Doug Nomura in action on the Bay Trail.

Something about San José photographer Doug Nomura’s pictures of birds in flight, or attempting to get off the ground to fly, grabs you.  I think it’s the sheer energy and effort that the photos convey.

It’s especially timely to be broadcasting our profile of Nomura as the Your Photos on QUEST (please link to our YPOQ8 segment) 2-minute segment on our Oct. 13 television episode, since the Bay Area is inundated with migratory birds starting in October.  The Bay Area is on the Pacific Flyway, a major north-south route of travel for migratory birds in the Americas, extending from Alaska to Patagonia.  As a result, close to 700,000 ducks are usually counted in the San Francisco Bay and the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta during October, said John Takekawa, research wildlife biologist with the US Geological Service. Raptors like hawks and falcons also stop over in the Bay Area in fall and winter.

Doug Nomura looks forward to the beginning of the migration in October because it multiplies his opportunities to photograph birds in flight.  He stalks his subjects along the Bay Trail, a shoreline trail that will eventually hug the entire circumference of the San Francisco Bay.  When the Bay Trail is complete, it will be 500 miles long.  Currently, the public can enjoy almost 300 miles of paths.  Nomura, whose day job is as a computer network security specialist, is an avid fan.  “This allows me to turn the cell phone off and go out there for a couple of hours,” he said.  “It’s some of the best therapy one can give oneself and it doesn’t cost anything.  I’d like my photographs to inspire people to visit the Bay Trail to look at the wildlife and appreciate what we have in our backyard.”

Kevin Cain, Digital Capture Supervisor for Maya Skies, demonstrates his innovative image-capture process that replaces expensive custom hardware with affordable consumer equipment.On this week’s TV episode of QUEST, we go behind the scenes of Tales of Maya Skies, the new film produced by Oakland’s Chabot Space and Science Center.  The half-hour film about Maya astronomy opens at the center’s planetarium on November 21.

The film is groundbreaking for a couple of reasons.  It’s the first time the Chabot center is using state-of-the art laser scanning technology to create one of its films.  For Tales of Maya Skies, a team of 25 people spent seven weeks scanning the ruins of the ancient city of Chichén Itzá, in Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula.  This technology is widely used by Hollywood productions because of the flexibility it gives a creative team.  Once they’ve scanned a particular site, they can play with any one of its variables: they can create the illusion that the camera is moving in crazy ways; they can manipulate the light conditions, and they can change the look of the location in any way they want.

The creative team behind Tales of Maya Skies, made up of, among others, Emeryville nonprofit Insight, the San Francisco animation companies Digitrove and Palma VFX, the ARTS Lab at the University of New Mexico, producer Konda Mason and director Jin An Wong, are taking advantage of all the possibilities that the scanning of Chichén Itzá provides.  The audience will be immersed in full-color animations that go beyond showing the ruins of Chichén Itzá as they exist today.  Instead, through laborious historical research, the creative team has reconstructed what the monumental city must have looked like at its peak 1,200 years ago, with temples painted in bright reds, greens, blues and yellows, and incense burning and flags waving atop them.

By using the 3-D digital images created through laser scanners as the raw material for the animations in Tales of Maya Skies, the film is also breaking ground in more indirect, but perhaps even more important, ways.  Insight, the Emeryville nonprofit that oversaw the scanning at Chichén Itzá, as well as the Orinda-based CyArk, another nonprofit that worked on the project, are engaged in scanning irreplaceable sites around the world, documenting them for the benefit of the archaeologists charged with preserving them, as well as for generations to come, which might lose the real thing to natural disasters, war, or the passage of time.  CyArk’s co-founder, Ben Kacyra, has set out to use laser scanners to document 500 sites in five years.

