Podcast appearances and mentions of larissa branin

How does one make a brain atlas? John Ngai, a neuroscientist at the University of California, Berkeley explains. “You can think of it as a taxonomy. You might think about what are all the species of birds that there are on Earth, you might think of it as needing to first identify those types.” So, just like with a bird encyclopedia, UC Berkeley neurologists are trying to find and organize brain cells into a catalogue of sorts. “We know there are many different types of neurons in the brain. They look different. We might have some ideas about how they function differently. But we have no rational way of categorizing them. But using new molecular and genetic techniques, we have a very powerful way of classifying them.” The brain atlas is an ambitious multimillion-dollar project that will help researchers better understand how brain cells wire up and function. And that could be the key to cure of neurological diseases, including autism and Alzheimer’s. For Science Today, I’m Larissa Branin.

Are yogurt, kefir and other probiotics really good for you? Researchers at the University of California, San Francisco, believe the benefits of these products may be overstated. Michael Cabana, a professor of pediatrics, came to this conclusion while trying to figure out if a probiotic strain called LGG helps prevent the development of eczema or asthma in kids predisposed to these diseases. “At two years of age we found that there is no difference in eczema levels between the kids. Despite the fact that previous studies have shown this probiotic strain helps prevent eczema in other countries, in the San Francisco area we didn’t find the same results.” The UCSF findings further fuel the ongoing debate about the benefits of friendly bacteria in dietary supplements. “We still learned a lot from this study and we still continue following these kids. It is probably more complicated than just giving a probiotic supplement.” Genetic factors and other types of baby food, including breast milk, also affect a child’s microbiota. For Science Today, I’m Larissa Branin.

How important is it for pregnant women to get enough sleep? Researchers at the University of California, San Francisco, have recently conducted a study linking the lack of a good night’s rest to complications at delivery. “Our study was the first to examine insomnia diagnosed during pregnancy and the risk of preterm birth. And our findings suggested that women with an insomnia diagnoses during pregnancy are at nearly two times higher risk for delivering before 34 weeks of gestation”. That’s UCSF clinical psychologist Jennifer Felder. She urges mothers to pay extra attention to sleeping patterns in order to protect their babies. “And this is really important because In the United States one in 10 women deliver their babies preterm. And it is now the leading cause of death before the age of 5 globally.” Scientists hope that by treating sleep disorders they could reduce the rate of preterm births. For Science Today, I’m Larissa Branin.

Every year, almost 2 million Americans suffer from traumatic brain injury, which often lead to severe memory loss and learning disabilities. Peter Walter, a biochemist at the University of California, San Francisco, has recently discovered a drug that can completely reverse these impairments in mice. “The mice learned better. They have a better ability of taking short term memory and storing it in long term memory. It is a drug that enhances synaptic plasticity that allow memory to form.” Scientists need to conduct more studies to learn if the same improvements can be achieved in humans. “Whether we can extrapolate it to humans is still an open question. Mice’ brains are very different from human brains.” But since traumatic brain injury is a serious problem with no approved therapies available for patients, these studies may offer researchers new insight. For Science Today, I’m Larissa Branin.

This week on Science Today, we learned something that many of you probably already know – and that’s how curiosity is often the main ingredient in scientific discovery. So many of the researchers we interview every week, often make breakthroughs by simply wondering about the world around them or asking different questions. In the case of nutrition researcher Angela Zivkovic at UC Davis, in her case it was a picture that prompted her to a discovery that the composition of sugars coating HDL particles in body may be a biomarker for disease. "It was an electron micrograph of the inside of an arterial wall and it was hairy looking, right? And it’s because the endothelial cells that line the inside of your arteries are actually covered with these sugars. They’re kind of like these structures that help make sure certain things get through and certain things don’t get through from the bloodstream. And when I saw that picture I realized, well if your cells that these HDL particles have to kind of interact with are covered with sugars, then the HDL must be covered with sugars, too." And at UCSF, environmental health scientist Tracey Woodruff wanted to understand how chemicals in the environment intersect with health disparities. "For example, African American women have higher rates of adverse birth outcomes like preterm birth and low birthweight. Is it because one of the reasons of this health disparity is because there is some type of environmental factors that are also combining with the factors that are due to their circumstances, that put their pregnancy more at risk?" And additional stressors like discrimination or domestic violence are exacerbated by environmental factors like air pollution or cigarette smoke. So by asking this question and digging further, Woodruff hopes their findings may lead to the implementation of better environmental policies, especially in impoverished areas that often get exposed to chemicals. And these are just two University of California researchers who are trying to make a difference in the world. Subscribe to Science Today on iTunes or follow us on Soundcloud to hear about others. Thanks for listening, I’m Larissa Branin. Subscribe to Science Today: iTunes: apple.co/1TQBewD Stitcher: www.stitcher.com/podcast/science-today Follow us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/ucsciencetoday Stories mentioned in this roundup: https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/curiosity_research

Sometimes, breakthroughs in science really do come down to simple curiosity. That was definitely the case when a team of researchers at the University of California, Davis decided to look more closely at the composition of HDL particles in the body. One of HDL's jobs is to transport cholesterol out of cells. Nutrition researcher Angela Zivkovic says it was a picture that prompted her to question if HDL may be covered in glycans, or sugars, and how that may impact the body. "It was an electron micrograph of the inside of an arterial wall and it was hairy looking, right? And it’s because the endothelial cells that line the inside of your arteries are actually covered with these sugars. They’re kind of like these structures that help make sure certain things get through and certain things don’t get through from the bloodstream. And when I saw that picture I realized, well if your cells that these HDL particles have to kind of interact with are covered with sugars, then the HJDL must be covered with sugars, too." Their ultimate finding that these sugars do influence anti-inflammatory proteins in the body could lead to biomarkers for disease. For Science Today, I’m Larissa Branin.

Hi there – I’m Larissa Branin, host of Science Today and it’s that time of the week again where we go over some of the stories covered this past week. First, we learned that by the end of the century climate change will likely cause a decline in wheat and barley yields by up to 33 percent. This statistical model was developed by a team of researchers led by UC Davis. Graduate student Matthew Gammans, who worked on the study, told us it was based on 65 years of weather records and data from wheat and barley yields in France.  “So we started by looking at the relationship between weather and yields and then using some climate change projections, we forecasted that relationship into the future to see what we can expect to happen to these yields.” Their work is one of the first flexible statistical models applied to these cereal crops, which means that every potential temperature was included in the analysis. We then chatted with public health professor Kristine Madsen of UC Berkeley about soda consumption in the U.S. falling to a 31-year low last year. Instead, consumers seem to be reaching for lower-calorie produces, including bottled water. Madsen had found similar findings in Berkeley, California after the city passed the nation’s first soda tax back in 2014. “Even in the comparison cities of Oakland and San Francisco, there was an overall increase of 20 percent in water consumption. But it was 63 percent in Berkeley. So, it looks like people were switching from sugar-sweetened beverages to really what I would say is the healthiest alternative.” Speaking of healthy alternatives, there’s even more reason to never start smoking. We learned that even if parents quit before conception, their prior smoking habit may still put their child’s health at risk. UC San Francisco researcher Adam de Smith studied dust in homes where children were diagnosed with leukemia and found an increased level of tobacco particles in the carpeting. “If a family is smoking relatively heavily, they might not even be smoking in the house, they might be smoking outside, but when they come into the home, particles drop onto the carpet. If they have children several years later, we have found that those particles can remain there several years later. So it is possible if a child is playing around on the carpet, he may still be exposed to toxic particles that could perhaps increase the leukemia risk.” And even frequently vacuuming does not eliminate all the dust. So again – all the more reason to never pick up the habit. Well, that’s all for now. If you want to keep on top of all the latest science and health news coming from the University of California system, you’ll find UC Science Today on iTunes. Please subscribe and thanks for listening. Subscribe to Science Today: iTunes: apple.co/1TQBewD Stitcher: www.stitcher.com/podcast/science-today Follow us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/ucsciencetoday Stories mentioned in this roundup: https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/cereal_yields https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/soda_consumption https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/smoking_parents

Hey there! This week on Science Today, we learned how the sense of smell impacts our metabolism. According to Andrew Dillin, a molecular biologist at UC Berkeley, if there is a lack of smell the body is wired to burn all the food that comes in. It doesn’t store any of it. And Dillin discovered that lab animals lacking a sense of smell remained thin even after gorging on fatty food. “There is something about the wiring of the sensory system of smell into the brain to control the rest of the body’s metabolism." But before you think you’ve found the perfect diet, Dillin says scientists still don’t know exactly how the sensory organs for smell are integrated with the brain. That requires more research in the lab – and then there will be more work looking into if the mice research translates to humans. While on campus, we visited psychologist Robert Levenson, who told us that when it comes to looking after loved ones with dementia, caregivers really need to give it their all. “If you are not able to bring your A game to caregiving, the whole quality of caregiving might suffer. As caregivers get more depressed, their level of the stress sort of permeates the entire household. It might be almost contagious in a way that a virus would be contagious. But this would be a psychological virus." Levenson hopes that social services can step in to help caregivers who are depressed, which would not only improve their quality of life, but boost the mortality of the dementia patients they’re looking after. Well, that’s it for this week. To hear more stories about University of California research, check out UC Science Today on iTunes or Soundcloud. I’m Larissa Branin, thanks for listening. Subscribe to Science Today: iTunes: apple.co/1TQBewD Stitcher: www.stitcher.com/podcast/science-today Follow us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/ucsciencetoday Stories mentioned in this roundup: https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/smell_metabolism https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/caregiving_dementia

Narrator: This is Science Today. Sustainable dining is a huge deal on college campuses and the University of California, Santa Barbara is no exception. In fact, for years they’ve been taking an innovative approach towards reducing food waste that incorporates some behavioral psychology. Jill Horst, director of dining services, describes how they dealt with all the half-eaten apples they were noticing in their tray returns. Horst: 9:17 It wasn’t because the apple wasn’t good, but the apple was so large. 9:27 So …we decided, well they have different sized apples, so why don’t we take a look at what would be the best size apple that somebody could consume without any waste? Narrator: They found that a five to six ounce apple was the proper portion. And while the change resulted in much less waste in the dining hall, it wasn’t without some initial push back from students. Horst: “Uh, what happened to the apples? These are, like mini apples”. But we never took anything away, we just sized things the right way. How do you educate them and why are you doing this? And you have a bunch of half-eaten apples as a display to say, this is why we’re doing that. It really resonated with them. Narrator: For Science Today, I’m Larissa Branin.

