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"disqusTitle": "Lighten Up, California: Why GloFish Can't Glow in the Golden State",
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"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_49319\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 638px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/2013/02/11/lighten-up-california-why-glofish-cant-glow-in-the-golden-state/glofish/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-49319\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2013/02/GloFish.jpg\" alt=\"Not dangerous, just morally ambiguous.\" width=\"638\" height=\"361\" class=\"size-full wp-image-49319\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/39/2013/02/GloFish.jpg 638w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/39/2013/02/GloFish-400x226.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 638px) 100vw, 638px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Not dangerous, just morally ambiguous.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>One of the more popular exhibits at The Tech Museum of Innovation in San Jose is the wetlab. This is where museum visitors get to add the green fluorescent protein (GFP) gene from jellyfish to bacteria to get the bacteria to glow green. The 20,000 or so people who do this each year get to learn about how genetically engineering bacteria can help to create important medicines like EPO, insulin and growth hormone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The exhibit is getting a little long in the tooth so I was looking for ways to give it a bit of a refresh. One idea we’re thinking about is adding some new colors to the mix. We might give visitors the option of using a gene from coral that makes the bacteria glow red or a mutant version of GFP that glows blue in addition to the current green one. We may even add a station that lets visitors paint living pictures using these different colored bacteria.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another simple but fun refresh I wanted to add was an aquarium full of \u003ca href=\"http://www.glofish.com/\">GloFish\u003c/a>. These are fish that have had various fluorescent genes inserted into their DNA so they glow incredibly brightly. I thought this was an easy and visually fun way to get into a discussion about how GFP has become such a powerful tool for scientists. I was only half right.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Getting GloFish into an exhibit here in California is nontrivial because they are illegal. That’s right: they are legal in the other 49 states but illegal here. I need to get a special permit from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife to have GloFish merrily swimming at The Tech. And Sheldon (from \u003cem>The Big Bang Theory\u003c/em>) would have been breaking California law by having them in his Pasadena apartment in the episode, “\u003ca href=\"http://bigbangtheory.wikia.com/wiki/The_Luminous_Fish_Effect\">The Luminous Fish Effect\u003c/a>.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_49323\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 250px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/2013/02/11/lighten-up-california-why-glofish-cant-glow-in-the-golden-state/welab/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-49323\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2013/02/WeLab.jpg\" alt=\"Wouldn't this look spiffy with a bunch of GloFish swimming in a tank?\" width=\"250\" height=\"167\" class=\"size-full wp-image-49323\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Wouldn't this look spiffy with a bunch of GloFish swimming in a tank?\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Now they aren't illegal because they are dangerous. They won’t spread disease, take over native fishes or swallow swimmers whole. They are small, tropical fish that won’t survive long in California’s chilly waters. And the few that do manage to survive are twice as likely to be eaten by predatory fish compared to their non-glowing brethren. This means that because of natural selection they would quickly be wiped out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If they aren't dangerous, why in the world are they illegal? Because the Fish and Game Commission decided back in 2003 that GloFish were the result of a \u003ca href=\"http://www.sfgate.com/opinion/openforum/article/Why-GloFish-won-t-glow-in-California-2545870.php\">trivial use for a powerful technology\u003c/a>. They felt that these fish should not have been made and therefore Californians should not be able to have them. The commission imposed their set of values on the rest of us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This is even though these fish are really a spinoff of a more useful technology. Scientists in Singapore created GloFish as part of a process of creating living pollution sensors. The idea was that the fish would only glow when pollutants are around and so they could serve as an early indicator of pollution. In one sense, then, GloFish are really more like Teflon or Tang—useful byproducts of more productive research.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The banning of GloFish is probably too trivial an issue to stir up enough protest to get it reversed. So if I decide to go ahead, I’ll apply for the permit. Maybe then at least some people in California will be able to see these cool fish in person.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://seattletimes.com/html/nationworld/2019096509_glofish09.html\">Newest GloFish May Be More Worrisome\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_49319\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 638px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/2013/02/11/lighten-up-california-why-glofish-cant-glow-in-the-golden-state/glofish/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-49319\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2013/02/GloFish.jpg\" alt=\"Not dangerous, just morally ambiguous.\" width=\"638\" height=\"361\" class=\"size-full wp-image-49319\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/39/2013/02/GloFish.jpg 638w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/39/2013/02/GloFish-400x226.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 638px) 100vw, 638px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Not dangerous, just morally ambiguous.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>One of the more popular exhibits at The Tech Museum of Innovation in San Jose is the wetlab. This is where museum visitors get to add the green fluorescent protein (GFP) gene from jellyfish to bacteria to get the bacteria to glow green. The 20,000 or so people who do this each year get to learn about how genetically engineering bacteria can help to create important medicines like EPO, insulin and growth hormone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The exhibit is getting a little long in the tooth so I was looking for ways to give it a bit of a refresh. One idea we’re thinking about is adding some new colors to the mix. We might give visitors the option of using a gene from coral that makes the bacteria glow red or a mutant version of GFP that glows blue in addition to the current green one. We may even add a station that lets visitors paint living pictures using these different colored bacteria.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another simple but fun refresh I wanted to add was an aquarium full of \u003ca href=\"http://www.glofish.com/\">GloFish\u003c/a>. These are fish that have had various fluorescent genes inserted into their DNA so they glow incredibly brightly. I thought this was an easy and visually fun way to get into a discussion about how GFP has become such a powerful tool for scientists. I was only half right.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Getting GloFish into an exhibit here in California is nontrivial because they are illegal. That’s right: they are legal in the other 49 states but illegal here. I need to get a special permit from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife to have GloFish merrily swimming at The Tech. And Sheldon (from \u003cem>The Big Bang Theory\u003c/em>) would have been breaking California law by having them in his Pasadena apartment in the episode, “\u003ca href=\"http://bigbangtheory.wikia.com/wiki/The_Luminous_Fish_Effect\">The Luminous Fish Effect\u003c/a>.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_49323\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 250px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/2013/02/11/lighten-up-california-why-glofish-cant-glow-in-the-golden-state/welab/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-49323\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2013/02/WeLab.jpg\" alt=\"Wouldn't this look spiffy with a bunch of GloFish swimming in a tank?\" width=\"250\" height=\"167\" class=\"size-full wp-image-49323\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Wouldn't this look spiffy with a bunch of GloFish swimming in a tank?\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Now they aren't illegal because they are dangerous. They won’t spread disease, take over native fishes or swallow swimmers whole. They are small, tropical fish that won’t survive long in California’s chilly waters. And the few that do manage to survive are twice as likely to be eaten by predatory fish compared to their non-glowing brethren. This means that because of natural selection they would quickly be wiped out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If they aren't dangerous, why in the world are they illegal? Because the Fish and Game Commission decided back in 2003 that GloFish were the result of a \u003ca href=\"http://www.sfgate.com/opinion/openforum/article/Why-GloFish-won-t-glow-in-California-2545870.php\">trivial use for a powerful technology\u003c/a>. They felt that these fish should not have been made and therefore Californians should not be able to have them. The commission imposed their set of values on the rest of us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This is even though these fish are really a spinoff of a more useful technology. Scientists in Singapore created GloFish as part of a process of creating living pollution sensors. The idea was that the fish would only glow when pollutants are around and so they could serve as an early indicator of pollution. In one sense, then, GloFish are really more like Teflon or Tang—useful byproducts of more productive research.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The banning of GloFish is probably too trivial an issue to stir up enough protest to get it reversed. So if I decide to go ahead, I’ll apply for the permit. Maybe then at least some people in California will be able to see these cool fish in person.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://seattletimes.com/html/nationworld/2019096509_glofish09.html\">Newest GloFish May Be More Worrisome\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"disqusTitle": "On the Elephant Seal Dating Scene, It’s All About Bravado",
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"content": "\u003cp>Love is in the air on California beaches this time of year, when northern elephant seals arrive by the thousands for breeding season. Males make plenty of noise at \u003ca href=\"http://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=1115\">Ano Nuevo State Reserve\u003c/a>, north of Santa Cruz, but it sounds more like a chorus of motorcycles than the melodious sounds of Barry White.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now, researchers at the University of California Santa Cruz are decoding this complex communication system and learning how males use it to boost their reputation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Elephant seals spend most of the year alone in the Pacific Ocean, so there’s plenty of action packed into the two months they’re on land every winter. “That’s mating behavior,” says naturalist Lisa Wolfklain, pointing at two elephant seals in a sea of hundreds of males, females and pups.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003ciframe style=\"border: 0px none;overflow: hidden;float: right;margin: 10px\" src=\"http://kqed03.streamguys.us/anon.kqed/slideshow/elephant_seals/elephantseals.html\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" width=\"270\" height=\"700\">\u003c/iframe> The unique calls of three male elephants seals: X579, 1C and GL (top to bottom). (Photos and recordings: C. Reichmuth and University of California-Santa Cruz NMFS Permit No. 14636)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Male elephant seals are the size of an SUV -- fifteen feet long and 4,000 pounds. They’re known for their proboscis, the huge, fleshy nose that hangs over their mouth. There are plenty of available females this time of year, but most males will strike out. The dating scene is controlled by alpha males.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The alpha strategy is to be dominant over a group of females, the harem,\" says Wolfklain. \"And they want to have the first right to mate.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>You can spot the alpha males right in the middle of their groups of 10 to 100 females. The other males, known as betas, are on the outskirts, just watching, waiting for their chance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“So this guy's coming in,” says Wolfklain, pointing at one beta male moving quickly toward a female. The alpha male perks up and snorts a warning with customary bravado. Sometimes the fight ends there, but not this one.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Ooh, now they’re hitting with their heads,” the commentary continues, as the two lunge at each others' chests. A few strikes seem to be enough for the beta male and he retreats.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These fights can be bloody and all the while, other males are taking advantage and sneaking in. It adds up to a very stressful time for male elephant seals.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>It's All About Reputation\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s not advantageous for males to fight all the time,” says Caroline Casey, a researcher at the UC Santa Cruz. She says fights can be risky. “Sometimes they can result in death and we’ve seen that,” she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Elephant seals also don’t eat while on land, so they need to conserve energy. Casey says, as with humans, one way to avoid fighting is communication. But until now, no one was really sure what the males were saying to each other. So, she and her colleagues have been studying a patch of beach with about 50 males.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have come up with this ranking system where we assign each male a score,” she says. It’s similar to systems used in professional sports, where the males win or lose points with every fight. Casey and her team also recorded the males’ calls and found remarkable differences.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One beta male, X579, has a call that ends in a flourish. “His call, to me, is my favorite. He always has this really lovely note at the end of it,” she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>X579 was a beta male with a lot of competition. “He tends to vocalize and challenge everybody right when he gets there,” Casey says. He challenged GL, an alpha male with a very short, staccato call.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That is what’s so incredible. All of the animals sound completely different from one another,” Casey says. What’s more, Casey's team found that each male seems to use the same call year after year, whether he has a harem or not. It’s their signature call – and they flaunt it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_49521\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 308px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2013/02/elephantsealfemale.jpg\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-49521\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2013/02/elephantsealfemale.jpg\" alt=\"A female and pup at Ano Nuevo State Preserve. (Photo: Lauren Sommer/KQED)\" width=\"308\" height=\"207\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A female and pup at Ano Nuevo State Preserve. (Photo: Lauren Sommer/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“A larger, more dominant animal will come up to a smaller animal, maybe beat him up a little bit, call at him before and after, like, ‘Hey, this is me. I’m Bob. Don’t mess with me,'” says Casey.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s all about spreading your reputation around. “That’s called associative learning and that’s very unique among marine mammals, Casey explains. \"That means that every male has the potential to be learning every other male based on their acoustic signature at that site.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These complex communication systems have been studied in songbirds and other animals, but Casey says less is known about marine species. “I think it’s just a piece of larger puzzle in understanding how these animals breed and how they’re going to survive.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A century ago, elephant seals were hunted to near extinction for their blubber. Fewer than 100 lingered off the coast of Mexico. With protective laws in place, today there are 170,000 northern elephant seals and growing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s good news for Casey’s loner elephant seal X579. This year, he’s an alpha male for the first time. As for the others, there’s always next year.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Love is in the air on California beaches this time of year, when northern elephant seals arrive by the thousands for breeding season. Males make plenty of noise at \u003ca href=\"http://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=1115\">Ano Nuevo State Reserve\u003c/a>, north of Santa Cruz, but it sounds more like a chorus of motorcycles than the melodious sounds of Barry White.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now, researchers at the University of California Santa Cruz are decoding this complex communication system and learning how males use it to boost their reputation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Elephant seals spend most of the year alone in the Pacific Ocean, so there’s plenty of action packed into the two months they’re on land every winter. “That’s mating behavior,” says naturalist Lisa Wolfklain, pointing at two elephant seals in a sea of hundreds of males, females and pups.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003ciframe style=\"border: 0px none;overflow: hidden;float: right;margin: 10px\" src=\"http://kqed03.streamguys.us/anon.kqed/slideshow/elephant_seals/elephantseals.html\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" width=\"270\" height=\"700\">\u003c/iframe> The unique calls of three male elephants seals: X579, 1C and GL (top to bottom). (Photos and recordings: C. Reichmuth and University of California-Santa Cruz NMFS Permit No. 14636)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Male elephant seals are the size of an SUV -- fifteen feet long and 4,000 pounds. They’re known for their proboscis, the huge, fleshy nose that hangs over their mouth. There are plenty of available females this time of year, but most males will strike out. The dating scene is controlled by alpha males.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The alpha strategy is to be dominant over a group of females, the harem,\" says Wolfklain. \"And they want to have the first right to mate.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>You can spot the alpha males right in the middle of their groups of 10 to 100 females. The other males, known as betas, are on the outskirts, just watching, waiting for their chance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“So this guy's coming in,” says Wolfklain, pointing at one beta male moving quickly toward a female. The alpha male perks up and snorts a warning with customary bravado. Sometimes the fight ends there, but not this one.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Ooh, now they’re hitting with their heads,” the commentary continues, as the two lunge at each others' chests. A few strikes seem to be enough for the beta male and he retreats.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These fights can be bloody and all the while, other males are taking advantage and sneaking in. It adds up to a very stressful time for male elephant seals.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>It's All About Reputation\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s not advantageous for males to fight all the time,” says Caroline Casey, a researcher at the UC Santa Cruz. She says fights can be risky. “Sometimes they can result in death and we’ve seen that,” she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Elephant seals also don’t eat while on land, so they need to conserve energy. Casey says, as with humans, one way to avoid fighting is communication. But until now, no one was really sure what the males were saying to each other. So, she and her colleagues have been studying a patch of beach with about 50 males.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have come up with this ranking system where we assign each male a score,” she says. It’s similar to systems used in professional sports, where the males win or lose points with every fight. Casey and her team also recorded the males’ calls and found remarkable differences.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One beta male, X579, has a call that ends in a flourish. “His call, to me, is my favorite. He always has this really lovely note at the end of it,” she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>X579 was a beta male with a lot of competition. “He tends to vocalize and challenge everybody right when he gets there,” Casey says. He challenged GL, an alpha male with a very short, staccato call.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That is what’s so incredible. All of the animals sound completely different from one another,” Casey says. What’s more, Casey's team found that each male seems to use the same call year after year, whether he has a harem or not. It’s their signature call – and they flaunt it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_49521\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 308px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2013/02/elephantsealfemale.jpg\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-49521\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2013/02/elephantsealfemale.jpg\" alt=\"A female and pup at Ano Nuevo State Preserve. (Photo: Lauren Sommer/KQED)\" width=\"308\" height=\"207\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A female and pup at Ano Nuevo State Preserve. (Photo: Lauren Sommer/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“A larger, more dominant animal will come up to a smaller animal, maybe beat him up a little bit, call at him before and after, like, ‘Hey, this is me. I’m Bob. Don’t mess with me,'” says Casey.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s all about spreading your reputation around. “That’s called associative learning and that’s very unique among marine mammals, Casey explains. \"That means that every male has the potential to be learning every other male based on their acoustic signature at that site.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These complex communication systems have been studied in songbirds and other animals, but Casey says less is known about marine species. “I think it’s just a piece of larger puzzle in understanding how these animals breed and how they’re going to survive.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A century ago, elephant seals were hunted to near extinction for their blubber. Fewer than 100 lingered off the coast of Mexico. With protective laws in place, today there are 170,000 northern elephant seals and growing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s good news for Casey’s loner elephant seal X579. This year, he’s an alpha male for the first time. As for the others, there’s always next year.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"disqusTitle": "Coyote Killings: A Complex Debate of Conservation and Cruelty",
