Planet Cardinal

Sea Studios Foundation, established by Mark Shelley, ’72, Nancy Burnett, ’65, and Michael DeLapa, ’78, MS ’79, MBA ’85, has produced National Geographic’s Strange Days on Planet Earth, a four-part documentary set to air on PBS beginning April 20. The program, hosted by actor Edward Norton, examines new evidence of rapid global change. Several Stanford scientists were advisers on the show.... The Austrian postal service is issuing a stamp honoring Carl Djerassi, professor emeritus of chemistry, in March. Djerassi was born in Vienna in 1923 and fled with his family in 1938 during the Nazi occupation. The stamp recently was included in an exhibit held at the Jewish Museum in Vienna.... Brian Atwater, ’73, MS ’74, a tsunami expert with the U.S. Geological Society, was the subject of a report on National Public Radio’s “Weekend Edition” in early January. Atwater’s research has shown that a tsunami at least as large as the recent one in the Indian Ocean hit what is now the northwestern United States in 1700, destroying native villages.... Chris Bischof, ’92, MA ’93, founder of Eastside College Preparatory School in East Palo Alto, won a Jefferson Award from the American Institute for Public Service for his community service work. Bischof established the school in 1996 with eight students. Today its student body has grown to 197, with 20 full-time teachers. All of Eastside’s graduates have gone on to college.... It’s not every day that the practice of law includes questions about who owns a Picasso, but Ellis Horvitz, ’49, JD ’51, and Mary-Christine Sungaila, ’88, are involved in one such case before the California Supreme Court. The dispute centers on whether the painter’s Femme en Blanc belongs to the grandson of the woman who owned it before Nazis stole it, or to the couple who bought it in good faith in 1975.