QUEST Community Science Blog Author: Sheraz Sadiq

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Producer's Notes: Macro Concerns in a Nano World

August 12th, 2008 by Sheraz Sadiq



When I was assigned to work on our QUEST story on nanotechnology, I braced myself for the complex terrain ahead. The focus is on the public policy implications of the surge in consumer goods containing nanoparticles. And just how big is the market for nano-manufactured goods? According to the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies, a partnership between the Pew Charitable Trusts and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, there are hundreds of products available to consumers that contain manufactured nanomaterials. They run the gamut from tennis rackets to toothpaste to air purifiers and even stuffed animals which contain antibacterial nanosilver. Lux Research projects that the worldwide market for nano-manufactured goods will exceed 2 trillion dollars by 2014.

Meanwhile, the federal government has been criticized for failing to regulate more stringently the use of nanoparticles and for not investing enough dollars to study the effects of their exposure. Even when the federal authorities do act, like when they ruled that germ-killing products laced with nanosilver must be registered as pesticides, it makes you scratch your head at how outdated some of our environmental laws are and ill-equipped to deal with materials that came online after the laws were written.

The nuts and bolts of producing this story were challenging as well. To lay out the public policy debate, we needed to get opinions and facts from an environmental organization, the federal government and a firm that is actually manufacturing products at the nano-scale. I was also fortunate to get access to Kent Pinkerton and his colleagues at UC Davis, who are studying the exposure effects of quantum dots and carbon nanotubes on rodents. Special thanks goes to my Associate Producer, Jenny Oh, for securing an important interview with Dr. John Howard, the director of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. As I was about to commence my interview with Dr. Howard, I ran through with him the list of questions, including one about respirators and whether they would adequately protect exposure to materials that are thousands of times smaller than the human hair. Without missing a beat, Dr. Howard grabbed his pen, asked me for a sheet of paper and drew a sketch of a filter lattice, explaining how yes, thanks to Brownian motion, the tiny nanoparticles would be moving around so wildly that they would bounce off the surface of the lattice. Bigger particles, on the other hand, may get through the lattice.

Discussion about nanotechnology, its benefits, its risks, the knowns and unknowns will continue for some time. Perhaps QUEST will revisit nanotechnology as new breakthroughs emerge and science reveals more clearly how nanoparticles affect the environment and living organisms.

Watch the “Macro Concerns in a Nano World” TV Story online, as well as find additional links and resources.




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Posted in Chemistry, KQED, Physics, TV | 1 Comment

Producer's Notes: Science Flexes its Muscles

July 29th, 2008 by Sheraz Sadiq



Our QUEST story on the science of anabolic steroids, how they affect the body, and the super-smart sleuths who are using science to catch the cheaters who abuse them, turned up some interesting information. For one thing, I was surprised to learn that according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse’s fact sheet about anabolic-androgenic steroids, nearly 2 percent of 10th graders (both boys and girls) admitted to using steroids at some point. Now that may not seem like much, but when you think about the devastating consequences that steroids can have on the body, such as jaundice, kidney failure, and infertility, that’s pretty alarming. One could even argue that there’s a trickle-down effect when high-school athletes hear allegations of steroid abuse amongst professional athletes and see the athletes continue to pull down multimillion dollar contracts while winning accolades and national titles.

It’s nice to know that there are scientists like Terry Sheehan and other high-tech chemists who have the high-tech tools like liquid chromatography and gas chromatography to identify the cheaters in the elite sporting competitions, like the upcoming Beijing Olympics and Tour de France. Clearly the temptation to cheat is great but as the case of Marion Jones has illustrated recently, the fall from grace if you’re caught is swift and unremitting. At the end of June, Floyd Landis lost his last appeal to try and hang onto his 2006 Tour de France title. At the time, he vehemently denied that he used testosterone, instead claiming that he naturally has high levels of testosterone. This year’s Tour de France has also been riven by positive doping results for several cyclists who tested positive for EPO, a banned substance that is naturally produced by the kidneys and stimulates the production of red blood cells in the bone marrow.

