scholarly journals Open-Source Food: Nutrition, Toxicology, and Availability of Wild Edible Greens in the East Bay

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip B. Stark ◽  
Daphne Miller ◽  
Thomas J. Carlson ◽  
Kristen Rasmussen de Vasquez
Keyword(s):  
Heavy Metals ◽  
San Francisco ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Tap Water ◽  
Leafy Greens ◽  
Bay Area ◽  
Lead And Cadmium ◽  
Nutrient Density ◽  
Mixed Use ◽  
East Bay

AbstractSignificanceForaged leafy greens are consumed around the globe, including in urban areas, and may play a larger role when food is scarce or expensive. It is thus important to assess the safety and nutritional value of wild greens foraged in urban environments.MethodsField observations, soil tests, and nutritional and toxicology tests on plant tissue were conducted for three sites, each roughly 9 square blocks, in disadvantaged neighborhoods in the East San Francisco Bay Area in 2014–2015. The sites included mixed-use areas and areas with high vehicle traffic.ResultsEdible wild greens were abundant, even during record droughts. Soil at some survey sites had elevated concentrations of lead and cadmium, but tissue tests suggest that rinsed greens of the tested species are safe to eat. Daily consumption of standard servings comprise less than the EPA reference doses of lead, cadmium, and other heavy metals. Pesticides, glyphosate, and PCBs were below detection limits.The nutrient density of 6 abundant species compared favorably to that of the most nutritious domesticated leafy greens.ConclusionsWild edible greens harvested in industrial, mixed-use, and high-traffic urban areas in the San Francisco East Bay area are abundant and highly nutritious. Even grown in soils with elevated levels of heavy metals, tested species were safe to eat after rinsing in tap water. This does not mean that all edible greens growing in contaminated soil are safe to eat—tests on more species, in more locations, and over a broader range of soil chemistry are needed to determine what is generally safe and what is not. But it does suggest that wild greens could contribute to nutrition, food security, and sustainability in urban ecosystems. Current laws, regulations, and public-health guidance that forbid or discourage foraging on public lands, including urban areas, should be revisited.

scholarly journals “In Today’s Society, It’s a Necessity”: Latino/a Postsecondary Plans in the College-for-all Era

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah Ovink
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
San Francisco ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Low Cost ◽  
College Completion ◽  
Socioeconomic Mobility ◽  
Bay Area ◽  
Large Numbers ◽  
East Bay ◽  
College Completion Rates

Latino/a enrollments at U.S. colleges are rapidly increasing. However, Latinos/as remain underrepresented at four-year universities, and college completion rates and household earnings lag other groups’. Yet, little theoretical attention has been paid to the processes that drive these trends, or to what happens when students not traditionally expected to attend college begin to enroll in large numbers. Longitudinal interviews with 50 Latino/a college aspirants in the San Francisco East Bay Area reveal near-universal college enrollment among these mostly low-income youth, despite significant barriers. East Bay Latino/a youth draw on a set of interrelated logics (economic, regional, family/group, college-for-all) supporting their enrollment, because they conclude that higher education is necessary for socioeconomic mobility. In contrast to the predictions of status attainment and rational choice models, these rationally optimistic college aspirants largely ignore known risks, instead focusing on anticipated gains. Given a postrecession environment featuring increasing costs and uncertain employment, this approach led many to enroll in low-cost, less supportive two-year institutions, resulting in long and winding pathways for some. Results suggest that without structural supports, access to college fails to meaningfully redress stratification processes in higher education and the postrecession economy that significantly shape possibilities for mobility.

scholarly journals Singing in a silent spring: Birds respond to a half-century soundscape reversion during the COVID-19 shutdown

Science ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 370 (6516) ◽  
pp. 575-579 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth P. Derryberry ◽  
Jennifer N. Phillips ◽  
Graham E. Derryberry ◽  
Michael J. Blum ◽  
David Luther
Keyword(s):  
San Francisco ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Motor Vehicle ◽  
Noise Pollution ◽  
Anthropogenic Pressures ◽  
Behavioral Traits ◽  
Bay Area ◽  
Survival And Reproduction ◽  
Acoustic Space ◽  
Favorable Conditions

Actions taken to control the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic have conspicuously reduced motor vehicle traffic, potentially alleviating auditory pressures on animals that rely on sound for survival and reproduction. Here, by comparing soundscapes and songs across the San Francisco Bay Area before and during the recent statewide shutdown, we evaluated whether a common songbird responsively exploited newly emptied acoustic space. We show that noise levels in urban areas were substantially lower during the shutdown, characteristic of traffic in the mid-1950s. We also show that birds responded by producing higher performance songs at lower amplitudes, effectively maximizing communication distance and salience. These findings illustrate that behavioral traits can change rapidly in response to newly favorable conditions, indicating an inherent resilience to long-standing anthropogenic pressures such as noise pollution.