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"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_49359\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 724px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/2013/02/06/coyote-killings-a-complex-debate-of-conservation-and-cruelty/sevencoyotepups/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-49359\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-49359\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2013/02/SevenCoyotePups.jpg\" alt=\"coyote pups\" width=\"724\" height=\"407\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Studies show that coyotes facing heavy hunting pressures respond by reproducing more--with alpha and older coyotes gone,\u003cbr>\nyounger animals reproduce, and have bigger litters. (Photo: John Harrison)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Every once in a while you get a sobering reminder about what passes for civilized society. One day several years ago, my husband and I were staying at a vacation rental on the northern Sonoma Coast and decided to head inland to the Anderson Valley, driving east through picturesque oak-studded meadows and mixed conifer forests. With my husband at the wheel, I was free to scour the sky and grasslands for signs of wildlife. I spotted a red-tailed hawk soaring in the distance, a sight that always lifts my spirits. But as we rounded a bend in the road, my heart sank as I struggled to absorb the sight before me: coyotes, as far as the eye could see, strung up on fence posts like scarecrows, bodies contorted, frozen in a gruesome death pose, fur sticking out like straw.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>You might think the barbaric practice of hanging coyotes from fences disappeared with the bounty era, when the state paid hunters to exterminate all things carnivore, big or small, on wings or paws, to protect livestock. When the canine crucifixions, like the bounty, reinforced the notion that the only good predator was a dead one.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But, as I saw firsthand, the tradition is alive and well in ranching country. Some people say the carnage serves as a warning to other coyotes to avoid the area or suffer the same fate. Others say it assures nearby ranchers you’re doing your part to kill predators and safeguard livestock.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_49352\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 480px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/2013/02/06/coyote-killings-a-complex-debate-of-conservation-and-cruelty/coyotes_fence/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-49352\">\u003cimg class=\"size-large wp-image-49352\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2013/02/Coyotes_fence-480x360.jpg\" alt=\"coyotes hung on fences\" width=\"480\" height=\"360\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Wildlife photographer Steve Creek took this photo of dead coyotes tied to a fence last year in Oklahoma. They were \"on display near a major 4-lane highway,\" Creek says on his web site (http://stevecreek.com/coyote-hatred/). Photo: Steve Creek\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>There’s no evidence to suggest that a dead coyote scares off the living. But there seems to be something to the idea of killing predators to impress your neighbors if this week’s three-day coyote killing contest is any indication.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.myoutdoorbuddy.com/hunting_report.php?Hunting=6796\">\u003cstrong>Starting Friday\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>, hunters in the tiny town of Adin in Modoc County will pay $50 for the pleasure of killing as many coyotes as they can in the Pit River Rod and Gun Club’s Seventh Annual Coyote Drive. They’ll roam rifle in hand through four counties in the far northeastern corner of California to, as the sponsors promise, \"reduce the number of coyotes threatening wild game, livestock and pets in that region.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A few years ago, the gun club and Adin Supply Outfitters urged hunters to hurry and get their applications in “if you want to win prizes and help rid Northern California of coyotes.” This year, they’re encouraging junior hunters to participate because the “drive is a great time to teach quality ethics and outdoorsmanship to young hunters.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Entrants get a T-shirt (red paint on the logo drips like blood from the letters) and a chance to win a gun and other prizes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Conservation groups \u003ca href=\"http://www.projectcoyote.org/newsreleases/news_modoc_hunt.html\">launched their own drive\u003c/a> to stop the slaughter, \u003ca href=\"http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=201120120AB2402\">citing new legislation\u003c/a> that requires California’s Fish and Game Commission to use ecosystem-based management and “credible” science to manage the state’s wildlife. What’s more, they say, the hunt could end up killing OR7, the state’s only wolf—which, unlike its cousins in the Rocky Mountains, is still protected under the federal Endangered Species Act. The chances of a hunter mistaking a wolf for a coyote are too high to risk, conservationists argue.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And given the anti-predator rhetoric behind a contest designed to exterminate coyotes, I worry that someone will shoot OR7 knowing full well he’s a wolf.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Adin, population 272, lies within an area called Big Valley, where ranchers raise mostly cattle. Nationwide, predators of all types account for just 5.5 percent of cattle and calf losses, according to data released by the National Agricultural Statistics Service. Sheep and lambs are more vulnerable to predators, which NASS says account for 39% of total losses across the country. As the \u003ca href=\"http://www.sacbee.com/2012/04/28/4450678/the-killing-agency-wildlife-services.html\">Sacramento Bee reported\u003c/a> last year, the federal agency called Wildilfe Services—a more apt name might be Hunter and Rancher Services—killed more than 83,000 coyotes in 2011 for eating big game and livestock. An \u003ca href=\"http://www.aphis.usda.gov/wildlife_damage/prog_data/2011_prog_data/PDR_G/Basic_Tables_PDR_G/Table%20G_ShortReport.pdf\">additional 453 pups were killed\u003c/a> in their dens or after they were removed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But studies, \u003ca href=\"http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/4003765.pdf?acceptTC=true\">highly credible ones\u003c/a>, show that all the killing just gives you more coyotes. Comparing hunted versus unhunted coyote populations, researchers found that in heavily hunted populations adult survival rates drop, more yearlings reproduce and litter sizes increase. This could explain why the agency started tracking how many pups they killed in dens (386 in 2009 and 378 in 2010).\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_49386\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 328px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/2013/02/06/coyote-killings-a-complex-debate-of-conservation-and-cruelty/komondor_westminster_dog_show_crop/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-49386\">\u003cimg class=\"size-large wp-image-49386\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2013/02/Komondor_Westminster_Dog_Show_crop-328x360.jpg\" alt=\"Komondor\" width=\"328\" height=\"360\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Wildlife experts recommend that livestock producers use guardian dogs like the Komondor, a Hungarian breed that descended from Tibetan dogs. (Photo: Flickr user whartonds)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Wildlife biologists\u003c/strong> know better. A booklet published by the Utah State University—in a state that just reintroduced a $50 bounty on coyotes—notes that although coyotes are more apt than other predators to feed on sheep, lambs and goats (which aren’t worth the energy for larger carnivores like lions and wolves), the vast majority of their diet consists of rodents and other small animals. A \u003ca href=\"http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1026&context=coyotesw\">three-year study\u003c/a> in West Texas showed that reducing coyote abundance by nearly half led to a decline in the abundance and type of rodent species and a 320% increase in jackrabbit density—leading to increased competition with livestock for available forage.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Brian Pugh, a predator control expert at Oklahoma State Extension Service, argues that lethal methods should be used only as a last resort if the problem is severe. Even then, he warns, it “typically does nothing to eliminate the problem animal or animals [and] can actually cause further problems.” Though any coyote has the potential to kill livestock, studies show many don’t. That’s because it’s a learned behavior. So if a coyote that doesn’t have a taste for sheep is indiscriminately killed, you may have removed your best protection against livestock-eating coyotes because your rodent-loving coyote can no longer defend his territory against other predators.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pugh and other wildlife managers promote a range of nonlethal methods to protect livestock (so-called “passive” as opposed to lethal methods), from putting goats and sheep in enclosed shelters at night and building coyote-proof fences to removing carrion as soon as possible and using guardian dogs, like the Komondor and Maremma.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But there aren’t just practical reasons that a contest to kill as many coyotes as possible makes no sense. As we’ve killed wolves throughout the country, coyotes have moved in, becoming one of the most widely distributed predators in America. The reason, no doubt, they’re also the most targeted predator in America.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_49356\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 480px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/2013/02/06/coyote-killings-a-complex-debate-of-conservation-and-cruelty/coyotedrive2013logo1/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-49356\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-49356\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2013/02/CoyoteDrive2013Logo1.jpg\" alt=\"coyote drive 2013 logo\" width=\"480\" height=\"340\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/39/2013/02/CoyoteDrive2013Logo1.jpg 480w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/39/2013/02/CoyoteDrive2013Logo1-400x283.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 480px) 100vw, 480px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Organizers of the coyote-killing contest will give out T-shirts with the event's logo (above) until supplies last.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>But I would like to think that as researchers uncover more and more evidence of the intelligence of animals—particularly of those with complex social behaviors like wolves, coyotes and dogs—that we humans might step back to reflect on how we treat wildlife that shares not just our environment but also, granted to a lesser degree, our cognitive abilities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>You’ve no doubt heard of Chaser, the \u003ca href=\"http://newsfeed.time.com/2011/01/05/chaser-the-border-collie-the-smartest-dog-in-the-world/\">bordie collie who can recognize 1,000 objects\u003c/a> by name? That’s a remarkable cognitive feat that requires learning and working memory—something it was long assumed only humans could manage. Not surprisingly, \u003ca href=\"http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0376635711001598\">it turns out that coyotes,\u003c/a> our beloved companion’s evolutionary kin, can discriminate between large and small portions of food. This ability to approximate number, which appears in babies at around three months old, helps animals decide where to hunt, flee from predators or fight territorial intruders.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The organizers of the Coyote Drive tout the event as an opportunity to “teach quality ethics\u003cbr>\nand outdoorsmanship to our youth.” Surely, with all we’ve learned about the rich cognitive life of animals, “quality ethics” demands that we no longer treat wildlife like vermin.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>*****\u003cbr>\n\u003cstrong>Project Coyote,\u003c/strong> which promotes carnivore coexistence and educates the public about coyote biology, ecology and behavior, is sponsoring \u003ca href=\"http://www.change.org/petitions/ca-dept-of-fish-wildlife-f-g-commission-stop-coyote-killing-contest\">a petition to stop the hunt. \u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "Coyotes, reviled for preying on sheep and goats, are the most targeted predator in the U.S. This week, hunters in the tiny Modoc County town of Adin will compete in a contest to kill the most coyotes to protect their livestock--even though research shows that killing coyotes results in higher reproductive rates.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_49359\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 724px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/2013/02/06/coyote-killings-a-complex-debate-of-conservation-and-cruelty/sevencoyotepups/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-49359\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-49359\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2013/02/SevenCoyotePups.jpg\" alt=\"coyote pups\" width=\"724\" height=\"407\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Studies show that coyotes facing heavy hunting pressures respond by reproducing more--with alpha and older coyotes gone,\u003cbr>\nyounger animals reproduce, and have bigger litters. (Photo: John Harrison)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Every once in a while you get a sobering reminder about what passes for civilized society. One day several years ago, my husband and I were staying at a vacation rental on the northern Sonoma Coast and decided to head inland to the Anderson Valley, driving east through picturesque oak-studded meadows and mixed conifer forests. With my husband at the wheel, I was free to scour the sky and grasslands for signs of wildlife. I spotted a red-tailed hawk soaring in the distance, a sight that always lifts my spirits. But as we rounded a bend in the road, my heart sank as I struggled to absorb the sight before me: coyotes, as far as the eye could see, strung up on fence posts like scarecrows, bodies contorted, frozen in a gruesome death pose, fur sticking out like straw.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>You might think the barbaric practice of hanging coyotes from fences disappeared with the bounty era, when the state paid hunters to exterminate all things carnivore, big or small, on wings or paws, to protect livestock. When the canine crucifixions, like the bounty, reinforced the notion that the only good predator was a dead one.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But, as I saw firsthand, the tradition is alive and well in ranching country. Some people say the carnage serves as a warning to other coyotes to avoid the area or suffer the same fate. Others say it assures nearby ranchers you’re doing your part to kill predators and safeguard livestock.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_49352\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 480px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/2013/02/06/coyote-killings-a-complex-debate-of-conservation-and-cruelty/coyotes_fence/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-49352\">\u003cimg class=\"size-large wp-image-49352\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2013/02/Coyotes_fence-480x360.jpg\" alt=\"coyotes hung on fences\" width=\"480\" height=\"360\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Wildlife photographer Steve Creek took this photo of dead coyotes tied to a fence last year in Oklahoma. They were \"on display near a major 4-lane highway,\" Creek says on his web site (http://stevecreek.com/coyote-hatred/). Photo: Steve Creek\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>There’s no evidence to suggest that a dead coyote scares off the living. But there seems to be something to the idea of killing predators to impress your neighbors if this week’s three-day coyote killing contest is any indication.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.myoutdoorbuddy.com/hunting_report.php?Hunting=6796\">\u003cstrong>Starting Friday\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>, hunters in the tiny town of Adin in Modoc County will pay $50 for the pleasure of killing as many coyotes as they can in the Pit River Rod and Gun Club’s Seventh Annual Coyote Drive. They’ll roam rifle in hand through four counties in the far northeastern corner of California to, as the sponsors promise, \"reduce the number of coyotes threatening wild game, livestock and pets in that region.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A few years ago, the gun club and Adin Supply Outfitters urged hunters to hurry and get their applications in “if you want to win prizes and help rid Northern California of coyotes.” This year, they’re encouraging junior hunters to participate because the “drive is a great time to teach quality ethics and outdoorsmanship to young hunters.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Entrants get a T-shirt (red paint on the logo drips like blood from the letters) and a chance to win a gun and other prizes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Conservation groups \u003ca href=\"http://www.projectcoyote.org/newsreleases/news_modoc_hunt.html\">launched their own drive\u003c/a> to stop the slaughter, \u003ca href=\"http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=201120120AB2402\">citing new legislation\u003c/a> that requires California’s Fish and Game Commission to use ecosystem-based management and “credible” science to manage the state’s wildlife. What’s more, they say, the hunt could end up killing OR7, the state’s only wolf—which, unlike its cousins in the Rocky Mountains, is still protected under the federal Endangered Species Act. The chances of a hunter mistaking a wolf for a coyote are too high to risk, conservationists argue.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And given the anti-predator rhetoric behind a contest designed to exterminate coyotes, I worry that someone will shoot OR7 knowing full well he’s a wolf.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Adin, population 272, lies within an area called Big Valley, where ranchers raise mostly cattle. Nationwide, predators of all types account for just 5.5 percent of cattle and calf losses, according to data released by the National Agricultural Statistics Service. Sheep and lambs are more vulnerable to predators, which NASS says account for 39% of total losses across the country. As the \u003ca href=\"http://www.sacbee.com/2012/04/28/4450678/the-killing-agency-wildlife-services.html\">Sacramento Bee reported\u003c/a> last year, the federal agency called Wildilfe Services—a more apt name might be Hunter and Rancher Services—killed more than 83,000 coyotes in 2011 for eating big game and livestock. An \u003ca href=\"http://www.aphis.usda.gov/wildlife_damage/prog_data/2011_prog_data/PDR_G/Basic_Tables_PDR_G/Table%20G_ShortReport.pdf\">additional 453 pups were killed\u003c/a> in their dens or after they were removed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But studies, \u003ca href=\"http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/4003765.pdf?acceptTC=true\">highly credible ones\u003c/a>, show that all the killing just gives you more coyotes. Comparing hunted versus unhunted coyote populations, researchers found that in heavily hunted populations adult survival rates drop, more yearlings reproduce and litter sizes increase. This could explain why the agency started tracking how many pups they killed in dens (386 in 2009 and 378 in 2010).\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_49386\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 328px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/2013/02/06/coyote-killings-a-complex-debate-of-conservation-and-cruelty/komondor_westminster_dog_show_crop/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-49386\">\u003cimg class=\"size-large wp-image-49386\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2013/02/Komondor_Westminster_Dog_Show_crop-328x360.jpg\" alt=\"Komondor\" width=\"328\" height=\"360\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Wildlife experts recommend that livestock producers use guardian dogs like the Komondor, a Hungarian breed that descended from Tibetan dogs. (Photo: Flickr user whartonds)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Wildlife biologists\u003c/strong> know better. A booklet published by the Utah State University—in a state that just reintroduced a $50 bounty on coyotes—notes that although coyotes are more apt than other predators to feed on sheep, lambs and goats (which aren’t worth the energy for larger carnivores like lions and wolves), the vast majority of their diet consists of rodents and other small animals. A \u003ca href=\"http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1026&context=coyotesw\">three-year study\u003c/a> in West Texas showed that reducing coyote abundance by nearly half led to a decline in the abundance and type of rodent species and a 320% increase in jackrabbit density—leading to increased competition with livestock for available forage.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Brian Pugh, a predator control expert at Oklahoma State Extension Service, argues that lethal methods should be used only as a last resort if the problem is severe. Even then, he warns, it “typically does nothing to eliminate the problem animal or animals [and] can actually cause further problems.” Though any coyote has the potential to kill livestock, studies show many don’t. That’s because it’s a learned behavior. So if a coyote that doesn’t have a taste for sheep is indiscriminately killed, you may have removed your best protection against livestock-eating coyotes because your rodent-loving coyote can no longer defend his territory against other predators.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pugh and other wildlife managers promote a range of nonlethal methods to protect livestock (so-called “passive” as opposed to lethal methods), from putting goats and sheep in enclosed shelters at night and building coyote-proof fences to removing carrion as soon as possible and using guardian dogs, like the Komondor and Maremma.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But there aren’t just practical reasons that a contest to kill as many coyotes as possible makes no sense. As we’ve killed wolves throughout the country, coyotes have moved in, becoming one of the most widely distributed predators in America. The reason, no doubt, they’re also the most targeted predator in America.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_49356\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 480px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/2013/02/06/coyote-killings-a-complex-debate-of-conservation-and-cruelty/coyotedrive2013logo1/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-49356\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-49356\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2013/02/CoyoteDrive2013Logo1.jpg\" alt=\"coyote drive 2013 logo\" width=\"480\" height=\"340\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/39/2013/02/CoyoteDrive2013Logo1.jpg 480w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/39/2013/02/CoyoteDrive2013Logo1-400x283.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 480px) 100vw, 480px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Organizers of the coyote-killing contest will give out T-shirts with the event's logo (above) until supplies last.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>But I would like to think that as researchers uncover more and more evidence of the intelligence of animals—particularly of those with complex social behaviors like wolves, coyotes and dogs—that we humans might step back to reflect on how we treat wildlife that shares not just our environment but also, granted to a lesser degree, our cognitive abilities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>You’ve no doubt heard of Chaser, the \u003ca href=\"http://newsfeed.time.com/2011/01/05/chaser-the-border-collie-the-smartest-dog-in-the-world/\">bordie collie who can recognize 1,000 objects\u003c/a> by name? That’s a remarkable cognitive feat that requires learning and working memory—something it was long assumed only humans could manage. Not surprisingly, \u003ca href=\"http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0376635711001598\">it turns out that coyotes,\u003c/a> our beloved companion’s evolutionary kin, can discriminate between large and small portions of food. This ability to approximate number, which appears in babies at around three months old, helps animals decide where to hunt, flee from predators or fight territorial intruders.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The organizers of the Coyote Drive tout the event as an opportunity to “teach quality ethics\u003cbr>\nand outdoorsmanship to our youth.” Surely, with all we’ve learned about the rich cognitive life of animals, “quality ethics” demands that we no longer treat wildlife like vermin.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>*****\u003cbr>\n\u003cstrong>Project Coyote,\u003c/strong> which promotes carnivore coexistence and educates the public about coyote biology, ecology and behavior, is sponsoring \u003ca href=\"http://www.change.org/petitions/ca-dept-of-fish-wildlife-f-g-commission-stop-coyote-killing-contest\">a petition to stop the hunt. \u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"disqusTitle": "Science on the SPOT: Preserving the Forest of the Sea",
