The San Francisco Examiner from San Francisco, California • 2

A-2 Friday, March 12, 1993 SAN FRANCISCO EXAMINER KEAY DAVIDSON Bars show general period of pollination for plants of allergenic Importance greater, SCIENCE AM 0 Boating Not a bad weekend for boating except for the fog. San Francisco and other interior bays will have variable winds at 15 knots out of the south with mostly cloudy skies throughout the weekend. Monterey Bay will have fog, southerly winds and S-foot seas. to insomnia, too, according to a study reported in the current issue of the journal Sleep." statement from American Sleep Disorders AssociationSleep Research Society. Bars are thicker when pollination Is Trees Alder Juniper, cypress Liquidambar Elm Ash Cottonwood Mulberry Birch Sycamore WalniuF Olive" Pine, spruce, deodar cedar Grasses Weeds Plantain nhpnnnnris Mugwort sage Ragweed group Compositae Sorrel, dock Weed pollen counts are very low.

Russian thistle, lambs quarters, pigweed, the scales SOURCE: Berkeley Biological Co. Rain; nrrinf is IM Mi. WORTH READING: Gerrit L. Ver-schuur is one of my favorite astronomy writers, and his new book, "Hidden Attraction The Mystery and History of Magnetism" (Oxford University Press, $25), finds him branching in new directions. One of Ver-schuur's most appealing traits is his appreciation of history.

He Erin go blah And now spring comes, spreading her noxious dandelions. Whatever cynic said that obviously didn't live in California in the springtime where the hills are alive with color a few dandelions, maybe, but millions of California poppies and other blooms. The lupine are aflower on Marin's hills they're the blue blooms that led to the naming of Larkspur by a Scottish tourist who mistook them for the blossoms of her homeland. The daffodils on Amador's famed Daffodil Hill above Volcano, however, have not quite made it yet. Folks up there expect them to bloom in the next few days and Daffodil Hill will officially open next weekend.

Compared to last weekend and the earlier part of this week, the Golden State's weekend weather looks fairly blah, warm but cloudy and windy. Fog Expect summerlike fog meaning heavy and chilly all along the coast in the mornings and evenings all weekend. You might get some sun at the beaches Saturday afternoon, but only for about 13 minutes. The rest of the weekend, if it's not foggy, it'll be cloudy. And north of Bodega, it's likely to be rainy as well.

There'll also be early and late fog in the valleys. Skiing Cloudier and chillier than last weekend but that probably means better skiing, because the surfaces won't get so slushy. On the other hand, they may be icy. Even with the clouds, be careful of sunburn. Temperatures in the 40s, a little breezy.

Some snow is likely north of Lake Tahoe Saturday night and Sunday, but not enough to mess up the roads. Carry chains anyway. The CityBay Area Not good, not bad. Foggy and cool in the morning, cloudy and warm in the afternoon. Good time to do your gardening the ground's warm enough for your plants, the air's cool enough for your body.

trigger Similar conditions along the rest of the coast. Southern California Windy, sunny and warm, Santa Ana winds to 30 mph should drive temperatures along the beaches from Santa Barbara to Baja well into the 80s. So-so surfing conditions with 3-foot waves 1 1 seconds apart. The Mojave will be in the 70s, Death Valley near 90. Both are ablaze with wildflowers.

The nation It's winter again, or still, in the East and Midwest. Weather all along the Atlantic Coast is going to be major-league nasty, with gale force winds, high surf, rain, snow and other typically eastern things. Expect snow and probably airport delays in New York, Boston, Providence, Baltimore and Washington, D.C., as well as at smaller airports and almost certainly Chicago; rain and thunderstorms in Florida; snow and freezing rain in the lower Midwest and Southeast. It's windy and cold in Wyoming and Iowa. Going to extremes: Hottest place in the country (on the thermometer and nothing else) continues to be 91 at Thermal, in the Coachella Valley; the coldest, 13 below, are Devil's Lake, N.D., and Warroad, Minn.

Foreign places Boris Yeltsin and Moscow are in the deep freeze outlook for both is cloudy and cold. It'll be rainy in Harare, Jerusalem, Tokyo and Malta, clear and warm in Abidjan and Auckland, clear and cold in Ankara and Seoul. Not a single place in Latin America is reporting bad weather. Only cool spot is La Paz, Bolivia, with temperatures in the mid-40s. Hot spots are Tegucigalpa, Panama City and Asuncion, in the mid-80s.

