A new agreement between the family of Henrietta Lacks and the National Institutes of Health marks a historic moment, but leaves questions unresolved.

Inadequate air monitoring systems near the Bay Area's five refineries remain a big concern for local communities.

A group instrumental in the recovery of peregrine falcons in California is now battling the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

When Google went public, Stanford University made millions. That's because it had equity not only in Google's intellectual property, but in the company itself. That kind of direct investment in a startup wasn't allowed at the University of California, until now. UC President Janet Napolitano made it possible by removing guidelines for industry-academic relations. The change raises questions about ethics, funding and the future of basic research.

Last weekend's 6.0-magnitude earthquake, centered at the southern edge of Napa, was the strongest to strike the Bay Area since the Loma Prieta quake of 1989. Scientists are in the area studying what happened, and learning a fair bit that upends what they thought was going on in the region. We get the details from KQED Science Editor Craig Miller.

While many run from the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, some brave souls are running toward the region to help. Dr. James Appel is one of those. Trained in the Inland Empire at the Loma Linda University School of Medicine, he's been working for Adventist Health International at hospitals in Chad for the last decade. Last week, Dr. Appel flew to Liberia to keep the doors open at Cooper Adventist, a small hospital in the capitol, Monrovia.

Biomimicry, ecosystem restoration, grassroots movement building and climate change are the types of issues the Bioneers Conference addresses each year, bringing together scientists, innovators, business leaders and activists. This year marks the 25th anniversary of the conference. We talk with co-founder and CEO Kenny Ausubel about what the organization has achieved and what projects are on the horizon.

Fifty years ago, following near-unanimous Congressional support, President Johnson signed the Wilderness Act into law. The landmark bill designated more than 9 million acres as wilderness areas, defined as lands "untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain." Today's wilderness system encompasses nearly 106 million acres throughout the country's national parks, forests and wildlife refuges. We discuss the legacy of the Wilderness Act, and the future of the American wilderness.

The Bay Area loses about 23 billion gallons of water a year because of old, leaky water pipes. That's enough to supply more than 70,000 families for a year. It's an enormous waste in a time of drought, and the aging infrastructure is vulnerable to natural disaster. After this week's earthquake, water main breaks left hundreds without water for days. What would happen in a bigger quake? We check in with water experts about the Bay Area's aging infrastructure and what's being done to fix it.