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"content": "\u003cp>\"Walking down the stacks, you almost feel like you’re in \u003cem>Indiana Jones\u003c/em> looking for the final resting place of the Ark of the Covenant,\" said Kathy Ann Miller, PhD, a curator and seaweed expert as she led me down a long, nondescript corridor flanked by row upon row of one of the greatest seaweed collections in the world.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_48996\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 300px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2013/01/UC_Jepson_Herbaria_Seaweed_SS_103112-036_2_Rhodoptilum-plumosum.jpg\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-48996\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2013/01/UC_Jepson_Herbaria_Seaweed_SS_103112-036_2_Rhodoptilum-plumosum.jpg\" alt=\"The University Herbarium boasts more than 200,000 specimens of seaweed, such as this aptly named oakleaf seaweed collected in California sometime in the 1800s. Photo by Sheraz Sadiq / KQED\" width=\"300\" height=\"169\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The University Herbarium boasts more than 200,000 specimens of seaweed, such as this aptly named oakleaf seaweed collected in California sometime in the 1800s. Photo by Sheraz Sadiq / KQED\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003ca title=\"University Herbarium, UC Berkeley\" href=\"http://ucjeps.berkeley.edu/uc/\" target=\"_blank\">The University Herbarium\u003c/a>, which is tucked into the basement of the largest building on campus at UC Berkeley, just past a fearsome skeleton of a \u003cem>T. Rex\u003c/em> dinosaur, is a plant museum which contains more than 200,000 specimens of seaweed, dating to the time of the U.S. Civil War. During my first visit to the museum last autumn, I was struck by Kathy Ann Miller's enthusiasm and warmth, especially when describing her herbarium \"home\" and its red, green and brown-hued precious occupants whom she has cherished for over 30 years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Honestly, I hadn't given much thought to seaweed before I produced this story. But a few minutes with Kathy Ann Miller can open one's eyes to the bountiful gifts these multicellular algae bestow to their marine neighbors and terrestrial admirers. Seaweeds are like \"the forest of the sea\", providing habitat to fish, crabs and other marine life and their photosynthetic activity helps generate the oxygen we breathe. Also, compounds such as agar in their cell walls are used in foods such as ice cream, pharmaceuticals and cosmetics (think \"age-defying\" skin creams). But to really appreciate seaweeds on a level which transcends words and facts, I needed to experience seaweeds at a tactile, almost ineffable, sensory level. Happy to oblige, Miller emerged from the stacks, grinning from ear to ear with specimens of dried seaweed pressed onto paper or placed in boxes and painstakingly organized atop shelves labeled with the names of countries and regions from which they were collected decades, even a century, ago.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>My image of a seaweed - uprooted, splayed, frayed and trampled upon by bare feet and salty waves - gave way to a riot of colors, textures and bizarre shapes that made me wonder at times if I was looking at a branch of stony coral or a nest stitched together by a bird taking its architectural inspiration from Cubism. Also, not all seaweeds are green, even though they all contain the green-colored chlorophyll pigment which is essential for their photosynthetic conversion of sunlight into food. That's because in the case of red and brown seaweeds, other pigments mask the coloration of the chlorophyll pigment. Even when preserved and dried for a century or more, the colors in the seaweeds can still captivate, reminiscent of stained glass illuminated by the sun's rays.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_48993\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 300px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2013/01/UC_Jepson_Herbaria_Seaweed_SS_103112-024_2_spiral-sieve-kelp.jpg\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-48993\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2013/01/UC_Jepson_Herbaria_Seaweed_SS_103112-024_2_spiral-sieve-kelp.jpg\" alt=\"Kathy Ann Miller shared some amazing examples of the diverse, fantastic world of seaweed, including this memorable spiral sieve kelp from California. Larger and more three-dimensional species of seaweed, such as this one, are stored in boxes on the shelves at the herbarium. \" width=\"300\" height=\"169\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Kathy Ann Miller shared some amazing examples of the diverse, fantastic world of seaweed, including this memorable spiral sieve kelp from Alaska. Photo by Sheraz Sadiq / KQED\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Found on all continents, seaweeds are far from endangered. Nonetheless, like other marine organisms, seaweeds are also vulnerable to acidification and warming temperatures, two major consequences of climate change. Additionally, the loss of habitat from human activity and development, and the arrival of invasive species from cargo ships crisscrossing the globe, make this a turbulent time for seaweeds near and far. \"I think we’re going to find that seaweed ranges are going to change, and that southern seaweeds will be moving further north as warming happens,\" said Miller.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_48995\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 300px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2013/01/UC_Jepson_Herbaria_Seaweed_SS_103112-035_2_Rhodoptilum-plumosum.jpg\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-48995\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2013/01/UC_Jepson_Herbaria_Seaweed_SS_103112-035_2_Rhodoptilum-plumosum.jpg\" alt=\"This is an image of a red seaweed collected in Santa Cruz, California and pressed onto paper. Photo by Sheraz Sadiq / KQED\" width=\"300\" height=\"169\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">This is an image of a red seaweed collected in Santa Cruz, California and pressed onto paper. Photo by Sheraz Sadiq / KQED\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>This year, with the click of a mouse and high-speed internet access, seaweed scientists around the world will be able to more quickly and methodically study the impact of climate change on large swathes of seaweeds archived at the herbarium. Funded by a grant she submitted to the National Science Foundation, in 2011, Miller and her team began taking high-resolution photographs of nearly 80,000 specimens of seaweed collected from the west coast of North America. Undergraduate work-study students have been invaluable to this project, photographing up to 400 specimens a day. With the seaweeds now digitized, Miller and her fellow curator, Andrew Doran, are completing a massive online database which features a Google map indicating the location of each specimen's collection, the date it was collected and the gorgeous photograph of the seaweed, digitally transformed into thousands of pixels. It's a captivating blend of history and modern technology, as the elegantly swooping, India-inked names of seaweed hunters come into focus beneath the translucent marine algae plucked and preserved from the wild shores of California, Oregon, Washington and points farther north many decades ago.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_48997\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 300px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2013/01/UC_Jepson_Herbaria_Seaweed_SS_103112-040_2.jpg\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-48997\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2013/01/UC_Jepson_Herbaria_Seaweed_SS_103112-040_2.jpg\" alt=\"Clare Loughran, who works at the University Herbarium, prepares to take a digital photograph of a red seaweed. \" width=\"300\" height=\"169\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Clare Loughran, who works at the University Herbarium, prepares to take a digital photograph of a red seaweed. Photo by Sheraz Sadiq / KQED\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Reflecting on the importance of creating this digital inventory from the fragile seaweeds \"sleeping in their cases\", Miller told me, \"without really knowing what we have in our holdings, how can we apply the lessons of the past and the hard work of all those who’ve come before us to understand what we have today and where we’re going in the future?\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hopefully, the seaweeds of the west coast will prove that they can adapt to the crash of tomorrow's waves, as daunting and unpredictable as they may be.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\"Walking down the stacks, you almost feel like you’re in \u003cem>Indiana Jones\u003c/em> looking for the final resting place of the Ark of the Covenant,\" said Kathy Ann Miller, PhD, a curator and seaweed expert as she led me down a long, nondescript corridor flanked by row upon row of one of the greatest seaweed collections in the world.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_48996\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 300px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2013/01/UC_Jepson_Herbaria_Seaweed_SS_103112-036_2_Rhodoptilum-plumosum.jpg\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-48996\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2013/01/UC_Jepson_Herbaria_Seaweed_SS_103112-036_2_Rhodoptilum-plumosum.jpg\" alt=\"The University Herbarium boasts more than 200,000 specimens of seaweed, such as this aptly named oakleaf seaweed collected in California sometime in the 1800s. Photo by Sheraz Sadiq / KQED\" width=\"300\" height=\"169\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The University Herbarium boasts more than 200,000 specimens of seaweed, such as this aptly named oakleaf seaweed collected in California sometime in the 1800s. Photo by Sheraz Sadiq / KQED\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003ca title=\"University Herbarium, UC Berkeley\" href=\"http://ucjeps.berkeley.edu/uc/\" target=\"_blank\">The University Herbarium\u003c/a>, which is tucked into the basement of the largest building on campus at UC Berkeley, just past a fearsome skeleton of a \u003cem>T. Rex\u003c/em> dinosaur, is a plant museum which contains more than 200,000 specimens of seaweed, dating to the time of the U.S. Civil War. During my first visit to the museum last autumn, I was struck by Kathy Ann Miller's enthusiasm and warmth, especially when describing her herbarium \"home\" and its red, green and brown-hued precious occupants whom she has cherished for over 30 years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Honestly, I hadn't given much thought to seaweed before I produced this story. But a few minutes with Kathy Ann Miller can open one's eyes to the bountiful gifts these multicellular algae bestow to their marine neighbors and terrestrial admirers. Seaweeds are like \"the forest of the sea\", providing habitat to fish, crabs and other marine life and their photosynthetic activity helps generate the oxygen we breathe. Also, compounds such as agar in their cell walls are used in foods such as ice cream, pharmaceuticals and cosmetics (think \"age-defying\" skin creams). But to really appreciate seaweeds on a level which transcends words and facts, I needed to experience seaweeds at a tactile, almost ineffable, sensory level. Happy to oblige, Miller emerged from the stacks, grinning from ear to ear with specimens of dried seaweed pressed onto paper or placed in boxes and painstakingly organized atop shelves labeled with the names of countries and regions from which they were collected decades, even a century, ago.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>My image of a seaweed - uprooted, splayed, frayed and trampled upon by bare feet and salty waves - gave way to a riot of colors, textures and bizarre shapes that made me wonder at times if I was looking at a branch of stony coral or a nest stitched together by a bird taking its architectural inspiration from Cubism. Also, not all seaweeds are green, even though they all contain the green-colored chlorophyll pigment which is essential for their photosynthetic conversion of sunlight into food. That's because in the case of red and brown seaweeds, other pigments mask the coloration of the chlorophyll pigment. Even when preserved and dried for a century or more, the colors in the seaweeds can still captivate, reminiscent of stained glass illuminated by the sun's rays.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_48993\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 300px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2013/01/UC_Jepson_Herbaria_Seaweed_SS_103112-024_2_spiral-sieve-kelp.jpg\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-48993\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2013/01/UC_Jepson_Herbaria_Seaweed_SS_103112-024_2_spiral-sieve-kelp.jpg\" alt=\"Kathy Ann Miller shared some amazing examples of the diverse, fantastic world of seaweed, including this memorable spiral sieve kelp from California. Larger and more three-dimensional species of seaweed, such as this one, are stored in boxes on the shelves at the herbarium. \" width=\"300\" height=\"169\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Kathy Ann Miller shared some amazing examples of the diverse, fantastic world of seaweed, including this memorable spiral sieve kelp from Alaska. Photo by Sheraz Sadiq / KQED\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Found on all continents, seaweeds are far from endangered. Nonetheless, like other marine organisms, seaweeds are also vulnerable to acidification and warming temperatures, two major consequences of climate change. Additionally, the loss of habitat from human activity and development, and the arrival of invasive species from cargo ships crisscrossing the globe, make this a turbulent time for seaweeds near and far. \"I think we’re going to find that seaweed ranges are going to change, and that southern seaweeds will be moving further north as warming happens,\" said Miller.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_48995\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 300px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2013/01/UC_Jepson_Herbaria_Seaweed_SS_103112-035_2_Rhodoptilum-plumosum.jpg\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-48995\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2013/01/UC_Jepson_Herbaria_Seaweed_SS_103112-035_2_Rhodoptilum-plumosum.jpg\" alt=\"This is an image of a red seaweed collected in Santa Cruz, California and pressed onto paper. Photo by Sheraz Sadiq / KQED\" width=\"300\" height=\"169\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">This is an image of a red seaweed collected in Santa Cruz, California and pressed onto paper. Photo by Sheraz Sadiq / KQED\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>This year, with the click of a mouse and high-speed internet access, seaweed scientists around the world will be able to more quickly and methodically study the impact of climate change on large swathes of seaweeds archived at the herbarium. Funded by a grant she submitted to the National Science Foundation, in 2011, Miller and her team began taking high-resolution photographs of nearly 80,000 specimens of seaweed collected from the west coast of North America. Undergraduate work-study students have been invaluable to this project, photographing up to 400 specimens a day. With the seaweeds now digitized, Miller and her fellow curator, Andrew Doran, are completing a massive online database which features a Google map indicating the location of each specimen's collection, the date it was collected and the gorgeous photograph of the seaweed, digitally transformed into thousands of pixels. It's a captivating blend of history and modern technology, as the elegantly swooping, India-inked names of seaweed hunters come into focus beneath the translucent marine algae plucked and preserved from the wild shores of California, Oregon, Washington and points farther north many decades ago.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_48997\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 300px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2013/01/UC_Jepson_Herbaria_Seaweed_SS_103112-040_2.jpg\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-48997\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2013/01/UC_Jepson_Herbaria_Seaweed_SS_103112-040_2.jpg\" alt=\"Clare Loughran, who works at the University Herbarium, prepares to take a digital photograph of a red seaweed. \" width=\"300\" height=\"169\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Clare Loughran, who works at the University Herbarium, prepares to take a digital photograph of a red seaweed. Photo by Sheraz Sadiq / KQED\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Reflecting on the importance of creating this digital inventory from the fragile seaweeds \"sleeping in their cases\", Miller told me, \"without really knowing what we have in our holdings, how can we apply the lessons of the past and the hard work of all those who’ve come before us to understand what we have today and where we’re going in the future?\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hopefully, the seaweeds of the west coast will prove that they can adapt to the crash of tomorrow's waves, as daunting and unpredictable as they may be.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"disqusTitle": "Groundhogs and Ground Squirrels: Winter Prognosticators",
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"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_49208\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 541px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/2013/02/01/groundhogs-and-ground-squirrels-winter-prognosticators/800px-groundhog-standing2/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-49208\">\u003cimg class=\"size-large wp-image-49208\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2013/01/800px-Groundhog-Standing2-541x360.jpg\" alt=\"This groundhog, alert to danger, is related to ground squirrels and marmots.\" width=\"541\" height=\"360\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">This groundhog, alert to danger, is related to ground squirrels and marmots. Photo by \u003ca title=\"Groundhog Standing by Marumari\" href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Groundhog-Standing2.jpg\" target=\"_blank\">Marumari\u003c/a>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Groundhog Day seems mostly an East Coast event with most of the action centered in Pennsylvania. In a land of biting wind, bitter cold and snow, Punxsutawney Phil emerges every year on Feb. 2 to predict how much longer winter will maintain its icy grip on the country. Lore has it if he sees his shadow, winter has six more weeks of bad weather and Phil returns to hibernation. If it’s cloudy, then he assumes spring is near and remains above ground. There are a couple of fun websites to see his \u003ca title=\"Groundhog Winter Predictions\" href=\"http://www.groundhogs.com/contest_frame.htm\" target=\"_blank\">predictions over the years\u003c/a> and you can even learn the official \u003ca title=\"Groundhog Day song, Marmotburrow website, UCLA\" href=\"http://www.marmotburrow.ucla.edu/murmeltier.html\" target=\"_blank\">Groundhog Day song\u003c/a> (sung to the tune of “Oh Tannenbaum,” which is fitting as this \u003ca title=\"Groundhog Day history\" href=\"http://groundhog.org/groundhog-day/history/\" target=\"_blank\">Groundhog Day tradition \u003c/a>is traced back to ancient German roots).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We have our own, less famous, weather prognosticators on our relatively balmy West Coast: the ground squirrels. Groundhogs and squirrels are both in the same family of rodents called “\u003ca title=\"Rodent family Sciuridae information\" href=\"//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sciuridae\" target=\"_blank\">Sciuridae\u003c/a>.” All \u003ca title=\"Groundhog id, National Geographic website\" href=\"http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/mammals/groundhog/\" target=\"_blank\">groundhogs\u003c/a>, marmots, and \u003ca title=\"California Ground Squirrel id\" href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_ground_squirrel\" target=\"_blank\">ground squirrels\u003c/a> are capable of hibernation, which enables them to survive winters when food is scarce and temperatures plummet. Hibernation is like suspended animation, the animal’s breathing and heart rate radically slow and their body temperature drops to nearly the same as their underground burrow. Ground squirrels in our area spend more time sleeping in winter, with some adults possibly hibernating. Definitive research about the hibernation of our local squirrels has been hard to come by – anyone need a graduate student project? Today as I walked the Bay Trail at \u003ca title=\"Crown Beach, East Bay Regional Parks\" href=\"http://www.ebparks.org/parks/crown_beach\" target=\"_blank\">Crown Beach\u003c/a>, even though the sun was out, I only spotted four adult ground squirrels. In the spring, there will be hundreds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_49209\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 269px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/2013/02/01/groundhogs-and-ground-squirrels-winter-prognosticators/638px-california_ground_squirrel_at_point_lobos/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-49209\">\u003cimg class=\"size-medium wp-image-49209\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2013/01/638px-California_ground_squirrel_at_Point_Lobos-269x253.jpg\" alt=\"California ground squirrels have colonies along our rocky shores and throughout grasslands. Photo by Brocken Inaglory.\" width=\"269\" height=\"253\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">California ground squirrels have colonies along our rocky shores and throughout grasslands. Photo by Brocken Inaglory.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>You may be wondering how ground squirrels, so common in open areas yet seldom seen in cities (don’t confuse them with the non-native tree squirrels) fit in the ecology of our area. There’s a great article in \u003ca title=\"Lord of the Burrows, Bay Nature article\" href=\"http://baynature.org/articles/lord-of-the-burrows/\" target=\"_blank\">Bay Nature online\u003c/a> that explains their vital role in grassland ecosystems and provides a wonderful illustration of their burrow system along with a fascinating account of their co-evolution and adaptation to avoiding rattlesnakes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>My research also revealed a problem that needs our attention. We need to \u003ca title=\"Environmental Health News\" href=\"http://www.environmentalhealthnews.org/ehs/news/rodenticides-kill-wildlife\" target=\"_blank\">avoid using rodenticides\u003c/a> to control ground squirrels - and rats. The problem is the poison is also deadly to raptors, hawks, foxes, and coyotes, which eat the poisoned rodents, and kills them through secondary poisoning. This reduces the predators, which could be helping us by eating our pest species, and causes us to use even more poison to keep the pests in check. Does this sound like a vicious cycle? Next time you’re out hiking in the grasslands or along a rocky shoreline, watch for these entertaining, important animals and, if you’re out on Feb. 2\u003csup>nd\u003c/sup> see if you can predict our own winter weather with their presence or absence.