But laser scanners, for all the wonderful detail, speed and flexibility they offer, are expensive.  They can cost anywhere from $10,000 to $150,000.  That’s why Kevin Cain, Insight’s director, has been testing an alternative system that can accomplish the same thing at a fraction of the cost. All the gear he needs is a digital camera, a flash and software, at a total cost of under $2,000.  Here’s how it works.  For every 32-square-foot swatch of an object, Cain takes 10 still photos with his camera and flash.  Then he uses the photos to reconstruct the object based on the brightness of each individual point on its surface.  The system is based on a principle of physics discovered in the 18^th century.  The high quality of today’s cheap digital cameras is what makes it possible to apply this principle to create an inexpensive image-capturing system.

“With this new technique, our ultimate goal is to be able to provide very low-cost, very usable results for archaeologists,” Cain said, “because until the price goes almost to zero, archaeologists aren’t going to be able to adopt it, just given the realities of their field.”  To illustrate those realities, Cain used the example of the work that Insight has done in Egypt for the past decade.  Each year they join a team of archaeologists for their field work at the Tomb of Ramses.  A complete yearly field season costs under $50,000, many times the cost of an inexpensive laser scanner.

Mercury is a poisonous metallic element that is liquid at room temperature.

There's nothing like producing a controversial story on some favorite food group to have a profound effect on one's appetite. I gave up chicken after doing a story on factory farms (I already didn't eat beef or pork or I would have eliminated those as well.) Now, fish, too, has fallen from grace. Ignorance was bliss.

I've known for quite some time that some fish, especially tuna, were high in mercury. But discovering the extent of the problem, and that halibut and sea bass were also on the “do not eat too much of” list, was eye-opening for me. Now I count fish servings like some people count calories. Japanese cuisine, one of my favorites, has lost some of its glow, as well as its frequency in my dining-out plans.

Many of you have practical questions, as did I. How big a crimp does this have to put in my diet? How much is too much? How often is too often? Can I still enjoy that tuna sashimi and not worry about mercury overload?

Because there wasn't time in the QUEST TV segment on mercury in the bay to include information on safe fish eating practices, below are the guidelines, along with web links, to help you get plenty of Omega 3s and still keep your mercury levels low.

Here's what California's Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment says about eating fish from the San Francisco Bay and Delta Region.

• Women beyond childbearing age and men should eat no more than two meals per month of San Francisco Bay sport fish, including sturgeon and striped bass caught in the delta. (One meal for an adult is about eight ounces).
• Women beyond childbearing age and men should not eat any striped bass over 35 inches.
• Women of childbearing age, pregnant, nursing mothers, and children should not eat more than one meal of Bay fish per month. In addition, they should not eat any striped bass over 27 inches or any shark.
• This advisory does not apply to salmon, anchovies, herring, and smelt caught in the bay; other sport fish caught in the delta or ocean; or commercial fish.
• Richmond Harbor Channel area: In addition to the above advice, no one should eat any croakers, surfperches, bullheads, gobies or shellfish taken within the Richmond Harbor Channel area because of high levels of chemicals detected there.

Here’s a summary of the joint fish advisory published by the FDA and EPA for women who are pregnant, breastfeeding or may become pregnant and for children. This is a general advisory not exclusive to any water body.

• Do not eat Shark, Swordfish, King Mackerel, or Tilefish because they contain high levels of mercury.
• Eat up to 12 ounces (2 average meals) a week of a variety of fish and shellfish that are lower in mercury. Five of the most commonly eaten fish that are low in mercury are shrimp, canned light tuna, salmon, pollock, and catfish.
• Another commonly eaten fish, albacore ("white") tuna has more mercury than canned light tuna. So, when choosing your two meals of fish and shellfish, eat only up to 6 ounces (one average meal) of albacore tuna per week.
• Check local advisories about the safety of fish caught by family and friends in your local lakes, rivers, and coastal areas. If no advice is available, eat up to 6 ounces (one average meal) per week of fish you catch from local waters, but don't consume any other fish during that week.
• Follow these same recommendations when feeding fish and shellfish to your young child, but serve smaller portions.

Also, check for local advisories for each water body in California that has fish consumption guidelines. They vary by water body.

And lastly, here’s some practical advice from Dr. Jane Hightower, the medical doctor who we feature in the mercury story.

