you may have heard the term “Valley of Death.” It’s used to describe the huge gulf that can exist between coming up with a new idea, and getting a product to market. Well, this is a real problem in hospitals, too. Especially when it comes to kids.
California officials are considering the toughest regulations in the country to promote sales of cars powered by batteries, hydrogen fuel cells or other technology that produces little or no air pollution. These kind of tough mandates have been tried before but they failed. So is this finally the right time for the clean car?
This month may be the moment of truth for six Bay Area communities. Each one is vying to be the new home of a high-profile national research center. But when it comes to development in the Bay Area, there are no easy answers.
Want to keep a New Year's resolution? One Stanford professor says to give up on lofty goals. Instead, focus on tiny habits.
Grab your binoculars and checklist! The annual Audubon Christmas Bird Count is under way. During the last two weeks of the year, from dawn to dusk volunteers spread out over 22,000 count areas, including Peru, Haiti, the U.S. and Canada. Their tally is used by scientists to understand changes in bird populations.
Despite the buzz around biofuels, the industry been slow to scale up. But Bay Area researchers are making breakthroughs that could move us one step closer to having our cars run on fuels from plants.
The hallmark of a healthy dream is its weirdness. PTSD dreams, in contrast, are like a broken record, the same, real-life event, played over and over again, in some patients, for decades.
Harbor porpoises haven’t been seen in San Francisco Bay for more than 60 years. Now, they’re returning in growing numbers and researchers are working to understand why.
As we approach World AIDS Day, QUEST's Andrea Kissack talks with one of the worlds top HIV/AIDS researchers about the progress in finding a cure.
In 2008, high speed rail seemed like a game changer, the kind of "Big Idea" that California is famous for. But three years later, the plan is in serious trouble.
Buildings are responsible for 40 per cent of the country’s energy use. So, researchers are trying improve our energy efficiency by making windows dynamic and intelligent.
A massive database like what the VA is building would allow scientists to compare thousands of anonymous medical records with just a few keystrokes, to study conditions such as cancer and PTSD.
NASA's new flying telescope is allowing astronomers to see the life cycle of far away stars. Lauren Sommer caught a late-night ride on one of its recent flights.
Like the great pyramids of Egypt, the 550-mile Ridge Trail will take generations to complete. Think of it as a local Appalachian Trail for the current crop of two-year olds.
Dumping garbage into the bay wasn’t only convenient, it served the larger goal of getting rid of the bay entirely.
Smart meters are providing California households with their hourly and daily energy use information for the first time. Consumers use less electricity, studies have shown, when they can see that data. But getting them to pay attention to energy in the first place may be the biggest hurdle.
The largest energy user in the United States is the U.S. Military. Its annual energy bill runs about $15 billion dollars a year, which is why the Department of Defense has developed a keen interest in finding other ways to meet its energy needs, including investing in alternative energy.
Coal generates half of all the electricity in the U.S. It's also the biggest source of global-warming emissions and other air pollution. The coal industry says the answer is not to phase out coal, but instead to produce "clean coal." Anne Glausser of QUEST Ohio reports on the difficult path for clean coal.
California is known for its "green" reputation, so it might be a surprise that residents in Southern California still depend on coal power when they turn on the lights.
Coal produces nearly half the electricity in the U.S., but the mercury, sulfur dioxide and carbon dioxide it emits also makes it one of the most controversial energy sources. For many environmental activists, coal represents an old, dirty source of power, but for coal-mining communities around the country, the story is different.
Half of the airborne mercury pollution in the US comes from coal-fired power plants. After years of study and debate, the Environmental Protection Agency is planning to announce new limits on mercury from coal plants in November. Meanwhile, utilities are scrambling to meet other new federal regulations and industry groups are asking the government to slow down.
Over the last 15 years, more than a billion dollars has been spent to protect Lake Tahoe's clear waters from runoff and erosion. Now, new threats to lake's clarity are emerging, just as restoration funding is drying up.
Oakland Museum curator Christopher Richard and geologist Janet Sowers function as water detectives, looking for clues of the city’s long-lost aquatic past. Recently, they believe, they solved a mystery that had nagged them for years.
California's new environmental chief is in the first month of his new position. With budget cuts, environmental lawsuits and a mandate to cut green house gasses, Matt Rodriquez has a big job in front of him.
You've probably heard of the wines that made Napa and Sonoma famous, like Cabernet Sauvignon or Chardonnay. But what about Negroamaro or Nero d'Avola? They're wine grapes that are well-adapted to hotter temperatures -- the kind of conditions that California may be facing as the climate continues to warm.
The Bay tunnel is just one part of a vast overhaul of the Hetch Hetchy system, which carries water 167 miles from the Tuolumne River, near Yosemite, to Bay Area taps. There are 81 projects in all: pipes, water treatment centers, dams, reservoirs, all replaced or retrofitted with stronger, more durable parts.
What do Bay Area airports and some big Silicon Valley companies have in common? They sit right on the edge of San Francisco Bay, where sea level rise is expected to have a big impact by the end of the century.
Companies like Coca-Cola, Pepsi, and Heinz ketchup have determined that plastic made from plants — not oil — makes sense both for the environment and for business. The growing demand has meant a boom in the bioplastic industry. Could this mean the end of the plastic bottle as we know it?
According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, as many as one billion birds die each year in collisions with man-made structures. Recently, lawmakers have started to do something about this problem.
One of the most ambitious wetland restoration projects in the country is underway in San Francisco Bay. Thousands of acres of those ponds are being restored for shorebirds and wildlife. But that is creating an opportunity for a very problematic bird.
Until very recently Philadelphians recycled a dismal five-percent of their trash. Now residents are diverting nearly 20-percent of their trash – and that’s saving the city fees from expensive landfills. In our continuing series on Recycling in America, Kerry Grens, from WHYY, reports on how a little consequence can go a long way to changing behavior.
Here's one silver lining to a slow economy: High recycling rates. Americans are wasting far less, and recycling far more. Nowhere is the trend as strong as in California. As Amy Standen reports, this change is sending ripple effects throughout the economy.
Supercomputers are becoming increasingly key to modeling complex scientific problems. As they get bigger, they're becoming massive energy hogs, using as much power as a small city. Scientists at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab are hoping reduce that energy load by using technology developed for cell phones.
At the end of this month, some hybrid drivers will lose their solo carpool privileges. Beginning July 1st, only drivers of all-electric and natural gas powered cars will be allowed to drive alone in the carpool lane. How effective was the hybrid perk and what will be the new wave of fuel efficient hybrids that gets this special benefit?
At one hospital in San Francisco, more than half of the patients in an alcohol abuse program refuse medications that could help them stop drinking. So scientists here in the Bay Area find themselves waging two campaigns: to develop drugs that work, and to convince alcoholics to take them.
Pain is the most common reason for trips to the doctor’s office. So it makes sense that pain treatment is a huge part of our health care system, costing more than 100 billion dollars a year. But how exactly pain works is still a mystery in many ways. As Lauren Sommer reports, some researchers are trying to understand it better by looking at a very unusual creature.
Blind people are consistently underrepresented in the workforce, but especially in the sciences. Experts say that’s partly due to the fact that so much of early science education is learned through visual-spatial lessons. The Lighthouse for the Blind recently held its first ever chemistry camp for blind kids. The goal is to engage blind kids in the sciences by teaching chemistry through other senses, like touch and smell.
The severe flooding on the Mississippi River has left a lot of damage in its wake. It’s an extreme event that government and insurance companies try to plan for by predicting the risk. But as Lauren Sommer reports, climate change is throwing a wrench in those calculations.