This week on Science Today, caregiving was a theme – from helping out dementia patients and those who look after them; to giving rice crops in polluted China the best chances to thrive. And even a story about how a college dining hall’s desire to care for the planet, led to an interesting way to cut down on food waste. First, did you know that one in 10 people age 65 and older suffer from dementia? And that the disease takes a toll only on patients, but their caregivers, too. We spoke to psychologist Robert Levenson of UC Berkeley. His new study showed that rates of depression among caregivers are about four times higher than non-caregiving adults in the same age group. And that a depressed caregiver contributes to a faster decline of the loved one with dementia. "If you are being cared for by a quite depressed person, you are going to live, on average, by about 14 months less than if you are being cared for by a person who is not very depressed. This is a significant shortening of life." And at UC Davis, we met with Colin Carter, a professor of agricultural and resource economics. He cares about how surface ozone impacts rice plant production in polluted China. "There’s a critical period during the growing season where you have a day of extremely high ozone that it can reduce the yield up to 1 percent – just one day. So we measured across the country that yields could be reduced by two percent or more." That may not sound like a lot, but it is when you consider the fact that China is the world’s largest producer of rice and the world’s largest importer. So, Carter is hoping their findings will help China enact regulatory polices to alleviate damaging effects of ozone pollution on rice yields. Finally, in an effort to reduce food waste and create a more sustainable approach to dining, Jill Horst at UC Santa Barbara describes how they dealt with all the half-eaten apples they were noticing in their tray returns. "And it wasn’t because the apple wasn’t good, but the apple was so large. So we decided, well, they have different sized apples, so why don’t we take a look at what would be the best size apple that somebody could consume without any waste?" While students at first questioned these dinky apples and wondered why they had them, Horst put up a display of all the wasted, larger apples to show students. It worked and led to much less waste in the dining hall – meaning much less waste in the landfill. That’s all for this week, if you want to stay on top of University of California research, subscribe to Science Today on iTunes or Soundcloud. Until next time, I’m Larissa Branin. Subscribe to Science Today: iTunes: apple.co/1TQBewD Stitcher: www.stitcher.com/podcast/science-today Follow us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/ucsciencetoday Stories mentioned in this roundup: https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/caregivers_dementia https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/rice_ozone https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/apples_waste

It’s time for the weekly roundup again; first – when you think about preschool, you may think it’s all about quality. And while that’s certainly true, we learned that quantity of time spent in pre-K education is just as important. Bruce Fuller, an education professor at the UC Berkeley says this is especially the case for kids from low-income families. “If kids were growing up in poor households, a lot of these parents were working swing shifts, grave yard shifts, or they can’t afford high quality children’s books. So it is probably a resource problem. But when young kids are growing up in these more impoverished settings, then a quality pre-school can pack a much bigger punch." The same study found that middle-class kids showed no change in their academic performance if they stayed in preschool a whole day vs. half a day. And over at UC San Francisco, we learned more about the study linking maternal smoking with acute lymphoblastic leukemia, the most common form of childhood cancer. Adam de Smith says that moms who smoke during pregnancy and after birth are putting their children at risk of the disease. “In the mothers who are exposed to tobacco smoke, there was a higher rate of deletion in the fetal cells that was likely caused by a particular mechanism. It is an innate mechanism in our immune system, which functions to create antibodies to particularly create diversity in our antibodies. And we think when this mechanism goes wrong, or goes into overdrive and has abnormal effects, it can increase the risk of causing deletions in genes around across the genome.” You can hear these and much more stories about University of California research by following Science Today on iTunes. That’s it for now, thanks for listening! I’m Larissa Branin. Subscribe to Science Today: iTunes: apple.co/1TQBewD Stitcher: www.stitcher.com/podcast/science-today Follow us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/ucsciencetoday Stories mentioned in this roundup: https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/preschool_time https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/maternal_smoking

Hi there, hope you’re all having a nice summer – in case you’ve missed some of our stories, he’s a bit of a recap. First, atmospheric scientist Veerabadhran Ramanathan of UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography is looking for a million climate warriors. To get the message out about climate change, Ramanathan is teaming up with 50 University of California academics in various disciplines to propose a hybrid course taught by about 20 faculty that combines videotaped lectures in a class that’s devoted to discussing solutions. "These are people who can roll up their sleeves and try to solve the problem. So, I’m on my own pathway to create those million climate warriors in the UC system." The goal is to pilot these classes first on nine UC campuses and then expand the coursework to other colleges. And on the subject of classes – are you a parent struggling wondering whether or not to send your child to preschool? For four years, Bruce Fuller, a professor of education at UC Berkeley tracked the academic performance of over 6,000 kids up to five years of age. "We have known over the last half century that quality preschools can boost the early learning of children from poor families, but much less is known about the long-term effects of preschool on children from middle class families." But those benefits tended to come from exposure to more academically-intense preschool programs, especially those focused on developing early math skills and verbal communication. While at Berkeley, we learned how neuroscientist Adrian Chopin is trying to help people with a condition called amblyopia, in which vision in one of the eyes is reduced and leads to a loss of stereoscopic vision. "When we train people to have better stereoscopic vision, we put them in front of a computer. We project on a screen, lines of different depth. The task is just to say do you see the line in front or behind the other line, for example." Chopin explained that about 10 percent of people around the world are stereo-impaired, but the rest of us see the world in 3 dimensions and could also benefit from improved stereoscopic vision. Well, that’s all for this week. If you miss Science Today on your local CBS radio affiliate, you can listen to all of our episodes on iTunes. Thanks for listening, I’m Larissa Branin. Subscribe to Science Today: iTunes: apple.co/1TQBewD Stitcher: www.stitcher.com/podcast/science-today Follow us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/ucsciencetoday Stories mentioned in this roundup: https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/climate_warrior https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/preschool https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/good_stereovision

Hey there, in today’s weekly roundup, we find out how a college dining hall makes a dent when it comes to climate change. Jill Horst, the director of residential dining services at the University of California, Santa Barbara, says they stopped using trays in their dining hall. "It just overall was this big, huge impact. The food waste per person, per tray, reduced by 50 percent. That’s a lot! That’s a significant impact to help with not only the food waste, but food cost." Psychology was definitely at play here, as people naturally want to load up a large tray with food, so by removing it, people were carrying their food to the table and their portions adjusted accordingly. Next, as we’re about to hit the triple digits this weekend in parts of the Bay Area, we spoke to Ronnen Levinson, a scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory who has been studying how lighter, more reflective pavements lessen the phenomenon called ‘urban heat islands’, where dark-colored roads and buildings bring a city’s air temperature up. But in a new study, Levinson found there are some trade-offs. "We found that in many cases, switching to a more reflective pavement technology for example, a light grey cement concrete pavement in place of a black asphalt concrete pavement, requires much more energy and carbon." So Levinson suggests that city officials bear this in mind when choosing pavements. Meanwhile, at another national lab – this time, the Livermore Lab – computer scientists describe a tool they’ve developed to improve the computer network security of government agencies, along with state and local agencies. Domingo Colon says their network mapping system called NeMS, gives network managers a comprehensive view of their computer network environments. "So there are a lot of tools out there that provide different vantage points of network security, but what we needed was something a lot more specific that told us behaviorially what’s happening on our network, and also structurally, how is the composition of our network put together at any point in time. These things provide what’s called “attack surface” for someone from the external world and what you want, as an enterprise, is to reduce that surface." Well, that’s it for now. You can hear these full episodes and more by subscribing to Science Today on iTunes or following us on Soundcloud. Thanks for tuning in; I’m Larissa Branin. Subscribe to Science Today: iTunes: apple.co/1TQBewD Stitcher: www.stitcher.com/podcast/science-today Follow us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/ucsciencetoday Stories mentioned in this roundup: https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/trayless_dining https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/reflective_pavement https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/computer_networks

Hi there – just catching up with the weekly roundup after a bit of a break. The show did go on, so here are some of the stories covered. First, did you know that heart disease is the leading cause of death among American women? Now, researcher Nisha Parikh of UC San Francisco has found that the age a woman is when she reaches menopause affects her risk of developing heart disease. "We found that a longer reproductive period duration was actually associated with less of a risk of heart failure, and that was mostly driven by the age of menopause, so that having an earlier age at menopause was associated with a higher risk of heart failure." But researchers still don’t know what causes it and are working on further studies to find answers. Meanwhile, across the Bay at UC Berkeley, physicist Jeffrey Neaton is looking to Mother Nature to improve energy production skills. In particular, he’s working on making photosynthesis more efficient. "A leaf can convert the energy in sunlight into fuel with a one to two percent efficiency. A major Department of Energy program that I’m part of, the Joint Center for Artificial Photosynthesis, recently developed a prototype material that is made of semiconductors that can go from sunlight to fuel at 10 percent efficiency. Much greater efficiency than plants, actually." So, Neaton is working on creating an artificial leaf that could someday generate fuel and become a new alternative energy source. And finally, we learned something new about our lungs. They don’t just pump air in and out of our bodies – they make blood cells, too. "The lung is quite sophisticated, not just respiring, moving oxygen. Around 50 percent or more of platelets are produced directly in the lung." That’s Mark Looney, a professor of medicine at UCSF. He explains that since platelets are components that make our blood clot, and it used to be thought were formed only in the bone marrow, this new finding will have significant clinical implications. So, that’s it for now. But there’s plenty more research stories at the University of California, so please subscribe to Science Today on iTunes or follow us on Soundcloud to keep updated. Thanks for listening, I’m Larissa Branin.

