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 mattymatt@gmail.com • 415-244-9943 • vCard • |
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Date:
04/29/2011Category:
· Writing » News Coverage » Grist
· Writing » Topic » scienceView article as originally published In a collection of salt evaporation ponds tucked between a freeway, a sleepy little marina, and the headquarters of Dreamworks Animation, the San Francisco Bay's ecological future hangs in the balance. The ponds themselves look deceptively blank: Vast flat rectangles of shallow water once used by Cargill to produce salt, the two-and-a-quarter square miles are fenced-off and nearly featureless, like an enormous bank of flattened solar panels. To the west... [Read more...]
Date:
03/30/2011Category:
· Writing » News Coverage » High Country News
· Writing » Topic » scienceView article as originally published As dusk fell one spring evening in 2003, a small group of volunteers crawled along a creek bank, searching among tall grasses, under piles of decaying garbage and in stagnant puddles for gelatinous clutches of eggs. The Port of San Francisco was about to build a new bridge over Islais Creek Channel on the city's southern waterfront, and time had nearly run out for its Pacific chorus frog colony. Urban... [Read more...]
Date:
02/22/2011Category:
· Writing » News Coverage » Grist
· Writing » Topic » scienceView article as originally published Just a few years ago, they were abandoned freeways, dilapidated back yards, and institutional dumping grounds. But today, thanks to San Francisco's urban agriculture renaissance, many of these pockets of underutilized land are being transformed. And one local company -- Bayview Greenwaste -- is playing a key role, by transforming waste into mulch, and giving it away. The city's largest agricultural experiment to date may be the Hayes Valley Farm,... [Read more...]
Date:
10/20/2010Category:
· Writing » News Coverage » Streetsblog
· Writing » Topic » scienceView article as originally published Eco-People proposal for current parking lot at 17th and Folsom. Get ready to peek into a possible future for San Francisco parks. This evening and next week, the San Francisco Recreation and Parks Department will lead a tour of four properties being considered for purchase and transformation into parkland. The locations being considered are at 17th and Folsom; Palou and Phelps in the shadow of 280; on Third Street... [Read more...]
Date:
10/12/2010Category:
· Writing » News Coverage » Grist
· Writing » Topic » scienceView article as originally published Garbage: it's gross, it stinks, and all anyone wants is to be rid of it. For most cities, that means sending thousands of tons of unwanted flotsam and jetsam to landfills every day. But in San Francisco, garbage is treated like a resource that shouldn't be wasted. And that means formulating a plan to reduce the city's garbage output to zero. Yes, that's right: zero. Sound impossible? Well, thanks to... [Read more...]
Date:
10/07/2010Category:
· Writing » News Coverage » Streetsblog
· Writing » Topic » scienceView article as originally published Click to enlarge visualization of the former San Francisco watershed, with street map and topography. Source: Oakland Museum. The Mission is more than just a meeting point for different cultures: it's also a meeting point for different waters. Hundreds of years ago, two water sources converged along what is now Folsom Street. During rainy season, fresh water flowed east down from Twin Peaks, aligning roughly with today's 14th and... [Read more...]
Date:
09/21/2010Category:
· Writing » News Coverage » Grist
· Writing » Topic » scienceView article as originally published California's new gold rush has prospectors back in the water, but they're not panning for metals. This time, it's all about recycling the painkillers, steroids, and mood stabilizers in South San Francisco Bay. Alviso's Medicinal All-Salt may look like ordinary table salt, but it has a little extra pharmaceutical kick. Exactly which drugs are present is somewhat unknowable, even to those selling the product, since it depends on which ones... [Read more...]
Date:
08/26/2010Category:
· Writing » News Coverage » Streetsblog
· Writing » Topic » scienceView article as originally published It may look like a forgotten military landscape, decaying beneath an elevated freeway and overgrown with weeds, but hidden beneath the abandoned buildings and broken pavement, Presidio planners see the potential to regenerate a wetland. Quartermaster Reach is currently so neglected, most people don't even know it exists. Floating between Lucasfilm's Letterman complex and the Presidio Post Office, some sections have been abandoned for decades. A disused power plant sits... [Read more...]