Of all the questions in science, few have haunted humans as persistently as this: Are we alone? For more than 50 years, scientists have listened for a signal from intelligent life on other planets... and come up empty. Now, they're running short of money. Is it time to give up?
Spotted owls are one of the most iconic threatened species in the West. But despite two decades of work to bring them back, their numbers are still declining. That may be due in part to a new threat - not from humans, but from other owls. Lauren Sommer has the story.
Another mysterious fish die-off happened in a southern California harbor last week. Scientists are still trying to figure out what caused six tons of sardines to go belly-up in Ventura. Just six weeks ago a similar event occurred off Newport Beach. Those sardines tested positive for a neurotoxin caused by algae blooms. Meanwhile, commercial shellfish growers say they’re noticing some strange patterns as well, as Amy Standen reports.
Hundreds of invasive species have been found in San Francisco Bay, according to biologists. That makes the bay one of the most invaded estuaries in the world. Hoping to restore native fish and wildlife, California has passed the strictest rules in the country to prevent ocean freighters from introducing more foreign species to the bay. But as Lauren Sommer reports, the standards are so tough, officials may not be able to enforce them.
When a devastating earthquake shook Japan last month, some residents knew it was coming. A series of warning signals were sent out, including over Japanese television. Scientists say we could be just a few years away from launching a similar system here in California. As Amy Standen reports, the science is here but the funding is not.
White-nose syndrome has devastated bat populations back east, and is steadily making its way west. Researchers are keeping close tabs on the Bay Area's 16 bat species, including one thriving colony south of Sacramento.
Japan's nuclear power crisis is renewing debate over the topic of safety at nuclear power plants. Andrea Kissack talks with two men with very different opinions on the issue: Bill Magavern, head of the Sierra Club California and Ed Morse, Professor of Nuclear Engineering at University of California, Berkeley.
In California, a state agency called CalFire is charged with fighting fire in rural areas. But over the years, the line between rural and urban has become much less clear. Governor Jerry Brown proposed to scale back CalFire and help trim the state's budget, but that proposal may go down in flames.
It's been a harsh winter across the US. Snow has blanketed the Sierra Nevada, where the snowpack is well above normal. Lots of snow means good skiing, but it also means an increased danger of avalanches. Lauren Sommer traveled to Lake Tahoe where researchers are trying to understand the inner workings of snow a little bit better.
This year marks the 40th anniversary of a notorious psychology experiment: the Stanford Prison Experiment. It showed that average, well-adjusted people could act cruelly, even sadistically, under the right circumstances. Now, the scientist who led those experiments is wondering whether the opposite is true. Can a regular, run-of-the-mill person be made to do extraordinary, even heroic things?
Oak-covered rolling hills, grassy meadows and roaming cows are still typical scenes in many parts of California. That’s due in part to a state conservation program known as the Williamson Act. For more than four decades, much of California’s ranchland has been protected by the program. But with the state’s budget woes, it’s on the chopping block. And that has both ranchers and environmentalists concerned --as Lauren Sommer reports.
After a series of high-profile recalls, the FDA says it's reconsidering rules that allow cheese makers to use unpasteurized milk in their products. That could mean big changes in Northern California, which has become a hub of artisanal cheese making.
Solar power is booming in California. Last year, state officials approved an unprecedented amount of new solar energy. But both large solar farms and small home rooftop installations have run into challenges. As Lauren Sommer reports, that’s why a new sector of solar is emerging – one that benefits from being in the middle.
This month begins America's long goodbye to the incandescent light bulb. The most common replacement bulbs, CFLs, are just as bright and warm-colored as the old incandescents. So why do so many people complain about them?
After spending hundreds of millions of dollars flooding the market with CFL light bulbs, California utilities are stepping up their efficiency game.
It probably goes without saying: the dentist’s chair isn’t the most popular place to visit. But going the dentist may soon be a very different experience. As Lauren Sommer reports, researchers at the University of California San Francisco are developing new technology that may make dentists' drills less common.
After a century of logging, California’s old growth redwood forests are only a fraction of what they once were. Today, they remain a narrow coastal band that extends from Monterey Bay to the Oregon border. But redwoods are facing a new threat. As Lauren Sommer reports, scientists are trying to understand how these trees are responding to a changing climate.
If you plan to take any long plane trips this holiday season, here are a few things to keep in mind: jet lag, scientists say, often hits women harder than it does men. The direction you're flying matters, too. Jet lag is worse when traveling from west to east than east to west. In fact, studies suggests that jet lag can do a lot more than just wear us out.
California fishermen once hauled in groundfish, like rock cod and sole, as if there were an unlimited supply. But over the years, fish stocks have plummeted. Beginning in January, fishermen in California, Oregon and Washington will try something new. They'll become owners of the fishery, much like shareholders in a company. But as Lauren Sommer reports, not everyone is happy about it.
In the wake of mid-term elections, most pundits agree that a national climate change policy is farther from reach. That puts science museums and aquariums around the state in a bind. Several are currently showing exhibits on climate change in an effort to educate the public on this complicated topic. But as Marjorie Sun reports, these institutions have to walk a fine line through a thicket of sensitive issues.
Park rangers in the Santa Cruz Mountains are protecting a decades-old secret: albino redwood trees. Pale and fragile, these so-called “ghost trees” are deliberately off the beaten track, as Amy Standen found out.
As soldiers continue to return from Iraq and Afghanistan, doctors who treat them find themselves at the forefront of scientific research. That's the case at the Veterans Affairs Hospital in Palo Alto, where scientists have made a surprising discovery. Amy Standen reports.
Air pollution may seem like an urban problem, but it’s becoming an increasing concern in California’s national parks. Pollution from cars and trucks blows into the Sierra Nevada mountains, where it can have a dramatic impact on the ecosystem. In Yosemite National Park, researchers are trying to gauge that impact and they’re using an unexpected tool: a fungus called lichen.
QUEST radio looks at a controversial casino project in Richmond that, if approved, would allow a $1.2 billion resort with 4,000 slot machines to be built. Supporters of Measure U say it will bring jobs and tax revenue to a neglected former industrial site. Opponents say a Vegas-style operation would destroy habitat along the Richmond shore. Also on November's ballot are a number of local measures on urban growth boundaries. QUEST has two reports, from Amy Standen and Lauren Sommer.
Can brain performance be improved? The $300 million-a-year "brain-fitness" industry is betting that the answer to that question is yes. Some companies say that an 80-year old brain can perform just as well as a 25-year old brain after some specialized video game training. What about crossword puzzles and regular old exercise? QUEST takes a look at the growing brain fitness industry and the science behind it.
Detroit has been at the center of the country’s auto industry ever since Henry Ford rolled his first Model T off the assembly line in 1908. But as hard times have fallen on America’s Rust Belt, there's a new region hoping to give Detroit a run for its money. Amidst start-up companies like Google, eBay and Facebook, clean tech entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley are plugging into an emerging electric car industry. Andrea Kissack tells us more.
Every year buzzwords enter the American lexicon. Like "octo-mom" or "crowdsourcing." Next year "range anxiety" may top the list. It’s the fear of being stranded in an electric car because the battery has run out. Andrea Kissack continues to explore the brave new world of electric cars. Today, she goes in search of a charge.
The first mass-produced electric vehicles ever sold in the United States will begin to hit auto show rooms by the end of this year. The Nissan Leaf and the Chevy Volt already have tens of thousands of pre-orders. Until now, electric cars had been the domain of small groups of tech hobbyists and hard core environmentalists. But how feasible are they for everyday drivers? That's what Andrea Kissack wanted to find out.