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_49208\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 541px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/2013/02/01/groundhogs-and-ground-squirrels-winter-prognosticators/800px-groundhog-standing2/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-49208\">\u003cimg class=\"size-large wp-image-49208\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2013/01/800px-Groundhog-Standing2-541x360.jpg\" alt=\"This groundhog, alert to danger, is related to ground squirrels and marmots.\" width=\"541\" height=\"360\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">This groundhog, alert to danger, is related to ground squirrels and marmots. Photo by \u003ca title=\"Groundhog Standing by Marumari\" href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Groundhog-Standing2.jpg\" target=\"_blank\">Marumari\u003c/a>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Groundhog Day seems mostly an East Coast event with most of the action centered in Pennsylvania. In a land of biting wind, bitter cold and snow, Punxsutawney Phil emerges every year on Feb. 2 to predict how much longer winter will maintain its icy grip on the country. Lore has it if he sees his shadow, winter has six more weeks of bad weather and Phil returns to hibernation. If it’s cloudy, then he assumes spring is near and remains above ground. There are a couple of fun websites to see his \u003ca title=\"Groundhog Winter Predictions\" href=\"http://www.groundhogs.com/contest_frame.htm\" target=\"_blank\">predictions over the years\u003c/a> and you can even learn the official \u003ca title=\"Groundhog Day song, Marmotburrow website, UCLA\" href=\"http://www.marmotburrow.ucla.edu/murmeltier.html\" target=\"_blank\">Groundhog Day song\u003c/a> (sung to the tune of “Oh Tannenbaum,” which is fitting as this \u003ca title=\"Groundhog Day history\" href=\"http://groundhog.org/groundhog-day/history/\" target=\"_blank\">Groundhog Day tradition \u003c/a>is traced back to ancient German roots).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We have our own, less famous, weather prognosticators on our relatively balmy West Coast: the ground squirrels. Groundhogs and squirrels are both in the same family of rodents called “\u003ca title=\"Rodent family Sciuridae information\" href=\"//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sciuridae\" target=\"_blank\">Sciuridae\u003c/a>.” All \u003ca title=\"Groundhog id, National Geographic website\" href=\"http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/mammals/groundhog/\" target=\"_blank\">groundhogs\u003c/a>, marmots, and \u003ca title=\"California Ground Squirrel id\" href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_ground_squirrel\" target=\"_blank\">ground squirrels\u003c/a> are capable of hibernation, which enables them to survive winters when food is scarce and temperatures plummet. Hibernation is like suspended animation, the animal’s breathing and heart rate radically slow and their body temperature drops to nearly the same as their underground burrow. Ground squirrels in our area spend more time sleeping in winter, with some adults possibly hibernating. Definitive research about the hibernation of our local squirrels has been hard to come by – anyone need a graduate student project? Today as I walked the Bay Trail at \u003ca title=\"Crown Beach, East Bay Regional Parks\" href=\"http://www.ebparks.org/parks/crown_beach\" target=\"_blank\">Crown Beach\u003c/a>, even though the sun was out, I only spotted four adult ground squirrels. In the spring, there will be hundreds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_49209\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 269px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/2013/02/01/groundhogs-and-ground-squirrels-winter-prognosticators/638px-california_ground_squirrel_at_point_lobos/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-49209\">\u003cimg class=\"size-medium wp-image-49209\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2013/01/638px-California_ground_squirrel_at_Point_Lobos-269x253.jpg\" alt=\"California ground squirrels have colonies along our rocky shores and throughout grasslands. Photo by Brocken Inaglory.\" width=\"269\" height=\"253\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">California ground squirrels have colonies along our rocky shores and throughout grasslands. Photo by Brocken Inaglory.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>You may be wondering how ground squirrels, so common in open areas yet seldom seen in cities (don’t confuse them with the non-native tree squirrels) fit in the ecology of our area. There’s a great article in \u003ca title=\"Lord of the Burrows, Bay Nature article\" href=\"http://baynature.org/articles/lord-of-the-burrows/\" target=\"_blank\">Bay Nature online\u003c/a> that explains their vital role in grassland ecosystems and provides a wonderful illustration of their burrow system along with a fascinating account of their co-evolution and adaptation to avoiding rattlesnakes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>My research also revealed a problem that needs our attention. We need to \u003ca title=\"Environmental Health News\" href=\"http://www.environmentalhealthnews.org/ehs/news/rodenticides-kill-wildlife\" target=\"_blank\">avoid using rodenticides\u003c/a> to control ground squirrels - and rats. The problem is the poison is also deadly to raptors, hawks, foxes, and coyotes, which eat the poisoned rodents, and kills them through secondary poisoning. This reduces the predators, which could be helping us by eating our pest species, and causes us to use even more poison to keep the pests in check. Does this sound like a vicious cycle? Next time you’re out hiking in the grasslands or along a rocky shoreline, watch for these entertaining, important animals and, if you’re out on Feb. 2\u003csup>nd\u003c/sup> see if you can predict our own winter weather with their presence or absence.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"disqusTitle": "Comments Do Matter (So Get Talking!)",
"title": "Comments Do Matter (So Get Talking!)",
"headTitle": "QUEST | KQED Science",
"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_48958\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/2013/01/28/comments-do-matter-so-get-talking/goldenrice2/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-48958\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2013/01/GoldenRice2.jpg\" alt=\"A single comment helped turn an opponent of this GM rice into a proponent. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.\" width=\"640\" height=\"356\" class=\"size-full wp-image-48958\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/39/2013/01/GoldenRice2.jpg 640w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/39/2013/01/GoldenRice2-400x223.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A single comment helped turn an opponent of this GM rice into a proponent. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Back in December I wrote a \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/2012/12/03/wanted-scientist-comments/\">blog post\u003c/a> asking scientists to comment online more often. I had noticed that some commenters were getting away with comments that were scientifically wrong (“vaccines don’t prevent illness”) and I was worried that if these comments remained unchallenged, readers would conclude that these scientifically inaccurate statements were actually true. Or at the very least that there was some debate on the question.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A number of scientists got back to me on why they didn’t bother to comment and one of the biggest reasons I heard was that they didn’t think their comments would matter. They felt their comment would be one of many that got lost in the fury of the comments section. As one put it, “There would be too little return on his investment.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A recent case shows that a well-timed comment can radically change someone’s viewpoint. A journalist named Mark Lynas has been a harsh critic of genetically modified organisms (GMO’s) from the get go. He regularly argues against GM foods in the press and has had a huge impact on the debate about the safety of these crops.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now, after much soul-searching and scientific investigation brought on by a reader’s comment on \u003ca href=\"http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/jun/19/gmcrops.food\">one of his stories\u003c/a> in the Guardian, he is no longer opposed to GM foods. In fact, he has become pro-GMO!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It might seem hard to believe, but this is what Lynas himself is claiming. Here is the comment that caused the radical rethink:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem> “One does not fight the corporate misdeeds of the automotive industry, for instance, by demanding that the wheel must be banned.”\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_48971\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 250px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/2013/01/28/comments-do-matter-so-get-talking/fossilblogcomment/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-48971\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2013/01/FossilBlogComment.jpg\" alt=\"This comment was the push Lynas needed to investigate GMO's more thoroughly which resulted in a complete about face on his views.\" width=\"250\" height=\"294\" class=\"size-full wp-image-48971\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">This comment was the push Lynas needed to investigate GMO's more thoroughly which resulted in a complete about face on his views.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>This was one snippet towards the end of a longish, ~530 word comment, but it got Lynas to thinking about why he was opposed to GM foods. As he thought on it, he realized it wasn’t because of any scientific evidence. No, it had more to do with a gut response against a big, evil, American corporation tinkering with the food supply. Or, in his own words: \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>“When I first heard about Monsanto’s GM soya [soybeans] I knew exactly what I thought. Here was a big American corporation with a nasty track record, putting something new and experimental into our food without telling us. Mixing genes between species seemed to be about as unnatural as you can get – here was humankind acquiring too much technological power; something was bound to go horribly wrong. These genes would spread like some kind of living pollution. It was the stuff of nightmares.”\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/jun/19/gmcrops.food#start-of-comments\">comment \u003c/a>on his Guardian article made him realize that this was not a reasonable foundation on which to base his opposition to GM foods. It prompted him, for the first time, to take a deeper look into the science of GMO’s. He quickly realized that his reasons for opposing GM foods were not based in any fact. His list is as follows:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>“I’d assumed that it would increase the use of chemicals. It turned out that pest-resistant cotton and maize needed less insecticide. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I’d assumed that GM benefited only the big companies. It turned out that billions of dollars of benefits were accruing to farmers needing fewer inputs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I’d assumed that Terminator Technology [which was meant to make plants produce sterile, unusable seeds] was robbing farmers of the right to save seed. It turned out that hybrids did that long ago, and that Terminator never happened.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I’d assumed that no one wanted GM. Actually what happened was that Bt cotton [which grows its own pesticide to fight bollworm and other pests] was pirated into India and Roundup Ready soya into Brazil because farmers were so eager to use them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I’d assumed that GM was dangerous. It turned out that it was safer and more precise than conventional breeding using mutagenesis for example; GM just moves a couple of genes, whereas conventional breeding mucks about with the entire genome in a trial and error way.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But what about mixing genes between unrelated species? The fish and the tomato? Turns out viruses do that all the time, as do plants and insects and even us – it’s called gene flow.” \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As you can see, once he did the legwork to understand the science that had been done, he realized that his reasons for opposing GMO’s held no water. And in fact, as an environmentalist, he realized further that he should be supporting GM foods as a way to increase yield and so decrease the amount of land that needed to be cultivated. All from a single comment!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Of course a big question is why he changed his mind when he did. After all, he had undoubtedly received similar comments to his other stories over the years. The answer lies in his newest environmental concern--global warming.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Unlike the debate over GMO’s, science is on the side of the environmentalists in the global warming debate. As Lynas wrote and argued about global warming, he became frustrated at commenters who ignored the science behind global warming. This prompted him to learn how to read and understand the scientific literature which in turn prompted him into investigating the studies that had been done on GMO’s. It was then that he realized that his opposition to GMO’s was not factually based.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So the comment wasn’t the whole story behind his changed position. But it did come right when he was primed and ready to explore the science further. It was the nudge that pushed him into his new stance on GMO’s.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_48958\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/2013/01/28/comments-do-matter-so-get-talking/goldenrice2/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-48958\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2013/01/GoldenRice2.jpg\" alt=\"A single comment helped turn an opponent of this GM rice into a proponent. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.\" width=\"640\" height=\"356\" class=\"size-full wp-image-48958\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/39/2013/01/GoldenRice2.jpg 640w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/39/2013/01/GoldenRice2-400x223.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A single comment helped turn an opponent of this GM rice into a proponent. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Back in December I wrote a \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/2012/12/03/wanted-scientist-comments/\">blog post\u003c/a> asking scientists to comment online more often. I had noticed that some commenters were getting away with comments that were scientifically wrong (“vaccines don’t prevent illness”) and I was worried that if these comments remained unchallenged, readers would conclude that these scientifically inaccurate statements were actually true. Or at the very least that there was some debate on the question.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A number of scientists got back to me on why they didn’t bother to comment and one of the biggest reasons I heard was that they didn’t think their comments would matter. They felt their comment would be one of many that got lost in the fury of the comments section. As one put it, “There would be too little return on his investment.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A recent case shows that a well-timed comment can radically change someone’s viewpoint. A journalist named Mark Lynas has been a harsh critic of genetically modified organisms (GMO’s) from the get go. He regularly argues against GM foods in the press and has had a huge impact on the debate about the safety of these crops.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now, after much soul-searching and scientific investigation brought on by a reader’s comment on \u003ca href=\"http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/jun/19/gmcrops.food\">one of his stories\u003c/a> in the Guardian, he is no longer opposed to GM foods. In fact, he has become pro-GMO!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It might seem hard to believe, but this is what Lynas himself is claiming. Here is the comment that caused the radical rethink:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem> “One does not fight the corporate misdeeds of the automotive industry, for instance, by demanding that the wheel must be banned.”\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_48971\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 250px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/2013/01/28/comments-do-matter-so-get-talking/fossilblogcomment/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-48971\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2013/01/FossilBlogComment.jpg\" alt=\"This comment was the push Lynas needed to investigate GMO's more thoroughly which resulted in a complete about face on his views.\" width=\"250\" height=\"294\" class=\"size-full wp-image-48971\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">This comment was the push Lynas needed to investigate GMO's more thoroughly which resulted in a complete about face on his views.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>This was one snippet towards the end of a longish, ~530 word comment, but it got Lynas to thinking about why he was opposed to GM foods. As he thought on it, he realized it wasn’t because of any scientific evidence. No, it had more to do with a gut response against a big, evil, American corporation tinkering with the food supply. Or, in his own words: \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>“When I first heard about Monsanto’s GM soya [soybeans] I knew exactly what I thought. Here was a big American corporation with a nasty track record, putting something new and experimental into our food without telling us. Mixing genes between species seemed to be about as unnatural as you can get – here was humankind acquiring too much technological power; something was bound to go horribly wrong. These genes would spread like some kind of living pollution. It was the stuff of nightmares.”\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/jun/19/gmcrops.food#start-of-comments\">comment \u003c/a>on his Guardian article made him realize that this was not a reasonable foundation on which to base his opposition to GM foods. It prompted him, for the first time, to take a deeper look into the science of GMO’s. He quickly realized that his reasons for opposing GM foods were not based in any fact. His list is as follows:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>“I’d assumed that it would increase the use of chemicals. It turned out that pest-resistant cotton and maize needed less insecticide. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I’d assumed that GM benefited only the big companies. It turned out that billions of dollars of benefits were accruing to farmers needing fewer inputs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I’d assumed that Terminator Technology [which was meant to make plants produce sterile, unusable seeds] was robbing farmers of the right to save seed. It turned out that hybrids did that long ago, and that Terminator never happened.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I’d assumed that no one wanted GM. Actually what happened was that Bt cotton [which grows its own pesticide to fight bollworm and other pests] was pirated into India and Roundup Ready soya into Brazil because farmers were so eager to use them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I’d assumed that GM was dangerous. It turned out that it was safer and more precise than conventional breeding using mutagenesis for example; GM just moves a couple of genes, whereas conventional breeding mucks about with the entire genome in a trial and error way.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But what about mixing genes between unrelated species? The fish and the tomato? Turns out viruses do that all the time, as do plants and insects and even us – it’s called gene flow.” \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As you can see, once he did the legwork to understand the science that had been done, he realized that his reasons for opposing GMO’s held no water. And in fact, as an environmentalist, he realized further that he should be supporting GM foods as a way to increase yield and so decrease the amount of land that needed to be cultivated. All from a single comment!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Of course a big question is why he changed his mind when he did. After all, he had undoubtedly received similar comments to his other stories over the years. The answer lies in his newest environmental concern--global warming.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Unlike the debate over GMO’s, science is on the side of the environmentalists in the global warming debate. As Lynas wrote and argued about global warming, he became frustrated at commenters who ignored the science behind global warming. This prompted him to learn how to read and understand the scientific literature which in turn prompted him into investigating the studies that had been done on GMO’s. It was then that he realized that his opposition to GMO’s was not factually based.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So the comment wasn’t the whole story behind his changed position. But it did come right when he was primed and ready to explore the science further. It was the nudge that pushed him into his new stance on GMO’s.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"disqusTitle": "Fear and Loathing in Wolf Country",
