Comstock’s monthly look at the business news in the Capital Region. Here’s some stuff that happened in October.

The big idea was garbage.

Frederick Janson was in the garage, taking the trash out of his first house in North Natomas. That was when he noticed how full the blue recycle bin was with plastic containers. He realized these recyclables he was paying somebody to take away could be used as building materials.

Comstock’s monthly look at business news in the Capital Region. Want to know what happened in September? Then read on, my friends.

Environmentalists are accustomed to notching wins in the California Legislature, where their projects often receive a friendly hearing from a supermajority of Democrats and a governor with a laser focus on climate change.

New UC Davis Chancellor Dr. Gary May arrived at the university with a stellar reputation for innovation, leadership and academic equality for all students. We sat down with him recently to discuss his plans and goals for one of the region’s landmark institutions.

From a robot’s perspective, humans probably look like deeply flawed creatures: imprecise, accident-prone, injury-ridden, hazardous — walking glitches waiting to happen.

This view isn’t exactly wrong.

Dr. Jeffery Wajda, chief medical information officer at UC Davis, offers his insight into the future of digital data.

Infrastructure improvements are costly, and with too few customers spread over too great a distance, are usually not worth the return on investment for business.

But some ISPs are finding ways.

John Paul, CEO of Spiral Internet, offers his insight into rural broadband capabilities. For more from Paul, check out “The Long Reach” in our September issue. Sign up for our newsletter and we’ll email you when it’s available online.

Paulette Trainor, of Paulette Trainor Design, offers her insight into the nexus of technology and good design.

We’ve all been there: You’re waiting to give a big presentation, maybe you dread public speaking, and you feel your stomach twist itself into a pretzel. Or maybe you meet someone new, someone interesting, and when they make eye contact you feel your stomach do a joyful little flip. It happens all of the time. We feel things before we have time to mentally process.

Jason Guardino, a gastroenterologist and an assistant physician in chief at Kaiser Permanente South Sacramento Medical Center, gives his perspective on how our guts have become front and center in the understanding of our overall health.

When Adrian Cummings arrived for his first Startup Hustle session, he had the prototype for an idea — a complete light kit for bicycles — but no customer research, business plan or marketing concept.

In the 27 years I have lived in Davis, there has only been one sizeable business park with wet lab space for life sciences and ag biotechnology companies, which is University Research Park at the corner of Drew Avenue and Richards Boulevard. Each and every time another proposed development for wet lab space comes up to the Davis City Council or to voters, it fails to get a green light.

Children at River Oaks Elementary School in Galt are more than just students. They’re scientists in the classroom and they do what scientists do — observe, ask questions, identify problems, gather data, analyze it and apply this knowledge in science, technology, engineering and mathematics to the real world.

Aaron Nitzkin, founder and CEO of Solar Roof Dynamics in Davis, offers his perspective on the future of solar energy. For more from Nitzkin, check out “Daylight Savings” in our June issue. Sign up for our newsletter and we’ll email you when it’s available online.

From texts to photos to emails, every modern law case involves some sort of e-discovery — so why are lawyers still failing to do it?

Ron Bodenmann, founding partner of CyberCorp Forensics, gives his insights into e-discovery. 

Under sunny skies at Argonaut High School in Jackson, representatives from the Amador County Public Schools system and OpTerra Energy Services recently celebrated the official groundbreaking of the Amador GOLD program. The public-private partnership combines school infrastructure improvement and energy-efficiency projects with STEM education for students.

FourthWave, a nonprofit accelerator program for women-led tech companies, expanded from its Los Angeles pilot to Sacramento in March and is already working with its first seven entrepreneurs. We sat down with Cheryl Beninga, who is the managing director of Beninga Advisors and who cofounded FourthWave Sacramento with Tracy Saville, CEO of Sofia Al., to talk about women in technology and the regional tech scene.