It’s the time of year when backyard gardeners are gathering the last few tomatoes and squash of the summer harvest. But there’s one thing most gardeners don’t harvest: seeds. Seed saving is a technique that has fallen by the wayside in modern agriculture. The idea is to develop plants that are suited for the Bay Area's microclimates and to preserve crop biodiversity. As Lauren Sommer reports, a handful of people are starting their own seed-saving efforts.
A judge's ruling last month that blocks the federal government from funding embryonic stem cell research puts California back in the lead in the field. Scientists say funding from a 2004 state ballot measure has become a lifeline for pioneering work on diseases like Parkinson's and congenital heart disease. Still, the ruling, which may be overturned on appeal, will create challenges in California.
Take a waste product like cow manure or trash, let it decompose for a bit and you’ll soon end up with methane gas. Methane is powerful contributor to climate change. But it can also be captured and used to make renewable electricity. That’s something farmers are experimenting with across California. But by solving one environmental problem, they’re running headlong into another. Lauren Sommer has more.
Cell phones, refrigerators, WiFi and your desk lamp: Just like anything you plug into the wall, they all emit EMFs -- electromagnetic fields that vary in strength and design. Communities are scuttling plans for microwave communication dishes in their neighborhoods, citing health concerns about EMFs. Fairfax is just the latest city to put a moratorium on "smart meters" - which transmit energy information wirelessly. So what are EMFs, and how do they affect us?
This is the classic environmental story: a species in trouble because of what our species is doing. It's happening all over the world. But there are people tackling these problems one by one, coming up with simple ways of changing our behavior. This week we take a look at the plight of the foothill yellow legged frogs.
Indian reservations hold an estimated 10 percent of the nation's renewable energy resources -- hot, windy tracts that suddenly seem more valuable than ever. The Campo tribe, near San Diego, has taken the lead, building the country’s only utility-scale wind installation on Indian land. Plans are afoot to triple the project. But tribe members say tax incentives and other federal programs put Indians at a disadvantage.
This week, we continue our series "33 by 20," a look at California's ambitious renewable energy goals. Solar and wind power are booming across the state. But renewables have a downside: there are times when the sun doesn't shine and the wind doesn't blow. That variability causes problems on the state's electric grid. So, California utilities are looking to smooth out those bumps with a new strategy: storing electricity.
As the state dries out from a long, rainy winter, the battle over water rights in the Sacramento Delta continues. Water contractors are hoping an upcoming court ruling will find that water pumps are not the only threat to the imperiled Delta Smelt. Some of the blame is getting pinned on a bigger fish that happens to have an appetite for endangered species. Alison Hawkes reports.
Researchers at UC Davis are collecting DNA from dogs seized in police raids on dogfighting operations. The goal is to create a database to help identify and prosecute the extensive underground breeding programs that sell puppies for as much as $50,000 to dogfighting rings. But the database is controversial among some animal rights activists, who believe it would allow shelters to euthanize dogs whose DNA match fighting lineages.
In April, California continued its ambitious efforts to restore declining ocean fisheries by creating 21 new marine protected areas between Half Moon Bay and Mendocino County. In all, fishing would be banned or reduced in 20 percent of state waters there. But with the state budget crisis, how will California enforce these rules?
California has set ambitious goals for a transition to clean, renewable energy: 33 percent by 2020. Some are skeptical that the goal is within reach.QUEST and Climate Watch continue to examine the promise and pitfalls of this historic transformation. Craig Miller reports on one Silicon Valley company's controversial proposal for Panoche Valley.
California has set ambitious goals for a transition to clean, renewable energy: 33 percent by 2020. Some are skeptical that the goal is within reach.QUEST and Climate Watch continue to examine the promise and pitfalls of this historic transformation. Craig Miller reports on one Silicon Valley company's controversial proposal for Panoche Valley.
Part 2 of 2. The Schwarzenegger Administration plans to approve a new chemical called methyl iodide, which is used by strawberry farmers. Although methyl iodide can cause cancer and miscarriages, regulators say that protective measures like respirators and buffer zones will keep farm workers safe. Scientists consulting for the state say these measures often fail, and methyl iodide is too toxic to take chances. Amy Standen reports.
Part 1 of 2. Methyl bromide - a powerful fumigant used by strawberry growers to sterilize the soil before plants go in - was found to harm the Earth's ozone layer. Strawberry farmers have been clamoring for a replacement, and they may get their wish if the state approves a chemical called methyl iodide. But some state scientists say it could cause cancer and miscarriages in farm workers and nearby communities.
With its wind and solar resources, the state is known as a hotbed of renewable energy. Driving that development is an ambitious goal: By the year 2020, utilities must generate one third of their electricity from renewable sources. But the road to clean energy is full of obstacles, which we will explore over the next several months. First, Lauren Sommer reports on how we got here and the chances of meeting our big green power goals.
Thousands of babies are born each year in the U.S. with brain defects that can cause lifelong disability or even death. UC-San Francisco neurologists and pediatricians are developing better diagnostic tools and treatments to help brain-damaged babies not only survive, but grow up to live more normal lives.
Voters in California will consider a measure on the November ballot to legalize and tax marijuana. Amid the debate over pros and cons, another issue has been gaining visibility -- the environmental damage pot cultivation can incur. Illegal pesticide use and creek water diversion at large-scale outdoor operations are well-documented. But environmental concerns are also growing over indoor marijuana cultivation, as Lisa Morehouse reports.
A plan being considered by California's State Water Resources Control Board would end the practice of allowing power plants along the coast to suck in ocean water to cool their machinery. Environmentalists say it kills millions of fish larvae, small animals and other ocean life, but the power industry says tighter rules would raise California's electricity prices, already among the nation's highest.
The oldest grassroots environmental organization in the U.S. is the Sierra Club and it's undergoing a change in leadership. After 18 years running the organization, Carl Pope has just stepped down as executive director, but he remains involved as ever in his new position as chairman. Andrea Kissack spoke with him about the biggest challenges facing the environmental movement today.
Peer into San Francisco Bay and you probably won't see much, thanks to the murky water the bay is known for. But over the past decade, scientists have made a surprising discovery – the bay’s water is clearing. As Lauren Sommer reports, clearer water is not always good news.
Smog check tests, as California air officials have long known, are too easy to cheat. A recent survey found that because of faulty, or even fraudulent testing, half of cars that received repairs to pass the tests failed just a year later. Now, state lawmakers are proposing to revamp the process with a new, computerized smog test that’s almost impossible to rig. Happily for consumers, it'll be cheaper, too.
For decades, more than 70 Navy and merchant ships known as the "ghost fleet" have been anchored in Suisun Bay, waiting for disposal. While many served in World War II, today they're the subject of a lawsuit filed by environmental groups who are concerned about the pollution these aging vessels are leaching into the bay. Now, some of the ships are finally on the move.
The 8.8 magnitude earthquake that struck Chile last month may offer some clues for how California would withstand such a massive quake. Andrea Kissack spoke with one Bay Area engineer who just returned from Chile where he was looking at how U.S. building codes held up in the quake.
Alcatraz, the iconic, former prison in the bay goes green. Extra stimulus funds have made it possible to replace two aging diesel generators with solar energy that will power up to 60-percent of the island. Amy Standen reports on how the National Parks Service plans to hide more than 13-hundred dark blue solar panels from public view.
This week, voters on both sides of a contentious measure set for California's June ballot will take the stage in a public hearing in San Francisco. Proposition 16 has to do with how electricity will be delivered to our homes, and by whom. The issue is shaping up to be an epic showdown between local non-profit groups and the utility giant PG&E. Amy Standen has more.
