KQED QUEST Science Video Podcast

SOFIA is more than a telescope tucked into a re-purposed commercial airliner. It's a complete flying astronomical observation platform which carries a dozen or Astrophotographer Rogelio Bernal Andreo's colorful wide field images of deep sky objects like galaxies, nebulae, star clusters has garnered him dozens of photography awards including the Royal Observatory of Greenwich's 2010 Best Astrophotographer of the Year.

"Terroir" is a French word that has historically been used to describe the geographical features such as climate, soil and topography that lend unique flavor characteristics to a wine. Now this term is being applied to artisan cheese, underscoring the importance of location in the production of award-winning, handmade cheese. Watch this QUEST web extra to learn more about the role of terroir in artisan cheese.

One day each December, Bay Area mushroom lovers fan out and collect fungi of all shapes and colors. They then display their finds at the Mycological Society of San Francisco’s annual Fungus Fair. QUEST tags along with fair organizer J.R. Blair and his San Francisco State University students as they collect mushrooms in San Francisco’s McLaren Park. Then we tour the fair in Berkeley to explore the Bay Area’s tasty, dangerous and weirdly wonderful fungi.

Stanford geneticists Ghia Euskirchen and Barry Starr trek into the Santa Cruz Mountains to uncover the genetic mystery of the rare albino redwood trees. QUEST follows along as they seek to discover the root of the mutation. Taking both albino redwood and normal - or "wild type" - samples back to their lab, they will put them through the genetic ringer and for the first time sequence the complicated redwood genome.

QUEST meets the San Francisco Zoo’s resident Peregrine Falcon, "Bella." Not long ago Peregrine Falcons were perched at the edge of extinction. But through the work of conservationists, they have rebounded and have been taken off the endangered species list. "This is a conservation success story." says Noelle Bidegainberry of the SF Zoo, "Our hope is that when people meet Bella they are inspired to take conservation into their own hands."

Inspired in part by the open source movement, public spaces are emerging where people congregate to share ideas, make cool projects, teach, and brainstorm with collaborators on everything from coding to cooking. With no leaders, they have one rule: "Be excellent to each other." Take a tour of the hackerspace Noisebridge, located in the heart of San Francisco's Mission District, with co-founder Mitch Altman.

The California Academy of Sciences has the largest collection of biological reference materials west of the Mississippi. Dating back over 100 years, the collection provides a treasure trove of biological information for scientists and researchers studying the natural world. Norman Penny, the Collections Manager of the Entomology Department, gives QUEST a small peek at The Academy’s vast butterfly collection.

The Farallon Islands off the coast of San Francisco are a vital home to many birds and marine mammals. While the forbidding and inhospitable nature of the Farallones may be ideal for wildlife, it also makes this a difficult place for scientists to live and work. QUEST ventures out to these jagged rocks to get a glimpse of daily life on the islands and what it’s like there for the researchers from PRBO Conservation Science.

California Highway One, between Pacifica and Montara, was carved out of the steep coastal cliffs. Plagued by closures due to rockslides and land slippage, this route has earned the nickname "The Devil's Slide." Now two tunnels beneath San Pedro Mountain, each 30-feet wide and 4,200-feet long are being dug to bypass it. QUEST meets the engineers and geologists deep underground to learn how Caltrans is digging this new tunnel.

Flowing 330 miles from the Sierras to the delta, the San Joaquin River is California’s second longest river. It once boasted one of the state's great salmon runs. But since the construction of Friant Dam near Fresno in the 1940s, most of the San Joaquin's water has been siphoned off to farmland in the Central Valley. Now, after years of lawsuits, a new effort to restore the river is offering hope that fish and farmers can co-exist.

The Channel Islands, Monterey Bay, Gulf of the Farallones and Cordell Bank National Marine Sanctuaries cover more than 9,500 square miles of ocean habitat. While most fishing and shipping are still allowed within sanctuary waters, some activities are now regulated or prohibited. Patrolling such an immense area by boat would take days... but now sanctuary managers are taking to the air in a rugged de Havilland DHC-6 Twin Otter bush plane to get a bird's eye view.

Scientists at Stanford University and Lockheed Martin are playing pivotal roles in a nearly billion-dollar NASA mission to explore the sun. A spacecraft launched in early 2010 is obtaining IMAX-like images of the sun every second of the day, generating more data than any NASA mission in history. The data will allow researchers to learn about solar storms and other phenomena that can cause blackouts and harm astronauts.

Hepatitis C is a virus that causes cirrhosis of the liver and liver cancer. It’s the leading cause for liver transplants in the U.S., and an estimated 4 million Americans have the disease. Current treatments are difficult to tolerate and are often ineffective, but recent breakthroughs from Bay Area scientists may soon produce a cure for the disease that claims more than 10,000 American lives each year.

For thousands of years and countless generations, migratory birds have flown the same long-distance paths between their breeding and feeding grounds. Understanding the routes these birds take, called "flyways," helps conservation efforts and gives scientists better knowledge of global changes, both natural and man-made. QUEST heads out to the Pacific Flyway with California biologists to track the rhythm of migration.