Science & Technology

Death Valley National Park has one of the darkest skies in the United States — for now.

Video games are one of today’s most popular forms of entertainment. But what is less obvious is their increasing importance in other areas of society.

Since we left Ward 7-D, there has been progress to report.

According to a recent study, that water bottle costs about 2000 times more than what comes out of the faucet and, often times, isn’t any better for you. John Ridley comments on Americans’ $9 billion dollars-a-year obsession with plastic encased H2O in this Sideways.

At the Polytrauma Unit of the VA medical center in Palo Alto, we follow four soldiers with Traumatic Brain Injury who are working to rehabilitate their bodies and their minds.

Big companies like Google and Earthlink see gold in that plan and are partnering with the city of San Francisco to build a network to connect the city. A poor, rural southeastern Indian reservation in San Diego County is providing wireless Internet access to reservations across a 250 square mile network via transmitters mounted on mountaintops.

We sit down with Sun Microsystems Chief Technology Officer Greg Papadopoulos to find out why open source is the business model of the future.

We continue our discussion of ‘open source’ with Sun Microsystems Chief Technology Officer Greg Papadopoulos.

California Connected presents a group of gifted people who got rich by just being plain smart.

How safe are electronic voting machines?

Some cancer patients face paying hundreds of thousands of dollars for drugs that may save their lives.

Lisa McRee tries out the PIT (Pursuit Intervention Technique) maneuver at the LAPD’s training center.

Executive Producer Bret Marcus joins Producer Joseph Angier and Associate Producer Matthew Chin to discuss Who’s Minding Our Ports?

The ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach together comprise the busiest port complex in the United States. Just a single attack on this port complex could send our economy into a tailspin.

We sit down with Chris Bertelli, deputy director of the California Office of Homeland Security, for a “reality check” on California’s state security challenges.

Aaron Robinson, technical editor at Car & Driver Magazine, discusses the U.S. fuel economy.

Peter Lehman of Humboldt State University discusses the history and future of renewable energy research and development in California.

Professor Shankar Sastry discusses the need and efforts to secure America’s data networks from acts of sabotague and terrorism as well as criminal exploitation.

Tom Cahill, professor emeritus of physics and atmospheric sciences at UC Davis, discusses the past, present and future of California’s air quality.

Herrmann Spetzler, whose work focuses on alleviating the lack of health care services in rural communities, discusses both the depth of the problem and some surprising solutions.

America is likely to import more and more Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) each coming year but plans to build two receiving terminals in California are meeting fierce opposition from environmental and “government waste” watchdogs.

If a tree falls in the forest of the future, something is bound to hear it and know why. California Connected visits the James Reserve field research station in the San Jacinto Mountains, where a network of robots and sensors monitor the forest’s vital signs.

California has the largest and most complex water transportation system in the world. We follow a drop of water from the slopes of Mt. Shasta to a car wash in San Diego County.

A team of neuroscientists at UCLA are using cutting-edge neuroimaging technology to read the minds of voters. But could this technology be used to make us a marketing offer we can’t refuse?

If neuroimaging technology hits the market, and mind readers become as commonplace as phones, will anyone still want to play charades? We look at three scenarios in a world where we know what you’re thinking right now…

In November of 2004, Californians made history by approving $3 billion of funding for stem cell research. Today that research initiative has been stalled by lawsuits and criticisms. We interview the program’s leading proponent, and chairman of the new California stem cell agency oversight committee, Robert Klein.

What do sheep, libertarians, spam and global warming have in common? The tragedy of the commons.

Will California retain the lead in the global race to create a Silicon Valley-like hub for the emerging biotech industry? With numbers like these…

The Schatz Energy Lab at Humboldt State University has successfully used a solar-hydrogen fuel system to power an entire marine laboratory for more than a decade. But what do the lab’s directors think it will take for the rest of the state to follow suit?

It’s estimated that the world’s coastlines could generate up to 3 million megawatts of electricity annually. Just how much it would cost to generate the energy, though, is still being “worked out.”

There’s gold in them there waves. At least, that’s what a Minnesota renewable energy company is betting with its test program off the coast of Humboldt County.

Students at Humboldt State University in northern California have devised a system for powering their dorm with a blend of solar, wind, and pedal power.

Prop. 71 commits $3 billion in state money to create the largest state-supported embryonic stem-cell research program in the nation.

High schoolers debate whether or not the state should be able to extract DNA samples from suspects not convincted of any crime.

An online discussion on the role of government in the pharmaceuticals market with Merrill Goozner and Jack Calfee.

Tag along with a promiscuous RFID chip as it travels from factory floor to supermarket checkout counter.

An online discussion of the privacy implications of RFID technology with Prof. Shyam Sunder, Chris Hoofnagle, Lee Tien, Xeni Jardin, and Dr. Daniel Engels.

Four panelists discuss the merits and possible privacy pitfalls associated with RFID technologies.

Abandoned mines from the Gold Rush continue to pose a serious danger to nature enthusiasts.

How do you fit a giant telescope into a tiny rocket payload? You fold it, origami-style.

A look at electronic voting machines.

An after-school program that puts teens to work on the world’s most advanced science projects.

Cris Franco visits a charismatic and enthusiastic advocate of… composting.

Scouring the earth for the next big drug, Dr. William Fenical turns to the mud at the bottom of the ocean.

Michael Schenker on CalTech’s nerd-proof hazing.

Would having a personal driver improve your daily commute? What if your car could drive itself? Take a peek at the hard science behind this seemingly sci-fi scenario.

What’s good for the air, in this case, is not good for the water. How does an international debate on the impact of MTBE, a gas additive, have great consequences for California’s water?

The “killer pike,” a native of Minnesota and the largest and most voracious of predator fish, stalks the state’s waterways and threatens California’s fishing and tourism industries.