Researchers at the University of California, Berkley, are competing with Mother Nature to improve energy production skills. In particular, physicist Jeffrey Neaton is working on making photosynthesis more efficient. “A leaf can convert the energy in sun light into fuel with a one to two percent efficiency. A major Department of Energy program that I’m part of, the joint center for artificial photosynthesis, has recently developed a prototype material that is made of semiconductors that can go from sunlight to fuel at 10 percent efficiency. Much greater efficiency than plants, actually”. Neaton is working on an artificial leaf that could generate fuel and can someday become a new alternative energy source. “Right now the artificial leaf prototypes are not made of materials that are cheap enough or abandoned enough to be saleable to a level where they will impact society yet.” But technology moves forward fast. Take solar panels, for example. In just 10 years, the price of this energy source has fallen by over 60 percent. So, we may want to use an artificial leaf sooner than we think. For Science Today, I’m Larissa Branin. Time: a little over. The 1st bite can be trimmed I think. Last sentence, in Italic.

Hi there! It’s been a busy week here at Science Today. We learned that diagnosing brain disorders can often be a challenge for doctors because some psychological diseases have overlapping symptoms. These include memory loss in patients with depression and suppressed mood in people suffering from dementia. But radiologist Cyrus Raji of UC San Francisco led a study, which found that neuroimaging and machine learning can help improve diagnosis. "Each individual had a perfusion neuroimaging, where this is a nuclear tracer injected into them and that allowed the mapping of the blood flow in the brain and that allows us to quantify blood flow in 128 regions and use machine learning analysis to separate who had depression or cognitive disorders or both." Raji explains that machine learning is often used to quickly process and analyze patient’s data in digital format – and it may be used in the future to find new biomarkers that can help in deciphering if one has a brain disorder vs. another issue. While on campus, we also visited pediatric surgeon Hanmin Lee, who is working to get more pediatric grants to provide devices and therapeutics for children. Right now, Lee says when it comes to spending on research and innovation, adults get the lion’s share of benefits. "The market for most drugs and devices is significantly better and bigger and more robust in the adult world. I think we just need to be staunch advocates for children. I firmly believe that that is the best investment that you could make, is in the health of our children." And finally, some great news for advocates for coral reef preservation. A decade-long study led by Jennifer Smith of UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography has found that remote coral reefs can thrive despite threats posed by climate change. Smith says coral reefs surrounding remote islands were dramatically healthier than those in populated areas subject to a variety of human impacts, including overfishing and coastal development. "In a healthy coral reef, you have a landscape that is dominated by these beautiful reef building corals that are really the ecosystem engineers - that provides food and shelter for all the other organisms that live in that ecosystem." This shows that preservation efforts can buy researchers time as they figure out how to deal with the threat posed by ocean warming. That’s it for the weekly update – to hear more episodes about University of California research, subscribe to Science Today on iTunes or follow us on Soundcloud. I’m Larissa Branin – have a great Mother’s Day weekend.

This week on Science Today, we learned that the treatment of concussions has not been very well-defined, so radiologist Pratik Mukherjee at UC San Francisco is calling for more studies and a better understanding from doctors and researchers. "Some people recommend cognitive rest, where you stay away from doing anything intense; physical or mental activities; stay away from bright lights and loud noises for several days. Some of the more recent studies are saying, well, maybe that’s not quite the right approach. People should try to return to their regular activities as soon as they can and stay active." We also learned while at UCSF that younger women are more likely to develop breast cancer if their breasts are dense. That means, there is more supportive tissue, rather than fatty tissue around the ducts. Breast cancer researcher Karla Kerlikowske told us that cancer rarely develops in fat and older women have a smaller risk of developing the disease because compared to younger women, they tend to have fatty breast tissue. "In older women, maybe a third of women that have dense breasts; when in premenopausal women, it is about two-thirds of women who have dense breasts. It is a more common risk factor, but it is also a strong risk factor." Well, that’s all for now - but if you want to learn more about the University of California’s efforts to mitigate climate change, you should check out climate.universityofcaliornia.edu - there’s a lot to look at there! And please go to iTunes to subscribe to Science Today. I’m Larissa Branin, thanks for listening. Subscribe to Science Today: iTunes: apple.co/1TQBewD Stitcher: www.stitcher.com/podcast/science-today Follow us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/ucsciencetoday Stories mentioned in this roundup: https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/concussive_studies https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/density_cancer And our climate science research can be found here: https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/climate-lab

This week on Science Today, we learned that a major risk factor for breast cancer is a woman’s breast structure – specifically, what’s called breast density. Karla Kerlikowske of the University of California, San Francisco explains it’s a radiologic term because on a mammogram, doctors look at how much dense tissue someone has versus how much fat tissue. "We found breast density was four times more likely to account for the development of breast cancer than having a first degree relative who'd had breast cancer." So Kerlikowske recommends that women in this risk group should pay extra attention to screening. Meanwhile, at UCLA, we talked to Karen Gylys at the School of Nursing, who says when it comes to Alzheimer’s disease, some simple lifestyle changes can make a huge difference – even in patients who are already cognitively impaired. "So things like exercise, things like Mediterranean diet, fish oil, there’s evidence that that these things can move the dial on neuropsychiatric tests in elderly subjects and in some studies in elderly subjects who are beginning to be impaired." And the added benefit? These lifestyle changes are also good for your heart. Now while we’re on the subject of the brain – have you ever heard of a mini brain? Jokes aside, it’s an emerging 3D technology created from adult stem cells. "Mini brains can allow you to ask some questions that are more challenging to ask about a single cell, essentially in isolation vs. what happens when cells are moving through more of a three-dimensional space and interacting with each other in three-dimensions as well." That’s neurologist Lauren Weiss at the University of California, San Francisco. She’s been studying brain disorders in the lab looking at neurons grown from skin cells and says a mini-brain is the next step in research because it recreates the structure of a real brain. Well, that’s it for this weekly update. To hear full episodes about the latest research at the University of California, please subscribe to Science Today on iTunes or follow us on Soundcloud. You’ll be more informed if you do! Thank for listening, I’m Larissa Branin - have a great weekend!

There was a lot of exciting University of California research news this past week. First the Food and Drug Administration approved a new drug that could halt Multiple Sclerosis. We had previously spoken to neurologist Bruce Cree of the University of California, San Francisco about his work testing the new drug, called ocrelizumab. At the time, Cree explained that it actually targets B-cells in the human body, blocking the inflammation that drives the disease. He explained that most MS therapies in the past targeted T-cells, which often had serious side effects. "You can have profound immunological effects and clinical benefits by just targeting B-cells alone. And I think this is actually an important advance for multiple sclerosis because when you just target B-cells without affecting T-cells, you have less of a potential for adverse events due to broad spectrum immune suppression." Really, such great news considering this devastating disease affects hundreds of thousands of Americans and more than 2.3 million people worldwide. While at UCSF we visited neurologist Lauren Weiss, who has discovered a new way to study brain disorders. Basically, they are growing brain cells out of simple skin biopsies taken from patients with autism and other developmental problems. "We can grow those cells in a lab and then turn them into stem cells and ultimately in the cells of the brain. That’s a pretty amazing advance when you think about how challenging it is to study the human brain. Nobody wants to give you too much access to that!" Hear these and other stories about the latest research at the University of California. Subscribe to Science Today on iTunes or follow us on Soundcloud and Stitcher. Until next time, I’m Larissa Branin.

Researchers have found a new way to study brain disorders. Neurologist Lauren Weiss of the University of California, San Francisco is growing brain cells out of simple skin biopsies taken from patients with autism and other developmental problems. “We can grow those cells in a lab and then turn them into stem cells, and ultimately into the cells of the brain. That’s a pretty amazing advance when you think about how challenging it is to study the human brain. Nobody wants to give you too much access to that.” Obtaining living neurons is complicated and may raise ethical concerns. So this new method solves these problems by effectively growing brain cells in petri dishes. “The technology has evolved very quickly. We are increasing the number of different types of neurons we can pretty consistently make in the lab." And that gives scientists more opportunities to study brain abnormalities. For Science Today, I’m Larissa Branin.

This week on Science Today, we learned how a pediatric surgeon is helping to kick-start innovative projects to bring to clinics in an effort to advance children’s health. Dr. Hanmin Lee of UC San Francisco, says even though technology, biology and medicine go hand-in-hand, advanced devices are not always available to the most vulnerable hospital patients because of insufficient funding. "We organize the engineering of children’s health symposiums to try to bring all the emerging technologies to the benefit of children’s health." UCSF is involved in developing many such emerging technologies, including different types of monitoring sensors, artificial organs, and little robots - all to help children with a variety of disabilities for their benefit. And when it comes to vaccinations for kids, we spoke to a UC Berkeley’s Dorian Liepmann about their new pill-sized technology that could lead to painless oral vaccines. "One of my co-investigators suggested that we could actually put this in a lollipop for children. And so they would just hold it in their mouth until the drug was delivered and then they’d have the rest of the lollipop." While their needleless technology is still proof of concept, Liepmann says some of the advantages – besides no more needle! – would be that you wouldn’t need to pay trained personnel to administer the shot, which is a huge expense. And an easy and effective vaccine like this could lead to better distribution to Third World countries or to rural areas. Liepmann says their technology still needs to undergo clinical trial, so it could be another 5 to 10 years before it’s available, but it sure sounds promising to us! Hear these and other episodes on Science Today. You can subscribe to iTunes or follow us on Soundcloud. I’m Larissa Branin – thanks for listening everyone!