The other thing that I discovered when researching this QUEST story was how prevalent the use of steroids and other performance-enhancing illicit substances are amongst “average” people and amateur/semi-pro athletes. Granted, I can only speak anecdotally but there were quite a few personal trainers in the Bay Area with whom I spoke who mentioned how easily available anabolic steroids and increasingly, Human Growth Hormone (HGH), is in the gym-going and semi-pro cage-fighting and weightlifting community. Nowadays, it’s not even necessarily the lure of big bucks or stardom that is enticing people to risk their health by abusing steroids, EPO, HGH or other substances. It seems that the quest for a youthful, fit appearance is enough of a motivator to make some people do so.


Watch the “Science Flexes Its Muscles” TV Story online, as well as find additional links and resources.






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Posted in Health, KQED, TV | 2 Comments

Producer's Notes: Darfur Stoves Project

May 20th, 2008 by Sheraz Sadiq

There are times when you are in the production trenches, plumbing the depths of a story, that you realize how lucky you are to work on QUEST. Assisting QUEST Producer Amy Miller on this segment was yet another occasion to experience such a sentiment, as we found out about the amazing work of Ashok Gadgil and his colleagues to help the women and families who’ve been displaced as a result of the genocide in Darfur.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with the story, in 2005, Ashok Gadgil, a physicist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, led a team of four people to north and south Darfur to determine how families were cooking their meals. This may seem like an odd fact-finding mission but it had very real consequences for alleviating the suffering and violence the Darfuri women experience. Every other day, many women leave the relative safety of the refugee camps to travel six to seven hours to collect fuel wood for their meals. In the process, they risk rape and mutilation at the hands of the Janjaweed, a state-sponsored militia which has been lodged in a genocidal fight against Darfuri rebel groups pressing for more autonomy from the government in Khartoum. Three years later, Ashok Gadgil and Ken Chow of Engineers Without Borders are on version eight of the Berkeley Darfur stove, an elegantly simple yet effective ten pound metal stove which is four times more efficient than the traditional three-stone fire with which the Darfur refugees have traditionally cooked. Ashok and his colleagues on the Darfur Stoves Project hope to have five to six manufacturing plants operating in north, west and south Darfur, producing hundreds of thousands of stoves a year from the flat-pack kits of the stove Ken Chow has engineered.

For me, this QUEST segment highlighted how scientists with the brilliance and dedication of Ashok Gadgil can think up solutions to problems that have the potential to alleviate suffering and help the economic lot (each stove saves roughly $250 dollars in fuel wood annually for a Darfuri family) of hundreds of thousands of people existing within the margins of survival. Fortunately, there are organizations, in addition to the Darfur Stoves Project, that are also helping to get more stoves into the hands of Darfuri refugees, including The Hunger Site, Global Giving, The Child Health Site. You can visit these non-profit organizations and purchase a Berkeley Darfur stove on behalf of a family in Darfur, and also make a donation to the U.S. chapter of Engineers Without Borders to support their projects in Asia and Africa.

On a final production note, our QUEST segment about the Darfur Stoves Project was immensely helped by U.N.’s archival footage department and the U.N. Mission in Sudan, both of which gave us footage of the stark conditions in the Darfuri refugee camps. The U.N. High Commission for Refugees also accepts donations for their international humanitarian activities.

Watch the “Darfur Stoves Project” TV Story online, as well as find additional links and resources.


Sheraz Sadiq is an Associate Producer for QUEST on KQED Television.







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Posted in Engineering, KQED, TV | 5 Comments

Producer's Notes: Amateur Astronomers

April 29th, 2008 by Sheraz Sadiq

In 1968, John Dobson started the San Francisco Sidewalk Astronomers with the help of two boys who loved astronomy but couldn’t join an amateur astronomy club in the city because they were too young. So the trio created their own club, carting two homemade telescopes onto Jackson and Broderick Streets and inviting curious passersby to take a look at the craters of the moon, the rings of Saturn, the banded clouds of Jupiter.

