Let's catch up ...

Silicon Valley's 'Impossible Burger' Makes Bay Area Debut, NBC Bay Area

Silicon Valley's well-backed plant based burger with realistic meat taste landed on two prominent Bay Area menus on Thursday. The Impossible Burger has been developed over the past five years by Redwood City's Impossible Foods, a private company founded by former Stanford University biochemistry professor Patrick O. Brown. Though based in the Bay Area, the product was unveiled in the summer at Momofuku Nishi, a restaurant based in New York City. Read more...

Bay Area Rental Market Cools, Mercury News

At long last, the Bay Area rental market is cooling. That's the takeaway from a new report by Novato-based RealFacts showing that third-quarter rents for the nine-county region have barely budged — they're up 1 percent from a year ago — and in some cities have even fallen.

According to the RealFacts report, the average San Jose apartment now rents for $2,500, up 0.6 percent from the third quarter of 2015, while in San Francisco — ground zero for disproportionate rent hikes — the average rent actually fell by 3.4 percent.

Of course, the typical apartment in San Francisco still rents for $3,499, far out of reach for most middle-class workers. In Oakland, renters can count on spending an average of $2,927, according to the report. Oakland rents were up 2.8 percent on a year-over-year basis, but that was significantly down from increases of 5.4 percent, 7.2 percent and 13.7 percent, respectively, in the previous three quarters. Read more...

Bay Area Bike Share to Offer Cash Payments, Reduced Fares to Low-Income Cyclists, East Bay Times

Bike Share is making it easier for low-income Bay Area residents to use the two-wheeled service by reducing their annual membership fee to $5 for the first year, and allowing them to pay with cash, representatives from Motivate, the company that operates Bay Area Bike Share, said Tuesday.

The company currently operates 70 bike-sharing stations with 700 bikes clustered in San Francisco's downtown and spread throughout Palo Alto, Redwood City, Mountain View and San Jose. It will be expanding to hundreds of stations with 7,000 bikes in San Jose, San Francisco and the East Bay beginning in the spring of 2017, Simons said. Read more..

Human Treatment for Epilepsy Could Aid Sea Lions, NBC Bay Area

Marking an unusual connection between humans and sea creatures, marine mammal experts in Sausalito hope to soon begin testing human epilepsy drugs on sea lions stricken by a marine toxin.

The center, which is perched on a hilltop overlooking the Pacific Ocean, has seen an uptick in sea lions suffering domoic acid poisoning, a naturally occurring toxin that is released in algae blooms. Unusually warm waters off the California coast over the past couple of years have lead to an increase in domoic acid which builds up in shellfish and anchovies — the sea lions' primary diet. Read More...

Kevin Durant's Ex-Teammates Have Been Secretly Calling Him Out on Social Media for Months, SF Gate

The most passive-aggressive fight in sports got even more passive-aggressive this week with an added ingredient: cupcakes. Since leaving the Thunder for the superstar Warriors, Kevin Durant has become persona non grata in Oklahoma City, rankling his former teammates for both leaving them behind and for his effusive praise of the Warriors along the way.

Most of the bickering has been low-key, but Sports Illustrated just revealed that KD's ex-teammates in OKC have been quietly taking shots at him by posting photos of cupcakes. Read more...