Listing of Television/Radio Stories

In Monterey Bay, scientists have successfully launched a deep sea laboratory that is unlike anything in the world. 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.

Play this Radio Report Air Date: Nov 24, 2008

Foster City photographer and naturalist John Albers-Mead describes visiting the tide pools near Half Moon Bay as "a treasure hunt that changes by the minute." QUEST joins Albers-Mead on Moss Beach at low tide as he captures these sometimes-sunken treasures with his digital camera.

Play this TV Story Air Date: Nov 18, 2008

Solar and wind power may get the headlines when it comes to renewable energy. But another type of clean power is heating up in the hills just north of Sonoma wine country. The Geysers, the world's largest power-producing geothermal field, has been providing electricity for roughly 850,000 Northern California households, and is set to expand even further.

Play this TV Story Air Date: Nov 18, 2008

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 Mars. But to help decide what signs to look for, scientists are studying extreme life forms on our own planet.

Play this Radio Report Air Date: Nov 17, 2008

As a physics professor at UC Berkeley, Richard Muller considers what his students would need to know -- if one were elected president. In today's lesson, he demonstrates the principles of fission and the basics of a nuclear explosion -- using super balls!

Play this TV Story Air Date: Nov 12, 2008

Meet the Bay Area's eclipse chasers - adventurers who travel the world to witness and document solar eclipses. In these rare moments, the moon covers the sun for a few minutes, leaving only its fiery atmosphere visible. Watch the China 2008 eclipse and learn about an invention that helped researchers photograph the sun's atmosphere in breathtaking detail.

Play this TV Story Air Date: Nov 12, 2008

Imagine a vast grassy plain covered with massive herds of elephants, bison and camels stretching as far as the eye can see. Lions, tigers, wolves and later, humans, hunt the herds on their summer migration. Where is this? This was the Bay Area during the close of the last Ice Age. Take a trip to a time when the San Francisco Bay was just a riverbed, 20,000 to 10,000 years ago.

Play this TV Story Air Date: Nov 12, 2008

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?

Play this Radio Report Air Date: Nov 10, 2008

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.

Play this Radio Report Air Date: Nov 4, 2008

California ranks second-lowest in the U.S. in fourth and eighth grade science achievement, according to a recent study. Since a large part of California's economy is devoted to technology, it is vital that California get its students up to speed. How bad is the problem? And what are schools and informal science education organizations doing to fill the gap?

Play this TV Story Air Date: Oct 28, 2008