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"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_48912\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/2013/01/23/fear-and-loathing-in-wolf-country/wolf-with-scavengers-sized/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-48912\">\u003cimg class=\"size-large wp-image-48912\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2013/01/wolf-with-scavengers-sized-640x360.jpg\" alt=\"wolf with elk\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">When wolves were reintroduced into Yellowstone in the 1990s, researchers had a rare chance to study the top predators' effects on the ecosystem after a long absence. They found that wolves help buffer the impact of deteriorating environmental conditions by providing food for scavengers. (Photo: Dan Hartman via PLOS Biology doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.0030132)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The first rays of daylight have just reached the banks of Southeast Alaska’s Chilkat River when I hear the unmistakable cries of the world’s most hated predator.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The distinctive yowls—at first plaintive then veering toward gregarious—seem to rise from the bowels of the mountains beyond the river, echoing miles across the valley to tickle the hair on my very cold head.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wolves live throughout the Chilkat Valley. You can sometimes see their tracks in the snow. But as night turns to day, they head for the hills.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You won’t see those wolves come down to the flats,” a visiting biologist tells me. “They know they’ll get shot.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Alaska Fish and Game officials guess that some 7,000 to 11,000 wolves inhabit the state. Yet even though the agency has no protocol to produce “meaningful estimates” of wolf abundance in the Chilkat Range, it extended hunting and trapping seasons there in 2005. And state officials still shoot wolves from helicopters under a euphemistically named \u003ca href=\"http://www.adfg.alaska.gov/index.cfm?adfg=intensivemanagement.main\">“intensive management” program\u003c/a> to appease hunters who blame the predators for declining ungulate populations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2011, the US Fish and Wildlife Service removed the embattled canine from the endangered species list in Wyoming, Idaho and Montana, setting the stage for a legal killing spree that claimed at least 850 wolves in the Northern Rockies in less than two years. Last week, the \u003ca href=\"http://www.pressdisplay.com/pressdisplay/viewer.aspx\">San Francisco Chronicle reported\u003c/a> that the fast and furious killings have wildlife experts here worried about the fate of OR7, the only wolf to set foot in California since the 1920s.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The three-year-old solo lobo (the seventh wolf to get a radio-tagged collar from Oregon wildlife officials) left his pack in Oregon, as young males are wont to do, to strike out on his own and find a mate, a new pack or perhaps unclaimed territory. His brother, OR9, was among the unlucky wolves killed by Idaho hunters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_48914\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 440px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/2013/01/23/fear-and-loathing-in-wolf-country/lynxhomepageimage/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-48914\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-48914\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2013/01/LynxHomePageImage.jpg\" alt=\"canada lynx\" width=\"440\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/39/2013/01/LynxHomePageImage.jpg 440w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/39/2013/01/LynxHomePageImage-400x273.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 440px) 100vw, 440px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The loss of wolves may have set the stage for an ecological domino effect: no wolves, led to more coyotes, which eat the lynx's preferred food, the snowshoe hare, and more ungulates, which eat the vegetation that shelters and feeds the hare.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Though Ecology 101 tells us that healthy ecosystems need top predators, researchers are just beginning to understand how the presence—and absence—of wolves affects other species. \u003ca href=\"http://www.plosbiology.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pbio.0030092\">One study found\u003c/a> that wolves may buffer the effects of climate change in Yellowstone National Park, where winters have been getting shorter, by leaving their moose and elk leftovers for eagles, ravens, coyotes and other scavengers. \u003ca href=\"http://fes.forestry.oregonstate.edu/sites/fes.forestry.oregonstate.edu/files/PDFs/Beschta/Ripple2011WSB.pdf\">Another paper\u003c/a> suggests that the absence of wolves may explain the precarious status of the Canada lynx. No wolves means more coyotes—which hunt snowshoe hares, the lynx’s favorite food—and more elk and deer—which eat the shrubby vegetation that sustain and shelter hares. And a 2011 paper in \u003ca href=\"http://ir.library.oregonstate.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/1957/25603/RippleWilliam.Forestry.TrophicCascadesYellowstone.pdf?sequence=3\">Biological Conservation \u003c/a>supports earlier work showing that wolves in Yellowstone influence the behavior of deer and elk, releasing grazing pressure on vegetation, which in turn increases songbird habitat and diversity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As scientists slowly uncover the top predator’s secrets, deliberations over its management are notoriously contentious. Still, for all the ink spilled on high-pitched battles to control the wolf’s fate, researchers know surprisingly little about the cognitive roots of our attitudes toward \u003cem>Canis lupus.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Why do we hate and fear the wolf?\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_48915\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 504px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/2013/01/23/fear-and-loathing-in-wolf-country/0107_imnaha_pack_alpha_male_odfw/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-48915\">\u003cimg class=\"size-large wp-image-48915\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2013/01/0107_imnaha_pack_alpha_male_odfw-504x360.jpg\" alt=\"Imnaha wolf \" width=\"504\" height=\"360\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The alpha male of the Imnaha wolf pack--where OR7 came from--awakes from being tranquilized after being refitted with a working GPS collar by ODFW, May 19, 2011. (Photo courtesy of ODFW)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In a \u003ca href=\"http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10871209.2012.619001\">paper published last year\u003c/a> in the journal Human Dimensions of Wildlife, researchers found that people who view wolves and bears as dangerous and unpredictable were more likely to fear them. And whether you see carnivores like wolves as a fearsome threat to life and property or a vital link in a healthy ecosystem depends on your cultural roots, as a \u003ca href=\"http://www.nelson.wisc.edu/people/treves/Pubs/Shelley_etal_Ojibwe_wolves.pdf\">2011 study of wolf conflicts\u003c/a> in Wisconsin makes clear.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By 1960, extirpation campaigns had eliminated wolves in Wisconsin (and nearly everywhere else in the United States). The population rebounded by 2009 under a policy of protection. But as wolves increased, so did reports of attacks on livestock and hunting dogs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Most non-Indian residents in Wisconsin support public hunts in retaliation. But no one had bothered to ask the Bad River Band of Chippewa Indians (Ojibwe, or Anishinabe, in their language), researchers noted, even though treaty rights give the tribe an interest in land that includes a large swath of wolf territory.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the Ojibwe creation story, the Creator gave Original Man a brother in the form of a wolf to “walk through the world together.” When the pair was forced to part, the bond would remain, the Creator told them, and whatever happened to one would happen to the other.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Not surprisingly, Ojibwe tribal members, who grew up hearing these stories, had far more positive views of wolves, and were less likely than non-Indian respondents to support killing them for taking livestock or pets. In the survey, one tribal member wrote:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Wolves were harvested [historically] by Native Americans, however the wolf selected was harvested compassionately. Usually it was those wolves disconnected from the pack and scavenging. Those wolves were less likely to survive without the pack; just as an Anishinabe would less likely be Anishinabe without the tribe.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>You don’t have to embrace the wolf as a brother—or hear what wildlife biologist Durward Allen called “the jubilation” in their howls—to appreciate that the people who walked with wolves for thousands of years before Europeans showed up might suggest a path toward coexistence.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wisconsin wolf managers have already enlisted Ojibwe tribal members to work with them to resolve human-wolf conflicts with positive results. Wildlife officials throughout wolf country—which could include California if we give OR7 and his fellow travelers a chance—might consider a similar approach.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "After federal wildlife officials removed endangered species protections on wolves in the Rocky Mountains, hunters quickly killed them by the hundreds. If California's lone wolf leaves the state, he could meet a similar fate.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_48912\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/2013/01/23/fear-and-loathing-in-wolf-country/wolf-with-scavengers-sized/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-48912\">\u003cimg class=\"size-large wp-image-48912\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2013/01/wolf-with-scavengers-sized-640x360.jpg\" alt=\"wolf with elk\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">When wolves were reintroduced into Yellowstone in the 1990s, researchers had a rare chance to study the top predators' effects on the ecosystem after a long absence. They found that wolves help buffer the impact of deteriorating environmental conditions by providing food for scavengers. (Photo: Dan Hartman via PLOS Biology doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.0030132)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The first rays of daylight have just reached the banks of Southeast Alaska’s Chilkat River when I hear the unmistakable cries of the world’s most hated predator.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The distinctive yowls—at first plaintive then veering toward gregarious—seem to rise from the bowels of the mountains beyond the river, echoing miles across the valley to tickle the hair on my very cold head.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wolves live throughout the Chilkat Valley. You can sometimes see their tracks in the snow. But as night turns to day, they head for the hills.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You won’t see those wolves come down to the flats,” a visiting biologist tells me. “They know they’ll get shot.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Alaska Fish and Game officials guess that some 7,000 to 11,000 wolves inhabit the state. Yet even though the agency has no protocol to produce “meaningful estimates” of wolf abundance in the Chilkat Range, it extended hunting and trapping seasons there in 2005. And state officials still shoot wolves from helicopters under a euphemistically named \u003ca href=\"http://www.adfg.alaska.gov/index.cfm?adfg=intensivemanagement.main\">“intensive management” program\u003c/a> to appease hunters who blame the predators for declining ungulate populations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2011, the US Fish and Wildlife Service removed the embattled canine from the endangered species list in Wyoming, Idaho and Montana, setting the stage for a legal killing spree that claimed at least 850 wolves in the Northern Rockies in less than two years. Last week, the \u003ca href=\"http://www.pressdisplay.com/pressdisplay/viewer.aspx\">San Francisco Chronicle reported\u003c/a> that the fast and furious killings have wildlife experts here worried about the fate of OR7, the only wolf to set foot in California since the 1920s.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The three-year-old solo lobo (the seventh wolf to get a radio-tagged collar from Oregon wildlife officials) left his pack in Oregon, as young males are wont to do, to strike out on his own and find a mate, a new pack or perhaps unclaimed territory. His brother, OR9, was among the unlucky wolves killed by Idaho hunters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_48914\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 440px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/2013/01/23/fear-and-loathing-in-wolf-country/lynxhomepageimage/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-48914\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-48914\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2013/01/LynxHomePageImage.jpg\" alt=\"canada lynx\" width=\"440\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/39/2013/01/LynxHomePageImage.jpg 440w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/39/2013/01/LynxHomePageImage-400x273.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 440px) 100vw, 440px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The loss of wolves may have set the stage for an ecological domino effect: no wolves, led to more coyotes, which eat the lynx's preferred food, the snowshoe hare, and more ungulates, which eat the vegetation that shelters and feeds the hare.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Though Ecology 101 tells us that healthy ecosystems need top predators, researchers are just beginning to understand how the presence—and absence—of wolves affects other species. \u003ca href=\"http://www.plosbiology.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pbio.0030092\">One study found\u003c/a> that wolves may buffer the effects of climate change in Yellowstone National Park, where winters have been getting shorter, by leaving their moose and elk leftovers for eagles, ravens, coyotes and other scavengers. \u003ca href=\"http://fes.forestry.oregonstate.edu/sites/fes.forestry.oregonstate.edu/files/PDFs/Beschta/Ripple2011WSB.pdf\">Another paper\u003c/a> suggests that the absence of wolves may explain the precarious status of the Canada lynx. No wolves means more coyotes—which hunt snowshoe hares, the lynx’s favorite food—and more elk and deer—which eat the shrubby vegetation that sustain and shelter hares. And a 2011 paper in \u003ca href=\"http://ir.library.oregonstate.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/1957/25603/RippleWilliam.Forestry.TrophicCascadesYellowstone.pdf?sequence=3\">Biological Conservation \u003c/a>supports earlier work showing that wolves in Yellowstone influence the behavior of deer and elk, releasing grazing pressure on vegetation, which in turn increases songbird habitat and diversity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As scientists slowly uncover the top predator’s secrets, deliberations over its management are notoriously contentious. Still, for all the ink spilled on high-pitched battles to control the wolf’s fate, researchers know surprisingly little about the cognitive roots of our attitudes toward \u003cem>Canis lupus.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Why do we hate and fear the wolf?\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_48915\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 504px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/2013/01/23/fear-and-loathing-in-wolf-country/0107_imnaha_pack_alpha_male_odfw/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-48915\">\u003cimg class=\"size-large wp-image-48915\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2013/01/0107_imnaha_pack_alpha_male_odfw-504x360.jpg\" alt=\"Imnaha wolf \" width=\"504\" height=\"360\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The alpha male of the Imnaha wolf pack--where OR7 came from--awakes from being tranquilized after being refitted with a working GPS collar by ODFW, May 19, 2011. (Photo courtesy of ODFW)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In a \u003ca href=\"http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10871209.2012.619001\">paper published last year\u003c/a> in the journal Human Dimensions of Wildlife, researchers found that people who view wolves and bears as dangerous and unpredictable were more likely to fear them. And whether you see carnivores like wolves as a fearsome threat to life and property or a vital link in a healthy ecosystem depends on your cultural roots, as a \u003ca href=\"http://www.nelson.wisc.edu/people/treves/Pubs/Shelley_etal_Ojibwe_wolves.pdf\">2011 study of wolf conflicts\u003c/a> in Wisconsin makes clear.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By 1960, extirpation campaigns had eliminated wolves in Wisconsin (and nearly everywhere else in the United States). The population rebounded by 2009 under a policy of protection. But as wolves increased, so did reports of attacks on livestock and hunting dogs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Most non-Indian residents in Wisconsin support public hunts in retaliation. But no one had bothered to ask the Bad River Band of Chippewa Indians (Ojibwe, or Anishinabe, in their language), researchers noted, even though treaty rights give the tribe an interest in land that includes a large swath of wolf territory.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the Ojibwe creation story, the Creator gave Original Man a brother in the form of a wolf to “walk through the world together.” When the pair was forced to part, the bond would remain, the Creator told them, and whatever happened to one would happen to the other.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Not surprisingly, Ojibwe tribal members, who grew up hearing these stories, had far more positive views of wolves, and were less likely than non-Indian respondents to support killing them for taking livestock or pets. In the survey, one tribal member wrote:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Wolves were harvested [historically] by Native Americans, however the wolf selected was harvested compassionately. Usually it was those wolves disconnected from the pack and scavenging. Those wolves were less likely to survive without the pack; just as an Anishinabe would less likely be Anishinabe without the tribe.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>You don’t have to embrace the wolf as a brother—or hear what wildlife biologist Durward Allen called “the jubilation” in their howls—to appreciate that the people who walked with wolves for thousands of years before Europeans showed up might suggest a path toward coexistence.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wisconsin wolf managers have already enlisted Ojibwe tribal members to work with them to resolve human-wolf conflicts with positive results. Wildlife officials throughout wolf country—which could include California if we give OR7 and his fellow travelers a chance—might consider a similar approach.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"disqusTitle": "Warblers' Secrets for Successful Survival Strategies",
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"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_48727\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 450px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/2013/01/18/warblers-secrets-for-successful-survival-strategies/450px-yellow-rump-capisic-spring-2012-2/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-48727\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-48727\" title=\"Yellow-rump-capisic-spring-2012\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2013/01/450px-Yellow-rump-capisic-spring-20121.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"450\" height=\"600\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Flashing its yellow tail patch, a yellow-rumped warbler is easy to spot. {link url=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Semi-double_Camelia_cultivar.jpg\"}Photo by Chuck Homler.{/link}\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>There are some bright spots on these cold, wet winter days and they’re flitting about in my camellia trees: \u003ca title=\"Cornell Bird ID; yellow-rumped warblers\" href=\"http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Yellow-rumped_Warbler/lifehistory\" target=\"_blank\">yellow-rumped warblers\u003c/a>. These little flying gems bring their acrobatic flashes of color to the otherwise drab and muted landscape in its winter garb. To top it off, their feeding strategies are a case study that flexibility leads to success.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These birds have the endearing name of “butter butts” for a yellow patch at the base of their tail. You can find them throughout the Bay Area in winter. Drawn by the waxy berries of the \u003ca title=\"Cal Flora website, California Myrtle\" href=\"http://www.calflora.org/cgi-bin/species_query.cgi?where-calrecnum=5733\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cem>Myricaceae\u003c/em> (myrtle and bayberry) family\u003c/a> and winter flowers such as \u003ca title=\"Wikipedia, camellia information\" href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camellia\" target=\"_blank\">camellia\u003c/a>, they spend winters near us in neighborhood parks and yards. Most of the time, you don’t even need binoculars to see them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_48728\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 337px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/2013/01/18/warblers-secrets-for-successful-survival-strategies/semi-double_camelia_cultivar/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-48728\">\u003cimg class=\"size-medium wp-image-48728\" title=\"Semi-double_Camelia_cultivar\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2013/01/Semi-double_Camelia_cultivar-337x253.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"337\" height=\"253\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Lush blooms of camellias in winter attract 'butter butts' and other wildlife.\" {link url=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Semi-double_Camelia_cultivar.jpg\"}Photo by Kowloonese.{/link}\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Yellow-rumped warblers are designated a \"Species of Least Concern\" with a stable population in no danger of disappearing. Why are they so successful? Their first secret to success is their rare ability to digest the wax of berries in the myrtle family. These waxy berries, once used by Colonial Americans to make candles, store fat that’s usually inaccessible for energy. These warblers can digest it and put that wax-fat to good use; they can winter further north than other warblers. On both coasts of North America their wintering territory mirrors the presence of myrtles, sometimes in otherwise inhospitable areas covered in snow and ice. Some of the species, perhaps those that have discovered the wonders of an endless summer, migrate further south as far as Central America. The second secret to the warblers success is a flexible feeding strategy. They can glean insects from leaves and bark, flycatch in mid-air, forage along shorelines for aquatic insects, drink nectar and eat pollen from flowers. They may do all of these things, appropriate to the abundance of the season, over the course of a year. Too bad there aren’t training courses led by these little “butter butts” for some of our endangered bird species that are trapped in their niche feeding strategies. Imagine: clapper rails birds “job shadowing” a group of yellow-rumped warblers to expand their feeding options!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now that we’ve passed the shortest day of the year, enjoy the lengthening daylight. The warblers and camellias remind us that spring is just a few months away. To learn more about our local birds and their habitats come along on an East Bay Regional Park \u003ca title=\"ebparks.org, activities\" href=\"http://www.ebparks.org/activities\" target=\"_blank\">naturalist program\u003c/a> or visit your local \u003ca title=\"Golden Gate Audubon Society, field trips\" href=\"http://www.goldengateaudubon.org/field-trips/upcoming-field-trips-2012/\" target=\"_blank\">Audubon Society website\u003c/a> to see what they have to offer near you. Don’t forget about the many ways you can help track bird and plant activities around you; check out \u003ca title=\"Cornell Birds, Citizen Science projects\" href=\"http://www.birds.cornell.edu/citsci/projects\" target=\"_blank\">Citizen Science programs\u003c/a> and get involved.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_48727\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 450px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/2013/01/18/warblers-secrets-for-successful-survival-strategies/450px-yellow-rump-capisic-spring-2012-2/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-48727\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-48727\" title=\"Yellow-rump-capisic-spring-2012\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2013/01/450px-Yellow-rump-capisic-spring-20121.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"450\" height=\"600\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Flashing its yellow tail patch, a yellow-rumped warbler is easy to spot. {link url=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Semi-double_Camelia_cultivar.jpg\"}Photo by Chuck Homler.{/link}\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>There are some bright spots on these cold, wet winter days and they’re flitting about in my camellia trees: \u003ca title=\"Cornell Bird ID; yellow-rumped warblers\" href=\"http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Yellow-rumped_Warbler/lifehistory\" target=\"_blank\">yellow-rumped warblers\u003c/a>. These little flying gems bring their acrobatic flashes of color to the otherwise drab and muted landscape in its winter garb. To top it off, their feeding strategies are a case study that flexibility leads to success.