Date:
07/31/2010Category:
· Writing » News Coverage » Streetsblog
· Writing » Topic » scienceView article as originally published Lawyers for AC Transit and the Amalgamated Transit Union squared off in an Oakland courtroom today in the ongoing dispute over a new contract. After two hours of arguments, Superior Court Judge Judith B. Ford indicated she would issue a ruling as early as Monday, but AC Transit attorneys predicted a final agreement might take much longer, and the legal ordeal could potentially drag into early next year. At issue... [Read more...]
Date:
07/27/2010Category:
· Writing » News Coverage » Streetsblog
· Writing » Topic » scienceView article as originally published When most San Franciscans turn on a faucet, they'll see water that's traveled as far as two hundred miles from Hetch Hetchy Valley in Yosemite National Park. But that's not the case for some locally-minded gardeners, for whom careful water stewardship is as important as selecting their crops. This past weekend, the San Francisco Bike Coalition organized a rec ride that visited several gardens around the Sunset, highlighting low-impact water... [Read more...]
Date:
07/21/2010Category:
· Writing » News Coverage » Streetsblog
· Writing » Topic » scienceView article as originally published Drive north from San Francisco for a few hours, and the 101 will gradually melt into a slim road between giant sequoia trees. You've found your way to Richardson Grove State Park, where you can see thousand-year-old redwoods, the South Fork Eel River, and lots of campgrounds, but you won't see any big box stores. That's thanks, at least in part, to the narrowness of the 101. With a... [Read more...]
Date:
07/01/2010Category:
· Writing » News Coverage » Bay Area Reporter
· Writing » Topic » lgbt
· Writing » Topic » scienceView article as originally published An Eagle Tavern patron at a recent cigar event. Photo: RichStadtmiller The open-air patios at Castro-area bars like The Pilsner and The Mix are great places to catch a little sun, meet up with friends, pick up a phone number or two ... and if you smoke, maybe develop a little erectile dysfunction. Although the health consequences of smoking are well known, LGBTs are 40 to 70 percent more... [Read more...]
Date:
06/14/2010Category:
· Writing » News Coverage » The Bold Italic
· Writing » Topic » scienceView article as originally published The sound of a sneezing rat was keeping me up at night. All would be silent, and then from across the room I'd hear it: a tiny "pff!" followed by two paws furiously wiping a fuzzy face. The sneezes belonged to Christopher and Robin, two little guys I'd picked up from a breeder a few months earlier. Why rats? Well, a dog was too big, I'm allergic to cats,... [Read more...]
Date:
06/10/2010Category:
· Writing » News Coverage » Bay Citizen
· Writing » News Coverage » Bay Nature
· Writing » Topic » scienceView article as originally published Hikers on the Presidio's newest trail. Photo by Matt Baume. There's no mistaking the signs of this year's late spring in the Presidio, with California poppies, beach strawberries, and beautiful (but invasive) calla lilies appearing in increasing numbers every day. But the Presidio is also experiencing a far more gradual and deliberate regrowth as well: that of its network of trails. "It's a really important part of the backbone of the park,"... [Read more...]
Date:
06/07/2010Category:
· Writing » News Coverage » Daily Casserole
· Writing » Topic » scienceView article as originally published Two men fished off the end of a pier at sunset on Saturday evening, their view framed by Sutro Tower, downtown highrises, and a rusting Bayview warehouse. Just a few feet away, a large yellow sign over the water, warning "Underground Sewer Crossing," served as a perch for gulls. The T-Third Muni Metro clattered across a grooved metal bridge over the water, and on the opposite bank, some kids skateboarded... [Read more...]
Date:
06/07/2010Category:
· Writing » News Coverage » The Bold Italic
· Writing » Topic » scienceView article as originally published There I was, drenched and freezing and all by myself, flailing through the underbrush in the Presidio in the middle of a storm. "Who wears sneakers to a downpour?" I asked out loud, curling my toes into icy waterlogged balls. And then I nearly stepped directly into the very thing I'd come looking for: Dragonfly Creek, one of the few remaining visible bodies of water in the city. I'd... [Read more...]
Date:
06/02/2010Category:
· Writing » News Coverage » Spots Unknown
· Writing » Topic » scienceView article as originally published Of all the ghosts haunting Golden Gate Park, the most frustrated might be John McLaren. When McLaren died in 1943 at the age of 96, he'd served as Golden Gate Park superintendent for 52 years, during most of which he lived in the stately lodge at Stanyan and JFK. His was a life distinguished by a devotion to trees and a hatred of statuary - so how did they... [Read more...]
