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Book review: ‘A Crack in Creation’

Title: “A Crack in Creation” Authors: Jennifer A. Doudna & Samuel H. Sternberg My rating: ☆☆☆☆☆ Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Release date: June 13, 2017 on Amazon More often than not, it’s difficult to determine which new titles will have staying power 10, 20 or 50 years from now. But “A Crack in Creation” deserves to be on any short list of decidedly important nonfiction books of 2017. The reason is not simply because of the authors’ pedigree — co-author Jennifer Doudna is credited as the chief pioneer behind CRISPR, the potentially world-changing gene-editing technique. The book’s impact is also buttressed by the authors’ scientific rigor, deeply felt passion, and understanding of the world-changing consequences of their research. Doudna and

Photos of world-class Olympic swimmers

or the past 11 years I’ve received photographer credentials for the annual Santa Clara Arena Pro Swim series, the last major swim meet leading up to the U.S. Nationals, under the auspices of USA Swimming. I’ve generally shot these for Swimming World magazine. You don’t get a chance to yak it up at length with these world-class Olympic athletes — after all, they’re there to compete — but it’s been fun to exchange a few words with Missy Franklin, Ryan Lochte and some of the other swimming greats. If you watch the Olympics, you’ll be familiar with many of these names. Here are some of my favorite shots:

A glimpse of the VR deluge ahead

Outtakes from the VR Tuesday meetup in San Francisco OK, you’ve heard about this virtual reality thing and know something big is coming down the road, but what is it, how big will it be and is it worth paying attention to? Last night I wandered out to Shasta Ventures in South Park, the longtime epicenter of the tech revolution in San Francisco, for VR Tuesday #9, the ninth monthly gathering dedicated to unpacking the world of virtual reality, augmented reality, mixed reality and the digital 3D world. Founder Jacob Mullins, a partner at Shasta Ventures, brings in three entrepreneurs or developers every month to talk about the real-world, commercial applications of this stuff.

Dish of the year: Oven-roasted lamb

I‘m not about to turn this into a food blog, but I came across one of the best new recipes of the past year recently, tweaked it a bit to cut down on the calories, and served it to friends who loved it. And I’m sure I’ll lose the recipe unless I stash it here! See the photo above for how it turned out.

SXSW publishes my gazpacho recipe

Today is the kickoff of the 20th annual South by Southwest Interactive, the seminal glimpse-of-the-future gathering held each March in Austin. I’ve attended four times, spoken there three times, was admitted as press last year but couldn’t attend, and can’t make it this year because I have to fly to Miami to attend the year’s biggest cruise conference. But I’m still jazzed that SXSW has decided this year to publish “The Official SXSW 2014 Interactive Cookbook.” Inside the cookbook, you’ll find recipes from over 100 former South by Southwest speakers. The recipes, which span from Eggs Benedict Pasta to Vegetable Jell-O, speak to the creativity and diversity of the SXSW community.

Photos from Santa Clara Grand Prix

Here’s the set of more than 220 photos I shot as a credentialed photographer (for seven years in a row now) of the Santa Clara Grand Prix, including a roll call of Olympians: the world’s greatest swimmer, Ryan Lochte (above), Missy Franklin, Nathan Adrian, Jessica Hardy, Elizabeth Pelton, Dana Vollmer, Caitlin Leverenz, Elizabeth Beisel, Laura Sogar, Matt Grevers, Tyler Clary, Maria Gonzalez Ramirez, Gillian Ryan, Kevin Cordes, Fernanda Gonzalez, Allison Schmidt and dozens of others.

Highlights of Pleasanton and the Tri-Valley

Here’s a short chat I had with Amy Blaschka, President and CEO of the Tri-Valley Convention & Visitors Bureau, about the Tri-Valley region (where I live), located in the San Francisco East Bay. The Tri-Valley consists of Pleasanton, Livermore, Danville, San Ramon and Dublin, and it’s best known for the Livermore wine region, golf, an amazing array of parks and sports fields, and the historic downtowns of some of the cities, especially Pleasanton.

Oral history resources

Editor’s note: I’ve left the dead links in this article intact as a way of capturing a snapshot of resources available at the time. By Susan Kitchens, Family Oral History and Jennifer Myronuk, Storyfield Oral history can take the form of audio, video or multimedia storytelling with sounds and photos. What’s important is that you begin recording the stories of people important to you — family members, loved ones, friends and community members who have done something interesting, or even remarkable. (We all have!) Here are some resources to get you on your way: Oral history: Getting started

Digital footsteps

If you’ve ventured onto the Net, your past may follow you in ways you’d never imagine ur past now follows us as never before. For centuries, refugees sailed the Atlantic to start new lives. Easterners pulled up stakes and moved west to California. Today, reinvention and second chances come less easily. You may leave town, but your electronic shadow stays behind, as anyone who has ventured onto the Internet well knows. We often view the Internet as a communication medium or an information-retrieval tool, but it’s also a powerful archiving medium that takes snapshots of our digital lives — and can store those fleeting images forever.

OhmyNews: ‘Every citizen can be a reporter’

A tour inside the newsroom of the pioneering citizen journalism publication Following is a Q&A with Jean K. Min, communications director of OhmyNews International, the trail-blazing citizen journalism publication in Seoul, South Korea. The exchange — with questions put to him by myself and Matthew Lee of the Center for Citizen Media — took place in January 2007.