Science
One of America’s largest power utilities, San Francisco based Pacific Gas and Electric, which serves half of California’s public schools, announced Tuesday that it will oppose Assemblymember Nancy Skinner (D-Berkeley)’s AB 1186, or the “Saving Schools Saving Energy” bill.
Tuesday’s transit of Venus—a celestial passage of the planet across the Sun—attracted thousands of people from across the Bay Area to Chabot Space and Science Center, all eager to see an orbit that will go back into hiding until December, 2117. The line of people stretched so far outside of the observatory that workers inside were calling out the headcount by the hour on walkie talkies, saying that the day could set the attendance record for America’s largest public telescope facility.
An 81-year-old Oakland man was among the 42 people who responded to a call to save the life of 14-year-old cancer patient Cynthia Rodriguez, who needs a bone marrow transplant, by showing up at a bone marrow drive on Thursday at Kaiser Permanente’s Oakland Medical Center.
More than 130 fifth and sixth graders at Lincoln Elementary School in Richmond studied science on Tuesday. Okay, so what? This time their teachers didn’t wear white lab coats and talk about strange things underneath a microscope. Instead, Oakland A’s outfielder Josh Reddick and team mascot Stomper used a Louisville Slugger and chopped up baseballs to talk about the “Science of the Game.”
Claremont Middle School, a small public school near the northern border of Oakland, spends $53,000 on energy bills each year, nearly $130 per child for its 405 students.
Chabot Space and Science Center, America’s largest public telescope facility, was the vantage point of choice for viewing the annular solar eclipse in Oakland this weekend, as more than 450 astronomy enthusiasts and families thronged the hilltop observatory to see what astronomers say is the first in a “triple play” of spectacular celestial events this summer.
At first glance Christopher and Gerald Dixon seem like any other pair of twins. They look alike, dress similarly and play together. But Gerald is autistic and Christopher isn’t. The boys were one of 1100 twin pairs who participated in the largest ever study of Autism in twins, the California Autism Twins Study (CATS). The study found that the environment plays a much bigger role in causing autism than previously thought.
On Saturday, 44-year-old Irma Lira will walk onto a stage at Children’s Hospital Oakland, sit in a barber’s chair, and have her head shaved. Cheers will ring out as her thick black tresses, and her full, curled set of bangs, fall to the floor. A hat for donations will pass through the lively crowd, and people will eagerly fill it with money. And Lira won’t be alone—about 200 people will be shorn clean to benefit childhood cancer research through an organization called St. Baldrick’s.
A group of Bay Area folks come together every year on March 14 to celebrate pi — the mathematical constant and the dessert. Laura Hautala spent a recent Saturday afternoon joining in on the peculiar celebration.