Date:
05/21/2010Category:
· Writing » News Coverage » Spots Unknown
· Writing » Topic » scienceView article as originally published "Nothing in the world is more flexible and yielding than water. Yet when it attacks the firm and the strong, none can withstand it, because they have no way to change it." --Lao Tzu There's something about San Francisco's bodies of water that people just can't resist. We abuse them, we bury them, we fill them in with rubble and toxins - and then finally when we realize the... [Read more...]
Date:
05/12/2010Category:
· Writing » News Coverage » The Bold Italic
· Writing » Topic » scienceView article as originally published Upon completing my last gym class 15 years ago, I'd vowed to never again exercise in the presence of another human being. But then I inadvertently caught the bike bug. On my way up to the Fruit Shelf one day at Dolores Park, I glanced over at the bicyclists buzzing around Fixed-Gear Flats. "Could I do that?" I wondered, and was ready to answer "not a chance" when I spotted... [Read more...]
Date:
05/05/2010Category:
· Writing » News Coverage » Bay Area Reporter
· Writing » Topic » lgbt
· Writing » Topic » scienceView article as originally published Confronting the end of a relationship is difficult enough, but for same-sex couples, the legal and emotional obstacles can be magnified. Overcoming those obstacles is the focus of "Separating with Heart and Smarts: LGBTQ Separation, Divorce, and Alternative Dispute Resolution." The free two-part workshop takes place at the LGBT Community Center in May and June. Organized by Our Family Coalition with support from First 5 and the San Francisco Department... [Read more...]
Date:
05/01/2010Category:
· Writing » News Coverage » NBC Bay Area
· Writing » Topic » scienceView article as originally published soupstance via Flickr So long, Muni. It was nice knowing you. The agency is following up a string of service cutbacks and fare hikes over the last few years with -- you guessed it -- more cutbacks and fare hikes. One big drain on Muni's bottom line: other city agencies. A new audit released Friday by the city controller cites a $65.8 million tab for services like legal advice,... [Read more...]
Date:
04/21/2010Category:
· Writing » News Coverage » Streetsblog
· Writing » Op-Ed » Urban Planning
· Writing » Topic » scienceView article as originally published Source: Chicago's Green Alleys Handbook During the heavy rainfall season, San Francisco faces some daunting challenges: Draining the water, keeping the roads from getting slippery, and containing and treating the runoff. Some storms are so severe that the city can't keep pace. That's when we see flooding in the Muni tunnels and sewage discharges into the bay. But the solution -- or at least part of the solution --... [Read more...]
Date:
04/14/2010Category:
· Writing » News Coverage » Streetsblog
· Writing » Topic » scienceView article as originally published Islais Creek Channel. Photo: Matt Baume (Editor's note: This is Part 2 in a 3-part series on the Bay Area watershed.) San Francisco may be getting new waterfront soon, thanks to ambitious projects currently being studied by the city's Public Utilities Commission, including proposals for daylighting, or uncovering, long-buried creeks and streams and creating open-air channels that flow alongside the city's sidewalks and streets. Top contenders for daylighting include: Islais... [Read more...]
Date:
04/09/2010Category:
· Writing » News Coverage » Streetsblog
· Writing » Topic » scienceView article as originally published One of the proposed designs for Center Street in Berkeley, by Ecocity Builders (Editor's note: This is Part 1 in a 3-part series on the Bay Area watershed) The proposal to convert Center Street in Berkeley from an asphalt thoroughfare to a park-like promenade -- revealing a long-hidden underground creek -- is the latest twist in the interesting and often-controversial story of the Bay Area's heavily-modified waterways. The Center Street... [Read more...]
Date:
03/31/2010Category:
· Writing » News Coverage » Streetsblog
· Writing » Topic » scienceView article as originally published Eco Citybuilders The Berkeley City Council has overwhelmingly endorsed a plan to radically transform Center Street. The project, to be overseen by Ecocity Builders, would turn the parking lot-lined thoroughfare into a pristine wildlife preserve complete with a babbling brook, stretching from the Downtown Berkeley BART to the UC Berkeley Campus. The plan is part of a movement known as "daylighting," whereby natural water sources, buried decades ago, are... [Read more...]
