May 12th, 2008 by Chris Bauer
I first met Ugo Conti a number of years ago when we discussed an inflatable boat he had designed to sail from the San Francisco Bay to Hawaii. This adventure was born from Conti’s passion for the sea and was somewhat of a follow up to the round-the-world sailing adventures he took with his young family decades before. I think it takes someone with a lot of self-assuredness to quit their job, buy a sail boat, load up their family, and sail off into the big blue with relatively limited sailing experience.
The funny thing is, Mr. Conti actually claims to be a “coward.” He even named that first boat “Phobos” after the god of fear. He quickly adds, though, that the fear he felt was actually one of the things that kept him safe. He approached sailing around the world from the perspective of an engineer… and then he over-engineered the situation to be doubly or triply safe. As Mr. Conti told me, “If you go at sea, and with other things in life too, either you are an expert, or you’re scared. If you are both, it’s even better. If you’re not one of those two, any sailing endeavor becomes very dangerous. If you’re scared, or you’re so worried about everything, then you’re very careful. And so you can go into difficult situations because you are careful. If you’re not scared and you’re not an expert, if you go to sea you’ll get clobbered, and maybe even die.” He continued, “but by going through that, you face, but not conquer, fear. They say it’s a courageous person that goes on despite the fear, not somebody that is not fearful. Because that person is an idiot.”
I have been lucky to meet many unconventional thinkers who have changed the world by “thinking outside the box.” That term has become a cliché. But when I spoke with Mr. Conti, I saw a person who has never seen “the box.” It seems as though each of his projects starts with a clean slate and he borrows little from collective engineering standards. He designs boats but does not claim to be a marine engineer. One thing he told me that I found very interesting was how someday “someone is going to invent a powerful engine, something that runs on water, air or some unlimited resource and makes no pollution. This will kill the combustion engine and every car, boat, train, airplane and power-plant will be generating power in a completely clean way. The person who invents that machine will not be someone from the car industry or anyone who studied combustion engines or conventional engineering.” True groundbreaking progress comes from outsiders who don’t follow the pack.
Watch the “Ugo Conti’s Spider Boat” TV Story online, as well as find additional links and resources.
Chris Bauer is a Segment Producer for television on QUEST.
Tags: boat,
Boats,
Engineering,
KQED,
ocean,
Proteus,
QUEST,
Ugo Conti,
WAM-V,
Wave Adaptive Modular Vehicle
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May 6th, 2008 by Chris Bauer
A Pacific Chorus FrogWhen I was growing up in the Bay Area the chirping croaks of native tree frogs often serenaded us to sleep. The sound of those little Pacific Chorus frogs calling to each other was always familiar background music to long summer nights. Those were days of catching pollywogs down at the creek and finding Western Toads in our backyard garden. My brother and I knew exactly where the toads liked to sit during the hot summer afternoons. And like most young boys it was nearly impossible to resist picking them up and interrupting the poor animals’ siestas. Of course the toads always expressed their irritation in the same way, leading us to immediately put them back down in gleeful disgust. This was a wonderful part of each summer’s routine.
I’m sad to say my daughter probably won’t share those same experiences I had. I could say it’s because we live in San Francisco and cities aren’t as amphibian-friendly as the suburbs. But my parents still live in the same house where I grew up. Unfortunately, it has been years since we’ve seen toads in the garden there. And the quiet singing of the tree frogs seems much lonelier today.
Amphibian decline is happening all over the world. And as depressing as it is not to have those fun childhood experiences of catching, playing with and hearing frogs in the garden, there is a much more serious problem going on. This can have some serious consequences to local food webs. It is also an alarming sign that there is something really unusual happening with the world’s environment.
There are many reasons for the decline in the world’s amphibian populations. And it seems that each region of the globe, and maybe even each species, may have its own ticking time bomb. Some places may be experiencing rapid habitat decline. There is pollution in the rainwater and chemical run-off in lakes and streams. Some places are seeing a sharp increase in parasites and diseases. Scientists are even looking at increased UV radiation. Or maybe it’s a combination of multiple factors. The result is part of what some scientists are now calling the “sixth wave of extinction.”
That’s a lot of doom and gloom. Luckily, scientists are racing to understand this decline and hopefully may come up with a means of curbing it before it is too late. We were fortunate to meet some of the best. We joined herpetologists Karen Swaim and Vance Vredenburg out into the field to learn more about what is happening to our local California red-legged frogs. We also visited the laboratory of Professor Tyrone Hayes at UC Berkeley to learn what his team is discovering about the connection between agricultural pesticides and frog decline. (See our additional web-only interview with Professor Hayes) You can test your amphibian knowledge by taking our QUEST quiz. Do you know why my brother and I always put down those toads?