After three years of drought, California is finally getting some wet relief. Yet a series of strong storms doesn't end the state's need to conserve water. A new California law will impose restrictions on landscaping for decades to come. Katharine Mieszkowski reports on the future of the suburban lawn.
Thanks to stem cells and other cutting-edge technologies, doctors hope they may one day be able to restore sight to people who were born without it, or lost it, later in life. But a rare case here in the Bay Area suggests that curing blindness may be more than meets the eye.
Like rainstorms and chilly weather, they seem to show up every winter. Ants. If your kitchen is currently under siege, chances are it’s by one particular species: Argentine Ants. These invasive insects have spread across California, forming one of the largest colonies on Earth and threatening native ecosystems. How can we stop them? Well, what if -- as Lauren Sommer reports -- we could speak their language?
Art Rosenfeld is retiring, stepping down from his post with the California Energy Commission. The 83-year-old nuclear physicist pushed California to enact some of the toughest energy efficiency standards in the world. QUEST talks with Rosenfeld about his passion for saving kilowatts. Andrea Kissack reports.
The recent rain storms have drenched Northern California, dumping in some places almost twice as much rain as we'd expect to see at this time of year. That's great news for a state that's suffered three years of drought. But are we finally in the clear? Amy Standen went in search of answers.
Coho salmon conservationists in Marin County are losing hope they'll see large numbers of the fish return to spawn this year, even after our recent rains. Marine biologists say the future looks grim after a series of drought years, and they’re looking for ways to stop the fish from being sucked into what they call "the vortex of extinction." Dan Brekke reports.
This month, truckers at the Port of Oakland face new rules on diesel rigs. The rules call for expensive filters that cut down the amount of soot the trucks spew out. Many truckers say they can't afford the new gear, especially amid a recession. But treating the health effects of diesel pollution may be much more expensive.
Americans throw away a staggering 31 million tons of food each year. As those scraps decompose they create methane - a powerful greenhouse gas - that could be harnessed to light our homes one day. As Tara Siler reports, a wastewater treatment plant in the Bay Area is leading the way.
Solar panels are a hot commodity these days and not just for residents and business owners who want to go green. It turns out that thieves are also embracing clean technology: Solar panel thefts are on the rise. And among the most popular targets are California wineries.
The white pages, required by law in most states, have been estimated to consume 5 million trees a year to produce. They create challenges for recycling centers and with 90 percent of Americans using cell phones, they’re largely irrelevant. The white pages will be nearly eliminated, thanks to a bill facing the state legislature in 2010. But what will happen to the few Californians who still rely on an outmoded resource?
It's an El Niño year, which raises hopes for significant rainfall this winter. But after years of drought, some local homeowners aren't counting on it. They're conserving water by reviving the ancient practice of rainwater harvesting. But how much can they really save? Katharine Mieszkowski reports.
This month marks an anniversary no one will celebrate: Two years ago, the economic downturn many call "The Great Recession" began. Here in Northern California, like just about everywhere else, housing prices have tumbled. But for some, there's a silver lining to the real estate bust, as Amy Standen reports.
At UC Berkeley, scientists studying how to feed our growing need for energy have turned to a surprising source. As Lauren Sommer reports, researchers there are trying to produce the next generation of green power by mimicking something every weekend gardener works to clean up.
Last year a majority of California voters approved a multi-billion-dollar high-speed rail project. Now comes the hard part: squeezing a 220-mph train system into California's densely populated cities. Some communities that voted in favor of the train now say they don't want it rolling through their neighborhoods. QUEST looks at the stretch between San Francisco and San Jose and how the train might change the local landscape.
If you have solar panels on your house, you can count on reducing your electricity bill. Maybe you’ll pay nothing at all. But what if you produce more than you use? Well, until recently in California, you could consider it a gift to the local utility. But now, thanks to a new law, that will soon change. Amy Standen reports.
It may seem that California's parks dodged a bullet recently when the Governor announced that all of the state's financially strapped parks will remain open, but state parks still have to cut $14 million in spending this year. This may lead to rolling closures, maintenance cuts and layoffs. Hoping to solve a chronic funding problem, environmentalists are considering a ballot proposal that would place a fee on car registrations to help fund parks.
Conflicts over pesticide use have increased as new suburbs push up against farming areas in California. In the second part of our series, Sasha Khokha looks at how community residents are looking to document the impact of pesticides on their own health when those chemicals drift off the farm.
Every year California farmers spray more than 150 million pounds of pesticides to keep insects from ravaging crops like almonds, oranges, and grapes. But when those toxins drift onto nearby farmworkers and communities, they sicken hundreds of people each year. California legislators tried to fix the problem five years ago, but new laws don't appear to have made much of a difference.
It's been twenty years since the Loma Prieta Earthquake ravaged downtown Santa Cruz and damaged San Francisco's Marina District and the Bay Bridge. QUEST looks at the dramatic improvements in earthquake prediction technology since 1989. But what can be done with ten seconds of warning?
Last month, the FBI released a report showing violent crime has dropped for the second year in a row... down nearly two percent in 2008, from a year earlier. Still, many homicide cases go unsolved. A new technology called "bullet microstamping" aims to help change that. But will it work?
This week, conservationists will issue a list of the most endangered national parks, including some in California. There are many ways to measure the health of a park, including the air and the water. This week, Craig Miller looks at an often overlooked vital sign -- the sound.
Why do some people get severely sick from swine flu and others barely feel it? As flu season ramps up, scientists at UCSF's Viral Discovery Center are racing to learn more about the 2009 H1N1 virus, including how it's evolving, and whether our current treatments will remain effective.
We all know that, thanks to our DNA, each of us is a little bit different. Some of those differences are obvious, like eye and hair color, but others are not so obvious, like how our bodies react to medication. Researchers are beginning to look at how to tailor medical treatments to our genetic profiles. Some of the biggest breakthroughs have been in cancer treatment, as Lauren Sommer reports.
Wine grapes are one of the most sprayed crops in California. A growing number of farmers are choosing not to spray and are doing other things for the environment, too. The challenge is there are now so many choices when it comes to green wines, it can be baffling for the eco-conscious consumer. Organic, sustainable, biodynamic, natural... what does it all mean?
A few weeks from now, San Francisco residents will start facing warnings, and even fines, if they fail to recycle, as the city – like many in California – aims to keep ever more garbage out of its landfills. But, after twenty years of curbside recycling and, more recently, composting programs, Californians produce more waste than ever. Amy Standen reports, recycling can only take us so far.
In California, nuclear power has long been a subject that's "radioactive." But recent polls suggest that Californians may finally be warming up to the idea and a new study suggests that a clean energy future may not happen without it. Craig Miller reports on the prospects for a "nuclear revival" in the Golden State.
Months after the federal government enacted stricter standards intended to keep lead out of children's toys, a KQED investigation found merchandise that violates the law still sitting on many Bay Area store shelves. In part two of the series, QUEST looks at the challenges of keeping leaded toys out of stores.
Congress recently passed tougher limits on lead levels due to the large number of recalls of imported toys. But the new law, which went into effect in February, doesn't seem to be keeping dangerous items off store shelves, as reporter Oanh Ha found out.
Once they leave your driveway, your discarded bottles, newspapers, and other recyclables become part of a multi-billion dollar global commodities market. Last month's phone bill, for example, might be sent to China to be reincarnated as next month's iPhone packaging. But when those markets collapse -- as they did last winter -- neighborhood recycling programs are hit hard.