Date:
03/26/2010Category:
· Writing » News Coverage » Streetsblog
· Writing » Topic » scienceView article as originally published Photo: Troy Holden Roughly two dozen attendees came out to the inaugural meeting of the San Francisco Transit Riders Union (SFTRU) on Thursday evening and had a spirited -- at times heated -- debate about how to make the fledgling organization a vocal constituency representing the diverse interests of Muni riders. Billed as an opportunity for the public to become familiar with the new riders union, the meeting functioned largely... [Read more...]
Date:
01/19/2010Category:
· Writing » News Coverage » The San Francisco Appeal
· Writing » Topic » scienceView article as originally published Nobody likes losing their job -- especially Muni drivers, who have it pretty sweet. But times are tough, thanks largely to local and state leaders who raid transit whenever their pet projects need more cash. At the beginning of the month, the Appeal predicted that service cuts and fare hikes are not far off; and sure enough, Muni's new budget has us paying more for less service as soon... [Read more...]
Date:
08/13/2009Category:
· Writing » News Coverage » Curbed
· Writing » Topic » scienceView article as originally published San Jose is not to be outdone by Oakland's slight-less-smelly air and San Franciso's squeaky-clean city hall! They're going to start processing their organic waste, turning it into compost and methane at a plant sandwiched between a recycling plant and a solid waste processor. Sounds like a nice neighborhood. So what does this mean for San Francisco? We certainly produce no shortage of biological waste, much of it strolling... [Read more...]
Date:
08/11/2009Category:
· Writing » News Coverage » Curbed
· Writing » Op-Ed » Urban Planning
· Writing » Topic » scienceView article as originally published Can we revive the recent conversation about faster Muni and growing population in the Richmond one more time? We'd like to point out this post about Transit-Oriented Design (TOD) on the blog of the same name. In a nutshell: Faster transit and denser populations go hand-in-hand: more space for people equals less space for cars, which equals more need for transit, traffic calming, and pedestrian amenities. Or you can... [Read more...]
Date:
07/27/2009Category:
· Writing » News Coverage » Curbed
· Writing » Op-Ed » Urban Planning
· Writing » Topic » scienceView article as originally published San Francisco City Hall is an inescapable black hole! Okay, so everybody knows that already. But we're talking about electricity: every day, the building consumes power several hundreds of times greater than that of a residential building. Several HUNDRED times? How is that even possible? What is Mister Green Mayor DOING over there, splitting the atom? Fortunately, the Public Utilities Commission is working on cleaning up City Hall's act,... [Read more...]
Date:
07/09/2009Category:
· Writing » News Coverage » Curbed
· Writing » Topic » scienceView article as originally published We're not sure what to gasp about first with this story, so let's start with the largest number: 107 years, the age of the oil refinery Richmond. Of course, the equipment itself isn't that old -- it's only been around for a mere 70 years. (Practically brand new!) Chevron wants to replace the old equipment with newer machinery that, the company says, is better and cleaner. That sounds nice,... [Read more...]
Date:
07/06/2009Category:
· Writing » News Coverage » Curbed
· Writing » Op-Ed » Urban Planning
· Writing » Topic » scienceView article as originally published California recently tried to take away $1 billion (billion!) in gas-tax funds from transit -- but no, the 3rd district court of appeal just ruled, the state can't do that. Voters approved the gas tax specifically to fund buses and trains, but so far Arnold's stolen $152 million from Muni, and $30 million from BART last year alone. The governor plans to appeal the ruling; so when fares to go... [Read more...]
Date:
06/25/2009Category:
· Writing » News Coverage » The San Francisco Appeal
· Writing » Topic » scienceView article as originally published NextBus Information Systems responds to this piece here. Kind of. When Steven Peterson created Routesy, an iPhone app that lets riders see Muni arrival times, the last thing he expected was to hear was that Muni's real-time arrival times were actually the property of a private company located in the East Bay. But that's exactly what happened, when Alex Orloff, COO of a company calling itself NextBus Information Systems,... [Read more...]
