A View From The Brink ... the beach is backwards

SF Scientist Leads Team Fighting COVID-19

     

UCSF research scientist and Sunset District resident Peter Walter, PhD, is working with a team on a weapon against COVID-19. Photo by Steve Babuljak, courtesy UCSF.

    

By Thomas K. Pendergast

      

As scientists around the world scramble to make a vaccine to fight COVID-19, a San Francisco team of about 60 people – co-led by a Sunset District resident – is working on a unique potential solution that is roughly analogous to a molecular prophylactic. 

UCSF’s Peter Walter, PhD, is leading this effort with his collaborator, Dr. Aashish Manglik, to test and produce AeroNabs, a nasal spray or nebulizing inhaler that would act as a first line of defense against infection in the nose, throat and lungs, where the virus enters the body. 

The spray is not an anti-viral vaccine, but instead uses nanobodies, tiny molecular proteins that “sheath” parts of the virus attempting to penetrate the cell, thus preventing replication.

     

Go here for the full story   --->>>

       

Wind Turns Golden Gate Bridge Into World’s Largest Harmonica

       

The Golden Gate Bridge has been creating new sounds since recent engineering updates related to the netting being put in place underneath it to deter suicides from the bridge. Many Richmond District residents – some who like it and some who find it annoying – hear the noises during periods of high winds.

    

Story and photo by Thomas K. Pendergast

               

To many people, it sounds as though – under the right wind conditions – the Golden Gate Bridge is singing, humming, whistling or playing the world’s biggest harmonica. Some people like the sound; some hate it. But many agree that the new sound is loud. Really loud. 

Terry Trevino lives in San Francisco and commutes across the bridge to Marin regularly.

“I think it’s probably one of my downfalls, is that I definitely have sensitive ears and I was trained as a musician most of my life, and because of that I think I’m just quite sensitive to the sound,” Trevino said. “And I have to say, going across it as it’s ‘singing,’ it’s incredibly loud. It’s desperately loud, almost to the point where it’s debilitating if you’re really sensitive to sounds.”

Trevino lives on Lone Mountain and was in his home when he first noticed the noise. At first he thought it was a street cleaning truck, but it kept going. So then he thought it was a carpet cleaning machine operating somewhere in his neighborhood.

“I’m on the upslope of Lone Mountain,” Trevino said. “Our house and our land is literally tilted toward the bridge. That may be one reason why,”

And the sound just went on and on and on.

“It literally went on all day long,” he said. “It’s like when you get a bunch of metronomes in the room and they all play at the same time, you get all of them playing together.”

             

Go here for the full story   --->>>

        

Homeless Camps Pop Up In San Francisco's Richmond District

        

A line of tents stretches along 48th Avenue at Fulton Street, behind the Safeway on La Playa Street. A blue portable restroom can be seen in the background.

      

Story and photo by Thomas K. Pendergast

       

On May 5, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors acknowledged that a virus had just suspended years of city policy to break up homeless camps when they get too big. 

The Center for Disease Control (CDC) issued COVID-19  guidelines, which stressed that if homeless people are voluntarily encamped in their own tents, this was a better situation for slowing down the spread of the virus than dispersing the people and potentially sending the virus with them. 

Following the CDC guidelines, the board passed an emergency ordinance to provide staffed restroom facilities for homeless encampments at a ratio of 1 per 50 unsheltered people. District 6 Supervisor Matt Haney said that a month before, the City only had three 24-hour bathrooms. The new legislation would eventually increase the number of facilities to 49.

Since then, homeless encampments throughout the City have been provided with portable restrooms, washing stations and attendants, including three in the Richmond District: in front of the old Alexandria Theater at 18th Avenue and Geary Boulevard, on the corner of 24th Avenue and Balboa Street, and on 48th Avenue behind the Safeway at La Playa and Fulton streets near Ocean Beach. 

       

Go here for the full story   --->>>

      

Mapping a pandemic: Track the spread of coronavirus across Washington State and the world

       

       

Washington state, site of the first confirmed case of the novel coronavirus in the country on Jan. 20, also became the nation’s first epicenter of the outbreak on Feb. 29 with the publicly announced death of a person, at a Kirkland hospital, and an eruption of cases at a nursing home.  

The Seattle Times newspaper reports that coronavirus has continued to spread across the state. Public health agencies agree that the number of confirmed cases greatly underrepresents the true number of people infected with COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. Most people experience only mild illness, and testing is still not widely available.

Here’s what we know so far about the statewide spread of the illness and its global impacts.

       

Go here for the full story on the website of the Seattle Times   --->>>

      

Bay Area coronavirus updates: Santa Clara County now reporting 79 cases

     

This undated electron microscope image made available by the U.S. National Institutes of Health in February 2020 shows the Novel Coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, yellow, emerging from the surface of cells, pink, cultured in the lab. Also known as 2019-nCoV, the virus causes COVID-19.

    

LATEST: March 13, 12 p.m.: Santa Clara County now has 79 cases of coronavirus with seven infected patients hospitalized.

Of the total cases, 43 are a result of community transmission, meaning the individual doesn't have a travel history to an area with an outbreak or known contact with an infected patient.

"We expect many, many more cases to come," said Dr. Sara Cody, the county's health officer.

Cody signed an order banning events with more than 100 people.

The county has the most coronavirus cases in the Bay Area and has a population of 1.9 million people.