• “If you’re genetically susceptible, it’s really important to know that if you are an autoimmune-prone patient, Lupus, MS, thyroiditis, these kinds of things, then you should not consume mercury on a regular basis or at all. … And then the cardiac patients. You know, mercury can cause a reaction in vessels that leads to inflammation. So you want to have your Omega 3 fatty acids, which is anti-inflammatory. And not have mercury which is pro-inflammatory…. If you want to avoid significant mercury and you just don’t know what the mercury content is in the fish, a rule of thumb is to eat the small fish. Not a piece of the fish. If it comes in a steak, you want to know how big the fish was that the steak came from. You want the whole fish to fit on your plate. Don’t buy a bigger plate. Get a smaller fish. With the exception of salmon. Salmon can have elevated mercury, but very rarely.”

Good luck, good health, and and watch out for bones!




Watch the Mercury in San Francisco Bay television story online.

Zoloft is a popular drug used for the treatment of depression symptoms.

Depression is hardly new. The Roman physician Galen, in the second century A.D., expounded on the prevailing medical view that four bodily fluids, or humors, existed within all people but that the unique variation of these humors within people resulted in individual differences among people in their behavior and temperament. An excess of black bile, for example, indicated a melancholic personality.

Fortunately, a lot of scientific progress has been made since then in understanding depression to be an organic, brain-based medical condition that afflicts millions. In fact, an individual has a ten to fifteen percent lifetime risk of developing a major depressive episode. But as Dr. Karl Deisseroth, a Stanford neuroscientist and psychiatrist, told me during our interview for “Illuminating Depression”, “Diagnosis is a big challenge because in psychiatry, we don’t have a lab test. There’s not a blood draw that you can do as you might to check how your liver is doing or how your thyroid function is doing.” So given that the diagnosis of depression is based on clinical observation (most often done by a primary care physician), one can’t help feel that hard, empirical understanding of depression is somewhat lacking, especially when compared to diseases of other organs like the heart and lungs where tests do exist to gauge the presence of pulmonary and cardiovascular diseases.

This was the most interesting observation for me when working on this story. Imagine a medical disease that afflicts eighteen million people in the U.S. (26 million if you include Bipolar Disorder), for which more than 160 million prescriptions were filled in 2008, that is one of the leading causes of disability in the U.S., but a disease for which no definitive medical model of pathology exists. Increasingly, doctors are prescribing antidepressants to treat not just depression but a host of other medical conditions, including chronic pain and insomnia, some of which can co-occur with depression. Sure, we’ve made strides since the time of Galen’s bodily humors and the Freudian view of misplaced hostility and mourning to explain depression, but in some respects, we’re still in the dark about why some people get depression while others don’t, why some people respond to one treatment and not another, or why one person will suffer from a form of depression that is less or more severe than another person. This lack of clear, empirical understanding comes at an awful price to victims of depression, as they encounter remarks from people that tell them to “snap out of it”, implying that they somehow can control the emotional crumbling and dark ideations that accompany the disease.

The consequence of all this is that it’s incredibly tough to create effective, lasting treatments for the disease if we can’t exactly track how the disease affects not only specific regions of the brain but the activity among individual brain cells in regions that may not have even been known to play an integral role in the disease. My layperson’s view is that treating depression currently is a bit like bringing in a car to the mechanic and telling him to fix it but there’s a catch – the mechanic can’t get under the hood to observe directly what’s wrong with the car. We suspect that the problem is with the engine but good luck with opening it up and peering into its pistons. So the mechanic attempts to work on the engine but indirectly, and whatever repairs are attempted may affect the engine but they may also have unwanted effects on the car’s transmission, muffler, timing belt, etc.

Fortunately, advances in imaging techniques like two-photon microscopy and fMRI are elucidating the activity of the depressed brain, allowing the previously impenetrable forest of billions of neurons to be explored, to see their pathways altered, their branches pruned by the disease. And scientists like Philippe Goldin and Kelly Werner are compiling biomarkers like DNA and brain blood flow activity to see if those biomarkers can help predict if people suffering from anxiety and/or depression will respond more favorably to cognitive behavioral therapy than to mindfulness meditation, for example. Dr. Deisseroth is using genetically engineered, photosensitive proteins implanted into rodents’ brains to control brain activity at the level of individual neurons.