Watch the “Disappearing Frogs” TV Story online, as well as find additional links and resources.
Chris Bauer is a Segment Producer for television on QUEST.
Tags: amphibians,
endangered,
frog,
KQED,
red-legged frogs,
TV
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Posted in Biology, Environment, KQED, TV | 
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April 15th, 2008 by Chris Bauer
Inside the National Ignition Facility. Lawrence Livermore National Lab is building the world’s largest laser. Actually, the National Ignition Facility won’t have only one laser beam. It will use 192 world-class lasers, all firing simultaneously. In a few billionths of a second about 500 trillion watts, which is nearly 1000 times the power generated in the entire US at any moment, will hit a target the size of a dime. The hope is that this will create enough heat and pressure to mimic the core of the sun and achieve a fusion ignition.
So in a nutshell, what is fusion? And how do lasers work? Why are you asking me? I was the kid who always struggled with math and would get hives on the eve of a high school science test.
Luckily, there are some darn good teachers out there and we were fortunate enough to feature one of them in our story. Richard Muller is a professor of physics at the University of California and has also become something of a web phenomenon. Thousands of “students” all over the world have viewed his lecture series titled “Physics for Future Presidents” on YouTube and Cal’s own website.
Muller designed this class to “stress conceptual understanding rather than math, with applications to current events.” As he told us, “imagine looking out on your classroom and picturing out there is the future president of the United States. What do you want that person to know?” What comes out is an explanation of the physics of energy, nuclear weapons, radioactivity, relativity and the universe– all explained in a way that the physics-challenged, like myself or maybe a future president, can understand.
Watch the “Super Laser at the National Ignition Facility” TV Story online, as well as find additional links and resources.
Chris Bauer is a Segment Producer for television on QUEST.
Tags: "lawrence livermore laboratory",
fusion,
KQED,
laser,
national ignition facility,
nuclear,
Physics,
Science,
TV
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April 15th, 2008 by Chris Bauer
Do-it-yourself tabletop biosphere..Last season, QUEST TV went on a field trip to the Maker Faire to see some of the wacky do-it-yourself things coming out of people’s garage work shops. This season, we took Quest Radio Editor Andrea Kissack out to the Make Magazine Test Lab to tinker and experiment with some of our favorite DIY science projects.
We started with a Table-Top Biosphere, or as MAKE called it, a “Tabletop Shrimp Support Module” or TSSM. The whole idea is to create an entirely self-sustaining aquatic ecosystem within a completely sealed jam jar. If you do it right, your freshwater shrimp “aquanaut” will be able to survive for months without your ever needing to feed it or even open the jar. The ecological balance you create supplies all the air, filtering and food for all the creatures within the jar to survive in perfect harmony. If only the real world was this easy.
Watch the “MAKE it at Home: Table-Top Biosphere” TV Story online, as well as find additional links and resources.
Here are the instructions to make your own table-top biosphere.
Chris Bauer is a Segment Producer for television on QUEST.
Tags: aquarium,
biosphere,
DIY,
do-it-yourself,
KQED,
MAKE Magazine,
plants,
Science,
TV
,
Posted in Biology, Engineering, KQED, TV | 10 Comments
March 26th, 2008 by Chris Bauer
A mysterious sea creature up to 7 feet long, with 10 arms, a sharp beak and a ravenous appetite, has invaded ocean waters off Northern California. Packs of fierce Humboldt Squid attack nearly everything they see, from fish to scuba divers. Marine biologists are working to discover why they’ve headed north from their traditional homes off South America.
If you haven’t read it already, see my Producer’s Notes blog post for this story for the real scoop on squid.
View the web-exclusive premiere of “The Fierce Humboldt Squid,” our first Season 2 QUEST TV story. Season 2 begins on broadcast TV next Tuesday, April 1 at 7:30pm on KQED, Channel 9 in Northern California.
See additional photos of these fearsome leviathans of the deep, including close-up tentacles, beaks and an actual squid necropsy.
Chris Bauer is a Segment Producer for television on QUEST, and is the producer for this story.
Tags: cephalopods,
fishing,
Humboldt squid,
invasive species,
KQED,
kqedquest,
mesopelagic,
monterey,
pbs,
predator,
QUEST,
Science,
squid,
tentacle
,
Posted in Biology, Environment, TV | 3 Comments
March 18th, 2008 by Chris Bauer
Humboldt Squid - known as “Diablos Rojos”.I have to admit I had a bit of trepidation when QUEST set out to tell the story about Humboldt squid (Dosidicus gigas). The squid have aggressively expanded their territorial range from the warmer equatorial Pacific to waters off central California. These are not the little market squid you might be used to seeing. “Jumbo” squid can grow up to six feet long, have barbed tentacles and a powerful, razor-sharp parrot-like beak. They have also arrived with a somewhat nasty reputation. In Mexico, where they have the nickname “Diablos Rojos,” or “red devils,” there are stories of fishermen falling overboard and being pulled below, never to be seen again. But that’s not what made me nervous.