Patrick's you're going to Dublin for the observance, dress as if you were staying in Francisco. Temperatures and skies are just about like here and the weather for the next week is, like the and San Francisco, unpredictable. Larry D. Hatfield 1-800-281-EXAM. bad allergy season Sports and horses Mild weather and a fast track at Golden Gate Fields for the $100,000 Miss America Handicap with supermare Southern Truce.

At the baseball camps in Arizona, it's getting hotter and drier, as it's supposed to. The Florida camps may have thunderstorms. For home delivery call St. It San Irish DIN TO A Secrets of scientists' love lives OMANCE AND RESEARCH: Do scientists have trouble falling in love? That's the legend purveyed by countless films portraying brainy but passionless nerds in lab coats. As usual, Hollywood stereo types mirror popular prejudices.

"Back in the 1950s, Margaret Mead and Rhoda Me- traux reported a survey of the attitudes of high school students that showed their reaction to the thought of actually becoming a scientist (or, worse, marrying one) was overwhelmingly negative," Marc Nicholls writes in New Scientist. "One of the most popularly cited images of the male scientist at work was dear old Victor Frankenstein a woman's creation, of course and someone whose problems began with his isolation and sup pression of emotional relationships." Of course, a stereotype may contain a grain of truth. Some scientists really prefer their labs to lovers: "It is said that following his marriage to Mary Stilwell 1871, Thomas Edison dashed straight back to his laboratory and did not arrive home until the following morning." Which reminds me of the great and noble Hans Bethe, the physicist who helped us understand how the sun shines via nuclear fusion. In the 1930s he and his girlfriend lolled on a sunny hillside. They snuggled; intimate actions followed.

Suddenly he interrupted their necking to sit up, stare at the sun, and shout: "I know what makes that son-of-a-bitch shine!" But Cupid strikes all sooner or later even scientists. It's easy to empathize with poor, doomed Dian Fossey, the gorilla expert whose caustic personality concealed a yearning for human warmth (especially in the jungle). All she got for her efforts was a National Geographic photographer's rejection: "No, I'm sorry Dian, I just can't Lady Luck was kinder to the great quantum physicist Erwin Schro-dinger. He was a veritable Don Juan, and made his greatest discovery in the 1920s while having an affair with a Frdulein in a European ski lodge. EASY AS PI: "Pi Day" is coming Sunday at San Francisco's famed science museum, the Ex-ploratorium.

From 1 to 1:30 p.m. lecturer Larry Shaw will discuss Albert Einstein's theories of physics. Then he'll talk about ii a. ASS matical sip- 0 nificance of pi (the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter). Afterwards hell serve pie.

I'm not kidding. Don't you just love this town? More pi-related entertainment follows the pie feast. Go, learn and eat and take your kids. It's first-come, first-served. SNOOZE NEWS, 5: "People who have trouble carrying on a conversation at a cocktail party may have a higher vulnerability By John Flinn OF THE EXAMINER STAFF Wheezing, red-eyed allergy sufferers are looking up from their antihistamine sniffers long enough to curse the fact that California's long drought is finally over.

For them, the abundant winter rains have triggered the biggest crop of hay fever-producing pollen to blight the landscape in years. "Allergy season is just starting to hit, and it looks like it's going to be a big one this year," said Dr. Jeffrey Davidson, an allergist in San Francisco's Financial District. "It's been so long since we've had what California considers a normal year that people tend to forget what it's like." During the six-year drought, parched trees, bushes and grasses hunkered down in survival mode and conserved energy by producing smaller amounts of pollen. Life, for allergy sufferers at least, was sweet.

But now that the soil is saturated with life-giving water, California's shrubbery is ready to let the good times and the pollen roll Up first are junipers, cypress trees and acacias, popular ornamental plants that are just starting to release their pollen in San Francisco. Then come oak and sycamore trees in April, and pine, spruce and cedar trees later that same month. Batting cleanup are half a dozen species of grasses that will unleash a crescendo of pollen in May, ta- JAPANESE ANTIQUE SALE knows that yd scientific ideas don't emerge in a vacuum. Rather, they are products of their social and material environments. Magnetism offers a splendid example.