They've been called "California's Galapagos." Nearly 30 miles west of the Golden Gate Bridge lie the Farallon Islands. This year marks their 100th anniversary as a national wildlife refuge. While the islands are off limits to tourists, reporter Lauren Sommer caught a rare - and rough ride with marine researchers to learn about how unpredictable changes in our climate could be affecting life there.
One in six Americans will experience a major episode of depression at some point in their lives. And yet the drugs commonly used to treat the disease have been described as "blunt instruments" by researchers in the field. One newer, FDA-approved approach uses magnets held against the patient's forehead to stimulate some of the neurological signals that underlie depression.
Call it Museum 2.0. One of our most traditional institutions is undergoing a 21st century re-design. In an effort to keep up with changing times, more and more museums are turning to Twitter, Wikis and online communities to ask for the public's help in designing their exhibits.
At UC Davis Veterinary Hospital, competitive performance horses receive stem cell treatments that are still off limits to humans. Veterinarians say their success may pave the way for other animals... like us.
Five years ago, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger announced his vision for the Hydrogen Highway, a bold and ambitious program that promised to launch an alternative energy revolution in California. Right now, that highway is not as smooth as its planners had hoped and government funding is in danger of drying up. In the midst of the pile-up of bad news, the California hydrogen fuel cell program keeps chugging along.
How would you like the government to help you buy a newer, more fuel-efficient set of wheels? That's the idea behind a so-called Cash for Clunkers program that Congress is considering. But is this a boon for the environment, or just a hand-out to Detroit automakers? The plan, which has become mired in Beltway politics, is not so novel. California has had a similar program for a decade.
NASA scientists in Mountain View are building a spaceship they will deliberately crash into the moon in 2009, sending up a 37-mile high cloud of debris. Their goal? To possibly find water in the form of ice buried deep within one of the moon's poles.
Next month, the Marine Mammal Center in the Marin Headlands opens its doors to the public for the first time in four years. The Center treats sea lions, elephant seals, and other marine mammals that run into trouble along our coast. They swallow fishing lines, get hit by boat propellers and, increasingly, come down with a bacterial infection that scientists say they still don't understand.
NASA will soon attempt to launch an unusual satellite. Most satellites are the size of a car, but this one is small enough to fit inside a glove compartment. Mini-satellites are reaching space in increasing numbers, thanks also to a do-it-yourself satellite program at Stanford University.
As California continues to respond to an outbreak of swine flu – plant biologists are dealing with a deadly epidemic of a different kind. Sudden Oak Death is devastating oak forests along the coast, killing trees that are key to the ecology of the coastal hills. Researchers have found a way to inoculate individual trees from the disease, but are struggling in their search to find a more sweeping answer to the threat.
It's easy to get excited about installing solar panels on our houses, but most of us could significantly cut our energy bills at a much lower cost with a simple trip to Home Depot. Thanks to the new federal stimulus package, $411 million is coming to California to help the state's buildings become more energy efficient. One program, which helps low-income families weatherize their homes, is seeing its budget triple.
Why are health officials so worried about swine flu? A major reason is that against it, we are almost defenseless. Apart from the drugs Tamiflu and Relenza, which must be taken in the first 48 hours, swine flu is untreatable. But the swine flu scare is only the latest chapter in an ongoing arms race between humans and viruses. But some scientists believe the end may be in sight.
Fifty-five years after its construction, the Bevatron, a landmark particle accelerator at Lawrence Berkeley National Labs that helped pioneer physics discoveries and win several Nobel prizes, is about to be demolished. Why was it so important?
President Obama's stimulus plan set aside billions for clean energy. Funding will go to some familiar projects – like wind and solar power – and to some not so familiar ones, like the smart grid. So what is the smart grid? And how will it affect your home energy use?
How much sewage makes its way into our water? Plenty. Statewide, it's likely that last year's record number, 20 million gallons of raw sewage dumped in California waterways, is going to be broken this year. Decrepit pipes, lack of money and the growing severity of storms could all add up to a disaster of septic proportions.
When it comes to water conservation, you might want to toast some of the state's vintners. Grape growers are among the best at curbing water use and many are increasingly relying on an array of high-tech gadgetry to help them do it.
Scientists at UC Santa Cruz are using robots to sort through thousands of marine chemicals in search of cures for diseases like cholera, breast cancer, and malaria.
By April 1st, the vast majority of California's 11,000 gas stations must have new, state-of-the-art fuel pumps that keep toxic fumes from escaping. State officials say the new pumps mean cleaner, safer air, particularly for those suffering from asthma and other respiratory diseases. But, amid a recession and record unemployment, will the new rules force mom and pop gas stations out of business?
A group of high school students in San Francisco are using high-tech GPS cell phones to track their daily carbon footprint - and to gauge their daily environmental risk. The GPS tracks the students' trips and shows them how much carbon they use and are exposed to each week. As cell phones become more powerful, organizers hope to spread this movement virally.
Even in small amounts, lead can be poisonous. The California Attorney General's office is suing several manufacturers of artificial turf after lead was found in the pigment used to color it. Lead is especially harmful to children and that could be bad news around the state for anyone who has installed turf in playgrounds, soccer fields, child care centers and homes.
The predictions for climate change all warn that San Francisco Bay waters will rise. The latest estimate is the bay will be about 5 feet higher by the end of this century, and 16 inches higher by 2050. If the water rises high enough, a lot of expensive Bay-front property could be inundated. What can we do about it? And how do we plan for that? That's the subject of an innovative design contest that launches this week.
A single-family home with a yard and two-car garage may be the American dream for many Californians. But with real estate at a premium and traffic congestion getting worse, there is a new urban way of living that is becoming increasingly popular. Quest reports on the rise of the transit village and just why the trend has taken so long.
This year marks the 200th birthday of Charles Darwin - and the 150th anniversary of his landmark work, "On the Origin of Species". One of the iconic fossils that supports Darwin's theory of evolution is called the Archaeopteryx and it was recently flown out to Stanford University for an unusual test. Scientists are bombarding this dino-bird with high-tech gadgetry to unlock even more information about how we came to be here.
As the economy struggles, a lot of people are thinking about prices these days. That's the focus of a new project at Stanford University, too, but their aim is to put a value on something that's never had a price tag - nature.
Following the recent crash landing of a U.S. Airways jet into the Hudson River, QUEST takes a look at local efforts to avoid collisions between planes and birds. Every year pilots in the U.S. report more than 7,000 bird strikes. The Sacramento International Airport has one of the highest incidences of bird strikes in the nation, thanks to its location next to the Pacific Flyway.
Now that Barack Obama is sworn in as President, he is expected to reverse the ban on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. The resulting boom in this cutting-edge medical technology will benefit California's research institutes in a big way.
As the Bay Area has become more urban, many wild animals have disappeared. But not mountain lions. These large cats live surprisingly close to us, and yet they're not as dangerous as many believe. Now, researchers in the mountains north of Santa Cruz are using new technology to learn more about these elusive animals.
The Bush Administration has recently passed dozens of so-called "midnight regulations" - last-minute rules and amendments. Many of those new laws affect the environment, including a change to the Endangered Species Act that has California environmentalists deeply worried.
Some of the most common building materials - drywall, steel, cement - are among the biggest contributors to greenhouse gas emissions. Manufacturing them requires vast amounts of energy. Now, several Silicon Valley start-ups are looking for cleaner solutions and some of their efforts are drawing major venture capital.
Drivers are increasingly looking to their cell phones for advice on steering clear of heavy traffic. New technology from UC Berkeley uses cell phones to plot traffic patterns, giving a real-time picture of how long it takes to get from place to place. QUEST takes a ride with an early adopter.