Forty years later, the San Francisco Sidewalk Astronomers is still going strong, boasting a web site replete with a monthly star chart, specific for San Francisco, a calendar of monthly amateur astronomy events, a helpful “cheat sheet” of astronomical facts and answers to questions that routinely come up if you set up a telescope on your neighborhood sidewalk, and where to go if you want to borrow, build or donate a telescope.

Another great resource for the budding SF amateur astronomer is the Randall Museum, which hosts star parties, lectures by amateur and professional astronomers and classes for making your own Dobsonian telescope from scratch. The free public lectures at the Randall Museum take place on the third Wednesday of each month, sponsored by the San Francisco Amateur Astronomers.

Since 1952, the San Francisco Amateur Astronomers have been an invaluable resource for stargazers to learn about the choicest observing sites throughout the Bay Area, monthly star parties and make contact with a community of like-minded folks. Be sure to also check out their astrophotography web page, where they have uploaded photos and even videos shot with their telescopes of galaxies, comets, moons, planets and nebulae.

If you can’t get enough of amateur astronomy clubs in the Bay Area, check out the Astronomical Society of the Pacific and the Astronomical Association of Northern California. The Astronomical Society of the Pacific, founded in the 19th century, has members from 70 countries and claims to be the largest astronomy society in the world. It also boasts educational outreach programs, such as Astronomy from the Ground Up, a National Science Foundation-funded program that helps informal science educators such as docents and volunteers by giving them the tools and training to more effectively communicate astronomy information to the public.

If you should need to buy equipment or talk with some very knowledgeable folks about the right telescope, accessories or CCD digital camera to begin your foray into astrophotography, check out Scope City, a retailer in San Francisco specializing in telescopes and binoculars.

Watch the “Amateur Astonomers” TV Story online, as well as find additional links and resources.


Sheraz Sadiq is an Associate Producer for QUEST on KQED Television.







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Posted in Astronomy, Engineering, KQED, TV | 1 Comment

Producer's Notes - Biofuels: Beyond Ethanol

April 8th, 2008 by Sheraz Sadiq

A sample of switchgrass at Sandia National
LaboratoriesIt doesn’t need to be said that there’s a heated debate about how to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions with actions that lessen our society’s carbon footprint. Biofuels like ethanol or biodiesel are one option. They’re touted as being carbon neutral because the CO2 they emit comes from crops which had previously sequestered them in the atmosphere. In contrast, petroleum produces CO2 emissions that had previously been buried deep in the earth’s crust, adding to the other green house gases in the environment. For example, the U.S. Department of Energy - citing research by the Argonne National Laboratory – states that ethanol derived from corn emits 25% less greenhouse gas emissions than petroleum and that the savings with cellulosic ethanol, made from a feedstock like switchgrass, are much higher, in effect producing no additional greenhouse gases.

So when QUEST decided to move forward on producing a story about biofuels, I welcomed the opportunity to assist Series Producer Josh Rosen in its crafting. Being QUEST, we weren’t content to merely renumerate the different kinds of biofuels and how cellulosic ethanol is more efficient than corn-based ethanol. Instead, our story focuses on the pioneering work being done by researchers affiliated with the Joint BioEnergy Initiative (JBEI), a multi-billion dollar research initiative based in Emeryville, as they look beyond ethanol to the next generation of biofuels. So not only is JBEI looking at various feedstocks like switchgrass, rice, poplar and innovative ways to “deconstruct” the cellulosic material, it also attempts to synthesize fuels that work more efficiently in America’s automotive fleet, still overwhelmingly reliant on gasoline.