Beginning Monday, schools in the county will be closing for three weeks.
     

Go here for the full story   --->>>

       

San Francisco group files lawsuit to thwart Laurel Heights development

      

     

Story and photo by Thomas K. Pendergast

        

A lawsuit has been filed against a proposed redevelopment plan for 3333 California St. by the proponents of an alternative plan, after they lost an appeal of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors’ approval.

Among the many points of contention about the project is the cutting down of 226 mature trees on the 10-acre parcel at the same time that experts are saying we only have about a decade to deal with climate change before its effects become irreversible. Trees are an effective way to reduce greenhouse gases like carbon, because they take it out of the atmosphere and replace it with oxygen.

Furthermore, it appears that the City follows the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) rules in analyzing new construction projects, but the “carbon sequestration” potential for trees – that is the amount of carbon trees remove from the atmosphere – seems to be a minor consideration at best, or it is not considered at all.

       

Go here for the full story   --->>> 

      

Thousands of 'penis fish' washed up on a Point Reyes beach. Yes, really.

       

     

SFGate.com and Bay Nature reported on a mass stranding of the 10-inch worms on Drakes Beach in Point Reyes Friday. Alix Marichoux wrote that naturalist Ivan Parr attributes the phenomenon to the aftermath of a strong storm.

If you want to get scientific about it, these thick, pink worms are called Urechis caupo. They live in shallow water along the West Coast, between Oregon and Baja California. They're most commonly seen here in Northern California, Parr writes.

Their predators include otters, as well sharks, rays and gulls. They are also eaten raw or stir-fried in Korea and China.
    

     
Go here for the full story on the SFGate.com website   --->>>

         

Journalist Survives Assassination Attempt, Brought Back to San Francisco

     

 

Brandon Lee, the activist, journalist and the survivor of an assassination attempt in the Philippines, is back home in San Francisco and receiving treatment from Dr. Susan Ehrlich at San Francisco General Hospital.

At a press conference and rally on Oct. 28 in front of San Francisco City Hall, feelings of relief, love and anger from his family, friends and supporters were all plain to see: relief that he is home now; love for him; and anger at the Rodrigo Duterte regime in the Philippines being funded with hundreds of millions of U.S. taxpayer dollars.

“My son, who, unlike me, willingly and selflessly gave up a comfortable life in San Francisco to fly halfway across the world to help the indigenous peoples of the Cordillera, even though he has no roots in the Philippines,” said Brandon’s mother, Louise Lee. “My son, who, like many innocent people in the Philippines, was senselessly shot for speaking out for those who have no voice, for those who are marginalized, for those who are being taken advantage of.”

She reminded everyone of the countless extra-judicial killings there that do not receive the same international attention as Lee.

“My son would say his fight for justice is for them too,” she said. “Brandon repeatedly told us his assailant was from the (Philippine) army. We must work together to stop U.S. military aid to the Philippines.”

      

Go here for the full story   --->>>

        

San Francisco Legislators Alarmed for Districts Vulnerable to Firestorms

          

(Left to right) San Francisco Board of Supervisors President and District 7 Supervisor Norman Yee, District 1 Supervisor Sandra Lee Fewer, California State Assemblyman Phil Ting and District 4 Supervisor Gordon Mar at a press conference about expanding the EFWS, with a map of the current system now in place behind them. Photo by Thomas K. Pendergast.  

      

By Thomas K. Pendergast

     

After a Civil Grand Jury reported that large parts of San Francisco could burn to the ground after an earthquake if something is not done soon, four city supervisors and a state assemblyman have called the situation urgent and demanded action.

District 4 Supervisor Gordon Mar introduced a resolution to the SF Board of Supervisors to speed up the schedule for expanding the high-pressure firefighting pipeline system because, after the recent fires and earthquakes throughout California, a catastrophe could happen at any time.

“One very critical area of disaster preparedness that has not been adequately addressed is the threat of widespread fires following an earthquake,” Mar said at a press conference at City Hall. “So, the resolution I’m introducing today is intended to bring greater attention and to elevate the priority of these urgent issues here at City Hall and throughout our City.”

     

Go here for the full story   --->>>

         

After Avoiding Safety Upgrades, PG&E Hired Lobbyists And Public Relations Instead

     

Electrical power towers outside of Novato, Calif., on Oct. 9, 2019. Photo: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images

       

Power shutoffs affecting more than 1 million residents, scheduled by PG&E this week throughout the San Francisco Bay Area and Northern California, have sparked a massive backlash, with many community members telling reporters that they are shocked that the company has not done more to upgrade its transmission lines.

The decision to shut off the electricity services, a precaution over concerns about high winds, raises the question of precisely how PG&E has been spending its rate-payers’ money. And the answer isn’t pretty: While neglecting safety upgrades and investments in its aging infrastructure, PG&E has instead been lavishly rewarding shareholders and buying political influence.

Lee Fang of The Intercept writes that over the last year, reporters have highlighted the large lobby spending and billions of dollars in dividend payments to investors by PG&E, while the company avoided necessary investments in its aging transmission towers — some of which are among the oldest in the world and were known to the company to be a potential fire hazard. The aging transmission lines caused the Camp Fire wildfires last November, the most destructive in California history, that left 86 dead, over a dozen injured, and caused at least $16 billion in damages.

     

Go here for the full story on The Intercept website   --->>>