This week on Science Today, we learned a lot from University of California researchers. For instance, radiologist Pratik Mukherjee at UCSF told us even though people often don’t pay much attention to small brain injuries – like those suffered in a fall or a minor car collision – these types of traumas should never be ignored. "There is a significant minority ranging from anywhere between one-fifth to one-third of people who have what’s called persistent post-concussive syndrome where for months or even years after the injury they have continued problems like headaches, dizziness, insomnia, depression, problems with thinking." These small brain injuries may go undetected by traditional MRI scans, so Mukherjee is using more advanced image capturing technology for diagnosing these concussions and this may allow researchers to predict if injured people will continue experiencing symptoms later in life. On the subject of new technology, researchers at UC Berkeley may have a game changer when it comes to vaccinations. Mechanical and bioengineer Dorian Liepmann developed a proof-of-concept for a needleless technology that’s designed to self-administer vaccines orally. "What we have is a pill that actually shoots a jet of drug into your cheek without pain. We use a reaction in here just like vinegar and baking soda – once it starts reacting, it makes a gas and builds up pressure inside of the pill and it shoots a jet of the drug into the cheek." The team is also looking to design a smaller pill form that could be used for diabetics who could swallow a pill instead of administering an insulin injection. These are just some of the discoveries we covered this week. Listen to Science Today episodes on Soundcloud or subscribe to the program on iTunes to catch some more. Thanks for listening, I’m Larissa Branin. Subscribe to Science Today: iTunes: apple.co/1TQBewD Stitcher: www.stitcher.com/podcast/science-today Follow us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/ucsciencetoday Stories mentioned in this roundup: https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/head_trauma https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/oral_vaccination

Hi there, thanks for tuning in to Science Today’s weekly roundup. As usual, we covered a range of topics and met with some really great researchers. First, as cool as it is to have a medical device to check up on the health of astronauts in deep space, it’s even better if the same technology can be used here on Earth. That’s just what research scientist Matthew Coleman at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory had in mind when he developed a prototype of a handheld diagnostic device for NASA. In fact, he can see it being used for environmental monitoring, too. "To look at even just water. I mean, if it works with saliva, it will certainly work with water from the environment. It could work with material isolated from insects and plants and trees. So, we could do all kinds of environmental sensing." And since the handheld device is rugged enough for space, Coleman says it would be perfect to use in the African desert, too. Meanwhile, over at the Berkeley Lab, researchers are striving to unveil the secrets about ‘dark’ DNA, part of the genome that does not code proteins, but plays an important role in regulating genes. Scientist Diane Dickel has been working on finding all of these non-coding regulators, called enhancers, and is pinning them on a map. "I mean, it’s kind of like building a road map and adding information onto that to point that particular pairs in the genome act as these enhancer elements to regulate gene expression." So, why are they doing this? The map will help researchers get a better picture of dark DNA and this, in turn, could shed light on whether mutations in the enhancers cause genetic diseases. This could be the next step towards improving genetic testing. And speaking of improvements – a dentist at UCSF is working to get more prevention in dental care and less use of the drill. Dr. Peter Rechmann found better education about caries risk could especially help low-income patients. "The income on its own actually doesn’t matter at all. It’s just if someone suffers to survive, he doesn’t have the time to spend ‘x’ minutes of taking care of their teeth." Hear these and other University of California research stories. Subscribe to Science Today on iTunes or Soundcloud. Until next time, I’m Larissa Branin. Subscribe to Science Today: iTunes: apple.co/1TQBewD Stitcher: www.stitcher.com/podcast/science-today Follow us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/ucsciencetoday Stories mentioned in this roundup: https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/space_device https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/dark_dna https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/poverty_teeth

Researchers are striving to unveil the secrets about “dark” DNA, part of the genome that does not code proteins, but plays an important role in regulating genes. Scientist Diane Dickel of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory has been working on finding all of these non-coding regulators -so called enhancers - and pinning them on a map. “I mean, it is like building a road map and adding information onto that, to point that particular pairs in the genome act as these enhancer elements to regulate gene expression.” This map will help researchers get a better picture of the dark DNA, which could shed a light on whether mutations in the enhancers cause genetic diseases. Dickel says this would also be the next step towards improving genetic testing. “The hope of genetic testing is to try to understand biology of what’s happening in the cell to develop treatments for that longer term." And, give patients clear answers about their health and genetic predispositions. For Science Today, I’m Larissa Branin.

This week on Science Today, we covered a lot of topics, including a new finding sheds light on the unknown parts of the genome. This has often been called ‘junk DNA’, but scientist Diane Dickel of the Berkeley Lab doesn’t like that term. Instead, she says these are non-coding parts of the genome. "Only about 3 percent of the genome consists of genes, the other, more than 95 percent of the genome, what we call non-coding, which just means that it does not encode genes. And it is clear these are important things in that non-coding sequence." It is mutations in these non-encoding sequences, called enhancers, that causes genetic diseases. And this is an important finding because doctors don’t know what triggers some of these diseases, including cardiomyopathy – that’s a genetic heart disease. And that’s because researchers were looking for clues in the wrong part of the genome. Meanwhile, at UC San Diego, researchers looking into the mental health of seniors made a startling discovery about young adults. Dilip Jeste explains that there’s long been an assumption that the mental health of older people mirrors their declining physical and cognitive function – but that’s not the case. They seem to do better with age, despite physical ailments. It’s those in their 20s and 30s who have very high levels of depression and anxiety. So Jeste suggests people do more studies looking into the value of intergenerational activities. "I think we need larger scale, better studies in which you can have younger people having an older person and they become partners or a team with mentorship in both directions." So, a younger person can teach seniors about, technology for instance; and older folks can pass along pearls of wisdom about certain aspects of life. The main goal would be to promote mental health in all age groups. And in a similar vein, UC Santa Barbara has a new Center for Mindfulness and Human Potential. We spoke to co-director Jonathan Schooler about how in the last decade, mindfulness has been picking up steam as a topic of scientific research. "Ten to 15 years ago, it would have been considered almost a taboo topic, like not really science. Almost more in the realm of spirituality or something. But now, the mound of research showing the value of mindfulness has just become demonstrated so many times, in so many contexts." To hear more about this and other stories about University of California research, follow Science Today on iTunes or follow us on Facebook. I’m Larissa Branin, thanks for tuning in!

This is Science Today. Landfills are a large source of methane, a potent greenhouse gas. And new research across the state of California has found that its amount in the atmosphere might have been underestimated. Physicist Marc Fisher of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory found exactly where excessive methane was coming from and why it was happening. “Most of the emissions from landfills are assumed to be gathered by landfill gas mitigation technology and if this technology is not working as effectively as it was designed to be, then more gas could have escaped to the atmosphere”. This is especially problematic for the Bay Area, where 50 percent of all the methane comes from landfills, which are ubiquitous in the region. “There is now active research identifying how to manage landfills in a way that they emit less”. As part of the solution, Fisher recommends improving methods of collecting emissions. For Science Today, I’m Larissa Branin.

This week on Science Today. Have some researchers underestimated the amount of methane emitted into the atmosphere? According to physicist Marc Fisher of the Berkeley Lab, they may have, at least in the San Francisco Bay Area. "We found that emissions are roughly one and a half to two times the emissions expected based on inventory estimates, counting how many landfills, how many cows, how many wastewater treatment plants, how many different things that might emit methane." Because methane is a very potent greenhouse gas, Fisher says their finding calls for better management of pollutant sources like landfills to reduce its contribution. And at UC Davis, we learned how sometimes in medicine, there are compounds that are found to be good for one thing, but not so great for another. Like in the case of NSAIDs, a class of anti-inflammatory drugs, including ibuprofen. Aldrin Gomes explains how NSAIDs are known to be linked to an increased risk of heart disease and stroke, but he and his colleagues have found they seem to be beneficial in cancer. "NSAIDs have been known to kill cancer cells and it’s killing cancer cells by a similar mechanism as it’s killing the healthy cells, so it’s actually too good at doing a job, so it’s ironic." Gomes and his team found that NSAIDs can harm heart tissue because it can reduce the heart cells’ ability to produce energy and it’s a similar mechanism that some papers have shown NSAIDs can be used to treat cancer. One tip from Gomes – to prevent cardiac cell death – take vitamin C before ingesting an NSAID. They found it had preventative properties. That’s all for now – to hear these and other stories about the latest University of California research, subscribe to Science Today on iTunes or follow us on Facebook. I’m Larissa Branin. Subscribe to Science Today: iTunes: apple.co/1TQBewD Stitcher: www.stitcher.com/podcast/science-today Follow us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/ucsciencetoday Stories mentioned in this roundup: https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/methane_atmosphere https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/nsaids_cancer

Here are some of the stories covered this week on Science Today. Multiple sclerosis is a chronic disease that can paralyze the brain and spinal cord when the immune system attacks the body. MS affects about 2 million people globally and while there is no cure for the chronic disease, drug regimens and behavioral therapy have allowed people with MS to lead better quality lives. Now, neurologist Bruce Cree of UC San Francisco has been testing a drug in clinical trial that’s designed to reduce MS symptoms – in fact, Cree found that patients’ brain inflammation was practically gone. “This was very impressive and suggests that we have a highly effective therapy. There is some advantage in medication in terms of tolerability, in terms of efficacy and I think it’s going to be a very important new therapy." It’s called ocrelizumab and it’s currently under review by the FDA. While at UCSF, we also checked in with researchers hoping to improve a powerful gene editing tool called CRISPR, which scientists hope can one day treat genetic disorders. Microbiologist Benjamin Rauch explains that the technology hasn’t been precise enough. "CRISPR is not perfect; CRISPR will cut DNA in the wrong place if we give it enough time to do so. You can’t edit in the wrong place because it will have some negative effects." So they’re working with so-called anti-CRISPR proteins that they found can stop CRISPR before it makes the wrong cut. This is a story we’ll definitely keep track of because a safer more accurate CRISPR brings scientists a step closer to developing an effective DNA-editing therapy in the future. And finally, UC San Diego’s Catherine Marinac is looking into simple and novel ways to reduce a woman’s risk of breast cancer. She found that fasting at least 12 hours overnight may help because women who fasted longer had better control over their blood sugar connections. "We know that it influences inflammation and many of these metabolic factors are related, so you’ll typically see abnormal glucose with inflammation. We know it influences some parameters related to Circadian rhythms and Circadian misalignment and all of these things are on the same cascade. So, we don’t know the exact mechanism, but that’s currently being investigated in animals." Stay on top of the latest University of California research – subscribe to Science Today on iTunes of follow us on Facebook. Until next time, I’m Larissa Branin. Subscribe to Science Today: iTunes: apple.co/1TQBewD Stitcher: www.stitcher.com/podcast/science-today Follow us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/ucsciencetoday Stories mentioned in this roundup: https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/ms_strategy https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/crispr_edit https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/fasting_cancer