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These birds have the endearing name of “butter butts” for a yellow patch at the base of their tail. You can find them throughout the Bay Area in winter. Drawn by the waxy berries of the \u003ca title=\"Cal Flora website, California Myrtle\" href=\"http://www.calflora.org/cgi-bin/species_query.cgi?where-calrecnum=5733\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cem>Myricaceae\u003c/em> (myrtle and bayberry) family\u003c/a> and winter flowers such as \u003ca title=\"Wikipedia, camellia information\" href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camellia\" target=\"_blank\">camellia\u003c/a>, they spend winters near us in neighborhood parks and yards. Most of the time, you don’t even need binoculars to see them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_48728\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 337px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/2013/01/18/warblers-secrets-for-successful-survival-strategies/semi-double_camelia_cultivar/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-48728\">\u003cimg class=\"size-medium wp-image-48728\" title=\"Semi-double_Camelia_cultivar\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2013/01/Semi-double_Camelia_cultivar-337x253.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"337\" height=\"253\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Lush blooms of camellias in winter attract 'butter butts' and other wildlife.\" {link url=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Semi-double_Camelia_cultivar.jpg\"}Photo by Kowloonese.{/link}\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Yellow-rumped warblers are designated a \"Species of Least Concern\" with a stable population in no danger of disappearing. Why are they so successful? Their first secret to success is their rare ability to digest the wax of berries in the myrtle family. These waxy berries, once used by Colonial Americans to make candles, store fat that’s usually inaccessible for energy. These warblers can digest it and put that wax-fat to good use; they can winter further north than other warblers. On both coasts of North America their wintering territory mirrors the presence of myrtles, sometimes in otherwise inhospitable areas covered in snow and ice. Some of the species, perhaps those that have discovered the wonders of an endless summer, migrate further south as far as Central America. The second secret to the warblers success is a flexible feeding strategy. They can glean insects from leaves and bark, flycatch in mid-air, forage along shorelines for aquatic insects, drink nectar and eat pollen from flowers. They may do all of these things, appropriate to the abundance of the season, over the course of a year. Too bad there aren’t training courses led by these little “butter butts” for some of our endangered bird species that are trapped in their niche feeding strategies. Imagine: clapper rails birds “job shadowing” a group of yellow-rumped warblers to expand their feeding options!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now that we’ve passed the shortest day of the year, enjoy the lengthening daylight. The warblers and camellias remind us that spring is just a few months away. To learn more about our local birds and their habitats come along on an East Bay Regional Park \u003ca title=\"ebparks.org, activities\" href=\"http://www.ebparks.org/activities\" target=\"_blank\">naturalist program\u003c/a> or visit your local \u003ca title=\"Golden Gate Audubon Society, field trips\" href=\"http://www.goldengateaudubon.org/field-trips/upcoming-field-trips-2012/\" target=\"_blank\">Audubon Society website\u003c/a> to see what they have to offer near you. Don’t forget about the many ways you can help track bird and plant activities around you; check out \u003ca title=\"Cornell Birds, Citizen Science projects\" href=\"http://www.birds.cornell.edu/citsci/projects\" target=\"_blank\">Citizen Science programs\u003c/a> and get involved.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"disqusTitle": "Pregnancy and Paternity: New Fetal DNA Testing",
"title": "Pregnancy and Paternity: New Fetal DNA Testing",
"headTitle": "QUEST | KQED Science",
"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_48666\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 635px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/2013/01/14/pregnancy-and-paternity-new-fetal-dna-testing/pregnantwomangraffiti/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-48666\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2013/01/PregnantWomanGraffiti.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"PregnantWomanGraffiti\" width=\"635\" height=\"369\" class=\"size-full wp-image-48666\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/39/2013/01/PregnantWomanGraffiti.jpg 635w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/39/2013/01/PregnantWomanGraffiti-400x232.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 635px) 100vw, 635px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Prenatal paternity tests will actually decrease the number of abortions. Image courtesy of Petteri Sulonen from Helsinki, Finland via Wikimedia Commons. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Petteri Sulonen from Helsinki, Finland via Wikimedia Commons.)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Imagine you are a woman in a committed relationship. The worst happens and you are raped and become pregnant. What are your options?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Until recently, there was no reliable and safe way to determine paternity in the first trimester. This meant that many women chose to terminate their pregnancy without knowing who the child’s father was. Obviously this is not ideal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If the woman could determine paternity, she could use that information to help in her decision on whether to terminate the pregnancy. Undoubtedly this would lead to fewer abortions as more women choose to carry their partner’s child to term.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The tricky part of a prenatal paternity test is obviously getting a hold of fetal DNA. One method is amniocentesis. In this procedure, a needle is inserted into the amniotic sac and fluid is withdrawn. This fluid contains a lot of fetal DNA but getting it is not only invasive, it is also normally done somewhere between the 15th and 18th week of pregnancy. This is too late for many women.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Other methods take advantage of the fact that there is a bit of fetal DNA floating around in the plasma of mom’s blood. These tests have the advantage that they are noninvasive and can be done much earlier in pregnancy…sometimes as early as 8 weeks. The disadvantage of the \u003ca href=\"http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20827893.200-the-danger-of-unreliable-paternity-tests.html\">early versions of the test\u003c/a> was that they weren’t always as accurate as we’d like.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are anecdotal cases out there of women losing their partner’s child because they thought the child was the result of the rapist and keeping the rapist’s child because they thought the child was their partner’s. This is obviously unacceptable.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Recently a couple of new tests have come on line that appear to be much more accurate. Both use the fetal DNA found in mom’s blood but use novel strategies to improve accuracy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Scientists at one \u003ca href=\"http://www.ravgen.com/index.php?page=prenatal-dna-paternity-test-2\">testing company\u003c/a> present results in a recent \u003ca href=\"http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc1113044\">article \u003c/a>in the New England Journal of Medicine to back up their claims of accuracy. They set up an experiment where they had the mother’s, father’s, and an unrelated man’s DNA along with DNA from the mother’s blood plasma. This was a blind experiment in that the scientists did not know which of the two tubes containing the men’s DNA was from the father. They were able to correctly pick the father in 30 out of 30 cases. They claim the odds of this happening by chance are less than one out of a billion. (For those interested, the test is available \u003ca href=\"http://prenatal.ptclabs.com/\">here\u003c/a>.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What was their secret? Well, as I talk about \u003ca href=\"http://genetics.thetech.org/ask-a-geneticist/prenatal-paternity-tests\">here\u003c/a>, the key difference is that they focus on small bits of DNA that could have only have come from the dad. Any DNA they find in mom’s blood that doesn’t match hers had to come from the fetus. This eliminates any issues of contaminating DNA from mom. If all of this DNA matches a prospective father’s, then he is most likely the dad.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This company has competition from another \u003ca href=\"http://natera.com/non-invasive-prenatal-paternity-test.html\">testing company\u003c/a> that is offering another high-powered test using fetal DNA found in mom’s blood. I’ve talked about the science behind this sort of test recently right \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/2012/07/23/pregnant-women-face-big-questions-with-cheaper-dna-sequencing/\">here \u003c/a>at QUEST. There isn’t a New England Journal article that focuses on their prenatal test per se, but they did manage to sequence the entire genome of a fetus so they are probably up to the task!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even though it might seem counterintuitive, these tests will almost certainly decrease the number of abortions. And not only in cases of rape. These tests will also lead to more women keeping their children in cases of incest and even in some cases where a child might be conceived because of an extramarital affair.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_48666\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 635px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/2013/01/14/pregnancy-and-paternity-new-fetal-dna-testing/pregnantwomangraffiti/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-48666\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2013/01/PregnantWomanGraffiti.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"PregnantWomanGraffiti\" width=\"635\" height=\"369\" class=\"size-full wp-image-48666\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/39/2013/01/PregnantWomanGraffiti.jpg 635w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/39/2013/01/PregnantWomanGraffiti-400x232.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 635px) 100vw, 635px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Prenatal paternity tests will actually decrease the number of abortions. Image courtesy of Petteri Sulonen from Helsinki, Finland via Wikimedia Commons. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Petteri Sulonen from Helsinki, Finland via Wikimedia Commons.)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Imagine you are a woman in a committed relationship. The worst happens and you are raped and become pregnant. What are your options?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Until recently, there was no reliable and safe way to determine paternity in the first trimester. This meant that many women chose to terminate their pregnancy without knowing who the child’s father was. Obviously this is not ideal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If the woman could determine paternity, she could use that information to help in her decision on whether to terminate the pregnancy. Undoubtedly this would lead to fewer abortions as more women choose to carry their partner’s child to term.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The tricky part of a prenatal paternity test is obviously getting a hold of fetal DNA. One method is amniocentesis. In this procedure, a needle is inserted into the amniotic sac and fluid is withdrawn. This fluid contains a lot of fetal DNA but getting it is not only invasive, it is also normally done somewhere between the 15th and 18th week of pregnancy. This is too late for many women.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Other methods take advantage of the fact that there is a bit of fetal DNA floating around in the plasma of mom’s blood. These tests have the advantage that they are noninvasive and can be done much earlier in pregnancy…sometimes as early as 8 weeks. The disadvantage of the \u003ca href=\"http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20827893.200-the-danger-of-unreliable-paternity-tests.html\">early versions of the test\u003c/a> was that they weren’t always as accurate as we’d like.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are anecdotal cases out there of women losing their partner’s child because they thought the child was the result of the rapist and keeping the rapist’s child because they thought the child was their partner’s. This is obviously unacceptable.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Recently a couple of new tests have come on line that appear to be much more accurate. Both use the fetal DNA found in mom’s blood but use novel strategies to improve accuracy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Scientists at one \u003ca href=\"http://www.ravgen.com/index.php?page=prenatal-dna-paternity-test-2\">testing company\u003c/a> present results in a recent \u003ca href=\"http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc1113044\">article \u003c/a>in the New England Journal of Medicine to back up their claims of accuracy. They set up an experiment where they had the mother’s, father’s, and an unrelated man’s DNA along with DNA from the mother’s blood plasma. This was a blind experiment in that the scientists did not know which of the two tubes containing the men’s DNA was from the father. They were able to correctly pick the father in 30 out of 30 cases. They claim the odds of this happening by chance are less than one out of a billion. (For those interested, the test is available \u003ca href=\"http://prenatal.ptclabs.com/\">here\u003c/a>.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What was their secret? Well, as I talk about \u003ca href=\"http://genetics.thetech.org/ask-a-geneticist/prenatal-paternity-tests\">here\u003c/a>, the key difference is that they focus on small bits of DNA that could have only have come from the dad. Any DNA they find in mom’s blood that doesn’t match hers had to come from the fetus. This eliminates any issues of contaminating DNA from mom. If all of this DNA matches a prospective father’s, then he is most likely the dad.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This company has competition from another \u003ca href=\"http://natera.com/non-invasive-prenatal-paternity-test.html\">testing company\u003c/a> that is offering another high-powered test using fetal DNA found in mom’s blood. I’ve talked about the science behind this sort of test recently right \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/2012/07/23/pregnant-women-face-big-questions-with-cheaper-dna-sequencing/\">here \u003c/a>at QUEST. There isn’t a New England Journal article that focuses on their prenatal test per se, but they did manage to sequence the entire genome of a fetus so they are probably up to the task!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even though it might seem counterintuitive, these tests will almost certainly decrease the number of abortions. And not only in cases of rape. These tests will also lead to more women keeping their children in cases of incest and even in some cases where a child might be conceived because of an extramarital affair.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_48404\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 481px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/2013/01/04/hiking-in-the-new-year-at-sibley-volcanic-preserve/photo6-2/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-48404\">\u003cimg class=\"size-large wp-image-48404\" title=\"New Year's Day 2013\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2013/01/photo61-481x360.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"481\" height=\"360\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Celebrating New Year's Day with family and friends at Sibley.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>One of the best ways to greet the New Year is getting out with friends and family for an invigorating hike. It’s an opportunity to exercise and notice what’s going on in the winter landscape. It might even be the first step in keeping a New Year's resolution to do more walking. \u003ca title=\"East Bay Regional Parks website, Sibley Volcanic Preserve\" href=\"http://www.ebparks.org/parks/sibley.htm\" target=\"_blank\">Sibley Volcanic Preserve\u003c/a>, one of the East Bay Regional Parks, is one of my favorite places to explore on the first day of the year. The trails are wide, though sometimes muddy, and it’s not too shady so we can soak up some sunlight. We’ll hike rain or shine, though my favorite years are when it’s sunny and the air is crisp, like this year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Most of the deciduous plants are dormant this time of year, but sleeping buds hold tender leaves and flowers until the longer days of spring arrive. On our hike, I was surprised to find some non-native blackberries with red fruit, though the ground was cold enough to harbor icy patches in the shade. The unexpected berries reminded me of \u003ca title=\"Project BudBurst website\" href=\"http://neoninc.org/budburst/aboutus.php\" target=\"_blank\">Project BudBurst\u003c/a> which enlists anyone and everyone to report on what’s happening in the plant world. Volunteers help scientists to track the \u003ca title=\"National Phenology Network website\" href=\"http://www.usanpn.org/about/phenology\" target=\"_blank\">phenology\u003c/a> of plants -- posting what’s blooming, fruiting, dropping leaves and when and where on their website. This will be important data to track as climate change progresses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_48401\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 338px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/2013/01/04/hiking-in-the-new-year-at-sibley-volcanic-preserve/photo7/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-48401\">\u003cimg class=\"size-medium wp-image-48401\" title=\"Blackberries in Winter\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2013/01/photo7-338x253.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"338\" height=\"253\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Blackberries were still on the vine this late into winter.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>At the bottom of the old rock quarry in Sibley lays a labyrinth and pond. In drier times of year, the labyrinth offers opportunities for a meditative walk. The pond, after all the rain we’ve had, has engulfed part of the labyrinth. This is good news for the newts and garter snakes that will come to the water to participate in mating rituals (the newts) and food chain (the snakes). I’ll be back in the spring -- or sooner -- to see what developments and changes have happened with the seasons. Here’s wishing you a happy and healthy New Year! Share in the comments your favorite outdoor places to watch the seasonal changes around the Bay Area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Additional Links:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>KQED QUEST exploration for Sibley\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_48404\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 481px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/2013/01/04/hiking-in-the-new-year-at-sibley-volcanic-preserve/photo6-2/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-48404\">\u003cimg class=\"size-large wp-image-48404\" title=\"New Year's Day 2013\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2013/01/photo61-481x360.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"481\" height=\"360\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Celebrating New Year's Day with family and friends at Sibley.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>One of the best ways to greet the New Year is getting out with friends and family for an invigorating hike. It’s an opportunity to exercise and notice what’s going on in the winter landscape. It might even be the first step in keeping a New Year's resolution to do more walking. \u003ca title=\"East Bay Regional Parks website, Sibley Volcanic Preserve\" href=\"http://www.ebparks.org/parks/sibley.htm\" target=\"_blank\">Sibley Volcanic Preserve\u003c/a>, one of the East Bay Regional Parks, is one of my favorite places to explore on the first day of the year. The trails are wide, though sometimes muddy, and it’s not too shady so we can soak up some sunlight. We’ll hike rain or shine, though my favorite years are when it’s sunny and the air is crisp, like this year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Most of the deciduous plants are dormant this time of year, but sleeping buds hold tender leaves and flowers until the longer days of spring arrive. On our hike, I was surprised to find some non-native blackberries with red fruit, though the ground was cold enough to harbor icy patches in the shade. The unexpected berries reminded me of \u003ca title=\"Project BudBurst website\" href=\"http://neoninc.org/budburst/aboutus.php\" target=\"_blank\">Project BudBurst\u003c/a> which enlists anyone and everyone to report on what’s happening in the plant world. Volunteers help scientists to track the \u003ca title=\"National Phenology Network website\" href=\"http://www.usanpn.org/about/phenology\" target=\"_blank\">phenology\u003c/a> of plants -- posting what’s blooming, fruiting, dropping leaves and when and where on their website. This will be important data to track as climate change progresses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_48401\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 338px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/2013/01/04/hiking-in-the-new-year-at-sibley-volcanic-preserve/photo7/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-48401\">\u003cimg class=\"size-medium wp-image-48401\" title=\"Blackberries in Winter\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2013/01/photo7-338x253.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"338\" height=\"253\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Blackberries were still on the vine this late into winter.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>At the bottom of the old rock quarry in Sibley lays a labyrinth and pond. In drier times of year, the labyrinth offers opportunities for a meditative walk. The pond, after all the rain we’ve had, has engulfed part of the labyrinth. This is good news for the newts and garter snakes that will come to the water to participate in mating rituals (the newts) and food chain (the snakes). I’ll be back in the spring -- or sooner -- to see what developments and changes have happened with the seasons. Here’s wishing you a happy and healthy New Year! Share in the comments your favorite outdoor places to watch the seasonal changes around the Bay Area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Additional Links:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>KQED QUEST exploration for Sibley\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"disqusTitle": "Should I or Shouldn't I? Wrestling with Giving Genetic Tests as Gifts",
"title": "Should I or Shouldn't I? Wrestling with Giving Genetic Tests as Gifts",