He suggests that we can thank (or blame) natural magnets called "lodestones" for our modern civilization. In the early 19th century, the discovery of the link between electricity and magnetism which are really a single force, "electromag-netism" helped pave the path to much modem science and technology, including telephones, computers, radio, TV and the dynamos that power our cities (plus grand, abstract theories such as relativity). "Without lodestone," Verschuur observes, "famous physicists such as Oersted, Ampere and Faraday would have had no magnets in their laboratories and could not have learned about electromagnetism when they did. In that case, 20th century civilization would not have reached its present degree of technological evolution. I would go so far as to argue that without lodestone to trigger the curiosity of long-dead philosophers and scientists our culture might still be getting around on horseback." Think about that the next time you use a refrigerator magnet.

VOX P0PULI: George Ham-mons of San Jose didn't like my effort to defend the president's daughter against brain-dead journalists who care more about her looks than her scientific interests. "Your 'Stereotype Watch No. 2' about Chelsea Clinton is the biggest bunch of crap I've ever read," Ham-mons charged. "The media is not and will not 'do' a damn thing to Chelsea, because she is the daughter of a liberal, left-wing, Democratic president. Indeed, she will be the darling of the leftist media.

Man, get a life!" And Warren C. Paulsen of San Francisco says my column is "worthwhile," but "why not leave out the socio-political commentary? It seems unnecessary. Surely, you do not consider your readers need schooling in politically correct thinking?" Sorry, but I take my orders straight from Moscow. CONGRATS to two California teachers who make a difference. On Monday, President Clinton is scheduled to give a Presidential Award for Excellence in Science and Mathematics Teaching to Tayeko Kaufman, a Muir Beach resident who teaches science at Kent Middle School in Kentfield.

The other California winner is math teacher Glenys Bell of Brea Olinda High School in Brea. Keay Davidson is The Examiner's science writer. His column appears on Fridays. and pickleweed all belong to this group. Examiner graphics big, pering off through the summer.

"The trees are happy right now, but the people with allergies sure aren't," said Dr. Ivor Emanuel, another San Francisco allergist. "I can look out in my waiting room and see that right away." Dr. Donald German, an allergist with the Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in The City, said: "Every year they say it's going to be really bad, but this year, for the first time, I agree. "We haven't had a good rain like this for many years.

The grasses really have a good head start." If your nose is running and your eyes are bloodshot, Davidson advises: Stay indoors as much as possible. If you must go running, avoid doing it between 1 and 3 p.m., when grass pollens are at their zenith. While driving, shut your windows and turn your air conditioner to the highest setting, which prevents outside air from being channeled in. Don't hang your sheets or clothes out on the line to dry, because pollen will adhere to them. Think there's too much fat in government? Too many employees who don't work hard enough? Too much waste? Misuse of public property? Tell us.

We'll expose it. Since we started the Fat City hot line, hundreds of you have called. We're following up on your suggestions. We told you about thousands of free Muni Fast Passes given to wives and children of Muni employees as well as to workers of other agencies supervised by the Public Utilities Commission. We told you about costly travel expenses and benefits paid to part-time Golden Gate Bridge District board members.

We told you about a potentially embarrassing investigation of Muni goldbricking. And we told you about city employees using San Francisco's exclusive Sierra hideaway for free. Your tips led to our reports on excessive sick leave at City Hall and on the $4 million-a-year aides to top Fire Department officials. The more information you give us the better. If you want a reporter to call you, please leave a phone number.

PHONE: (415) 777-7855 FAX: (415) 957-1013 ADDRESS: Examiner. P.O. Box 7260, San Francisco, CA 94120 niHpMOminOIIIMRVMLII HUNI.J M. Think there's too much fat in government? Sale Mar. 12 thru Mar.

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24 4 6 13 27 30 33 Fob. 20 6 24 36 37 42 46 Fob. 17 9 14 17 20 33 41 Fob. 13 1 6 7 13 16 30 DAILY 3 Thursday's draw: 4 59 FANTASY 5 Thursday's draw: 2 10 14 21 37 DECCO Thursday's cards: S75 f6 OA T2 Lottery recording: (415) 875-2220 (English) (415) 875-2240 (Espanol) San Francisco office: (415) 875-2200 The Examiner corrects errors. Please notify the editor: P.O.

Box 7260, San Francisco 94120. 1 Cfl (D) AND UP NO RETURNS OR EXCHANGES. ALL SALES FINAL Haeslat WHAT'S UP: Before dawn Saturday, the moon's bright limb occults (passes in front of) a second-magnitude star in the constellation Scorpius. nnftantim Examiner For delivery call toll free 1-800-281-EXAM Stockton Stmt Francltoo 415-S99-0422 Son Franeltco Contro San Fmnctaco 415-543-4480 StonMtown OollorH Son Franctteo 419-001-1332.