California creates a science-based series of underwater parks

You normally think of parks as being places to walk or ride around.  But on January 1, 2012, Southern California celebrated the grand opening of a series of underwater parks, or “marine protected areas,” that includes wildlife hot spots such as the La Jolla kelp forest, Laguna tidepools, and Catalina Island coral gardens. These parks will …

Silicon Valley to get its own airline – SurfAir

A new airline, SurfAir, has emerged to serve entrepreneurs, executives, and Venture Capitalists, who travel frequently throughout the state of California. …the US infrastructure has billions of dollars that is hardly used, so much infrastructure that Michael Flint said he could have us landing on a runway within 20 minutes, in case of an emergency …

The official program from opening day of Golden Gate Bridge in 1937

The 1937 guide contains articles on the amazing architectural achievement as well as 130+ advertisements. Here are some of the more interesting ones:  

Surfbreak Rentals – accommodations based on specific beaches and surf breaks

Whether the origin of the term “couch surfing” had anything to do with traveling surfers is a mystery, but surfers have been crashing at each other’s pads since they first started spanning the globe in search of new breaks and foreign adventures. So it’s only natural that Surfbreak Rentals, a new website dedicated to connecting …

Growing coffee trees in California

In this day of the $6 cup of coffee, when bragging rights mean knowing not only the varietal but the beans’ latitude, anything exotic gets the antennae waving. Which may explain why Jay Ruskey of Good Land Organics is inundated with requests to visit his north Santa Barbara County farm, where he is the only person cultivating …

Climate Change in California means heats waves…lots of them

In the past 60 years, California has experienced two heatwaves – in 1955 and 2006 – in which temperatures in its urban centers were greater than 37.8 degrees C (100 degrees F) for three or more consecutive days. A new analysis prepared by other Scripps researchers indicates that by century’s end, those kinds of heatwaves …

Why is Cinco De Mayo not celebrated in Mexico, only the U.S.?

UCLA professor David Hayes-Bautista stumbled upon the answer to a question that for years had puzzled scholars and amateur historians alike: Why is Cinco de Mayo so widely celebrated in California and the United States, when it is scarcely observed in Mexico? As Hayes-Bautista explains in “El Cinco de Mayo: An American Tradition,” his new …

California’s budget troubles – say hello to billions in tax revenue from Facebook’s IPO

California is hoping for another Google-effect like the one that happened in 2005, after the company’s IPO. From 2004 to 2005 the revenue from capital gains taxes in California shot up $14 billion. Mark Zuckerberg, whose initial public stock offering in two weeks could value the company at $96 billion, will cut in the state …

Facebook for Good: new update creates thousands of organ donors

Would you share your organ donor status on Facebook? You share what you’re making for dinner, how your garden grows, where you’re going on vacation…But what about your organs? Mark Zuckerberg is hoping you will. On “Good Morning America” on Tuesday, Zuckerberg and company Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg announced that Facebook is letting those …