That black, sooty exhaust from old diesel trucks may be a thing of the past. A landmark decision expected next week at the state Air Resources Board would mean California truckers must retrofit their diesel rigs at a price tag of about $5 billion. The cost is high, but given the health complications from diesel emissions, air pollution regulators feel they can't afford not to act.
In the U.S., powerful medications are helping many HIV-positive people live longer lives. But doctors are discovering that these patients are developing diseases of old age, like heart disease and dementia, at earlier ages than their uninfected peers. Researchers now suspect that HIV-positive patients might actually be aging at an accelerated rate.
In Monterey Bay, scientists have successfully launched a deep sea laboratory that is unlike anything in the world. The $13 million dollar project is expected to revolutionize the way ocean research is done. Scientists ran 32 miles of cable out from the Monterey shoreline to power remote research equipment such as robots, seismometers and real-time video of a world deep below the ocean.
Last week, NASA declared the Mars Phoenix Lander mission completed as the lander succumbed to Martian winter and lost radio contact. NASA scientists are already preparing their next mission: to send a rover to search for evidence of life on the red planet. But to help decide what signs to look for, scientists are studying extreme life forms on our own planet.
Here's another item for President-Elect Barack Obama's to-do list when he takes office in January: food safety. Especially imported foods. Recent scares over melamine-laced cookies from China and salmonella-tainted Mexican jalapenos have raised stark questions: Who's monitoring the safety of imported food? And does the system work?
It's been a year since 53,000 gallons of oil from the Cosco Busan cargo ship spilled into the San Francisco Bay. More than half of that heavy bunker fuel is still around. Now, one challenge is trying to put the long-term effects of the spill into dollar terms, and then seek a settlement with the ship's owners. Officials say this work may set the national standard for handling man-made crises.
The Bay Area is synonymous worldwide with high-tech innovation. Meanwhile, its students have some of the lowest math and science scores in the country. Quest takes a look at the state of public school science education in California, and asks how the state can nurture a homegrown workforce equipped to take on 21st century challenges.
Fire recently scorched much of the Big Sur area - and it also threatened one of the rarest birds in the world. The California condor sanctuary in Big Sur went up in flames. Although the birds were rescued, scientists have a major job rebuilding holding pens and other equipment. But California has a lot of condor lovers, and money and volunteers have been pouring in.
It was 19 years ago this month that the earth shook so violently under Santa Cruz and San Francisco that portions of a major highway and a segment of the Bay Bridge collapsed. Sixty three people died. Even though we generally are aloof to the possibility of a major temblor, the reality is we are surrounded by active faults and one East Bay faultline has geologists particularly worried.
Proposition 7 is all about renewable energy generation. The initiative requires all utilities to generate 20 percent of their power from renewable energy by 2010 and 50 percent by 2025 and speeds up approval of renewable energy plants. You would think most leading environmental groups would be on board -- but many are not.
As emblematic of Northern California as cable cars and cracked crab, sea lions are a big attraction at San Francisco's Pier 39 and Monterey's Cannery Row. But many of these animals are getting sick from a bacterial infection that seems to be on the rise this year.
Imagine traveling from San Francisco to Los Angeles in about two-and-a-half hours, without getting on a plane. That's the idea that could become reality this November. A $10 billion bond project is on the ballot to build high-speed rail. With higher gas prices and concern about climate change, supporters hope the time is finally right to approve this massive mass-transit project. But technical and political obstacles remain.
When we think about what happens to our brains as we age, one disease tends to dominate our thoughts and fears: Alzheimer's. In fact, Alzheimer's only accounts for about half of degenerative brain diseases. Many others are far tougher to diagnose and treat. Amy Standen reports on one under-diagnosed brain disease, frontotemporal dementia, and its often baffling effects.
It's that time of year again. Temperatures are hot, so we're cranking up the air conditioning. That means more electricity from the power grid, more greenhouse gas emissions, more global warming and -- with warmer temperatures -- even more air conditioning! There are a few ways to halt this vicious cycle, one of which starts with a makeover for the machine itself.
When you order your double latte to-go at the corner coffee shop, the empty cup and lid may end up in a giant pit of plastic ocean litter off the coast of California. Some cities and counties are so concerned about the garbage in the so-called North Pacific Gyre that they've passed ordinances to try to limit the amount of plastic in our lives..
People with pseudobulbar affect -- a neurological condition common in patients with Lou Gehrig's disease - have overwhelming emotions at inappropriate times. Scientists at UC San Francisco believe that by putting these people into MRI scans, they can learn more about how emotions are created and controlled in the human brain - and what happens when those systems break down.
Melting glaciers, rising temperatures and droughts - all are impacts of global warming. What receives much less attention is the toll that climate change is taking on the health of our oceans. The sea, it turns out, absorbs carbon dioxide emissions, which are causing it to become more acidic. Changing pH levels threaten the entire marine food chain from coral reefs to salmon.
Forget solar panels - how about having your own wind turbine? Your own solar thermal power generator? Your own geothermal well? San Francisco homeowners are some of the first to experiment with these DIY home-energy technologies, and they are getting some help from the city to do it.
Scientists say the state's plants are at risk of collapse unless they migrate or are moved to refuges. According to a new study, two-thirds of California's unique plants, some 2,300 species that grow nowhere else in the world, could be wiped out across much of their current geographic ranges by the end of the century because of rising temperatures and changing rainfall patterns.
Scientists say the state's plants are at risk of collapse unless they migrate or are moved to refuges. According to a new study, two-thirds of California's unique plants, some 2,300 species that grow nowhere else in the world, could be wiped out across much of their current geographic ranges by the end of the century because of rising temperatures and changing rainfall patterns.
Earlier this year a report came out showing that trace amounts of pharmaceuticals -- everything from ibuprofen to birth control pills -- are showing up in America's drinking water. Today, water agencies and consumers are still grappling with some unanswered questions: Do these tiny amounts of drugs pose any health risk? And if so, what can we do about them?
Hot, dry conditions have made this one of the worst fire seasons in California history. With firefighters and equipment stretched thin, hundreds of remote blazes are left to simply burn. Is this a sign of fire seasons to come, and are we prepared to deal with it?
An age-old environmental crime has become an increasing problem. Poachers illegally hunt down everything from abalone to black-tailed deer, on private lands, parks and wilderness areas. But catching poachers can be tough because of California's vast size, so state fish and game wardens are trying something new -- high-tech tools right out of TV crime lab shows.
What if you could imprint every bullet with the unique signature of the gun which fired it? That's the goal of California's bullet microstamping law, which takes effect in 2010. But does microstamping work? Scientists studying the technology say it will produce more false hopes and high costs than evidence. Supporters say that victims, families, and investigators deserve all the help they can get.
What if you could imprint every bullet with the unique signature of the gun which fired it? That's the goal of California's bullet microstamping law, which takes effect in 2010. But does microstamping work? Scientists studying the technology say it will produce more false hopes and high costs than evidence. Supporters say that victims, families, and investigators deserve all the help they can get.
Local, organic, fair trade... Consumers looking for a sustainable diet face a lot of choices and recently, another one has been added to the list: low-carbon. But it turns out reducing your meal's carbon footprint isn't so easy.
This week General Motors announced it will close four of its pickup and SUV plants and may end production of the Hummer. The news comes as gas tops four dollars and thirty cents a gallon in the Bay Area. As drivers increasingly look toward hybrids and mass transit for some relief, has the time finally come for one car technology that needs no gasoline at all? Amy Standen reports.
