Science

Winds exceeding 110 mph that tore across the top of Mount Hamilton early Christmas morning blasted a massive steel protective door off the iconic white dome at Lick Observatory. Now, with back-to-back rainstorms bearing down on the Bay Area, officials this week are racing to seal the gaping hole and protect the historic Great Lick Refractor telescope beneath it. “I’ve never seen or even heard of damage like this to a dome,” said Lick Observatory site superintendent Jamey Eriksen. The Christmas Day storm that brought winds of 110 mph to the top of Mt Hamilton where the James Lick Observatory sits brought down the 60-foot crescent steel door that once covered half the dome's vertical opening. The door landed onto an adjoining building where it broke windows and splintered attic beams. (Photo by Jamey Eriksen/UCSC Lick Observatory)  The damage threatens one of the Bay Area’s most significant scientific landmarks — a telescope that helped shape modern astronomy and still draws t...

SAN JOSE — A fired Stanford researcher was given four years of probation for hacking into a cancer patient database and altering it in 2013. Naheed Mangi, 70, was convicted earlier this year of intentional damage to a protected computer. Prosecutors say that after being fired, she changed the database by replacing patient information with gibberish and childish insults like, “doctor too stupid.” Related Articles Filipino tech entrepreneur Diosdado “Dado” Banatao died at the age of 79 What to know about norovirus as Bay Area holiday gatherings ramp up Judge denies motion to exclude term ‘genocide’ from Stanford felony vandalism trial Thank goodness: This Rock Hall of Famer is coming back to Bay Area Women’s soccer: Top-seeded Stanford looks to power into College Cup finals, break title drought While the incident happened in 2013, Mangi wasn’t indicted until 2018, and wasn’t convicted until a jury trial last February, records show. Prosecutors asked for a 10-month sentence to...

Ornithologist Katie LaBarbera arrives at the Coyote Creek Field Station in Alviso about 45 minutes before sunrise — peak time for bird activity. The early part of LaBarbera’s Sunday shift is peacefully spent capturing, banding and releasing birds in what they call a “little oasis of trees.” But around 9:00 am every week, their team of volunteers hears a cacophony of car horns from I-880, less than half a mile to the east. San Francisco Bay Bird Observatory volunteers Tom Stewart, left, and Martha Castillo hold a juvenile and an adult white-crowned sparrow, while San Francisco Bay Bird Observatory Science Director Katie LaBarbera holds a Lincoln's sparrow that were trapped in a mist net used to capture birds for banding before being released back into their natural habitat at the Coyote Creek Field Station in Milpitas, Calif., on Saturday, Dec. 20, 2025. (Ray Chavez/Bay Area News Group)  “You become really aware of the noise when you get away from it for a little bit,” said LaB...

Five years ago, Patricio Guerrero was surfing the rolling waves of Santa Cruz when the leash on his board broke, sending it flying into a nearby cave and shattering its nose. As Guerrero worked on repairs, he was shocked at how much plastic waste was building up beside him. When the board was fixed, he loaded the plastic into the blue recycling bin outside of his house, but the next morning the bin had not been emptied. The city recycling plant wouldn’t accept the material because it was a non-recyclable kind of plastic. “I started talking to my buddies and we realized this was an industry-wide problem. There’s so much waste generated from building surfboards,” said Guerrero, who is now CEO at Swellcycle, a Santa Cruz company that creates 3D printed surfboards from renewable materials. Guerrero has always been interested in building environmentally friendly products. In high school, he converted a 1972 Volkswagen Beetle into an electric vehicle. Later he gained a bachelor’s degree i...

When Lucy Zhang first listened to recordings of humpback whale songs, she didn’t expect to hear the makings of a symphony. But while playing the recordings, the Saratoga High School senior recognized music patterns she had encountered while practicing piano sonatas. Zhang listened to these recordings as part of collaboration with John Ryan, a senior research specialist studying ocean soundscapes at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) and discovered structural similarities between whale songs and human sonatas. On Thursday, Zhang showcased their research as part of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) annual meeting in New Orleans. Related Articles Volunteers plant Bay Area’s first ‘living levee’ using treated wastewater New book highlights the particular joys of birdwatching in the Bay Area How a group tracking sounds beneath Bay Area waters hopes to protect whales from shipping lanes 550-pound bear settles in beneath an California home, thwarting creative eff...

By MARCIA DUNN CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — Saturn’s giant moon Titan may not have a vast underground ocean after all. Related Articles Comet will soon make its closest approach to Earth this week; and last meteor shower for 2025 Volunteers plant Bay Area’s first ‘living levee’ using treated wastewater How a group tracking sounds beneath Bay Area waters hopes to protect whales from shipping lanes How a rare drug made from California scientists’ blood saves babies from botulism No rain is forecast through Christmas. Is it time to worry about drought? Titan instead may hold deep layers of ice and slush more akin to Earth’s polar seas, with pockets of melted water where life could possibly survive and even thrive, scientists reported Wednesday. The team led by researchers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory challenged the decade-long assumption of a buried global ocean at Titan after taking a fresh look at observations made years ago by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft around Saturn...