KQED Science Video Podcast

QUEST Producer Sheraz Sadiq interviews Bay Area filmmaker and musician Jesse Hiatt about the experience of filming in one of the world's most extreme environments.

At the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, scientists are imaging whole cells in 3-D with the penetrating power of x-rays.

Astrophotographer Rogelio Bernal Andreo's photographs colorful wide field images of deep sky objects like galaxies, nebulae, and star clusters.

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 more astronomers, observers and crew far above the clouds to observe objects and phenomena too cold to be seen in visible light.

Their basic design hasn’t changed much, but scientists still don’t fully understand the forces that allow humans to balance atop a bicycle. QUEST visits Davis – a city that loves its bicycles – to take a ride on a research bike and explore a collection of antique bicycles.

Kip Evans is a natural history documentary filmmaker and photographer from Pacific Grove, California. This is an excerpt of his short film, "Isla Holbox: Whale Shark Island."

In this "Field Notes" segment, Amy Gotliffe, director of conservation at the Oakland Zoo, shares her photographs and stories from Uganda, where the zoo's Bodongo Snare Removal Project works to protect endangered chimpanzees from illegal poaching.

Off California's coastline, thousands of feet below the deep blue ocean where the sun's rays don't reach, teems a diverse community of deep sea corals. Armed with unmanned submarines equipped with robotic arms, sensors and HD cameras, scientists are exploring this treasure trove of corals and the rich marine life living among them.

This half-hour program looks at heart disease – the number one killer in the United States – from the point of view of a teenager trying to lower her risk, a heart attack survivor, and a scientist working to rebuild damaged hearts.

One in six kids in the United States is obese, a condition that doubles their risk of heart disease. Lorena Ramos, 14, a patient at the Healthy Hearts clinic at Children's Hospital Oakland struggles to lose weight. Will she succeed?

By rushing heart attack victims to the operating table and opening their blocked arteries while their heart attacks are underway, doctors are now able to save 95% of those who make it to the hospital.

For decades amateur rocket builders, or "rocketeers," have been trying to reach space. Now with advances in materials and technology, they're able to do it. QUEST travels to rocket launches in fallowed fields and barren deserts to learn more about this addictive hobby and to meet a group of passionate high school rocketeers.

"Insects do not taste like chicken," said Daniella Martin, a charismatic advocate of eating low - make that really low - on the food chain. Through public lectures, cooking demonstrations and her 'Girl Meets Bug' website, Martin preaches the gospel of why, in her opinion, more people should munch on mealworms, crunch a cricket or feast on plump bee larvae.

Photographer Simon Christen shares his passion for observing the environment through the process of time-lapse photography. By training his lens on natural events as fog and the orbiting moon, he discovers things about the natures of these seemingly ubiquitous elements of our world that few have seen before.

Scientists in San Francisco have coaxed mouse hearts to repair themselves from within. The breakthrough could lead to treatments for the 5 million people in the United States living with a damaged heart.