Rallied by the motto — “Hard work. Low pay. Miserable conditions… and more!” — young men and women in the California Conservation Corps are busy building trails, clearing fire-ravaged forests, and restoring habitats along creeks, wetlands and beaches. In the process, they make learning science an everyday part of their job.

When 19-year-old Melina Di Stefano signed up for the California Conservation Corps, she had no idea she’d be helping to save the state’s official amphibian, the threatened Red-Legged Frog.

For young men and women like Ms. Di Stefano, serving in the California Conservation Corps means more than just building…

Aided by science honed over the past 150 years, winemakers across Northern California’s famed Sonoma appellations are starting to take climate change more seriously. How they adapt could revolutionize the wine industry in regions across the globe for the next century.

Welcome to Petaluma Gap, California’s newest viticultural area, where cool fog and soft wind define great wine-making.

Petaluma Gap AVA —To set foot here —planted between the San Francisco Bay and the Pacific Ocean, just 25 miles north of the Golden Gate Bridge — is to understand what great wine-making is all about.

It’s here in this hilly terrain…

Along California’s rugged North Coast, an uncommon alliance — including scientists, tribal leaders, fisherman, divers, kayakers and seafood chefs — has joined forces with a common goal: To protect California’s vanishing kelp forests before it’s too late

• Linked to climate change, a persistent marine heat wave, known locally as “The Blob,” has contributed to a mass die-off along California’s coast, where more than 90 percent of kelp forests have disappeared since 2014
• Exploding populations of purple sea urchins, which voraciously feed off kelp —yet are delicious for humans to eat — are contributing to the kelp’s demise. …

Scientists, experts and indigenous voices speak up as the Trump administration proposes dredging environmentally sensitive habitat along the Strait.

• Deeper channels and wider berths are intended to bring bigger ships, clearing a path for CO2-intensive Canadian tar sands from Alberta to Bay Area refineries
• Considering the hazards of diluted bitumen, experts sort out when and where dredging is good or bad for San Francisco Bay — and what a major oil spill might look like
• Is California’s pledge for a carbon-neutral future under threat?

Life near San Francisco Bay Area surrounds us with this gem of nature that is the Bay itself. From almost anywhere, we can feel this inspiring connection to nature, by constantly being in its proximity.

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Marine scientists working alongside autonomous vehicles achieve breakthroughs on the high seas never before possible

Massive data collected from drones — and extensions of scientific measurements over vast areas of ocean — combine to help scientists understand changing ocean chemistry, warming temperatures, and oxygen dead zones

Marine scientists have recently reported stunning success using powerful — yet low-cost — drone and robotic technology at sea. The results point to dramatic increases in the range of scientific observation for ocean research and the amount of data collected — advancing what’s possible for marine science.

By coupling robotic devices with massive amounts…

Despite a 2-year battle to stop the project, Oakland could still soon become the largest deep-water shipping port for coal on the U.S. West Coast

Scientists and environmentalists cite risks to human health

Rising temperatures linked to higher levels of local air pollution

Coal shipments to China would make Oakland part of a global chain of environmental impact

The Oakland Army Base, decommissioned since 1999, once saw generations of soldiers embarking for theaters of war in the Pacific, spanning eras of conflict including World War II, Korea, Vietnam and the First Gulf War.

Today, the same location at the Port…

Focusing on living longer more as an opportunity and less as a problem, studies point to a need for life redesign, emotional and cognitive flexibility.

Need for new societal models to tap into the wealth of human capital from the largest and fastest growing population of older citizens in human history

Since 1900, human lifespan has nearly doubled, adding an extra 30 years of life, on average. This fact has been the lifelong focus of psychology professor Dr. Laura Carstensen, who is founding director of the Stanford Center on Longevity.

Through the 20th Century, more years were added to average…

Hard evidence and a recent scientific study point to collisions with ships as top culprit. New technology offers possible solutions

Beach enthusiasts and those living around the San Francisco Bay Area have witnessed a spike in whale deaths in recent weeks.

Since May, no fewer than four such deaths have been documented by local media sources, making images of whale carcasses washing ashore along beaches and in bay estuaries —typically a rare occurrence — a more frequent sight recently.

Innovative model-based study

In an innovate recent study, scientists used naval encounter models to estimate how many collisions between ships and…