This week on Science Today – we looked into how race and ethnicity affect health. Noah Zaitlen at the University of California, San Francisco, describes the connection they found in their new research. "People from different countries, from different communities, get sick from different diseases, they respond differently to different medications. We know that some of that is because of differences in their genetics and some of that is because of differences in their environment." And that includes exposure to pollution or differences in diet or stress levels – all of which doctors and scientists alike overlooked in the past in favor of genetics and ancestry. So Zaitlen hopes doctors will start including this information in their usual form, as it's a better way to assess a patient’s health. And on the subject of patients and health, wouldn’t it be wonderful if cancer patients did not suffer from the systemic toxicity of chemotherapy? We talked to a materials scientist Chelsea Chen at the Berkeley Lab who has been collaborating with a UCSF physician to design a device to do just that. "What he came up with is that he wants to place this device at the draining vein exiting the tumor, so this device can catch the excessive chemotherapy before it enters the body circulation and this way, it further reduces the systemic toxicity of the drugs. So we designed this device that we call the ChemoFilter." Hopefully this will be ready for treatment in a few years. And finally, do you snack a lot during the day? If so, your teeth are at risk. Dr. Peter Rechmann of the UCSF School of Dentistry says one tip to reduce cavities is to eat fast. "We kept on telling our patients you can have chocolate, no problem, eat the whole thing in 10 minutes and brush your teeth or use chewing gum, but don’t eat the chocolate over, piece-by-piece, ever 10 minutes a piece. That is terrible." The problem is, it leaves more sugar for bacteria in your mouth. For you snackers out there one tip is to munch on nuts – Rechmann says it’s one of the safest snacks because there’s not a lot of sugar for bacteria and it kills your hunger pangs pretty fast. So, how’s that for food for thought? To hear more University of California research stories, subscribe to Science Today on iTunes or follow us on Soundcloud or Facebook. Thanks for listening, I’m Larissa Branin. Subscribe to Science Today: iTunes: apple.co/1TQBewD Stitcher: www.stitcher.com/podcast/science-today Follow us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/ucsciencetoday Stories mentioned in this roundup: https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/race_health https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/filter_chemo https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/teeth_snacks

Why do fools fall — and stay — in love? University of California love experts chat with Science Today host, Larissa Branin, about the science behind romance. Originally broadcast as a Facebook Live video, this is the audio version of UC Berkeley psychologists and neurologists Arthur Aron, Robert Levenson and Emiliana Simon-Thomas discussing the drug-like effects of budding romance, and how that differs from the psychology and brain chemistry at work in a long-term relationship.

If you could do something to avoid facing the dental drill, wouldn’t you do it? This week on Science Today, we chatted with Dr. Peter Rechmann of the UC San Francisco School of Dentistry about a new approach they’re using there called Caries Management by Risk Assessment, or CAMBRA. Basically, it means fighting cavities before they invade your teeth. "You recommend to a patient some behavior change and additional chemical interventions like fluoride, which makes the teeth harder, like chlorhexidine, which kills bacteria." Rechmann says adding chewing gum with xylitol can also save teeth in the pre-cavity stage. He’s even seen lesions in x-rays that would have otherwise called for the drill, completely disappear. So next time, you may want to think twice before passing up an offer for gum..just make sure it’s a brand with xylitol. Next, we visit UC Berkeley, where we learned how researchers there are designing a water filter made of a material so thin, it’s 2-dimensional. Baoxia Mi says they make these membrane filters by organizing the nanomaterial graphene oxide into single layers of carbon, and then stacking them together. "This material has a lot of properties that are suitable for membrane filtration, especially for water purification – disinfection, absorption, or some other properties, that can help us enhance the removal of water contaminants." Unlike current membrane filters, Mi’s design does not require as much energy to push the water through the membrane, since water passes quickly across graphene. Really, there’s so much exciting research like this going on like the University of California, so please come back for more. You can subscribe to Science Today on iTunes or follow us on Soundcloud. Until next time, I’m Larissa Branin. Subscribe to Science Today: iTunes: apple.co/1TQBewD Stitcher: www.stitcher.com/podcast/science-today Follow us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/ucsciencetoday Stories mentioned in this roundup: https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/cavity_prevention https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/graphene_filters

Does talking or singing to a newborn really their brain development? This week on Science Today, we chatted with neurologist Mercedes Paredes of the University of California, San Francisco to find out. She says this type of stimulation may affect inhibitory neurons, which keep fine-tuning and shaping infants’ brains during the first couple months of life. "These cells are reaching their target, these brain regions that control the development of motor skills, social skills and language skills. So, I imagine that they might play a role in that. And understanding how they do that will be important for parents knowing, OK, these are the foundations of how the milestones develop." And as far as we’re concerned, talking or singing to newborns is hard to resist! But how about when those babies become adolescents? There may not be as much talking going then as they hole up in their rooms using social media. But how is that affecting their brains? UCLA’s Adriana Galván says there’s still not enough data to determine the impact because the media itself is still relatively new. "And so we don’t have the long-term data over many years to determine what it’s doing to the brain, but certainly we do know that it’s another form of teenagers having more social interactions, having greater reactions emotionally to things that they see on media or read about, but we don’t really know what it’s doing to the brain, yet, but stay tuned - a lot of people are doing that research." Finally, with heavy rainfalls helping quench the parched state of California, there are some questions being raised in the aftermath of drought. UC Berkeley biologist Todd Dawson says in the last couple of years, droughts have killed millions of trees in the Golden State. "Will we have to manage our forests in different ways? So for example, we have to thin some of our forests, so the limited water resources that we have can keep at least some trees alive, but maybe not at the densities that our current forests are at." So Dawson calls for scientists to work more closely with governmental agencies to choose the best environmental strategies, especially when it comes to water. That’s all for now – if you want to hear these and other University of California research stories, subscribe to Science Today on iTunes. I’m Larissa Branin, thanks for listening. Subscribe to Science Today: iTunes: apple.co/1TQBewD Stitcher: www.stitcher.com/podcast/science-today Follow us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/ucsciencetoday Stories mentioned in this roundup: https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/baby_brain https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/adolescent_brain_research https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/drought_aftermath

Hey there! It’s been another action-packed week, full of interesting research from around the University of California system. First up, did you know our brains take more time to develop than previously thought? Neither did researcher; they thought most of the development that happened after birth was simply fine-tuning. But Neurologist Mercedes Parades of UC San Francisco discovered that our brains are still developing right after birth – with young neurons moving to the frontal lobe of the brain where they become functional. "And this is something new, both in terms of how long brain development is still ongoing, but also the fact that this is a period right around the time of birth and there is a lot of pathological changes that can happen and the brain is vulnerable." This new understanding of what’s happening in newborn babies' brains will help scientists get a better sense of what triggers developmental disorders. Next, we go from babies to Baby Boomers. They make up the ‘silver tsunami’, a metaphor used to describe a spike in the aging American population, mostly due to the greying of the Baby Boomer generation. Dr. Dilip Jeste of UC San Diego says there’s some misapprehension about this great grey wave coming towards us. Specifically, that they’re a drag and are just going to bog us down with costs. "That’s wrong. I strongly believe that intergenerational activities are critical for successful aging because it’s mutually beneficial. If we keep older people happier and engaged and involved in intergenerational activities, they will be healthier. If they’re healthier, the health care cost is going to go down. So, we need to take good care of older people – not out of compassion, but even from the point of view of economics; it saves us money." And Jeste adds, older people can transfer a lot of wisdom to the younger generation. To hear these and other stories, subscribe to Science Today on iTunes or check out on Facebook. Until next time, I’m Larissa Branin. Subscribe to Science Today: iTunes: apple.co/1TQBewD Stitcher: www.stitcher.com/podcast/science-today Follow us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/ucsciencetoday Stories mentioned in this roundup: https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/brain_development https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/silver_tsunami

Time to catch up on Science Today stories. First up, environmental scientists are starting to use drone technology to monitor how forests are affected by droughts, particularly those that have been affecting the Golden State’s iconic sequoia trees. Molecular biologist Todd Dawson of UC Berkeley says with drones, researchers can get a more refined picture in areas where there has been a lot of tree mortality. That’s because in a matter of minutes, drones can allow researchers to survey canopies of individual trees and entire forests. "That means we are basically keeping our finger on the pulse of the forest change, which we have never been able to do with any of our other tools before." Next, if you have some pain relievers in your medicine cabinet, you may want to take a closer look at the back of the bottle. The FDA has been putting bigger warning labels on pain relievers like ibuprofen and other drugs known as NSAIDs because of their known risk to increase heart disease and stroke. Researcher Aldrin Gomes of UC Davis, who found that NSAIDs can cause cardiac cells to die after prolonged use, says he’s particularly interested in educating certain age groups about this. "Between 45 and 65, your risk of stroke from natural causes increases. And above 65, it increases even further. And when you add NSAIDs to this at these different age groups, it further increases your risk." So if you’re in this age group, try not to use NSAIDs on a regular basis. And finally, if your mind started to wander during this update, I won’t get offended; that’s because UC Santa Barbara’s Jonathan Schooler, a professor of psychological and brain sciences, told us that there’s some cognitive value to daydreaming. He conducted a study looking specifically at creative scientists and creative writers to see when they have innovative ideas. "What we found is that in both of these groups, about a third of their ideas happened while they’re mind wandering; we also find that the ideas that they have when they’re mind wandering are more likely to be an ‘ah-ha!’ kind of solution. Something where they really were not expecting it and more likely to involve overcoming an impasse." So if you’re not really tuning in to this right now, let’s hope it’s because you just had an ‘ah-ha!’ moment. That’s all for this week – for more stories about the latest University of California, research, subscribe to Science Today on iTunes or Stitcher. Until next week, I’m Larissa Branin. Subscribe to Science Today: iTunes: apple.co/1TQBewD Stitcher: www.stitcher.com/podcast/science-today Follow us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/ucsciencetoday Stories mentioned in this roundup: https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/drones_trees https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/nsaids_age https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/daydreaming_cognition