But even top researchers at JBEI like Jay Keasling and Blake Simmons caution that this next generation of biofuels won’t be coming online for years. Moreover, new research suggests that the net production cycle of biofuels, from the clear-cutting of trees to grow the crops to their transport to markets far away, may yield as many or more emissions as the use of petroleum-based fuel. A recent Op-Ed piece in the San Francisco Chronicle by UC Berkeley Alex Farrell cites the reason for this as primarily one of production– the way we clear land for growing biofuels, as well as our emphasis on the use of food-based crops like corn and soybean, which aren’t terribly efficient sources of ethanol to begin with.

Tad Patzek, also at UC Berkeley, has been an ardent critic of the carbon-neutral reputation of biofuels, garnering controversy for conducting studies that some other researchers have criticized for their calculations of emissions arising from biofuel production. (See Patzek’s co-authored article on page 19 of the March 2007 edition of Energy Tribune). Earlier this year, a study by researchers at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute suggests that biofuels are not created equal, as those made from U.S. corn, Malaysian palm oil and Brazilian soy yield more emissions than their petroleum-based counterparts, given the environmental damage they reap when grown for fuel. The study cites recycled cooking oil and biofuel made from grassy and woody cellulosic material as being more intelligent choices for cutting down on emissions.

And so the debate continues, struggling to keep pace with the technological progress made by scientists toiling away in their quest to find the holy grail of an efficient, cheap and environmentally-friendly biofuel.

Watch the “Biofuels: Beyond Ethanol” TV Story online, as well as find additional links and resources.

Sheraz Sadiq is an Associate Producer for QUEST on KQED Television.







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Posted in Biology, Chemistry, Environment, KQED, TV | Please Comment

Second Life: Big Avatar on Campus

September 25th, 2007 by Sheraz Sadiq

It’s a virtual world, but the transactions are real. Go inside Second Life, an online game where millions of people are creating digital personalities called avatars and are living virtual lives– meeting other avatars, going to events, and even buying property with real money.

You may view the “Second Life: Big Avatar on Campus” TV story online, as well as find additional links and resources. Also, see See additional photos of our producer’s avatar, ‘Quest Infinity,’ as he explores Second Life.



Sheraz Sadiq is a Segment Producer and Associate Producer for QUEST on KQED Television.




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Posted in Engineering, Health, KQED, TV | 9 Comments

Earthquakes: Breaking New Ground

September 11th, 2007 by Sheraz Sadiq

It’s the holy grail for geologists. Can earthquakes be predicted? Northern California researchers are now identifying the slow-moving clues that may foreshadow violent quakes and studying active faults below the earth’s surface. Their work may provide even a few seconds of warning, which in earthquake country can give a vital warning to open elevator doors, slow down trains and alert firefighters.

You may view the “Earthquakes: Breaking New Ground” story online, as well as find additional links and resources.


Sheraz Sadiq is a Segment Producer and Associate Producer for QUEST on KQED Television.




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Posted in Geology, KQED, Physics, TV | 1 Comment

Urban Forest 2.0

September 4th, 2007 by Sheraz Sadiq

The urban forest is going digital. Thanks to volunteers with laptops and handheld devices, San Francisco is creating an online map of every street tree in the city, getting a leg up on keeping the urban landscape healthy and growing.

You may view the “Urban Forest 2.0″ story online, as well as find additional links and resources.


Sheraz Sadiq is a Segment Producer and Associate Producer for QUEST on KQED Television.




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Posted in Engineering, Environment, KQED, TV | 1 Comment

The Great Switch-Out

July 31st, 2007 by Sheraz Sadiq

Compared to traditional incandescent light bulbs, new compact fluorescent bulbs use at least two-thirds less energy and last up to 10 times longer. Many say that widespread use would produce major energy savings and reduce global warming emissions. But some people say their lighting is too harsh. QUEST sheds some light on the bulb debate.

You may view the “The Great Switch-Out” online, as well as find additional links and resources.

Sheraz Sadiq is a Segment Producer and Associate Producer for QUEST on KQED Television.




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Posted in Engineering, Environment, KQED, TV | Comments Off