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Scientists propose a 'genome zoo' of 10,000 vertebrate species, to be stored at University of California-Santa Cruz

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

San Jose Mercury News - By By Lisa M. Kriegerlkrieger - Nov. 05 (News Report) - The University of California-Santa Cruz could someday house the world's largest zoo — holding not live animals, but the genetic codes of 10,000 different creatures, many of them exotic or extinct.

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Bargain-priced homes expected to drive Silicon Valley market next year

Wed, 07 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

San Jose Mercury News - By Sue McAllister - Oct. 07 (News) - At a meeting of the state association of Realtors at the San Jose McEnery Convention Center this week, Appleton-Young on Wednesday predicted that about 527,500 previously owned single-family houses will sell in the state next year. That would be a 2.3 percent drop from the 540,000 properties that are projected to have changed hands by the end of 2009.

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Navarrette: Advice for immigrants

Wed, 23 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

San Jose Mercury News - By By Ruben Navarrette Jr. - Sep. 23 (News) - Some might consider this an impolite way to celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month. But this year, I'm giving Latino immigrants a gift straight from the heart: a lecture.

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Finally, investors are choosing green industry

Mon, 07 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

San Jose Mercury News - Sep. 07 (Editorial) - Every report, study and prediction about Silicon Valley's economy in this downturn has mapped the path to recovery in green: clean tech, renewable energy and good middle-income jobs, like installing solar panels, that can't be outsourced.

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Accused abductor of Jaycee Dugard turned increasingly zealous, customers say

Sun, 30 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

San Jose Mercury News - By John Simerman - Aug. 30 (News) - Jaycee Dugard helped with Phillip Garrido?s backyard printing business, according to customers, including one who said she handled the graphic design for his order. ...

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Mystery surrounding kidnap victim Jaycee Dugard deepens

Sat, 29 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

San Jose Mercury News - Aug. 29 (News Report) - Sometime between the June morning she was yanked into a car near South Lake Tahoe in 1991 and this week when she surfaced alive with the man accused of taking her, Jaycee Dugard stopped thinking of Phillip Garrido as her kidnapper and saw him more as a husband, her step-father said Friday.

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Giant vortex of floating trash swirls in Pacific

Tue, 04 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Seattle Times - By Paul Rogers - Aug. 04 (Special Report) - Hoping to learn more about one of the most glaring examples of waste and environmental pollution on Earth, a group of scientists will set sail from San Francisco today to the "Great Pacific Garbage Patch," a massive vortex of floating plastic trash estimated by some researchers to be twice the size of Texas.

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Clinton trip to India can build on Silicon Valley bonds

Sun, 19 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

San Jose Mercury News - Jul. 19 (Opinion) - Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's visit to India is expected to yield new initiatives in defense and space cooperation. Yet it is important to remember that the foundation for the U.S.-India geopolitical partnership that has emerged in the last decade was forged outside the realm of government policy and the confines of Washington and New Delhi. Silicon Valley entrepreneurs have played as important a role in building ties as any diplomat or national security official. And Clinton's trip provides a good opportunity to renew the important private-sector and societal linkages that help bind the relationship together.

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Obama's Troubling Caution on Torture

Mon, 29 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Consortium News - By Diana Gibson, Ray McGovern - Jun. 29 (Opinion) - Something evil has seeped into the soul of our nation. Those many years when we looked the other way, choosing to ignore the abuse of detainees in U.S. custody, eroded our morality. Americans who claim to believe in human dignity and the law do not seem scandalized by this inhumane and illegal activity. Many people of faith appear willing to tolerate unspeakable cruelty. Christians who follow one who himself was tortured by the powers of his time evidently are now ready to justify our own government's use of torture.

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Most Americans in areas with unhealthy air

Wed, 29 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

San Jose Mercury News - By Noaki Schwartz - Apr. 29 (News Report) - Sixty percent of Americans live in areas with unhealthy air pollution levels, despite a growing green movement and more stringent laws aimed at improving air quality, the American Lung Association said in a report released Wednesday.

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Amnesty International lambastes U.S. for treatment of immigrant detainees

Tue, 24 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0700

San Jose Mercury News - By Ken McLaughlin - Mar. 24 (News Report) - "Officials are locking up thousands of human beings without due process and holding them in a system that is impossible to navigate,'' said Larry Cox, executive director of Amnesty International USA.