This week on Science Today, we talked about how children who suffer from emotional or physical abuse are at higher risk of developing health problems. Psychiatrist Nicole Bush of the University of California, San Francisco says scientists are unclear about how to reverse the harmful effects, so she is focusing on this in a study. "One of our goals was to look across a variety of systems to see, for example, whether we can improve immune functioning, cortisol stress hormone level, telomere length, DNA methylation profiles." DNA methylation is essential for normal development– if the process goes awry, it can be linked to health issues like cancer or cardiovascular disease. So Bush his hoping to improve this and other functions like immune functioning and telomere length using psychotherapy, which studies have proven have been effective for mental and physical health. On the subject of health, we hope you're starting a healthy and happy New Year. This time of year there’s a higher risk of what’s called ‘holiday heart syndrome’. Cardiologist Gregory Marcus, also at UCSF, tells us that it’s basically a link between excessive alcohol consumption and atrial fibrillation. "Those who drank more alcohol tended to have larger left atritum, those with large atrium this has long been known, are more prone to atrial fibrillation – the most common abnormal heart rhythm that we see. And it is very important because of stroke." So while occasional drinking can lift your holiday spirit and do no harm, Marcus warns that excessive alcohol consumption is never good for anyone. And finally, we stuck around UCSF to better understand the origins or asthma and allergies. Susan Lynch, a gastroenterologist there, may have narrowed it down to one molecule. She and her collaborators at the Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit found a metabolite, which is a product of metabolism, can trigger these diseases. "There was a specific lipid called 12, 13 diHome and this really stood out to us because this specific lipid is an established biomarker for asthma in adults and we are finding it in the heightened concentration in neonates who go on to develop asthma in childhood." Lynch explains that it actually suppresses the T-cells that are necessary to dampen down allergic inflammation. To hear about more University of California research – and not just at our San Francisco campus - subscribe to Science Today on iTunes. You can also follow us on Facebook or Soundcloud. Thanks for tuning in, until next time, I’m Larissa Branin. Subscribe to Science Today: iTunes: apple.co/1TQBewD Stitcher: www.stitcher.com/podcast/science-today Follow us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/ucsciencetoday Stories mentioned in this roundup: https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/abuse_health https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/post_holidays https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/asthma_molecule

It’s a New Year and that means, lots of new stories are in the hopper! First up, do you have trouble sleeping at night? And if you do, how many of you spend time propped up on your pillows, scrolling through your smartphone or tablets before getting some sleep? Our guess is, probably many of you do this, as it turns out 70% of Americans keep their phones on their bedside table. We spoke to cardiologist Gregory Marcus of the UC San Francisco about this. In case you’re wondering why a cardiologist is talking about sleep, he explains that a lack of Zzz’s can cause high blood pressure, heart attacks, arrhythmia and strokes. "Poor sleep quality is not simply an issue of feeling tired the next day, we recognize now that sleep is extremely important to mood, to brain function, cognition." Marcus adds that he’s not trying to demonize technology. Instead, he suggests vigilance and putting the phone away at least an hour before sleep. Give it a try. Meanwhile, at UC Berkeley, researchers took a cue from nature to create Salto. Roboticist Duncan Haldane says Salto can jump higher and faster than any other robot out there. "Salto is inspired by a galago, which is a bushbaby. Biologists have found animals adapted specifically for jumping had this kind of super crouch posture. The longer they stay in a crouch, the more energy they can transfer into the tendons and the more energy they can return for jumping." The team is hoping Salto’s novel locomotive abilities can be used in search and rescue efforts. And finally, we meet UCLA neuroscientist Adriana Galván to discuss the adolescent brain. You may have thought people become adults at 18, but from a neuroscience perspective, the brain keeps growing and developing beyond that age and current literature suggests that it’s around age 25 that the brain finishes the period of adolescence. "The majority of what we call ‘plasticity’ or sensitivity to the environment changes around the mid-twenties and so that means that although the brain can keep changing in response to new experiences or learning something new, the majority of that development has ended." To hear these and other episodes about the latest University of California research, subscribe to Science Today on iTunes or follow us on Soundcloud. Thanks for listening, I’m Larissa Branin.

This is Science Today. What can leap into the air, spring off a wall and perform multiple jumps in a row? That would be Salto – the most vertically agile, wall-jumping robot ever built. Roboticist Duncan Haldane, a doctoral candidate at the University of California, Berkeley, led the work. "The special thing about this robot is that it can jump higher and faster than any other robot that’s out there right now. Salto can jump better than a human; once it does that jump, Salto jumps again. So, we can do this really high-powered jumping behavior continuously and chain together these maneuvers made out of large leaps." Salto’s design was based on a galago – the most vertically agile animal in nature. These creatures have a special ability to store energy in their tendons so they can jump to heights not possible by muscles alone. This is done while in a crouched position. "So what we built into Salto the capability for a super crouch. What that allows is to have the motor be able to stretch out the spring and keep the robot crouched for longer." Such novel locomotive abilities could be used in search and rescue efforts. For Science Today, I’m Larissa Branin.

As we head off for a bit of a holiday break, here are a few stories to go with the season. First, not to put a damper on things – but in case you decide to channel your inner Bob Cratchit and “make rather merry” – you may want to take it a bit easy. Cardiologist Gregory Marcus of the University of California, San Francisco says that’s because tis the season for ‘holiday heart syndrome’. Marcus explains that this term was coined in the 1970s to describe patients who experience a common and potentially dangerous form of heart palpitation. This happens after excessive drinking and it usually occurs around the winter holiday season. "Patients would present with their first episode of atrial fibrillation and these patients had no known underlying heart disease and it turned out that on further questioning, that they had quite a bit to drink prior to just coming in and prior to developing their palpitations." So, if you’re planning to raise a glass, keep it in moderation. And what about those who have a more ‘bah humbug’ feeling around the holidays – or any day? Are some people just born to be happier than others? Psychologist Sonja Lyubomirsky of UC Riverside says even if there are genetic influences on happiness, that does not mean people can’t change. "If we can’t really change our happiness set point, I believe you can change your happiness level. So, people can, with a lot of effort, become happier. And when it comes to something like slowing down adaptation – why is that hard? Well, probably because adaptation is so hardwired. It’s evolutionarily adaptive. It’s just something that all human beings experience and it’s hard to kind of fight a natural process." Listen these and other episodes – including one from UCLA about the science of your pie crust. Tune into Science Today on iTunes or Stitcher. And check us out on Facebook, too. I’m Larissa Branin – have a safe and happy holiday season. Subscribe to Science Today: iTunes: apple.co/1TQBewD Stitcher: www.stitcher.com/podcast/science-today Follow us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/ucsciencetoday Stories mentioned in this roundup: https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/holiday_heart https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/happiness_setpoint https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/piemaking

It’s hard enough feeling under the weather on terra firma, so imagine how it must be for astronauts in Deep Space. We spoke to a senior research scientist at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory who is helping NASA develop a handheld medical diagnostic device for space travel. Matthew Coleman says it may even contain biomarkers for radiation sensitivity, which is a concern in microgravity since there is much higher levels of radiation beyond our atmosphere. "And so if you’re somebody that’s more sensitive to radiation exposure, you may not want to go out on too many spacewalks and you may need to limit those sorts of activities and therefore, somebody else will have to complete that mission requirement." Meanwhile, researchers at UC San Francisco are calling for access to a good education in the hopes of preventing dementia and other mental problems affecting memory and thinking. Psychiatrist Kristine Yaffe has made a connection between poverty and dementia later in life. She says people with higher income usually get a better education than those who struggle financially, so improving the quality of education would be a great start. "Even if you have the same number of years of education, the quality of education may not be as good." And while on the UC San Francisco campus, we visited Dr. Anthony Kim at the School of Medicine to talk about stroke, which affects almost 800 thousand Americans every year. He explains that not all of these patients fully recover and says doctors need to put more effort into helping stroke patients get better. "Most of our interventions post-stroke are geared towards preventing the next stroke and we have relatively fewer interventions that are geared toward actually improving the recovery." To hear these and other episodes about the latest research at the University of California, subscribe to Science Today on iTunes or follow us on Soundcloud. Thanks for listening, until next time, I’m Larissa Branin. Subscribe to Science Today: iTunes: apple.co/1TQBewD Stitcher: www.stitcher.com/podcast/science-today Follow us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/ucsciencetoday Stories mentioned in this roundup: https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/deep_space https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/dementia_prevention https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/stroke_recovery