I get seasick.
Still, I love being out on the ocean and never turn down the chance to get out beyond the breakers. We set out on the charter fishing boat Huli Cat from Pillar Point Harbor near Half Moon Bay. The boat was aiming for an area the captain called the “Dover Grounds,” about 20 miles out to sea. On the way, we passed a migrating pod of Humpback whales, coming so close that we could smell their breath as they spouted. We passed through vast fields of pink jellyfish that covered the surface as far as the eye could see. We saw mola mola (or ocean sunfish) rising to the surface to be cleaned by waiting seagulls. As we got closer to our destination, a gang of playful porpoises caught up to the boat and began surfing the bow wave.
Producer Chris Bauer fishes for squid -
and tries to stay on his feet.Just then, the boat’s radio cackled with Coast Guard chatter. A container ship had struck the Bay Bridge and was leaking vast amounts of oil into the San Francisco Bay. It seemed a world away and at that time we had no idea what kind of impact the oil spill would have on those very waters. The captain scanned the fish finder and we drifted to a stop. Fishermen began letting out their lines and a lone albatross landed off the stern. He looked at me in a curious way, maybe wondering why I appeared somewhat greener than the other people on the boat.
It was not long before the first Humboldt squid was pulling on a line. Soon all the anglers were straining at their reels. Fishing for Jumbo squid isn’t as much about finesse as it is about brute force. The rods seemed to be at the point of snapping and the angler’s arms burned as they reeled in Jumbo squid from 800 feet below.
So why are these animals arriving here in Northern California? And what impact does this “invasion” have on the fragile ocean ecosystem? As QUEST begins our second television season, we’ll join this trip and meet one of the foremost experts on Humboldt squid, Professor Bill Gilly from Stanford University’s Hopkins Marine Station. Tune in on Tuesday, April 1st, on our website or on KQED channel 9, to learn more about these amazing animals.
Chris Bauer is a Segment Producer for television on QUEST.
Tags: Biology,
Dosidicus gigas,
fishing,
KQED,
mola,
ocean,
pbs,
pillar point,
squid,
TV
,
Posted in Biology, Environment, KQED, TV | 2 Comments
September 25th, 2007 by Chris Bauer
In dry years, fires in California cost billions of dollars and often result in lost lives. QUEST goes inside the fire season, looking at how the history of forest management could be feeding today’s flames.
You may view the “Into the Inferno: The Science of Fire” TV story online, as well as find additional links and resources. Also, see See additional photos from the making of Into the Inferno: The Science of Fire.
Chris Bauer is a Segment Producer for television on QUEST, and is the producer for this story.
Tags: KQED,
kqedquest,
QUEST,
Science
,
Posted in Engineering, TV, Weather | 2 Comments
September 18th, 2007 by Chris Bauer
For more than 100 years, the southern shoreline of San Francisco Bay has been a center for industrial salt production. Now, in an attempt to roll back the clock, federal and state biologists are working on a 40-year, $1 billion project to restore the ponds to healthy wetlands for fish, wildlife and public recreation. QUEST visits the largest wetlands restoration project in the West.
You may view the “From Salt Ponds to Wetlands” TV story online, as well as find additional links and resources.
Chris Bauer is a Segment Producer for television on QUEST, and is the producer for this story.
Tags: KQED,
kqedquest,
QUEST,
Science
,
Posted in Chemistry, Environment, KQED, TV | 3 Comments
July 31st, 2007 by Chris Bauer
Do other planets like Earth exist? To find out, a team of astronomers from the University of California is building a new telescope in the hills east of San Jose. QUEST finds out what the chances are that there are others like ours somewhere in the cosmos.
You may view the “The Planet Hunters” online, as well as find additional links and resources.
Chris Bauer is a Segment Producer for television on QUEST, and is the producer for this story.
Tags: KQED,
kqedquest,
QUEST,
Science
,
Posted in Astronomy, KQED, Physics | 1 Comment
July 17th, 2007 by Chris Bauer
With its rolling hills and winter storms, the Bay Area has been a landslide hotspot, putting houses and lives at risk. Meet the geologists working to understand and predict these natural disasters.
You may view the “Landslide Detectives” TV Story online, as well as find additional links and resources. You may also view additional images for this story in our Landslide Detectives flickr photo set.
Chris Bauer is a Segment Producer for television on QUEST, and is the producer for this story.
Tags: KQED,
kqedquest,
QUEST,
Science
,
Posted in Geology, KQED, TV, Weather | Please Comment
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