Since 1995, astronomers have identified more than 200 new planets, but these planets aren't in our solar system. Known as exoplanets, they're the planets orbiting other suns and Bay Area scientists are leading the search. QUEST reports on some of the latest efforts to find new planets-- and maybe even life-- in outer space.
Scientists predict we'll be seeing hotter conditions and drier forests in the near future. The Summit Fire that's been burning in the Santa Cruz Mountains is likely a part of that trend. QUEST talks to Malcolm North with the U.S. Forest Service. He says any area that's burned before is vulnerable to burning again, including the coast range and Sierra Nevada.
Server farms - those huge collections of computers that run the networks of Google, Yahoo, and other companies - are enormous users of energy. QUEST looks at efforts to make the information superhighway more efficient.
With gas prices rising, parking a headache, and a desire to reduce their carbon footprint, more and more San Franciscans are cycling. What are cities like San Francisco doing to help people who want to pedal rather than drive?
For the past three years, the California Academy of Sciences, the oldest natural history museum in the West, has been housed in a temporary building in downtown San Francisco. Now the Academy is moving into a new, 400,000-square foot green building in Golden Gate Park. But when the residents are fish, penguins and millions of scientific specimens, moving in is no simple task.
For the past three years, the California Academy of Sciences, the oldest natural history museum in the West, has been housed in a temporary building in downtown San Francisco. Now the Academy is moving into a new, 400,000-square foot green building in Golden Gate Park. But when the residents are fish, penguins and millions of scientific specimens, moving in is no simple task.
Last week, we took a look at how mercury enters the San Francisco Bay. This week: Now that it's here, how is it affecting us? Quest talks to local fisherman, a physician, and a Bay ecologist to find out how we're contending with the Bay's worst toxin.
You might not know it from the textbooks, but California's gold rush was also a mercury rush. Quicksilver mines near San Jose provided gold miners with the mercury they needed to separate gold from ore. 150 years later, we're still facing the consequences of gold-rush era mercury, much of which is lodged in the Bay's mud and in its fish. Quest reports on the legacy of mercury mining, and how Bay Area agencies are attempting to clean it up.
You might not know it from the textbooks, but California's gold rush was also a mercury rush. Quicksilver mines near San Jose provided gold miners with the mercury they needed to separate gold from ore. 150 years later, we're still facing the consequences of gold-rush era mercury, much of which is lodged in the Bay's mud and in its fish. Quest reports on the legacy of mercury mining, and how Bay Area agencies are attempting to clean it up.
It's often said dogs and their owners resemble each other. Now, researchers at UC-San Francisco are looking for those connections on a whole new level. They're searching for the genes that cause common psychiatric problems in humans - by looking at the DNA of dogs.
Thought California has consigned coal-burning to the scrap bin? Think again! California has 11 coal-fired power plants, all used to heat limestone into cement -- making us one of the biggest cement-producing states in the country. In addition to cement, these kilns produce 95% of the state's airborne mercury pollution and 2% of its greenhouse gas emissions. Mostly, they've slipped under the radar of regulators, but that is changing fast.
The expected shutdown of this year's salmon season in California is bad news not only for fishermen but for consumers too. It means that anyone buying wild salmon this year is going to pay some wild prices. There is another choice, of course, cheaper, farmed salmon. But that prospect has some consumers cringing... and it has some fish farmers thinking of new ways to please wild salmon fans.
Richmond city officials are expected to approve a controversial upgrade to the Chevron refinery plant. Quest reports on the decision and explores the debate around Chevron's billion dollar proposal.
Many Bay Area cities are trying to clean up their acts by putting in place new green initiatives. But from San Jose to Berkeley, some city leaders are finding out it's not always so easy to turn over a new leaf. QUEST looks at the challenges municipalities face with budget constraints, legal restrictions and reluctance, on the part of some residents, to change.
A tiny moth, new to California, is at the center of a controversy pitting state officials against Bay Area residents and politicians. The Light Brown Apple Moth is seen as a threat to California crops. Now the State Department of Food and Agriculture is planning to spray a synthetic hormone over Bay Area neighborhoods this summer to stop the moth from reproducing, but some angry residents are worried it would be unsafe.
A new law is forcing California's dry cleaners to switch to eco-friendlier cleaning technologies. But what will the cost of envronmental progress be for these small family businesses? And will customers put up with the changes?
Last month, a Mill Valley wastewater treatment plant dumped five million gallons of sewage into the San Francisco Bay. The real shocker: Sewage spills happen all the time, even in the eco-conscious Bay Area. Much of the blame lies beneath our feet, in a deteriorating network of clay pipes, some of which date back to the Gold Rush. QUEST investigates.
Concern over global warming and rising gas prices has just about everyone, including presidential candidates, touting biofuels. Taking the energy from plants and making a gasoline alternative to run our cars has great promise but there are huge problems to solve. The next answer may not come from Saudi Arabia but from a UC Berkeley lab, a Silicon Valley start up or a local researcher working in the jungles of Costa Rica.
In Silicon Valley, a battle between neighbors has turned into a different kind of face off: solar energy versus trees. It turns out that growing redwood trees can actually be a crime in California, if they block solar panels... as one couple in Sunnyvale found out the hard way. David Gorn reports.
Human beings have used maps to describe the world for thousands of years. Blind people have used Braille for about 150. But there's never been a way for the blind to have easy access to maps of everyday places. Until now. Amy Standen reports.
This month, the Federal Trade Commission is looking at carbon offsets. Demand is booming for these green credits, where customers cancel out their greenhouse gases emissions by paying companies to preserve forests or subsidize renewable energy. Critics wonder, however, if consumers are really getting what they are paying for.
This has been a month of dashed hopes for astronomers around the world. Last month it seemed possible that an asteroid the size of a Boeing 737 jet was due to collide with Mars on January 30. Today that seems far less likely, but, as Amy Standen reports, astronomers consider it a wake up call.
It's one of the most expensive high-tech projects the United States has ever attempted, and some say it will never work. QUEST visits the National Ignition Facility in Livermore, where scientists will soon aim the world's largest laser at a target the size of a pencil eraser. The goal? Nuclear fusion -- and, they say, the answer to the world's clean energy needs.
If investment is any guide, California's renewable energy companies are leaping into the new year. Investors poured billions of dollars into clean tech firms in 2007 to catapult green technologies to market. Lauren Sommer followed the trail to several Bay Area companies to see what breakthroughs lie ahead.
California is making headlines around the world this week after federal environmental officials denied the state's request to slash greenhouse gas emissions from cars and trucks. QUEST went looking for answers about what other options the state can pursue. Amy Standen reports.
This November, San Francisco became the first city in the country to outlaw plastic check out bags at large supermarkets, arguing that the bags are dangerous to marine life and hard to recycle. But some studies say paper bags can be just as harmful for the environment. So why target plastic?
At the United Nations Climate Conference in Bali this week more than 2-hundred leading scientists issued a warning. They say that if immediate action is not taken, millions of people will be at risk from extreme events such as heat waves and floods. Here in California scientists say that as the climate warms and polar ice melts, coastal sea levels could easily rise by another three feet by the end of this century. That would have a dramatic impact on San Francisco Bay, as Craig Miller reports.
San Francisco is studying a London-style plan to charge drivers a fee when they travel to high-traffic areas, like downtown San Francisco, or Doyle Drive during peak commute hours. But is congestion pricing a boon for public transportation? Or the death of downtown?
A growing number of parents, children's advocates and political leaders are worried that our culture's disconnection from nature is harming kids. Concerns about long-term health consequences like obesity have spawned a movement to "leave no child inside."
