KQED Science Video Podcast

Along with cable cars and seagulls, the Golden Gate Bridge foghorn is one of San Francisco’s most iconic sounds. But did you know that if you hear that foghorn off in the distance, you can calculate how many miles you are from the bridge? Using the Speed of Sound exhibit at the Outdoor Exploratorium at Fort Mason, Shawn Lani shows us how sound perception is affected by distance.

In our first installment of QUEST's new Science on the SPOT web series, we go behind-the-scenes at the Monterey Bay Aquarium, with the intrepid dive team who keep the enormous Outer Bay Exhibit tank spic and span-- while swimming in 40 pounds of stainless steel, shark-resitant armor.

Lying 28 miles off the coast of San Francisco, the Farallon Islands sit amid one of the most productive marine food webs on the planet and hosts the largest seabird breeding colony in the continental United States. QUEST ventures out for a rare visit to learn what life is like on the islands and meet the scientists who call this incredibly wild place home.

Armed with laser technology, Bay Area engineers are helping create detailed virtual records of the world's great monuments. Their realistic recreation of the Mexican ruins of Chichén Itzá is the basis for "Tales of Maya Skies," a new half-hour film about Maya astronomy designed especially for a planetarium.

San José photographer Doug Nomura has learned just how to track his subjects to create arresting photos of birds in flight. He focuses his work on the Bay Trail, a 300-mile trail around the Bay. QUEST joins Nomura on the bayfront in Sunnyvale as he works to photograph the many bird species that call the South Bay's mudflats home, or stop here as part of their migration.

Stanford University's Drew Endy is a synthetic biologist, or as he puts it, someone who makes biology easier to engineer. He's one of the leading lights of this relatively new scientific field which builds on disciplines like computer science, electrical engineering and genetics. Find out why Endy is passionate about the cutting edge of biology.

There's a hidden danger in San Francisco Bay: mercury. A potent neurotoxin that can cause serious illness, mercury has been flowing into the Bay since the mining days of the Gold Rush Era. It has settled in the Bay's mud and made its way up the food chain, endangering wildlife and making many fish unsafe to eat. Now a multi-billion-dollar plan aims to clean it up. But will it work?

QUEST examines how these national parks came to be preserved, the rise of non-profit land trusts in protecting and restoring Northern California's open spaces, and how these vital places are used and maintained by the communities served by them.

Nearly 15 million Americans suffer from depression. Learn why depression is more than just "feeling blue," the difficulties of treating it with traditional medications and how new tools and research are shedding light on brain structures that may play an integral role in treating it.

Simone Crew of Youth Speaks, a San Francisco literary arts organization, recites an excerpt from "Yasmeena," one of her "green inspired" poems.