Australia

The first episode of the year premiered Jan. 26, after a short break over the holidays. “Case 105: Louise Bell” covers the disappearance of 10-year-old Louise Bell in Adelaide, Australia in 1982.

Kuchar is a musician, an educator, a performer and a member of the Jewish community — a background shared with Troye Sivan. “He’s another Jewish kid from Australia, and he has a lot of ties particularly to the Jewish community that I grew up in,” Kuchar says.

As lights went up on “The Boy From Oz” at the Gateway Theater on Oct. 27, the musical’s star Justin Genna leaped and pirouetted toward the front of the stage to applause before standing stone-still and performing a somewhat tuneless song about the many lives of Peter Allen.

UC Berkeley announced Tuesday that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has granted a patent to CRISPR, a gene-editing technology.

Just as in the first song of the group’s sophomore album, the members of Hiatus Kaiyote introduced themselves with escalating synths — a crescendo reminiscent of THX’s iconic “Deep Note.” “Choose your weapon,” Nai Palm sang to the audience. She seemed determined to make full use of her voice.

In surveying the crowd gathered in anticipation for Tash Sultana, it was clear that the reggae/psychedelic rock star doesn’t just have casual fans.

Upon arriving in San Francisco in 2002, Spanish multi-instrumentalist and composer Raúl Vargas, now a member of the band Makrú, did not intend to stay.

Writing about art put me close to so many artists. It was exhilarating. But I was only ever close.