Dr. M. Bret Schneider told me during our interview, “A real cure for depression is gonna involve being able to selectively affect those portions of the brain which don’t function properly in depression… But fathoming the huge number of possibilities in each brain with every brain being a little bit different than every other one, is gonna require individualized solutions and will be a scientific feat.” I suppose that with a disease as complex as depression, where one’s individual genetic makeup can influence the kinds of side effects one may experience with an antidepressant, it’s apropos that the future of treating and eventually curing it will entail personalized medicine. Until then, let’s hope that more people bring psychiatry into the research lab to study illnesses like depression, for it’s only through the methodical rigor of science that we have the best hope for curing depression.

Watch the Illuminating Depression television story online.

An image of a bioreactor being developed by OriginOil scientists.

Today’s episode of QUEST features our 10-minute TV story about efforts to produce biofuels from algae. In 1996, when the U.S. Department of Energy concluded its 25-year research project into the potential of algae as biofuels, its report concluded that the most cost-effective way to grow algae was in open ponds. With climate change and geopolitics prompting new research into the algae-as-fuel question, some companies are pursuing the open pond route, while others are looking into closed systems such as bioreactors. In our TV story we profile OriginOil, a Los Angeles-based company developing a bioreactor that looks like a miniature Christmas tree, complete with bright, colored lights. And we interview the CEO of Aurora Biofuels, a company based in the Bay Area city of Alameda, which is re-imagining open ponds, as well as trying to create strains of algae that are ideal for fuel production. Before becoming the CEO of Aurora Biofuels, Bob Walsh worked at the oil company Shell for 25 years. Here’s an excerpt of QUEST’s March, 2009, interview with Walsh, most of which didn't make it into the TV segment.

QUEST: What excited you about algae?

BOB WALSH: I ran oil products businesses for many years and understand the cost-competitiveness and the commodity basis of it. And what excited me about algae was, A, it’s renewable. B, you're using a feed stock of carbon dioxide, which is basically free. And finally, what excited me about this company, Aurora Biofuels, was the aspect of solving it end to end, not just the biotech (end of things), but also the engineering aspects.

Q: What has algae been grown for in ponds in the past?

WALSH: Algae’s been grown in open ponds for decades. And typically it’s been done with nutraceuticals – spirulina, which many people use as a protein pill. That is grown in open ponds, but not very cost-effectively because they haven’t had to be very cost-effective. They can charge $10 per pound.

Q: What would be the difference that you would be looking for in terms of cost-effectiveness, compared to what’s been done already?

WALSH: Historically, algae were just grown in an open pond and captured carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere and the sun. What we’re actually doing is injecting the CO2 we recover from a steel mill or power plant, to give the algae food. And we’ve engineered it to get better mixing, so it grows more quickly. And then finally, rather than drying the algae out, we actually do a wet extraction of the oil, which is much more cost-effective than drying it as they have historically done for proteins.

Q: So what price would you be aiming for, and what price can the algae be grown for now?

WALSH: Oil today has been around $50 per barrel. We believe we need to be competitive in the $50-60 range. And that’s what our final target is. I think oil will be $60-100 over the next 10 to 15 years.

Q: What would the algae biofuels facility of the future look like?

WALSH: You’ll situate it very close to a CO2 source – a steel mill or a power plant. It will encompass several thousand acres of barren land – because you want dry, barren land – and use salt water. And it would produce roughly 120 million gallons a year of useable fuel into the existing infrastructure.

Q: Can algae fuel actually make a contribution to our transportation needs?

WALSH: Algae can be a player. It’s going to take a lot of different solutions because of the different climates and things that you need for it. It’s also a trillion-gallon market. And so it’s not going to happen tomorrow. But certainly algae can be a 5- to 10-percent player in ten years, in the marketplace.

