PG&E reports it is about halfway through its rollout of wireless Smart Meters to monitor utility use. But critics of the meters are calling for a moratorium on the devices, for multiple reasons, including health concerns.

Sandi Maurer, founder of the EMF Safety Network, explains that the possible health problems resultant from exposure to wireless transmission derive from their effects on the sophisticated bio-electric processes within the human body.

These electrical considerations are heightened, Maurer notes, for individuals with medical devices, such as pacemakers, implanted in their bodies.

For people who are experiencing health problems after a new meter has been installed at their home, Maurer says there is recourse available.

The biggest number of complaints about the new Smart Meters have not been about health issues, however, but about billing problems.

In the article, Are Smart Meters Smart? the EMF Safety Network offers an extensive critique of the new metering technology.

Horror movies and popular musicals notwithstanding, carnivorous plants do not eat people, nor do they grow to tower over us. Without that far-fetched scare factor, they are strangely beautiful…and decidedly weird.

Peter D’Amato was just a boy when he first sent for a mail-order Venus Flytrap. It didn’t last long, but his interest in these strange plants did, especially after he was introduced to some that were growing in the wild not far from his home.

D’Amato’s California Carnivores nurserypropagates and breeds many of the plants they display and sell, such as sundews and pitcher plants. They need to be kept wet, he explains, but they don’t need to be fed.

Aside from the loss of habitat that threatens them, carnivorous plants are naturally long-lived.

Many of D'Amato's specimens are currently on display in San Francisco, at the exhibit called Chomp 2 at the Conservatory of Flowers.

The key to sustaining agricultural biodiversity may be as close as the nearest backyard garden—even your own.

It’s easy to begin seed saving, explains Bill McDorman, but not all common garden plants readily lend themselves to the practice.

Seed saving begins in individual backyards, but the idea is tailor-made for scaling up to the community level, McDorman notes, and that’s just what is starting to happen.

Bill McDorman is the founder and  president of the Seeds Trust mail order business, offering "vegetable, herb, wildflower and wild grass seed for a sustainable future." He will be speaking at at the Sebastopol Community Cultural Center annex building in Sebastopol,  425 Morris Street, on Sunday afternoon June 6th from 3-5 pm.

Sebastopol’s Enmanji Temple, a cornerstone of the area’s Japanese culture, is the subject of a short documentary film that reveals a key episode in the preservation of the historic structure.

There is a strong element of autobiography in many of Lina Hoshino’s films, and Leap of Faith grew out of her curiosity about her new surroundings after she moved North from San Francisco to the small town of Penngrove, north of Petaluma.

As she leanred more about the multi-cultural history of her new home, Lina discovered a trove of recordings made by the local Japanese-American Citizens League, which led her to the subject for her film.

Leap of Faith will have its  World premiere on KRCB Public Television on Monday, May 3 at 9, pm with a repeat broadcast Tuesday, May 18 at 11:30pm.

Luther Burbank’s greenhouse is an icon of Santa Rosa, but the famed horticulturalist actually did most of his ground-breaking work at another site—his 18 acre Goldridge Farm in Sebastopol.

Burbank is justly renowned for his botanical innovations, but not everything he worked with was a success. In fact, explains horticultural historian Bob Hornback, Burbank also is the source of two highly conspicuous “escapees” that are now ubiquitous in our local landscape, including the one shown here.

The Open House at Goldridge Farm this weekend is part of the annual Sebastopol Apple Blossom Festival, which primarily celebrates the area’s Gravenstein orchards. Hornback says that was one variety of apple that Luther Burbank didn’t do much with, although he did create the later-ripening Winterstein variety (seen in photo).

With hundreds of new fruit varieties, vegetables and ornamental plants and flowers to his credit, Burbank’s farm (including the cottage, as seen in this drawing) was the scene of constant multiple experiments, graftings and new hybrids. During so much required maintaining detailed records, says Hornback, which is something Burbank doesn’t get enough credit for doing.