Date:
06/22/2009Category:
· Writing » News Coverage » Curbed
· Writing » Topic » scienceView article as originally published On Monday, we pined for a walking tour of prominent local palm trees. And you delivered! Or more specifically, Jason Dewees, palm broker to the stars, delivered. He emailed to let us know about this fancy Google map that details the locations of over sixty amazing trees. We know what we are doing this weekend! Mr. Dewees, you have us eating out of the palm of your hand. Controversy... [Read more...]
Date:
06/17/2009Category:
· Writing » News Coverage » Curbed
· Writing » Topic » scienceView article as originally published ["What Message Does This Sign Send?" by jm3] Here is a topic that may generate almost as many angry comments as our post comparing the Mission and Marina: according to the Christian Science Monitor (and pretty much everyone else), blacks are abandoning San Francisco. Er. Um. Yikes. The evidence seems pretty much impossible to argue with: blacks make up 6.7% of the population, down from 13.4% forty years ago.... [Read more...]
Date:
06/16/2009Category:
· Writing » News Coverage » Curbed
· Writing » Topic » scienceView article as originally published People sure are talking about prefab homes a lot lately. Sort of like scaling up your IKEA furniture until it's an entire building, these factory-built dwellings boast assembly-line efficiency that just isn't possible with on-site construction. The latest prefab headliner: ZETA Communities' experimental house in Oakland. ZETA (which stands for Zero Energy Technology and Architecture) is aiming to build homes that produce as much energy as they create, also... [Read more...]
Date:
06/04/2009Category:
· Writing » News Coverage » Curbed
· Writing » Topic » scienceView article as originally published UCSF celebrated the opening of its brand new Helen Diller Family Cancer Research Building yesterday afternoon. It's pretty much as noble a project as you'd expect from the name: studying various forms of cancer, the Mission Bay building will more than double UCSF's lab space. It is, to put it mildly, a very good thing. But the building's buzz isn't limited to the medical field: we're seeing a lot... [Read more...]
Date:
04/28/2009Category:
· Writing » News Coverage » The San Francisco Appeal
· Writing » Topic » scienceView article as originally published 23andMe presents data in a user-friendly format. Someday, doctors may be able to drill deeper into the information to provide patients with more informed treatment. In the not-too-distant future, doctors won't just measure your height and weight -- they'll also peer into the little cellular hard drives that make you who you are. Genotypes are the next big thing in personal health care, and if we may sound like... [Read more...]
Date:
10/15/2008Category:
· Writing » News Coverage » SFist
· Writing » Topic » scienceView article as originally published Oh, sure, you've seen all the coverage of Jan Gehl's plan to turn Fisherman's Wharf into something tolerable. But wouldn't you like to know more? The excellent SPUR is holding a forum TODAY about the city's plan to alleviate pedestrian-congestion by updating the neighborhood's 1950s-style freeway-inspired urban design: widening sidewalks, installing benches, and adding bike lanes, injunction be damned. After all, be honest: when's the last time you went to... [Read more...]
Date:
02/29/2008Category:
· Writing » News Coverage » SFist
· Writing » Op-Ed » Urban Planning
· Writing » Topic » scienceView article as originally published Good news: Translink will be up and running on Muni in the late fall/early winter of 2007. Or at least, that's what Muni said last year, and surprise! It's still not working. (And before that, it was January of 2007.) Translink is the work of a company called ERG, Ltd (emphasis on the "limited"); and in the decades (decades!) that it's been bandied about, lots of other cities have... [Read more...]
Date:
05/17/2006Category:
· Writing » News Coverage » SFist
· Writing » Topic » scienceView article as originally published Get ready to throw a cow-sized steak on the OMG WTF barbecue, because we've got Muni news that'll make your socks go up and down. You know NextBus? That thing that lets you know when the next bus is coming, so you don't have to memorize arrival times and count on Muni drivers adhering to schedule? And you know how NextBus only works right now for a couple of... [Read more...]
Date:
11/18/2004Category:
· Writing » News Coverage
· Writing » News Coverage » SFist
· Writing » Topic » scienceView article as originally published So, let's say that you've decided that your image needs an overhaul. Maybe your current look is wearing thin; it's just not you, the crowd is tired, the music sucks. And there's that nagging voice within us all that pipes up every now and makes us dream about one day casting it all off and growing giant ears, whiskers, and a soft huggable pelt. "I do it because it's fun,"... [Read more...]