Analysis of Freeway Improvements for Express Bus Service

2005 ◽  
Vol 1925 (1) ◽  
pp. 256-264 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher R. Cherry ◽  
Eric Tang ◽  
Elizabeth Deakin ◽  
Alexander Skabardonis
Keyword(s):  
San Francisco ◽  
Operations Management ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Traffic Simulation ◽  
Simulation Models ◽  
Bay Area ◽  
Bus Service ◽  
Preliminary Planning ◽  
Hov Lanes ◽  
Scenario Testing

In many urban areas, high-occupancy vehicle (HOV) lanes have been provided to permit carpools and express buses to bypass congestion and offer a significant travel time advantage to commuters willing to share a ride or take transit. In many locations, however, HOV lanes are incomplete because of difficulties in securing right-of-way or funding. In other locations, because existing HOV lanes are underutilized, express buses are undersubscribed, or both, questions about their value arise. In this research it is shown how a PARAMICS microscopic traffic simulation model can be used to analyze proposed HOV lanes and their effects on express bus operation along an urban freeway corridor. A PARAMICS application is developed for Interstate 580 in the San Francisco Bay Area and used to test alternative ways of providing HOV lanes. The performance of the corridor is evaluated under plausible scenarios of traffic growth. Traffic simulation models are usually used for detailed operations management. The case study shows that traffic simulation can be an effective preliminary planning and scenario testing tool for evaluating the likely performance of an infrastructure or operations improvement on express bus service.

scholarly journals URBAN STRUCTURE OF THE SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA IN THE CONTEXT OF FORMATION OF A NEW TYPE OF URBAN FABRIC

World Science ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (10(38)) ◽  
pp. 4-9
Author(s):  
Andriy Pavliv
Keyword(s):  
San Francisco ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
San Francisco Bay ◽  
San Francisco Bay Area ◽  
Rapid Development ◽  
Urban Structure ◽  
Urban Forms ◽  
Bay Area ◽  
New Type ◽  
Post Industrial

The purpose of this article is to outline the changes and phenomena within the urban planning structure of the San Francisco bay area, which can be interpreted as impulses associated with the emergence of new post-industrial urban forms. Formation of the theory of impulse modeling of an urban organism requires not only theoretical generalizations and study of the material relating to the peculiarities of the post-industrial (informational) era, but also the search for practical phenomena associated with the rapid development of certain urban areas. At the same time, such development should not be confused with the concept of polycentrism, which was formed during the period of modernism.

scholarly journals ANALYSIS OF THE EFFICIENCY OF USING THE CULINARY PROCESSING OF MUSHROOMS IN ORDER TO REDUCE THE CONCENTRATION OF HEAVY METALS IN THEM

2020 ◽  
pp. 209-222
Author(s):  
Oksana Vradiy
Keyword(s):  
Heavy Metals ◽  
Tap Water ◽  
Absorption Spectrometry ◽  
Forest Steppe ◽  
Distilled Water ◽  
Lead And Cadmium ◽  
Different Types ◽  
The Village ◽  
The Town ◽  
Copper Lead

The samples of mushrooms were collected in the forestry of the village Tyvriv and the town of Kalynivka, Vinnytsia and Kalynivka districts, in the conditions of Right-Bank Forest-Steppe of Ukraine. The studies of heavy metals concentration were performed in the scientific agrochemical laboratory of the Department of Ecology and Environmental Protection, the Faculty of Agronomy and Forestry at Vinnytsia National Agrarian University. The concentrations of Cu, Zn, Pb and Cd of the studied mushrooms were determined by the method of atomic absorption spectrometry after the dry mineralization. The research of the effect of culinary processing on the concentration of heavy metals in mushrooms were conducted according to the following scheme: 1. The control: mushrooms, cleaned and washed with tap water; 2. Option 1: mushrooms soaked in tap water for 3 hours and boiled in it; 3. Option 2: mushrooms soaked in the water without mineral residue for 3 hours and boiled in it; 4. Option 3: mushrooms soaked in distilled water for 3 hours and boiled in it. Summarizing the obtained results, it should be noted that the most effective way to reduce the concentration of lead and cadmium in mushrooms was the option of soaking and boiling mushrooms in the water without mineral residue. The most effective way to reduce the concentration of zinc and copper was Option 3, where distilled water was used. The influence of soaking and boiling mushrooms in different types of water is investigated. When soaking and boiling mushrooms in tap water for 3 hours, the concentration of zinc in them was found to decrease from 1.01 to 1.04 times, the concentration of copper – from 1.0 to 1.2 times, the concentration of lead – from 1.09 to 1.16 times and the concentration of cadmium – from 1.08 to 1.2 times. When soaking and boiling mushrooms in the water without mineral residue, the concentration of zinc decreased from 1.01 to 1.04 times, the concentration of copper – from 1.16 to 1.25 times, the concentration of lead – from 1.8 to 2.0 times and the concentration of cadmium – from 1.75 to 2.0 times. When soaking mushrooms and boiling them in distilled water, the concentration of zinc decreased from 1.13 to 1.18 times, the concentration of copper – from 1.2 to 1.29 times, the concentration of lead – from 1.22 to 1.28 times and the concentration of cadmium – from 1.08 to 1.2 times. Key words: mushrooms, concentration, zinc, copper, lead, cadmium, distilled water, water without mineral residue, tap water, boiling of mushrooms.

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