The cobra lily (Darlingtonia californica) uses deception and patience to trick unsuspecting insect prey into its highly specialized pitcher traps.

KQED Science Video Podcast

Predatory Plant: Lure of the Cobra Lily

Whether it’s a lager or ale, sour or bitter, dark or light, most beer has one thing in common: yeast. KQED Science visits a commercial yeast laboratory and a local brewery to reveal how this key ingredient is a major player in both science history and beer production.

Science of Beer: Tapping the Power of Brewer's Yeast

What happens when you fill up a giant space with over 200 eager science fans from around the Bay Area for a weekend? You get Science Hack Day San Francisco, a two-day event where a diverse group of "hackers" -- from developers and designers to scientists and students -- works side-by-side to see what they can quickly create within 24 consecutive hours.

200 Geeks, 24 Hours: Science Hack Day in San Francisco

Something strange and unsettling is happening to Bay Area honeybees. Entomologists at San Francisco State University have identified the culprit: a tiny parasitic fly is causing the bees to exhibit bizarre nocturnal behaviors before suffering a gruesome demise.

ZomBees: Flight of the Living Dead

Forty percent of the food produced in the U.S. goes uneaten. From "farm to fork", there are many reasons for food waste, including consumer demand for perfect produce and confusion over expiration dates printed on packaged foods. This massive waste occurs as one in six Americans struggles with hunger every day, even in affluent regions such as Silicon Valley.

Fighting Food Waste

Stanford University students set out to revolutionize home design by entering a solar powered prefab house into the Department of Energy's biennial Solar Decathlon competition.

Stanford Students Debut Solar-Powered Prefab Home

Join a research team from University of California, Santa Cruz as they track, tranquilize and collar a wild puma. The special GPS collars collect data on the puma’s location and behavior, and they reveal how the big cats survive in their shrinking habitat in the Bay Area.

Chasing Pumas: Science on the SPOT

More than a million visitors visit Alcatraz every year, but a recent discovery has revealed another attraction that lives within the shadows of this historic prison.

Next Meal: Engineering Food

The Glowing Millipedes of Alcatraz: Science on the SPOT

The University Herbarium at the University of California - Berkeley boasts one of the largest and oldest collections of seaweed in the United States, dating back to the time of the U.S. Civil War. Kathy Ann Miller, a curator at the herbarium, is leading a massive project to digitize nearly 80,000 specimens of seaweed collected from the west coast of North America.

Preserving the Forest of the Sea: Science on the SPOT

The rural foothills along the Santa Cruz County Coast hold an ancient secret. Deep below the redwoods, White Moon Cave extends for nearly a mile -- making it one of the longest caves in California. But few people have ever been in it. Join the KQED Science team as we squeeze through the narrow clandestine entrance, and meet the uncanny cave inhabitants to bring new light to this hidden realm.

Shadows and Spiders-- A Secret Cave in California: Science on the SPOT

Scientists and farmers are starting to notice that, as California's winters warm up, the state is becoming more hospitable to destructive agricultural pests.

Some Bugs Like it Hot: Climate Change and Agricultural Pests

In this edition of "Why I Do Science", we hear from Stephen Palumbi, a world-renowned marine biologist and director of the Hopkins Marine Station in Pacific Grove, California.

Why I Do Science: Stephen Palumbi

Black holes have been the stuff of science fiction since their discovery in the late sixties. But now a new, nimble NASA telescope is using its powerful x-ray vision to hunt for these abundant yet invisible, massive space oddities.

Black Holes: Objects of Attraction

Motion-activated cameras at Stanford University's Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve provide scientists a window into the secret lives of the animals that roam around Jasper Ridge at night.

Your Videos on QUEST: Steve Fyffe

KQED Science explores science and environment news, trends and events from the San Francisco Bay Area and beyond with its award-winning features and reporting on television, radio and the Web.

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KQED Science Video Podcast

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