As clean-up crews in hazmat suits scour the beaches, scientists say they'll be dealing with the aftermath of last week's oil spill for months, if not years. Why is it so hard to clean up oil, and what will happen to the thousands of gallons of spilled oil that won't be recovered?
NASA has announced a new effort to send humans back to the moon, possibly to build an outpost by 2020. Mountain View's NASA Ames Research Center will identifies scientific investigations that could be performed there on everything from geology to global warming. But some critics question the space agency's priorities.
It's one of the most unusual car races in the world. In the DARPA Grand Challenge, the cars drive themselves - no remote controls needed. And the contest is not a game. It could change the way all of us drive.
Is California's most controversial water proposal making a comeback? QUEST reports on the fervent politics behind the Peripheral Canal - a $5 billion plan to build a pipeline around the delta, sending Sierra water directly to the state water project.
This fall, fishing was banned or sharply limited in 18 percent of California's ocean waters from Half Moon Bay to Santa Barbara under a landmark state plan. But that was only the first part. Now, scientists need to see how fast sea life recovers. QUEST finds out: how do you count the fish in the sea?
When it comes to alternative energy, most people think of solar or wind. But the hills just north of Sonoma wine country are a world leader in another kind of clean power, and under an ambitious new project, they are about to produce even more.
We've all heard the latest health advice: avoid transfats. Eat more fruits and vegetables. But for many school children, their cafeteria lunch menus haven't caught up. This year, an effort to get healthy foods to the school lunch table is tied up in a much larger debate-- national farm policy.
QUEST radio takes a trip to Point Reyes, where a tug of war is underway over the management of an estuary. What is most ecologically healthy for the estuary-- the preservation of pristine wilderness, or the sustainable stewardship of land and water through farming?
Your tennis shoes. That radio you're listening to. If it wasn't made in the U.S., chances are it passed through the Port of Oakland, the fourth busiest Port in the country. But there's a downside to that convenience and those affordable prices, as Amy Standen reports.
Burning Man is going green. QUEST heads out to the Nevada desert to see how clean tech CEOs are tapping into this counter-culture art festival.
Great white sharks outside the Golden Gate Bridge may get all the attention, but a new tagging program seeks to unlock the secrets of the considerable shark population inside the bay.
Flying cars are usually the stuff of science fiction, but a group of engineers at NASA is hoping to change that. They're sponsoring a technology contest to revolutionize small planes - and it's open to the general public.
Is desalination the solution to the California's chronic water woes? Four Bay Area agencies think it might be -- and are studying whether to build the largest desalination plant in the country.
After the Loma Prieta earthquake in 1989, almost all of the Bay Area's toll bridges underwent major upgrades. Yet even with the focus on retrofitting, there are still 40 Bay Area bridges that rate lower than the one that collapsed in Minneapolis. How do we know which bridges are safe?
Americans have made an enormous leap in life expectancy over the past century. Now, Bay Area scientists are looking to extend lifespan, and "healthspan" to 100 years and beyond.
Just how safe is your shampoo, eye liner or aftershave? No one really knows. In an effort to shed more light on the ingredients in everyday cosmetics and toiletries, California lawmakers passed the Safe Cosmetics Act, which takes effect this year. It requires manufacturers to report all toxic or carcinogenic ingredients to the state and lets the public decide what is safe.
Over the last few years we've all been asked to tread more lightly on the planet - use less energy, less gasoline and less water. Now a growing movement of do-it-yourself-eco plumbers are testing the limits of just how green you can get before running into trouble with the law.
As Chevron hatches expansion plans for one of California's largest oil refineries, Richmond's Green Party mayor considers the future of her city, and the state.
Golf courses may look green, but they aren't that kind of "green." For many environmentalists, golf courses take away valuable habitat and use too many resources. But there's a movement afoot to make them more eco-friendly.
Although not yet widely used, many believe tidal power has more potential than wind or solar power for meeting alternative energy needs. Quest radio looks at plans for harnessing power from the sea by San Francisco and along the northern California coast.
Have you ever looked at your credit card bill and thought you needed to have your head examined? Stanford University is using complex brain imaging to study how humans make shopping decisions, and are finding that emotions play a large role in everyday purchases.
Silicon Valley is planning what will be the country's biggest wireless network, serving 40 cities and 2.4 million people. How will it work, and what are the real costs?
The Hunter's Point Naval Shipyard bears traces of a toxic -- and historic-- military legacy. It could also be the site of the new 49ers stadium. But cleaning up this 500 acre Superfund site is costly and time consuming.
Abandoned boats in the San Francisco Bay and Delta do more than take up space in marinas and harbors. They can become a wellspring of pollutants, including leaking battery acid, oil, fuel, and lead from paint. But what do you do with these rusting relics?
Not long ago, nuclear power was unthinkable among environmentalists, particularly in California, where a moratorium on new power plants has put a lid on the industry for thirty years. But that sentiment may be changing.
QUEST radio takes a look at the largest wetlands restoration in the West-- the South Bay Salt Ponds Restoration Project. It will take decades and cost up to $1 billion to roll back the clock to the Bay's pre-industrial conditions.
Most people think of their house as a sanctuary from toxic air, but indoor air pollution can be at least as potent -- and often much more so -- as what you breathe outdoors.
Two pairs of Peregrine falcons are carrying out their mating season under the gaze of thousands of observers, online and in two Bay Area cities. QUEST Radio reports.
For 20 years, U.S. factories that put toxic chemicals into the air and water had to report them to the federal government and the public. The Bush Administration recently lowered those requirements by rewriting E.P.A rules. QUEST radio reports.
QUEST radio takes a look at the history of the environmental justice movement, and where it's going.
It's a typical evening at a popular SF cafe - cappuccinos, beer, conversation... and a lecture on mathematical theorems? Bay Area "science cafes" have exploded in popularity, putting scientists and everyday folks face-to-face for casual science lectures and Q&A.
A sure sign of spring in San Mateo County was once the emergence of the Bay Checkerspot Butterfly until one Spring it wasn't there. Now after a six-year absence, it has returned-- with assistance-- to Edgewood Park and Natural Preserve.
An infamous stretch of Route 1 is on its way to becoming the site of California's first tunnel in 43 years. For those working on the project, it's an opportunity of a lifetime.
Global warming and seasonal storms are putting California's low-lying areas at risk. A new network of high-tech weather sensors is making the streams, tributaries and dams of the American River the country's most closely-monitored water system.
Spring may be in the air, but our pollinators may not be. The U.S. bee population has declined, especially in urban areas. In the San Francisco Bay Area, there's a new buzz to bring wild, native bees to the urban landscape.
Video games are becoming so popular that last year's sales in the U.S. surpassed movie ticket revenue. The almost 50 million people that are living with a disability in the U.S. are wanting a voice in how the games are designed.
The Bay Area was home to the last whale hunting fleet in the United States - only a generation ago. Quest investigates how Richmond, California was part of a historic moment, and what remains today.
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?
Buildings, concrete, asphalt, tar roof tops and industry have caused cities to reach higher temperatures than surrounding rural areas. Now, green-minded architects are taking cooler approaches to their designs.
Last fall, Governor Schwarzenegger signed a landmark piece of legislation-- the first in the nation-- to reduce greenhouse gas emissions across the state. But signing the The Global Warming Solutions Act was the easy part.
It's pretty easy to drive a converted biodiesel car when you live in the Bay Area, but what about a road trip? Our Quest producers drive to LA. and back in a biodiesel van to see how easy it is to be green.