It’s time for the weekly roundup again. This week we spoke to a research scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory about how the amount of carbon dioxide that trees and plants have been grabbing from the atmosphere has increased over the years. Trevor Keenan says explains that plants have been ‘inhaling’ more carbon dioxide through photosynthesis but they did not ‘exhale’ more CO2 into the atmosphere through respiration. "So, this is called the CO2 fertilization effect, a well-known and widely-studied effect of how CO2 affects plants. During the last decade, CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere continue to go up and this means that plants have more CO2 to use." And while this sounds like a good thing, Keenan warns that the threat of global warming is still there and this study underscores the value of protecting vital ecosystems. Next up, we find out that economic hardship can actually shape the way our brain works. Psychiatrist Kristine Yaffe of UC San Francisco explains that poverty affects cognitive function due to a concept called ‘cognitive reserve’. "And what that means is the more you grow your brain, the more you have education, the more it is simulated, the more complex your occupation is, the more complex your lifestyle activities are, your leisure activities." By understanding this, Yaffe hopes researchers can help prevent cognitive diseases later in life. And speaking of issues later in life, we really enjoyed our time with Dilip Jeste, a geriatric neuropsychiatrist at UC San Diego. He told us that the mental health of older adults actually improves with time, even in those with physical ailments. "We wanted to look at, not only the physical illnesses and cognitive problem, but also the positive characteristics. Things like resilience, optimism, social engagement, compassion, wisdom. So, we got a much more comprehensive understanding of aging that many of the studies do." To hear these episodes and more like them, subscribe to Science Today on iTunes. You can also follow us on Soundcloud or Facebook. Thanks for listening…until next time, I’m Larissa Branin. Subscribe to Science Today: iTunes: apple.co/1TQBewD Stitcher: www.stitcher.com/podcast/science-today Follow us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/ucsciencetoday Stories mentioned in this roundup: https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/plants_carbon https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/brain_poverty https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/aging_happy

Because of the recent holiday break, we didn’t run our usual line-up this past week; instead we gave you a hint of the some of the stories to come. This includes an interview with UC San Diego’s Dr. Dilip Jeste. He had some good news about aging and described how his study contradicts the conventional notions that aging is pretty much all ‘gloom and doom’. In this excerpt, Jeste describes what makes their study different. “Usually, when people mention aging, they are thinking about physical aging, that's the only component that figures in ministries of aging, but aging is multidimensional. Physical health is one dimension. Another dimension is cognitive function, or cognitive health. So, that is what is being studied when we are looking at people with Alzheimer's Disease or other dementias. But the component of aging that is least studied is the psychosocial component of aging." So, Jeste took a multidimensional approach , which you'll want to hear about next week. And in another upcoming episode, we’ll dial back the years to reflect upon adolescence. Adrianna Galvan of UCLA studies how changes in brain maturation during adolescence relate to adolescent behavior and decision-making. Here she describes why adolescence is often fraught with emotion. "There is probably an evolutionary reason for why teenagers are more emotional. One reason is that emotions help us connect with other people. And during adolescence, it's really important that we establish good relationships, or understand the social rules of interacting with others, of having romantic partners, and so the emotional reactivity helps adolescents in that regard.” Don’t miss these and many other stories about the latest research at the University of California. Subscribe to Science Today on iTunes or follow us on Soundcloud. Thanks for listening, I’m Larissa Branin. Subscribe to Science Today: iTunes: apple.co/1TQBewD Stitcher: www.stitcher.com/podcast/science-today Follow us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/ucsciencetoday Stories mentioned in this roundup: https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/jeste_aging https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/emotional_teens

It’s been another busy week for us here at Science Today. During a visit at the University of Calfornia, San Francisco, we learned that about 10 to 25 thousand cases of stroke, aneurysm or epilepsy may go undetected each year. Anthony Kim, director of UCSF’s Stroke Center has been studying misclassified cases of neurological death, which were erroneously thought to be sudden cardiac death. "So, it has kind of implications on the public health estimates, it has implications on the interpretations of death outcomes, in large cardiovascular trials." And it also has implications on diagnosis. And while on the subject of diagnosis – the rates of childhood asthma and allergies are on the rise in this country, so if you want to lessen your child’s risk, you may want to consider getting a dog. Susan Lynch, a gastroenterologist at UCSF made this connection while studying microbes in newborn babies’ bodies. "Exposure in early life to a greater breadth of organisms seems to be beneficial and allows the system to accumulate a greater diversity of organisms, which really means a greater diversity of the microbial functions." In other words, a mixture of home dust and a dog’s dander can help a child become immune to asthma later in life, especially if the pet is brought home when a child is no older than one month. And finally, we crossed the bridge into Berkeley to speak with a cognitive neuroscientist there, who has found that language and memory are actually interconnected. Robert Knight says for decades linguists were ignoring this fact and studying these two brain functions separately. "One of our areas of research is defining the degree of that connectivity; how the brain rhythms in one area, the hippocampus, are coherent with brain rhythms in the language area, like two people dancing. Are they in synch, right? Are they coherent?" To hear these and other episodes about the latest University of California research, tune into Science Today on iTunes or follow us on Soundcloud. Thanks for listening, I’m Larissa Branin. Subscribe to Science Today: iTunes: apple.co/1TQBewD Stitcher: www.stitcher.com/podcast/science-today Follow us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/ucsciencetoday Stories mentioned in this roundup: https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/stroke_detection https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/kids_asthma https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/language_memory

This week on Science Today. Studies show that about 10 percent of Americans are diagnosed with asthma each year. We spoke to a gastroenterologist Susan Lynch of UC San Francisco and learned that they’ve been studying the microbiome to hone in on why asthma and allergies are so widespread in Western nations. She says some of the risk factors include a lack of a mother’s exposure to livestock or furred pets while pregnant. "And so those risk factors suggest that these factors may influence the microbes and the communities of microbes that exist in humans and particularly in very early life." This understanding could lead to focusing more on changing a child’s microbiological development very early in life. While at UCSF, we also chatted with Stanton Glantz a professor of medicine. Now that California has joined other states in the legalization of the recreational use of marijuana, Glantz suggests that public health experts be cautious about the negative effects of cannabis. "Kids think marijuana is harmless and even good for you. They start with marijuana and then move on to tobacco, so the marijuana and tobacco epidemics are really inextricably tied to each other." And finally, we reflect on the value of doing research within a university system – it’s something we hear about time and time again while interviewing researchers. Biomedical scientist Gabriela Loots of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory says her team has greatly benefited from having students and interdisciplinary faculty at their fingertips. "It’s been working out great. With the UC Davis Cancer Center, we have started interacting with some of the scientists there because of my interest in prostate cancer and now we’re growing to other types of cancer research and so we just started communicating with some of these scientists and we started collaborating." Find out what other researchers are up to with the University of California system. Tune in to Science Today on iTunes or follow us on Soundcloud - you’re bound to learn a lot. Thanks for listening, I’m Larissa Branin. Subscribe to Science Today: iTunes: apple.co/1TQBewD Stitcher: www.stitcher.com/podcast/science-today Follow us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/ucsciencetoday Stories mentioned in this roundup: https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/microbes_asthma https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/marijuana_legalization https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/campus_research

This week on Science Today. A new role of the brain’s hippocampus has been discovered. Cognitive neuroscientist Robert Knight of the University of California, Berkeley explains this is the part of the brain where Alzheimer’s often starts. But until now, the hippocampus was only known for storing memories. But as Knight found, it’s also involved in generating language. "It is not just being told what to do by the cortex and the language areas. They are both contributing to effective language capacities. It kind of elevates the hippocampus out of the memory field and puts it to a more global cognitive domain – in this case, language." It just goes to show that researchers still have a lot to learn – and as we found out in our next story, one thing that’s been helpful are study cohorts. Epidemiologist Janet Wojcicki of the University of California, San Francisco says she’s been able to garner so much information beyond her original research following a Latina cohort recruited in pregnancy and followed a number of years. "Our primary outcome was really to better understand factors that are related to obesity and development of chronic disease in early childhood, but we also measured telomeres, the protective cap of the DNA." Shorter telomeres are associated with chronic disease development and Wojcicki found that in this cohort, early, exclusive breastfeeding of infants was linked to longer telomeres. And next, we visit the beautiful Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego to talk to atmospheric scientist V. ‘Ram’ Ramanathan. He’s written countless studies, which he called “obituaries of the planet’ after successfully predicting a significant increase in global warming within the next two decades. And yet, he felt no one was listening. So, as a member of the Vatican’s Pontifical Academy of Sciences, he took his message to the Pope. "So I told him basically to talk about climate change in his speeches and urge people to be better stewards of the planet. Ten days later, he made this major pronouncement and talked about climate change and warned people if you destroy nature, it will destroy you." This later became known in climate change communication circles as ‘The Francis Effect’, but that’s a story for another time. You can catch up on all of Science Today’s episodes on iTunes or Soundcloud. Thanks for listening, I’m Larissa Branin. Subscribe to Science Today: iTunes: apple.co/1TQBewD Stitcher: www.stitcher.com/podcast/science-today Follow us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/ucsciencetoday Stories mentioned in this roundup: https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/hippocampus_language https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/research_cohorts https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/climate_pope

This week on Science Today. We’ve all experienced spaces with uneven heating and cooling systems, so what if this can be optimized in novel ways? We spoke to electrical and computer engineer Yasamin Mostofi of UC Santa Barbara who is using existing WiFi signals to essentially conduct a headcount. But why? "You need to be able to estimate your occupancy with WiFi signals. We want to figure out how many people were there, which areas are more crowded, then the heating and cooling can be optimized accordingly." If counting calories is more your thing, you may want to know more about added sugars in your diet. This is the one of the most significant contributors to diseases like diabetes and heart attacks, so Kris Madsen of UC Berkeley says if everyone was aware of this, there would be a better chance that public health agencies and municipalities could partner with industry to produce healthier products for people to consume. Madsen recently found that a soda tax in Berkeley led to lower consumption of sugary drinks in low-income neighborhoods. "I think some would say sugar-sweetened beverages have been unfairly singled out, they are not the only problematic item in our diet. This is true. There’s a few things about them that really makes them stand out – first of all, they are the largest source of added sugars in the American’s diet; the other problem is that we don’t usually compensate for those calories." This week we also visit the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory where engineers are looking to overcome one of the current limitations of commercial 3D printers on the market – that is, the lack of material that’s being used. Engineer Chen Zhu helped develop a novel, ultra-lightweight graphene aerogel to expand the fabrication of devices or functional materials. "So first we developed the graphene aerogel ink that’s a printable ink, so that means the material is easy to flow through the very small nozzle and after squeezing the printing, the material can maintain the shape and it’s not going to shrink or collapse or deform." There’s just so much research going on at the University of California – subscribe to Science Today on iTunes or follow us on Soundcloud or Stitcher to hear these and other episodes. I’m Larissa Branin, thanks for listening. Subscribe to Science Today: iTunes: apple.co/1TQBewD Stitcher: www.stitcher.com/podcast/science-today Follow us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/ucsciencetoday Stories mentioned in this roundup: https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/wifi_systems https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/added_sugars https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/print_material

