Search Results for Biology

In Monterey Bay, scientists have successfully launched a deep-sea laboratory unlike anything in the world. The $13 million, unmanned lab is expected to revolutionize the way ocean research is done. Scientists ran 32 miles of cable from the shoreline to collect data and to provide uninterrupted power to remote robots, seismometers and real-time video of a world deep below the ocean.

Play this Radio Report Air Date: Nov 24, 2008

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

Play this TV Story Air Date: Nov 18, 2008

Last week, NASA declared the Mars Phoenix Lander mission completed as the lander succumbed to Martian winter and lost radio contact. NASA scientists are already preparing their next mission: to send a rover to search for evidence of life on Mars. But to help decide what signs to look for, scientists are studying extreme life forms on our own planet.

Play this Radio Report Air Date: Nov 17, 2008

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

Play this TV Story Air Date: Nov 12, 2008

It's been a year since 53,000 gallons of oil from the Cosco Busan cargo ship spilled into the San Francisco Bay. More than half of that heavy bunker fuel is still around. Now, one challenge is trying to put the long-term effects of the spill into dollar terms, and then seek a settlement with the ship's owners. Officials say this work may set the national standard for handling man-made crises.

Play this Radio Report Air Date: Nov 4, 2008

For hundreds of years, scientists have been poaching design ideas from structures in nature. Now, biologists and engineers at UC Berkeley are working together to design a broad range of new products, such as life-saving milli-robots modeled on the way cockroaches run and adhesives based on the amazing design of a gecko's foot.

Play this TV Story Air Date: Oct 21, 2008

California waters are some of the richest in the world. But declines in fish species have led state leaders to begin creating large protected areas, or "no fishing zones," similar to wilderness areas on land. Although controversial with some fishing groups, the zones may help bring back fish, birds and marine mammals currently on the brink.

Play this TV Story Air Date: Oct 20, 2008

Over the past 15 years, the number of people who die of AIDS each year in the United States has dropped by 70 percent. But AIDS remains a serious public health crisis among low-income African-Americans, particularly women. QUEST meets two Bay Area research groups studying innovative approaches that could lead to new treatments and possibly a cure.

Play this TV Story Air Date: Oct 14, 2008

Though computers have gotten faster, smaller and more versatile, it's still a big challenge to get them to demonstrate intelligent behaviors. Will machines like robots ever match -- or perhaps even exceed -- the capabilities of the human brain?

Play this TV Story Air Date: Oct 14, 2008