Your Top Science Stories for this Week
| | Nudibranchs may look cute, squishy and defenseless … but watch out. These brightly-colored sea slugs aren't above stealing weapons from their prey.
The summer months bring low morning tides along the California coast, providing an opportunity to see one of the state's most unusual inhabitants, sea slugs.
Also called nudibranchs, many of these relatives of snails are brightly colored and stand out among the seaweed and anemones living next to them in tidepools.
“Some of them are bright red, blue, yellow -- you name it,” said Terry Gosliner, senior curator of invertebrate zoology and geology at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco. “They're kind of designer slugs.”
But without a protective shell, big jaws or sharp claws, how do these squishy little creatures get away with such flamboyant colors in a habitat full of predators? | | |
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| | | Many gender clinicians now recommend transgender kids as young as three be allowed to live publicly as the gender they identity with. But studies have shown most kids won't stick with identifying as transgender. | | |
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| | | A new study finds that well-established farming techniques could put a huge dent in global emissions targets if adopted widely. | | |
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| | | The human brain contains at least one kind of brain cell that isn't found in rodents. The finding could help explain why many experimental treatments for brain disorders have worked in mice, but failed in people. | | |
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| | | This week Gov. Brown signed into law a process (AB 2975) that would backstop federal river protections by fast-tracking Wild and Scenic designations under state law in the event that federal protections are stripped from any rivers in California. | | |
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| | | California spends billions of dollars per year to support its climate change programs but has trouble demonstrating whether the promise of the law that spawned them has been kept. | | |
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| | | We'd like to hear from Bay Area residents who want to make this a better place to live and think news organizations can help them do that. Please tell us about yourelf in this form on our website, including your availability for an in-person conversation (not for broadcast or a story) in September. What you share will help us with an exciting new idea. | | |
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| | | Lawmakers have reached a deal that allows Pacific Gas and Electric Company to issue bonds to pay for damage caused by last year's North Bay wildfires and also creates a commission to weigh utility liability in fires that started this year. | | |
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