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"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_48105\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/2012/12/31/should-i-or-shouldnt-i-wrestling-with-giving-genetic-tests-as-gifts/gift/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-48105\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2012/12/Gift.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"Gift\" width=\"640\" height=\"369\" class=\"size-full wp-image-48105\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/39/2012/12/Gift.jpg 640w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/39/2012/12/Gift-400x231.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Giving the gift of a genetic test can be a tricky business.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>When \u003ca href=\"https://www.23andme.com/\">23andMe\u003c/a> offered their DNA test for just $99, I started to think about giving it for Christmas presents. It was an easy decision to send one to my dad (although I’ll be curious to see if he’ll do it). What was much trickier was deciding whether to give one to my 15 year old son.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are a number of reasons I wanted to give away this test to my relatives. The first is that I want to see how the DNA got passed down from my dad to me. And how it got passed from me to my son.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>You might recall that we all have 23 pairs of chromosomes. We get one of each pair from our moms and one from our dads.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When we pass this DNA down to our kids, the DNA in each pair goes through a process called \u003ca href=\"http://genetics.thetech.org/ask/ask435\">recombination\u003c/a>. This is where DNA is swapped between the two chromosomes in a pair. The end result is that the chromosome 1 that I got from my dad is a mix of his two chromosome 1’s. The same is true for the chromosome 2 that I got all the way through chromosome 22. (The Y I got \u003ca href=\"http://genetics.thetech.org/ask/ask450\">passed pretty much unchanged\u003c/a>.) \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It would be so cool to see this in action with my own DNA. Seeing a concrete example of something that has largely been theoretical up to this point somehow makes it more real. Especially with my own DNA.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_48110\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 250px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/2012/12/31/should-i-or-shouldnt-i-wrestling-with-giving-genetic-tests-as-gifts/africandna2/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-48110\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2012/12/AfricanDNA2.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"AfricanDNA2\" width=\"250\" height=\"313\" class=\"size-full wp-image-48110\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Look ma, I'm a little bit African! The pink at the end of one of my chromosome 11's indicates an African ancestry.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>At least this was the case when I got the whole family tested for the gene responsible for most cases of red hair, MC1R. It was so satisfying to see that my wife and I were \u003ca href=\"http://genetics.thetech.org/ask/ask44\">carriers for red hair\u003c/a>, that we each passed a red version of MC1R to our red haired son, that our older son got one copy and so was a carrier like us and that our daughter didn’t get a red MC1R gene. Even though I knew my wife and I were carriers and out red haired son had two red copies, it seemed more real once I saw the genetic results.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The test can also tell us something about our ancestry. For example, it was cool to see that the tip of one of my chromosome 11’s actually comes from an African ancestor. I am 0.1% African. How cool is that?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Getting my dad tested would tell me if I got that from him. Undoubtedly I did as his family is from Arkansas and my mother’s is from Berlin, Germany but still it would be nice to confirm. My dad’s DNA could also tell us whether an old family legend about us being related to the outlaw Sam Starr is true.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>See Sam Starr was half Native American which would mean we would have some Native American DNA too. As I talked about in a couple of previous blogs \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/2009/09/14/genetic-tests-when-no-means-maybe-part-1/\">here \u003c/a>and \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/2009/09/28/genetic-tests-when-no-means-maybe-part-2/\">here\u003c/a>, I couldn’t see Native American in my own DNA. One reason for this might be that I am one generation too far for the test to be able to see that DNA in mine. Maybe since my dad is one generation closer, we could see the Native American DNA in his.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>OK, that was the fun stuff. Now on to why I might be hesitant to get my son tested. It has to do with what our DNA can and can’t tell us about our future health risks. And how these findings are packaged.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of the things you can quickly learn is whether you are a carrier for some deadly genetic disease like cystic fibrosis. They don’t test for every possible variant so a negative result may give a false sense of security. Still, it would be good to know about the common ones, right? I guess maybe…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This kind of knowledge is important for my son to know once he’s married but does he need to know about his genetic burden now? Is he ready for it?\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_48121\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 182px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/2012/12/31/should-i-or-shouldnt-i-wrestling-with-giving-genetic-tests-as-gifts/alzrisk/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-48121\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2012/12/AlzRisk.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"AlzRisk\" width=\"182\" height=\"312\" class=\"size-full wp-image-48121\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Good news for me and my kids. I am at a lower risk for Alzheimer's and I will for sure pass at least some of that lowered risk to my kids. \u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>And what about straight up genetic diseases? I found out I am a carrier for something called hemochromatosis. If my wife is one too then my son has a chance of getting the disease although even if he got the \"bad\" versions from my wife and me he still only has a chance at the disease. (Hemochromatosis is incompletely penetrant.) \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At least with this one there is an easy remedy if you end up with it. You just have to give blood often and you are OK. But what about diseases you can’t do anything about?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Imagine he finds he has two copies of the APOE4 version of the APOE gene. These people are much more likely to end up with Alzheimer’s later in life. Should a 15 year old be subjected to that worry for the rest of his life?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now that one is only theoretical. Because \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/2011/04/25/better-left-unknown/\">I have two copies of the “good” version\u003c/a> of APOE, APOE2, I know at worst he’d have a good and a bad version (APOE3 is the neutral version). Of course then my wife would know she probably carries at least one APOE4 and now she can start to worry. And maybe feel bad that she passed it on to her son…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The list of issues like this goes on and on. I haven’t even dealt with things like DNA differences that led to a 1.5 fold increase in prostate cancer or macular degeneration or who knows what else. Is he ready to get that kind of information and, more importantly, to understand the limitations of the information? \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For example, just because he has a marker that more people who ended up with prostate cancer had, that doesn’t mean that the marker means the same thing in him. His genetics are his own and everyone will have a different risk for these sorts of multi-gene traits. And even if he is twice as likely to get brain cancer, does he know what those numbers mean? Or will his lack of understanding make him depressed because he thinks he will most likely end up with brain cancer? Yikes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To test out how ready he was, I decided to share some of my results with him while my eleven year old daughter listened in. First I showed them the ancestry and traits like lactose intolerance. They thought these were very cool (and they were right). I also showed them how my DNA showed that my blood type probably was A+ and that I was a carrier for O and Rh negative blood type. We got into a nice discussion about what that means for them. Neat.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then I moved onto the disease section. This is where things started to get ugly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_48126\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 200px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/2012/12/31/should-i-or-shouldnt-i-wrestling-with-giving-genetic-tests-as-gifts/decriskconf/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-48126\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2012/12/DecRiskConf.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"DecRiskConf\" width=\"200\" height=\"225\" class=\"size-full wp-image-48126\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">What does it all mean?\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>I learned pretty quickly that my daughter did not have the right personality for these sorts of tests (at least not yet). She focused in on the various diseases, learning all the ways I could one day die and started to get very worried. I tried to use my understanding of genetics to tell her that these are just risks, they aren’t a for sure thing but I was getting nowhere. She tends to worry a lot and this simply gave her more to worry about. Hopefully she will forget about this and move on.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>My son was a different matter. He was very interested in things without worrying too much but he was taking some of the health things too literally. For example, my results showed a significantly increased risk for late age macular degeneration (a nasty eye problem). Scary.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Except that again, this is the average risk of lots of people with varying genes who share this marker. My own risk is my own and is dependent on lots of other genes (and the environment!) besides this one. So basically I take these results with a grain of salt, waiting for more data to see if it is meaningful or not. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But he homed in on these results and decided they were set in stone. He saw a bunch of yellow stars that indicated that 23andMe was very confident in this result and so assumed that that meant they were very confident that I had the chance for this disease they quoted. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I explained that this is not the case. 23andMe has a great deal of confidence in the study itself but not necessarily in its predictions as they related specifically to me. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the end I didn’t get my son the 23andMe test. I wish they offered some way to just look at some of the data and not all of it at once. Then I might have given this as a gift to my son and maybe even my daughter.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_48105\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/2012/12/31/should-i-or-shouldnt-i-wrestling-with-giving-genetic-tests-as-gifts/gift/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-48105\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2012/12/Gift.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"Gift\" width=\"640\" height=\"369\" class=\"size-full wp-image-48105\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/39/2012/12/Gift.jpg 640w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/39/2012/12/Gift-400x231.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Giving the gift of a genetic test can be a tricky business.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>When \u003ca href=\"https://www.23andme.com/\">23andMe\u003c/a> offered their DNA test for just $99, I started to think about giving it for Christmas presents. It was an easy decision to send one to my dad (although I’ll be curious to see if he’ll do it). What was much trickier was deciding whether to give one to my 15 year old son.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are a number of reasons I wanted to give away this test to my relatives. The first is that I want to see how the DNA got passed down from my dad to me. And how it got passed from me to my son.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>You might recall that we all have 23 pairs of chromosomes. We get one of each pair from our moms and one from our dads.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When we pass this DNA down to our kids, the DNA in each pair goes through a process called \u003ca href=\"http://genetics.thetech.org/ask/ask435\">recombination\u003c/a>. This is where DNA is swapped between the two chromosomes in a pair. The end result is that the chromosome 1 that I got from my dad is a mix of his two chromosome 1’s. The same is true for the chromosome 2 that I got all the way through chromosome 22. (The Y I got \u003ca href=\"http://genetics.thetech.org/ask/ask450\">passed pretty much unchanged\u003c/a>.) \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It would be so cool to see this in action with my own DNA. Seeing a concrete example of something that has largely been theoretical up to this point somehow makes it more real. Especially with my own DNA.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_48110\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 250px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/2012/12/31/should-i-or-shouldnt-i-wrestling-with-giving-genetic-tests-as-gifts/africandna2/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-48110\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2012/12/AfricanDNA2.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"AfricanDNA2\" width=\"250\" height=\"313\" class=\"size-full wp-image-48110\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Look ma, I'm a little bit African! The pink at the end of one of my chromosome 11's indicates an African ancestry.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>At least this was the case when I got the whole family tested for the gene responsible for most cases of red hair, MC1R. It was so satisfying to see that my wife and I were \u003ca href=\"http://genetics.thetech.org/ask/ask44\">carriers for red hair\u003c/a>, that we each passed a red version of MC1R to our red haired son, that our older son got one copy and so was a carrier like us and that our daughter didn’t get a red MC1R gene. Even though I knew my wife and I were carriers and out red haired son had two red copies, it seemed more real once I saw the genetic results.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The test can also tell us something about our ancestry. For example, it was cool to see that the tip of one of my chromosome 11’s actually comes from an African ancestor. I am 0.1% African. How cool is that?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Getting my dad tested would tell me if I got that from him. Undoubtedly I did as his family is from Arkansas and my mother’s is from Berlin, Germany but still it would be nice to confirm. My dad’s DNA could also tell us whether an old family legend about us being related to the outlaw Sam Starr is true.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>See Sam Starr was half Native American which would mean we would have some Native American DNA too. As I talked about in a couple of previous blogs \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/2009/09/14/genetic-tests-when-no-means-maybe-part-1/\">here \u003c/a>and \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/2009/09/28/genetic-tests-when-no-means-maybe-part-2/\">here\u003c/a>, I couldn’t see Native American in my own DNA. One reason for this might be that I am one generation too far for the test to be able to see that DNA in mine. Maybe since my dad is one generation closer, we could see the Native American DNA in his.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>OK, that was the fun stuff. Now on to why I might be hesitant to get my son tested. It has to do with what our DNA can and can’t tell us about our future health risks. And how these findings are packaged.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of the things you can quickly learn is whether you are a carrier for some deadly genetic disease like cystic fibrosis. They don’t test for every possible variant so a negative result may give a false sense of security. Still, it would be good to know about the common ones, right? I guess maybe…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This kind of knowledge is important for my son to know once he’s married but does he need to know about his genetic burden now? Is he ready for it?\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_48121\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 182px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/2012/12/31/should-i-or-shouldnt-i-wrestling-with-giving-genetic-tests-as-gifts/alzrisk/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-48121\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2012/12/AlzRisk.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"AlzRisk\" width=\"182\" height=\"312\" class=\"size-full wp-image-48121\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Good news for me and my kids. I am at a lower risk for Alzheimer's and I will for sure pass at least some of that lowered risk to my kids. \u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>And what about straight up genetic diseases? I found out I am a carrier for something called hemochromatosis. If my wife is one too then my son has a chance of getting the disease although even if he got the \"bad\" versions from my wife and me he still only has a chance at the disease. (Hemochromatosis is incompletely penetrant.) \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At least with this one there is an easy remedy if you end up with it. You just have to give blood often and you are OK. But what about diseases you can’t do anything about?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Imagine he finds he has two copies of the APOE4 version of the APOE gene. These people are much more likely to end up with Alzheimer’s later in life. Should a 15 year old be subjected to that worry for the rest of his life?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now that one is only theoretical. Because \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/2011/04/25/better-left-unknown/\">I have two copies of the “good” version\u003c/a> of APOE, APOE2, I know at worst he’d have a good and a bad version (APOE3 is the neutral version). Of course then my wife would know she probably carries at least one APOE4 and now she can start to worry. And maybe feel bad that she passed it on to her son…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The list of issues like this goes on and on. I haven’t even dealt with things like DNA differences that led to a 1.5 fold increase in prostate cancer or macular degeneration or who knows what else. Is he ready to get that kind of information and, more importantly, to understand the limitations of the information? \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For example, just because he has a marker that more people who ended up with prostate cancer had, that doesn’t mean that the marker means the same thing in him. His genetics are his own and everyone will have a different risk for these sorts of multi-gene traits. And even if he is twice as likely to get brain cancer, does he know what those numbers mean? Or will his lack of understanding make him depressed because he thinks he will most likely end up with brain cancer? Yikes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To test out how ready he was, I decided to share some of my results with him while my eleven year old daughter listened in. First I showed them the ancestry and traits like lactose intolerance. They thought these were very cool (and they were right). I also showed them how my DNA showed that my blood type probably was A+ and that I was a carrier for O and Rh negative blood type. We got into a nice discussion about what that means for them. Neat.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then I moved onto the disease section. This is where things started to get ugly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_48126\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 200px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/2012/12/31/should-i-or-shouldnt-i-wrestling-with-giving-genetic-tests-as-gifts/decriskconf/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-48126\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2012/12/DecRiskConf.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"DecRiskConf\" width=\"200\" height=\"225\" class=\"size-full wp-image-48126\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">What does it all mean?\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>I learned pretty quickly that my daughter did not have the right personality for these sorts of tests (at least not yet). She focused in on the various diseases, learning all the ways I could one day die and started to get very worried. I tried to use my understanding of genetics to tell her that these are just risks, they aren’t a for sure thing but I was getting nowhere. She tends to worry a lot and this simply gave her more to worry about. Hopefully she will forget about this and move on.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>My son was a different matter. He was very interested in things without worrying too much but he was taking some of the health things too literally. For example, my results showed a significantly increased risk for late age macular degeneration (a nasty eye problem). Scary.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Except that again, this is the average risk of lots of people with varying genes who share this marker. My own risk is my own and is dependent on lots of other genes (and the environment!) besides this one. So basically I take these results with a grain of salt, waiting for more data to see if it is meaningful or not. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But he homed in on these results and decided they were set in stone. He saw a bunch of yellow stars that indicated that 23andMe was very confident in this result and so assumed that that meant they were very confident that I had the chance for this disease they quoted. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I explained that this is not the case. 23andMe has a great deal of confidence in the study itself but not necessarily in its predictions as they related specifically to me. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the end I didn’t get my son the 23andMe test. I wish they offered some way to just look at some of the data and not all of it at once. Then I might have given this as a gift to my son and maybe even my daughter.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"disqusTitle": "Conquering Fungophobia",
"title": "Conquering Fungophobia",
"headTitle": "QUEST | KQED Science",