Watch the Algae Power television story online.

And old, 19th Century windmill in contrast to wind turbines today.

Last summer I visited the Netherlands, the original home of the windmill. Surprisingly, I saw hardly any of the quaint structures we associate with Dutch wind power. One hundred years ago Holland had about 10,000 wooden windmills dotting its landscape. Today, barely 10% remain. What I saw instead were high tech wind turbines, white and spare and gracefully generating electricity with wind from the North Sea. Many view these modern day towers as an eyesore, but I see them as a sign of hope. Like giant flowers across a landscape, they symbolize for me a clean energy future. But wind power, and solar, have a handicap that fuels claims that renewables will never be more than a small percentage of U.S. power. These energy sources can't be counted on when night falls or the wind subsides. Their inconsistent and therefore unreliable nature poses a problem for a world with an enormous appetite for electricity. If only excess power could be stored on a grand scale, it might solve many of our energy problems.

It isn't that electrical energy isn't currently storable, but as Andrew Tang, Senior Director of PG&E’s Smart Meter program points out, the current generation of batteries can’t store electricity at a price that's cost effective. But both he and Steve Berberich from California System Operators were optimistic about future storage possibilities. Tang described an experimental project that uses a sodium sulfur battery the size of an 18-wheeler trailer. The battery would be located next to a substation, or somewhere in the network, and its stored power would be used during times of peak demand. He also talked about the future of plug-in electric cars whose batteries could both store energy and in theory put it back onto the grid when the car's not in use. Steve Berberich envisioned several possibilities for storing excess power. He proposed converting it to hydrogen, which could be burned in a gas plant or could be used in a fuel cell. And he suggested using power to compress air, which could be injected into the ground and called upon when the wind's not blowing and the sun’s not shining.

Whatever the final solution to storage, you can guarantee it will be a game changer in the renewable power industry. No longer will wind and solar be looked upon as unreliable. Hopefully this missing puzzle piece will go a long way towards helping us detach from our dependence on fossil fuels. But we’ll still be left with the challenge of getting all that clean, green energy onto the power grid. And you can be sure that environmental concerns, zoning, aesthetics, and cost will undoubtedly be cantankerous issues for years to come.

Watch the Climate Watch: Unlocking The Grid television story online.

The Great Wave off Kanagawa is often mistakenly associated with the Tsunami.

"If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?"

The philosopher George Berkeley posed this philosophical question and a quick internet search found a somewhat scientific answer in an 1894 issue of Scientific American. There they wrote: "Sound is vibration, transmitted to our senses through the mechanism of the ear, and recognized as sound only at our nerve centers. The falling of the tree or any other disturbance will produce vibration of the air. If there be no ears to hear, there will be no sound."

Maybe sometimes vibrations are heard much later, only when the right person is listening.

On January 26, 1700, at about 9:00 p.m. Pacific Standard Time one of the largest earthquakes ever to strike the Pacific Northwest rumbled across the Cascadia Subduction Zone. This massive earthquake sent a giant 33 foot high tsunami crashing onto shore, inundating the quiet coastline. While there is no written account describing the earthquake, tsunami or consequential damage, the devastation was enormous.

So wait. If there was no written record, how can we know the exact time and date when the tsunami struck? How can we know how big it was or what kind of damage it did? It took some digging and an impressive bit of scientific detective work by geologist Brian Atwater. First scientists discovered an unusual layer of sand in a marsh area that left a clue that a wave had struck, taken sand from offshore and brought it far inland. The scientists were able to date this thin sand deposit to around 1700, plus or minus 25 to 50 years. Then through tree-ring dating they were able to narrow that down to within five or ten years. Further study of tree roots narrowed it down even further to winter, 1700. Then investigators went to Japan and checked for evidence of a tsunami during that time. They looked for one which did not have a known earthquake associated with it. These were known as “orphan tsunami." There, in the records from 1700, was a tsunami the struck Japan, a wave that had the right pattern, right size, and was generated at the same place, the Cascadia Subduction Zone all the way on the other side of the Pacific Ocean. January 26, 1700, 9:00 p.m.