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Worldwide darkness planned for Earth Hour

Mon, 23 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0700

San Jose Mercury News - By Suzanne Bohan - Mar. 23 (News Report) - What started in 2007 as one city's protest over inaction on climate change has ignited into a worldwide movement. On Saturday, 1,800 cities are expected to participate in this year's Earth Hour. That evening, an anticipated one billion people will take part in a global "power down," by switching off lights and electronics from 8:30 to 9:30 p.m. in their local times.

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Workers OK deal in effort to save San Francisco Chronicle

Sun, 15 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0700

San Jose Mercury News - By Paul Rogers - Mar. 15 (News Report) - San Francisco Chronicle employees Saturday voted to accept steep concessions to their contract as part of a deal that is expected to cut at least 150 jobs from the newsroom and other departments, yet which the company said is vital to keep the paper from closing. By a vote of 333 to 33, members of the California Media Workers Guild approved the givebacks at a midmorning meeting at the Parc 55 Hotel in San Francisco. "People realize that as bad as this settlement is, it did provide severance pay for a substantial number of people who will be leaving and hopefully keeps alive the company's ability to survive," said Doug Cuthbertson, executive officer of the guild.

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Schools chief: Calif education system 'precarious'

Wed, 04 Feb 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Associated Content - By Juliet Williams - Feb. 04 (News Report) - Warning that its public schools are in a "precarious" state, California's top education official on Tuesday called for more money even as lawmakers were considering billions of dollars in cuts to help address the state's massive budget deficit. Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell said California's system of funding education, in which money is directed at dozens of specialized programs enshrined over decades, isn't working. "The state of public education in California is precarious," he said during his annual state of education address. "Beyond the immediate crisis, and even more alarming to me, is the long-term future of our common education system." California spends about $48 billion a year on K-12 education, almost half its general fund, but its students fare poorly when compared to their peers in other states on standardized tests. The state's schools also have a persistent gap in achievement rates: white, Asian and wealthier students far outperform students who are black, Hispanic and poor. O'Connell said without more money, California will ensure a two-tiered education system for its students.

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For California, new clout in Obama's tech-friendly administration

Sun, 18 Jan 2009 00:00:00 -0800

San Jose Mercury News - By Frank Davies, Mary Anne Ostrom - Jan. 18 (News Report) - For California, new clout in Obama's tech-friendly administrationSan Jose Mercury News?- 16 hours ago"I think what the Obama administration intends to do is move the technology that has been pioneered in California across the country," said Cathy Zoi, CEO of Palo Alto-based Alliance for Climate Protection.

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Critics can't resist one last Bush-bashing

Wed, 07 Jan 2009 00:00:00 -0800

San Jose Mercury News - By Dana Hull - Jan. 07 (News Report) - Eddy Sheldon hates George W. Bush so much, he's throwing the president a party. He figures it's the best way to celebrate the conclusion of one of the nation's most unpopular presidencies, or as Bush critics are calling it, the "end of an error."

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Growing research suggests being gay is not 'a choice'

Sun, 30 Nov 2008 00:00:00 -0800

San Jose Mercury News - By Mike Swift - Nov. 30 (News Report) - Compared with straight men, gay men are more likely to be left-handed, to be the younger siblings of older brothers, and to have hair that whorls in a counterclockwise direction. Researchers are finding common biological traits among gay men, feeding a growing consensus that sexual orientation is an inborn combination of genetic and environmental factors that largely decide a person's sexual attractions before they are born. Such findings — including a highly anticipated study this winter — would further inform the debate over whether homosexuality is innate or a choice, an undercurrent of the recent Proposition 8 campaign in which television commercials warned that "schools would begin teaching second-graders that boys could marry boys," suggesting homosexuality would then spread.

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California gets dire warning on global warming

Fri, 14 Nov 2008 00:00:00 -0800

San Jose Mercury News - By Matt Nauman - Nov. 14 (Special Report) - Roads and bridges, the water supply, agriculture, public health and even winter skiing all will be affected by global climate change, said the report by University of California-Berkeley agricultural and resource economics professors David Roland-Holst and Fredrich Kahrl. The report said damage could reach many billions of dollars per year. In real estate alone, up to $2.5 trillion of the state's $4 trillion worth of homes and other buildings are at risk from rising sea levels, wildfires and other extreme weather events occurring as the world gets warmer, it said.