"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_48231\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 637px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/2012/12/26/conquering-fungophobia/russula/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-48231\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2012/12/russula-637x360.jpg\" alt=\"Russula sanguinea \" title=\"Russula sanguinea\" width=\"637\" height=\"360\" class=\"size-large wp-image-48231\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Russula sanguinea, found in Tilden Park, late November. Edibility, not recommended.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Last month, after the first major storm of the season, I decided to risk the mud and go for a run on one of my favorite trails in Tilden Park. The trails, soft and spongy a week before, had turned into a gloppy, goopy mess, more suited to glissades than sprints. As I struggled to maintain momentum without falling, I couldn’t help but notice that the rains had brought more than mud. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>All along the trail, mushrooms peeked out through the carpet of pine needles and sodden leaves. Before I knew it, Eric Burdon was singing in my head, “There was long ones, tall ones, short ones, brown ones, black ones, round ones, big ones….” \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some stood alone, as big as portabellas, others barely the size of a dime, huddled together in little bunches, still more clung to tree trunks and rotting logs. Mushroom season had sprung. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And I was singing along with Eric.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Not everyone shares my fascination with mushrooms, as famed fungi fanatic David Arora makes clear in his classic field guide, \u003cem>Mushrooms Demystified\u003c/em>. Arora does his best to dispel what he sees as widespread “fungophobia” among Americans, a fear he calls irrational, given that only five or six of several thousand different wild North American mushroom species are deadly. Of course, the trick is knowing which ones. \u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_48236\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 480px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/2012/12/26/conquering-fungophobia/destroying-angel/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-48236\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2012/12/destroying-angel-480x360.jpg\" alt=\"Amanita ocreata \" title=\"destroying angel\" width=\"480\" height=\"360\" class=\"size-large wp-image-48236\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">I found this specimen on a trail in Tilden Park and identified it, with the help of David Arora's Mushrooms Demystified, as Amanita ocreata, also known as destroying angel. If I'm right, I found one of the most poisonous mushrooms known.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Every year, hundreds of people get seriously ill from eating foraged wild mushrooms, prompting state Public Health Director Ron Chapman to \u003ca href=\"http://www.cdph.ca.gov/Pages/NR12-063.aspx\">issue an annual warning \u003c/a>after winter’s first heavy rains to resist the urge to do so. Just last month, four people died at a home for the elderly in Placer County after their caregiver inadvertently served them what authorities believe were death caps. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Perhaps not surprisingly, most reports to the California Poison Control System involve children who sampled mushrooms that popped up in their lawn or neighborhood park. Since last January, 903 kids under six have required treatment for ingesting mushrooms. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even experienced mushroom hunters can mistake poisonous and edible varieties, especially if they learned to forage in another country. Kent Olson, medical director of the CPCS, warns on the agency’s web site that many poisonous mushrooms in Northern California bear a striking similarity to edibles that grow in Europe and Asia, confusing even the most experienced mushroom foragers. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If you get the urge to test your mushroom hunting skills, do yourself a favor. Get a field guide like Arora’s and study it carefully to learn distinguishing characteristics of some of our resident species, both deadly and safe. And then sign up for a day hike or camping foray with the \u003ca href=\"http://www.mssf.org/\">Mycological Society of San Francisco\u003c/a> so you can forage with the experts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But there’s far more to appreciate about mushrooms than their culinary appeal. Scientists are just beginning to get a handle on just how diverse the fungal kingdom really is. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For most of modern scientific history, fungi were misclassified as plants, based on their soil-bound, stationary existence. Had we just the naked eye to rely on, we might still restrict the world of fungi to the transient spore-filled fruiting bodies that burst through the soil long enough to reproduce. That would be like thinking the New York City subway system begins and ends with the above-ground stations scattered around the city streets.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But thanks to advances in microscopy and biochemical analysis techniques, scientists discovered that these “macrofungi” account for just a fraction of the diversity of species found in the fungal kingdom, which includes molds, yeast, lichens (a composite of fungi and algae) and parasitic rusts and smuts. (Corn smut, despite its unappetizing name, is in fact a tasty delicacy, better known by its Mexican name, huitlacoche.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even the reproductive structures we call mushrooms represent just the tip of the fungal iceberg, which consists of an intricate network of filaments (called mycelium) and lives as part of a thriving community of microbial and fungal species at different depths in the soil. \u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_48253\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 479px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/2012/12/26/conquering-fungophobia/fly-agaric/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-48253\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2012/12/fly-agaric-479x360.jpg\" alt=\"Amanita muscaria\" title=\"fly agaric\" width=\"479\" height=\"360\" class=\"size-large wp-image-48253\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Amanita muscaria, commonly known as fly agaric. I found this specimen under a fir in my front yard two years ago. Fly agaric has psychoactive properties and is considered poisonous. \u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Fungi play critical ecological roles as the primary decomposers in woodland and forest ecosystems and degrade everything from leaf litter to the notoriously indestructible lignin, which gives woody plants and trees strength and durability. Earlier this year, \u003ca href=\"http://phys.org/news/2012-02-amazon-fungi-polyurethane-oxygen.html\">researchers discovered fungal species\u003c/a> that can even break down polyurethane plastic. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another type of fungus lives among the roots of plants and trees in a mutually beneficial symbiotic relationship. California’s iconic oaks depend on these mycorrhizal fungi to extend the reach of their roots to scavenge water and nutrients and to recycle nutrients from their own shed leaves. In exchange, fungi get carbohydrates from the trees. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a 2001 paper describing the diverse functions of these symbiotic “ectomycorrhizal” partnerships, mycologist \u003ca href=\"http://data.iucn.org/Themes/ssc/sgs/chairprofiles/fungi.htm\">Anders Dalhberg\u003c/a> ventured that perhaps 6,000 fungal species form these alliances with plants, allowing that the estimate must be conservative since some known species don’t produce fruiting bodies and it’s not clear how many remain unknown.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Though there is no such thing as a definitive field guide to mushrooms—there are simply too many mushroom species and too few mycologists to classify and identify them—Arora’s Mushrooms Demystified comes darn close. I’ve used it time and again to identify specimens throughout California, including a beautiful fly agaric in my own front yard.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On my run, I found what I thought was a \u003cem>Russula sanguinea\u003c/em>, easy to recognize for its bright red cap and stem separated by white gills. I also saw what looked like a destroying angel, \u003cem>Amanita ocreata,\u003c/em> on the trail. I brought them home, pulled out Arora’s guide and confirmed the Russula without a doubt. And I’m pretty sure I was right about the destroying angel. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I love exploring the woods to test my mushroom knowledge and look for new species I’ve yet to identify. But I’m still a dilettante. For now, I’m content to celebrate the ecological wonders and diversity of fungi with a long-haired leaping gnome in my head. And buy my wild mushrooms at the store. \u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "Late fall rains signal the start of mushroom season, which can last until spring in the Bay Area. Though only experts should forage and eat wild mushrooms (following park rules about harvesting), anyone can appreciate the rich diversity of these ephemeral fruits of the forest.\r\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_48231\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 637px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/2012/12/26/conquering-fungophobia/russula/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-48231\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2012/12/russula-637x360.jpg\" alt=\"Russula sanguinea \" title=\"Russula sanguinea\" width=\"637\" height=\"360\" class=\"size-large wp-image-48231\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Russula sanguinea, found in Tilden Park, late November. Edibility, not recommended.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Last month, after the first major storm of the season, I decided to risk the mud and go for a run on one of my favorite trails in Tilden Park. The trails, soft and spongy a week before, had turned into a gloppy, goopy mess, more suited to glissades than sprints. As I struggled to maintain momentum without falling, I couldn’t help but notice that the rains had brought more than mud. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>All along the trail, mushrooms peeked out through the carpet of pine needles and sodden leaves. Before I knew it, Eric Burdon was singing in my head, “There was long ones, tall ones, short ones, brown ones, black ones, round ones, big ones….” \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some stood alone, as big as portabellas, others barely the size of a dime, huddled together in little bunches, still more clung to tree trunks and rotting logs. Mushroom season had sprung. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And I was singing along with Eric.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Not everyone shares my fascination with mushrooms, as famed fungi fanatic David Arora makes clear in his classic field guide, \u003cem>Mushrooms Demystified\u003c/em>. Arora does his best to dispel what he sees as widespread “fungophobia” among Americans, a fear he calls irrational, given that only five or six of several thousand different wild North American mushroom species are deadly. Of course, the trick is knowing which ones. \u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_48236\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 480px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/2012/12/26/conquering-fungophobia/destroying-angel/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-48236\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2012/12/destroying-angel-480x360.jpg\" alt=\"Amanita ocreata \" title=\"destroying angel\" width=\"480\" height=\"360\" class=\"size-large wp-image-48236\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">I found this specimen on a trail in Tilden Park and identified it, with the help of David Arora's Mushrooms Demystified, as Amanita ocreata, also known as destroying angel. If I'm right, I found one of the most poisonous mushrooms known.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Every year, hundreds of people get seriously ill from eating foraged wild mushrooms, prompting state Public Health Director Ron Chapman to \u003ca href=\"http://www.cdph.ca.gov/Pages/NR12-063.aspx\">issue an annual warning \u003c/a>after winter’s first heavy rains to resist the urge to do so. Just last month, four people died at a home for the elderly in Placer County after their caregiver inadvertently served them what authorities believe were death caps. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Perhaps not surprisingly, most reports to the California Poison Control System involve children who sampled mushrooms that popped up in their lawn or neighborhood park. Since last January, 903 kids under six have required treatment for ingesting mushrooms. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even experienced mushroom hunters can mistake poisonous and edible varieties, especially if they learned to forage in another country. Kent Olson, medical director of the CPCS, warns on the agency’s web site that many poisonous mushrooms in Northern California bear a striking similarity to edibles that grow in Europe and Asia, confusing even the most experienced mushroom foragers. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If you get the urge to test your mushroom hunting skills, do yourself a favor. Get a field guide like Arora’s and study it carefully to learn distinguishing characteristics of some of our resident species, both deadly and safe. And then sign up for a day hike or camping foray with the \u003ca href=\"http://www.mssf.org/\">Mycological Society of San Francisco\u003c/a> so you can forage with the experts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But there’s far more to appreciate about mushrooms than their culinary appeal. Scientists are just beginning to get a handle on just how diverse the fungal kingdom really is. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For most of modern scientific history, fungi were misclassified as plants, based on their soil-bound, stationary existence. Had we just the naked eye to rely on, we might still restrict the world of fungi to the transient spore-filled fruiting bodies that burst through the soil long enough to reproduce. That would be like thinking the New York City subway system begins and ends with the above-ground stations scattered around the city streets.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But thanks to advances in microscopy and biochemical analysis techniques, scientists discovered that these “macrofungi” account for just a fraction of the diversity of species found in the fungal kingdom, which includes molds, yeast, lichens (a composite of fungi and algae) and parasitic rusts and smuts. (Corn smut, despite its unappetizing name, is in fact a tasty delicacy, better known by its Mexican name, huitlacoche.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even the reproductive structures we call mushrooms represent just the tip of the fungal iceberg, which consists of an intricate network of filaments (called mycelium) and lives as part of a thriving community of microbial and fungal species at different depths in the soil. \u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_48253\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 479px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/2012/12/26/conquering-fungophobia/fly-agaric/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-48253\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2012/12/fly-agaric-479x360.jpg\" alt=\"Amanita muscaria\" title=\"fly agaric\" width=\"479\" height=\"360\" class=\"size-large wp-image-48253\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Amanita muscaria, commonly known as fly agaric. I found this specimen under a fir in my front yard two years ago. Fly agaric has psychoactive properties and is considered poisonous. \u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Fungi play critical ecological roles as the primary decomposers in woodland and forest ecosystems and degrade everything from leaf litter to the notoriously indestructible lignin, which gives woody plants and trees strength and durability. Earlier this year, \u003ca href=\"http://phys.org/news/2012-02-amazon-fungi-polyurethane-oxygen.html\">researchers discovered fungal species\u003c/a> that can even break down polyurethane plastic. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another type of fungus lives among the roots of plants and trees in a mutually beneficial symbiotic relationship. California’s iconic oaks depend on these mycorrhizal fungi to extend the reach of their roots to scavenge water and nutrients and to recycle nutrients from their own shed leaves. In exchange, fungi get carbohydrates from the trees. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a 2001 paper describing the diverse functions of these symbiotic “ectomycorrhizal” partnerships, mycologist \u003ca href=\"http://data.iucn.org/Themes/ssc/sgs/chairprofiles/fungi.htm\">Anders Dalhberg\u003c/a> ventured that perhaps 6,000 fungal species form these alliances with plants, allowing that the estimate must be conservative since some known species don’t produce fruiting bodies and it’s not clear how many remain unknown.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Though there is no such thing as a definitive field guide to mushrooms—there are simply too many mushroom species and too few mycologists to classify and identify them—Arora’s Mushrooms Demystified comes darn close. I’ve used it time and again to identify specimens throughout California, including a beautiful fly agaric in my own front yard.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On my run, I found what I thought was a \u003cem>Russula sanguinea\u003c/em>, easy to recognize for its bright red cap and stem separated by white gills. I also saw what looked like a destroying angel, \u003cem>Amanita ocreata,\u003c/em> on the trail. I brought them home, pulled out Arora’s guide and confirmed the Russula without a doubt. And I’m pretty sure I was right about the destroying angel. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I love exploring the woods to test my mushroom knowledge and look for new species I’ve yet to identify. But I’m still a dilettante. For now, I’m content to celebrate the ecological wonders and diversity of fungi with a long-haired leaping gnome in my head. And buy my wild mushrooms at the store. \u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"info": "What kind of no sabo word is Hyphenación? For us, it’s about living within a hyphenation. Like being a third-gen Mexican-American from the Texas border now living that Bay Area Chicano life. Like Xorje! Each week we bring together a couple of hyphenated Latinos to talk all about personal life choices: family, careers, relationships, belonging … everything is on the table. ",
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"info": "The Political Mind of Jerry Brown brings listeners the wisdom of the former Governor, Mayor, and presidential candidate. Scott Shafer interviewed Brown for more than 40 hours, covering the former governor's life and half-century in the political game – and Brown has some lessons he'd like to share. ",
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"marketplace": {
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"info": "Our flagship program, helmed by Kai Ryssdal, examines what the day in money delivered, through stories, conversations, newsworthy numbers and more. Updated Monday through Friday at about 3:30 p.m. PT.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 4pm-4:30pm, MON-WED 6:30pm-7pm",
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"masters-of-scale": {
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},
"mindshift": {
"id": "mindshift",
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"info": "The MindShift podcast explores the innovations in education that are shaping how kids learn. Hosts Ki Sung and Katrina Schwartz introduce listeners to educators, researchers, parents and students who are developing effective ways to improve how kids learn. We cover topics like how fed-up administrators are developing surprising tactics to deal with classroom disruptions; how listening to podcasts are helping kids develop reading skills; the consequences of overparenting; and why interdisciplinary learning can engage students on all ends of the traditional achievement spectrum. This podcast is part of the MindShift education site, a division of KQED News. KQED is an NPR/PBS member station based in San Francisco. You can also visit the MindShift website for episodes and supplemental blog posts or tweet us \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/MindShiftKQED\">@MindShiftKQED\u003c/a> or visit us at \u003ca href=\"/mindshift\">MindShift.KQED.org\u003c/a>",
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"order": 12
},
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vS1FJTkM1NzY0NjAwNDI5",
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"morning-edition": {
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"info": "\u003cem>Morning Edition\u003c/em> takes listeners around the country and the world with multi-faceted stories and commentaries every weekday. Hosts Steve Inskeep, David Greene and Rachel Martin bring you the latest breaking news and features to prepare you for the day.",
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"onourwatch": {
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"title": "On Our Watch",
"tagline": "Deeply-reported investigative journalism",
"info": "For decades, the process for how police police themselves has been inconsistent – if not opaque. In some states, like California, these proceedings were completely hidden. After a new police transparency law unsealed scores of internal affairs files, our reporters set out to examine these cases and the shadow world of police discipline. On Our Watch brings listeners into the rooms where officers are questioned and witnesses are interrogated to find out who this system is really protecting. Is it the officers, or the public they've sworn to serve?",
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"order": 11
},
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"on-the-media": {
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"title": "On The Media",
"info": "Our weekly podcast explores how the media 'sausage' is made, casts an incisive eye on fluctuations in the marketplace of ideas, and examines threats to the freedom of information and expression in America and abroad. For one hour a week, the show tries to lift the veil from the process of \"making media,\" especially news media, because it's through that lens that we see the world and the world sees us",
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},
"link": "/radio/program/on-the-media",
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},
"pbs-newshour": {
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"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/radio/PBS-NewsHour---Full-Show-p425698/",
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},
"perspectives": {
"id": "perspectives",
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"order": 14
},
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"planet-money": {
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"info": "The economy explained. Imagine you could call up a friend and say, Meet me at the bar and tell me what's going on with the economy. Now imagine that's actually a fun evening.",
"airtime": "SUN 3pm-4pm",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/planetmoney.jpg",
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},
"link": "/radio/program/planet-money",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/planet-money/id290783428?mt=2",
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},
"politicalbreakdown": {
"id": "politicalbreakdown",
"title": "Political Breakdown",
"tagline": "Politics from a personal perspective",
"info": "Political Breakdown is a new series that explores the political intersection of California and the nation. Each week hosts Scott Shafer and Marisa Lagos are joined with a new special guest to unpack politics -- with personality — and offer an insider’s glimpse at how politics happens.",
"airtime": "THU 6:30pm-7pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Political-Breakdown-2024-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
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"order": 5
},
"link": "/podcasts/politicalbreakdown",
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"amazon": "https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/e0c2d153-ad36-4c8d-901d-f1da6a724824/political-breakdown",
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"possible": {
"id": "possible",
"title": "Possible",
"info": "Possible is hosted by entrepreneur Reid Hoffman and writer Aria Finger. Together in Possible, Hoffman and Finger lead enlightening discussions about building a brighter collective future. The show features interviews with visionary guests like Trevor Noah, Sam Altman and Janette Sadik-Khan. Possible paints an optimistic portrait of the world we can create through science, policy, business, art and our shared humanity. It asks: What if everything goes right for once? How can we get there? Each episode also includes a short fiction story generated by advanced AI GPT-4, serving as a thought-provoking springboard to speculate how humanity could leverage technology for good.",
"airtime": "SUN 2pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Possible-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.possible.fm/",
"meta": {
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"source": "Possible"
},
"link": "/radio/program/possible",
"subscribe": {
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"spotify": "https://open.spotify.com/show/730YpdUSNlMyPQwNnyjp4k"
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},
"pri-the-world": {
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