A Slime of One’s Own
To find slime molds, look for the damp places. Your quarry will be visible to the naked eye when it joins forces by the thousands to coalesce into blobby shapes—like...
Urban Nature
After 2022’s Fatal Algal Bloom, Scientists Fear the Bay’s Sturgeon Could Go Extinct
At Point Pinole, 21 sturgeon carcasses––some more than seven feet long––lay strewn along a mile-long stretch of beach in late August 2022, baking in the relentless heat. It was the...
How Indigenous People Got Some Land Back in Oakland
The city of Oakland just made history by giving over five acres in Joaquin Miller Park to an Indigenous land trust's stewardship. But the backstory was decades in the making.
How a ‘Sturgeon Surgeon’ Tracks the Bay’s Giant, Stealthy Living Fossils
Researchers are investigating the secrets of our two resident sturgeon species, which have razor-sharp armor and shlorp up clams with their vacuum-shaped mouths.
The Nearly Unkillable Eucalyptus Meets Its Match
Eucalyptus trees on Albany Hill are wasting away from blight. Some people may cheer—but these trees are also home to endangered monarchs.
Skippers: Between Butterfly and Moth
When butterfly mania took hold of me, decades back, I thought I’d never crack the skippers’ code: the creatures are impish, and maddening to learn.
An Invitation to Imagine Utopia, and See What Sticks
Two murals at the Marin Museum of Contemporary Art in Novata are the work of San Francisco painter Elisheva Biernoff. By choosing from a library of magnets, visitors to The...
Can We Have More Whales and Fewer Whale Strikes?
Anchovies sparkled and seawater sprayed from the crusty maws of gray whales as they burst through the surface, again and again, off the coast near Pacifica, fifteen miles south of...
On the Enigmatic ‘Flying Potato,’ Neither Plant Nor Animal, That Caused the Bay’s Biggest Harmful Algal Bloom in History
Heterosigma akashiwo can photosynthesize like a plant and wiggle like an animal, and it's here to stay — but it's still something of an enigma.
A Feather Forecast to Help You Tune Into Fall’s Magnificent Migrations
Up to a half-billion birds migrate across the U.S. each night, cloaked in darkness. BirdCast helps you see what they’re doing.