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Silicon Valley voters craving change as Election Day nears

Sun, 02 Nov 2008 00:00:00 -0700

San Jose Mercury News - By Mary Anne Ostrom - Nov. 02 (News Report) - Mike D'Amelio has had a rough eight years. He lost his job in 2001, now earns half his former salary, and, despite getting a second job, fears his mortgage payments will be his financial undoing. The dismal housing market has put his plan to sell his house and move to a downtown San Jose condo on ice. "I'm just fed up about everything,'' said D'Amelio, 44, a San Jose Democrat. "I just want things to change." So when the his ballot arrived, he filled it out immediately — sending it in the mail the same day.

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Do direct-to-consumer gene tests alter people's lifestyles?

Wed, 08 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0700

San Jose Mercury News - By Steve Johnson - Oct. 08 (News Report) - Two Silicon Valley biotech companies and Microsoft are assisting researchers in a 20-year, landmark study involving up to 10,000 participants to determine how people use the information they get from the growing and controversial array of direct-to-consumer genetic tests, it was announced Wednesday. Given the proliferation of Web-based companies testing consumers for genetically based maladies, it is vital to know how the information is being used, said Dr. Eric Topol, who is heading the research at the Scripps Translational Science Institute in La Jolla. "Does it improve one's lifestyle, one's health?" he asked. "What impact does it have? No one has yet studied it like this."

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Communities need help finding information on the Web they can trust

Wed, 10 Sep 2008 00:00:00 -0700

San Jose Mercury News - By Chris O'Brien - Sep. 10 (News Report) - One intriguing experiment that I've been following is called NewsTrust.net, based in Marin and funded in large part by the MacArthur Foundation. At NewsTrust, people post links to stories they recommend and then fill out a form to evaluate the story's reliability. These ratings don't just apply to a single story, but are assigned to the news organization (or individual) so that they create a reputation over time. Another possible solution would be to create new forms of intermediaries or editors that can establish themselves as "trust advisers" to people online. Of course, more digital-savvy people already are tapping into their online networks through things like Facebook and Twitter to build relationships with people they trust to recommend news and information.

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China's rapid rise to sporting superpower

Tue, 05 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0700

San Jose Mercury News - By Elliott Almond - Aug. 05 (Special Report) - Two Dutch academics have used economic modeling to predict that China will win 47 gold medals, the United States 29. Even if the forecast is off, U.S. Olympic Committee leaders for the past year have played the underdog card, saying the home team is the favorite.

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For Chinese-Americans, Beijing Olympics bring mixed emotions

Sun, 03 Aug 2008 06:17:19 -0700

San Jose Mercury News - By Ken McLaughlin, Linda Goldston - Aug. 03 (News Report) - On the eve of China's first Olympics, as the world prepares to gaze more intently than ever upon this paradoxical country, many Chinese-Americans find themselves confronting complicated - and sometimes conflicted - attitudes toward their motherland. After two decades of extraordinary economic growth and rising geopolitical clout, the world's most populous nation is determined to prove to the world that it deserves more respect. But China's critics maintain that, despite taking steps toward an open society, its government is clinging to its old authoritarian ways and still ruthlessly suppressing dissent. Chinese-American views on the 29th Olympiad in Beijing often depend on where their families came from. Did they immigrate from the mainland? Or from Hong Kong or Taiwan? Or were their families part of the centuries-old diaspora that scattered Chinese across Asia

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China in the spotlight - and under microscope

Sun, 03 Aug 2008 07:03:54 -0700

San Jose Mercury News - By Ann Killion - Aug. 03 (News Report) - The three Cs are about to meet the fourth C - China. And no matter what you feel - excitement, anger, apathy - about this month's Olympic Games, there is no denying that they are absolutely a watershed moment.

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A clash of 'world views': part owner eBay vs. Craigslist

Sun, 11 May 2008 00:00:00 -0700

San Jose Mercury News - By Scott Duke Harris - May. 11 (News Report) - Among the strange business bedfellows of Silicon Valley, none may be stranger - and more estranged - than Craigslist and eBay. Executives at the two companies have barely been on speaking terms for the past year. It's been called a David and Goliath story - except Goliath never accused his rival of cheating. "At investment conferences, people keep asking . . . how are you going to make lots of money?" Craigslist founder Craig Newmark told television interviewer Charlie Rose last year. "And we say, 'Hey, not interested.' Because once you are living well, and maybe providing for your future, what's the point in more?"

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