Can it happen again. Yes. Are we listening?

Watch the Scary Tsunamis television story online.

I was traveling in Alaska when I saw a Golden Eagle for the first time. I saw one when I was looking out my window up toward the trees. They were a lot harder to spot than the iconic Bald Eagle, with its white-feathered head.
Seeing the Golden Eagle up close gave me a greater appreciation for how amazing they truly are. The largest of the raptors, they are typically 8-12 pounds, and their wing span is around 6-7 feet. While flying (the Golden Eagle is usually gliding) they dive towards earth to catch prey and can reach speeds of up to 200 mph!

The Golden Eagle we got to meet for our Cool Critters segment really captivated us. Between her enormous size, stunning eyes, and gorgeous plumage, we could still see the power and grace that are so iconic to American Eagles. And be sure to catch a look at Jason Pfau, her handler, while he watches her during the segment – the love and admiration he has for this bird tells a story all its own.

Personally, I think the Golden Eagle is cooler than the Bald Eagle, especially because you can see them here in your backyard. Just keep an eye to the sky – the Golden Eagle population over by Mt. Diablo is the highest concentration in the world!

If you want to get a close-up look at some amazing animals, including the Golden Eagle and the Bald Eagle, take visit the Lindsay Wildlife Museum in Walnut Creek, CA.

Watch the Cool Critters television story online.

Amy Miller and the two year-old twins Devon and FelixIt’s been two years since my twins, Felix and Devon were born on July 27, 2007. In that time pretty much every mother with grown children has advised me to “enjoy it while you can” because this wondrous time will seem like it flew by. “They’ll never be babies again!” they say. “Good”, I reply.

I wish I could say that the time has flown by but the fact is that the first year and a half were pretty challenging for us as first-time parents. Don’t get me wrong. I count my blessings every minute of every day. I have two beautiful, healthy, happy little boys. But it’s only been recently that Alex and I feel that we’ve found a rhythm with them and we’re starting to actually have fun. They are talking, singing, dancing, running and just recently, interacting and playing more with each other. They make us laugh all the time. Who knew that toddlers had such a sense of humor?

As a result of the QUEST story, my pregnancy became more of a public event than I expected it to be. Naturally, after the boys were born, there were several inquiries as to our well-being. Here’s what happened:

After lying in bed at California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco for 30 days, I was very close to the end of my rope. Bed rest is infinitely more difficult that I could have ever imagined. When I was 34 weeks and 5 days pregnant, after an evening of crying to Alex that I couldn’t take much more of it, I decided to wind down and go to sleep. Normally, Alex would drive back to Oakland, where we lived at the time. But it was 1AM and even though he had to be at work at 6AM, he was too tired to go home. We asked a nurse to bring him a cot to sleep on in my room. Thank goodness we did. About 10 minutes after we turned off the lights, I felt my water break. If he’d gone back across the Bay Bridge, he would have missed the birth. We called the nurses and doctors and they decided to deliver the boys via caesarian section. Devon, or “baby A” as he was called at that time, was still breech and doctors will not deliver twins vaginally if the first baby is breech.

By 3:30AM, I had two little pink, wrinkly babies. Baby A was 4lbs. 12 oz., Baby B was 4 lbs., 6 oz. They stayed in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit for 2 weeks then we took them home. They were perfectly healthy but just needed to gain a bit of weight and be able to keep their temperatures up without the help of an incubator. The rest, as they say, is history. They are now developing normally; growing and learning new things every hour, it seems. Life is good.

I’m also very happy to report that the other two families in the QUEST story are doing very well, too. Trynne Miller and David Prince’s identical twin daughters, Kate and Charlotte, were born at 28 weeks and 5 days gestation. Average gestation for twins is 35-36 weeks. For a singleton, it’s approximately 40 weeks. Kate weighed 2 lbs. 8 oz., Charlotte was 2 lbs., 5 oz. They were in the NICU for 8 weeks before going home. Today, according to father, David:

Kate and Charlotte Miller-Prince

"They have 'caught up to their age' in terms of their height and weight, and I suspect also
their skills, as they're dancing and talking up a storm. Charlotte (aka Charlie) is speaking in complete, well-formed paragraphs… but we can only understand a few of the words of them."

Josephine Tooley Boyd at age 2

The other child in the story, Josephine Tooley Boyd was born at 28 weeks, 2 days. She was 2 lbs., 12 oz. at birth. She spent 55 days in the hospital before going home at 4 lbs., 6oz. Mother Sarah and her husband moved the family to Oregon in early 2009. According to Sarah, Josephine is “doing great” and quite a big girl. She’s already in the 99th percentile for height and weight for her actual age, not even her “adjusted” age, which is a common parameter for preemies. She’s a talker, speaking in three word sentences and seemingly possesses above average motor skills. She loves playing outdoors and especially loves tractors.

All three children were enrolled in UCSF’s longitudinal MRI study to monitor development of preemies through the first couple of years of their lives. No problems were ever detected with any of these children. But they were the lucky ones. In our society today, preterm birth affects more than 530,000 children and the numbers continues to rise.

In November 2008, the March of Dimes released a “report card” for the nation on prematurely, which assigns grades to both the nation overall as well as to states which are based on how well they address the issue of prematurity.

The U.S. earned a “D” and not a single state received and “A”. The only state to earn a "B" was Vermont. Eight others earned a "C," 23 states earned a "D," and 18 states plus Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia got failing grades of "F."

There’s lots of good research being done but we still have a long way to go before we understand enough about why prematurity occurs that we can prevent it. Until then, visit the March of Dimes website for important information for all pregnant women that will help them recognize the early signs of preterm labor and possible risks for premature birth.

Sometimes, I think back to those thirty days when I was hospitalized prior to their birth and I remember all the things that I was fretting about. Would the boys be healthy? Will I be a good mother? Will our relationship weather the turmoil of two newborns? Will I love them? Will they love me? How will we be able to afford two children? How can we manage to both work full-time when I go back to QUEST in a few months? Believe me, if there was an issue to worry about, I did it. I think that’s pretty normal for first time mothers but lying in a hospital bed with nothing else to do immediately prior to being forced to deal with these issues really amplified those concerns for me.

Now that I’m an old hand at motherhood, I can look back and realize that many of these issues have a way of working themselves out. We figure things out as we go. We adjust to the changes that come along with parenthood because we have no choice but to do so. And thankfully, we did not have any short or long-term health issues to deal with as a result of their premature birth.

Watch the Born Too Soon: Pre-term Births on the Rise television story online.

Harold Davis as he prepares to shoot a variety of plants in his beautiful garden.

You might think that TV producers look down their noses at still photography, but that's far from the truth! Photography is a big passion for many of us here at QUEST; the production stills from some of our field shoots show some amazing talent.

Looking back on previous winners and submissions, I really wanted to find someone for this YPOQ whose work was really different than what we’ve done in the past. It was much harder than I anticipated! So when I came across Harold Davis’ photos on Flickr, I knew he was the one, and I instantly contacted him. (And at every possible email address I could find!)

The hardest thing about pulling this segment together was determining which of Harold’s photographs to use! Browsing through his thousands of photos on Flickr, and his professional website, you can see the breadth of his subjects. In the end, the ones that spoke to me, the ones that really pulled me in, came from his flower garden at his home. How fabulous, to have your “models” right outside your door!

The other thing that really made an impression on me was the way Harold is able to show you things in a way you wouldn’t normally see. His water drop images and night photography really showcase his ability to create what his mind can see, but the naked eye cannot. This is my favorite approach to art: playing with expectations; inviting your audience to experience things in different a way than in your day-to-day life.

If you enjoyed this segment, I highly encourage you to check out more of his work at his website, and his digital photography blog. Once there, you will discover that he holds Night Photography workshops and has several books published.

Watch the YPOQ television story online.