There’s nothing like a trip back home to visit family and friends – or attending a college reunion - to make you ponder the passage of time. And as we reported this past week on Science Today, University of California, Berkeley physicist Richard Muller has proposed a new theory about the flow of time. "My theory postulates that space and time are so tightly linked in general relativity, that if you create more space, you’re creating more time. If the expansion of the universe, starting with the Big Bang and now coasting ahead is constantly creating more space, it must also be creating new time." Muller theorizes that that space between the galaxies and the newly created time is what we call ‘now’. Muller is collaborating with CalTech on this and has proposed using LIGO, an experiment that detects gravitational waves created by merging black holes, to test the theory. So we’ll stay tuned on that one. And on the subject of space, we also spoke to radiobiologist Matt Coleman of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory about his work developing a medical device that provides a comprehensive in-flight medical diagnostic system. This will help NASA in their push to better understand the long-tern effects of space travel. "This tool we’re building, you know we think it’s going to have a huge health benefit, but it’s going to have a huge research benefit … and so getting this up into space and even on the International Space Station, it will have a huge benefit, just in the research that we can do." And a new curriculum for medical students at the University of California, San Francisco will help with better treatment for patients here on terra firma. Dr. Anna Chang, who helped develop Bridges, says one aspect is to help doctors better communicate with their patients – including translating medical language commonly used into something patients, families and other care providers can comprehend. "So, starting with day one, we are asking our students to practice what the world looks like from their patients’ perspectives." These are just some of the University of California stories we covered this past week. Listen to these and other Science Today episodes on iTunes or Soundcloud. Thanks for listening - until next time, I’m Larissa Branin. Subscribe to Science Today: iTunes: apple.co/1TQBewD Stitcher: www.stitcher.com/podcast/science-today Follow us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/ucsciencetoday Stories mentioned in this roundup: https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/flow_time https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/space_travel https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/doctor_patient

This week on Science Today. A recent UCLA study has found that diet and exercise can reduce protein build-ups linked to Alzheimer’s disease in those who have subtle memory loss, but have yet been diagnosed with dementia. "A few years ago, nobody ever thought that you could measure a change with just an exercise intervention, so there are some big advances being made." That’s Alzhiemer’s disease researcher Karen Gylys, who we interviewed recently at UCLA about her own novel work looking at Alzheimer’s disease progression in the synapses. Since the disease is so complicated, Gylys explains it will take more than just one solution to stave it off, but she is bolstered by her work and those of her colleagues’. And at the UC San Francisco, medical students and are excited to be part of a new curriculum called Bridges, gives us a glimpse into what doctors of the future may be like. Dr. Anna Chang, who helped develop the coursework, says they’re basically pioneering the way medical students are being taught. "Never before have 150 first year medical students gone out to the clinical settings and been challenged to answer questions like, what do you see? What ideas do you have? And what can you do to improve the lives of patients? We are giving our medical students a chance to do so from the moment that they step in the door." And materials scientists and mechanical engineer Suveen Mathaudhu of UC Riverside describes how car manufacturers are striving to reduce carbon pollution and improve fuel efficiency by producing cars using lightweight materials without sacrificing strength. Mathaudhu says just the copper cabling alone in the average car, which is used for electrical conductivity, weighs about 300 pounds. "If we could get a fraction of that conductivity in aluminum, it would not only be cheaper to implement, it would be lighter weight. So, one of the interesting things that we can do is we can use nanostructured features in aluminum to maintain the conductivity that it has while boosting the strength of the aluminum." Learn more about University of California research – subscribe to Science Today on iTunes or follow us on Facebook. Thanks for listening, I’m Larissa Branin. Subscribe to Science Today: iTunes: apple.co/1TQBewD Stitcher: www.stitcher.com/podcast/science-today Follow us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/ucsciencetoday Stories mentioned in this roundup: https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/alzheimers_diet https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/bridges_students https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/cars_lightweight

This week on Science Today. It’s been over a year since the city of Berkeley, California implemented a ‘soda tax’ and a team of UC Berkeley public health researchers took the opportunity to see how it has impacted consumption. Kris Madsen of the School of Public Health says they found a 21 percent drop in the consumption of soda and other sugary beverages in the Berkeley’s low-income neighborhoods, which is an encouraging sign in the fight against obesity, especially in areas hit hard by the consequences of obesity and diabetes. "It’s the kind of evidence that we really want because what we’re trying to find are tools that can change people’s behaviors. Education alone has not been effective but if this is a really effective tool, then it’s a tool we need to use." And on the subject of tools, UC San Francisco physicians are using holograms, or 3D images formed by the inference of light beams from a laser, in about 20 percent of their CT colonography cases. Dr. Judy Yee says the goal is to appeal to patients to prevent disease. "But also, to make it easier for the radiologists who interpret these studies to make it engaging and easier and as accurate, if not more accurate." Speaking of accurate studies, it’s been over 40 years since atmospheric scientist V. Ramanathan of UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography predicted how the earth’s climate would change by 2010. And while his accurate model continued to show further warming, Ramanathan says we can still ‘bend the curve’ in this chart if we take collective measures now. "We have the science and we have the technology. This is where the intitiatives taken in California could shine a brightest light possible on this problem … to mitigate climate change by using solar fuel cells and waste gas can provide like a beacon for the nation and for the planet to follow." Learn more about these and other research findings at the University of California. Subscribe to Science Today on iTunes or Stitcher. You can also find us on Soundcloud and Facebook. I’m Larissa Branin, thanks for tuning in. Subscribe to Science Today: iTunes: apple.co/1TQBewD Stitcher: www.stitcher.com/podcast/science-today Follow us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/ucsciencetoday Stories mentioned in this roundup: https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/soda_tax https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/future_holograms https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/bend_curve

Over a year after the city of Berkeley, California implemented a ‘soda tax’, a team of researchers have reported a 21 percent drop in the consumption of soda and other sugary beverages in Berkeley’s low-income neighborhoods. Study author Kris Madsen of the University of California, Berkley’s School of Public Health, says this is an encouraging sign in the fight against obesity. "The initial results in Berkeley certainly suggest that soda taxes do exactly what we’re hoping they’ll do – and that’s reduce the consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages. And it’s the kind of evidence that we really want because what we’re trying to find are tools that can change people’s behaviors. Education alone has not been effective. But if this is a really effective tool, then it’s a tool we need to use." Madsen adds that it was also encouraging to note the substantial decline was reported in low-income communities because they often bear the brunt of the health consequences of obesity and diabetes. For Science Today, I’m Larissa Branin.

An older generation antibiotic that’s currently used in animals to reduce bacterial infections was found to block contemporary strains of Zika virus in human tissue in the lab. We met up with Dr. Lenore Pereira of UC San Francisco, who joined forces with colleagues at UC Berkeley to make this discovery. "What’s interesting about this drug, it’s called Duramycin, it’s a small molecule inhibitor and it works directly against the virus envelope – it doesn’t work against the cell, so it’s very specific for Zika virus, Dengue, Ebola. We are thrilled about the finding." And over at the Livermore Lab, computer scientists are excited their software-based network security tool is overcoming some of the limitations of commercial-based products. It’s called Network Mapping System, or NeMS and as Domingo Colon explains, it gives administrators and security personnel a better way to constantly assess what a user’s environment looks like. "It provides them a pretty immediate feedback to figure out who’s doing what and is this a problem? Sometimes you need that immediacy and to determine from that information is it something that you need to take action on?" Meanwhile, materials scientists at UC Riverside describe how their work with nanocrystalline metals can be used beyond automotive and transportation applications. "Including things like biomedical implants. If we can make things like stents and facial implants out of lightweight materials like magnesium, the magnesium will also dissolve in the body over time and the implant may not have to be removed." To hear these and other segments about the latest University of California research, subscribe to Science Today on iTunes or follow us on Soundcloud. Thanks for listening, I’m Larissa Branin. Subscribe to Science Today: iTunes: apple.co/1TQBewD Stitcher: www.stitcher.com/podcast/science-today Follow us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/ucsciencetoday Stories mentioned in this roundup: https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/zika_antibiotic https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/nems_tool https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/metal_nanostructure

This week on Science Today. It’s been 20 years since two UC San Francisco physicians proposed a new kind of doctor – a hospitalist – which is basically a generalist who specializes in inpatient care. Dr. Steve Pantilat was hired at UCSF as a hospitalist in 1996. And while I may be dating myself, I first interviewed Pantilat not long after. Then, about three years after his hire, he founded one of the nation’s first hospital-based palliative care programs at UCSF. Recently, I asked what motivated him at the time. "I had this longstanding interest in ethics and what I liked about palliative care is that it took the ethics and really brought it to the care of patients in a very real way." Palliative care has been the focus of Pantilat’s career ever since. Meanwhile, at the Berkeley Lab, physical chemist Kevin Wilson has been focused on the clouds – his lab simulated the microphysics of how cloud droplets form. "We hope that we can develop more accurate predictions that ultimately can go into models, climate models, that hopefully long term, will give us more accurate predictions of the kinds of climate change processing we might expect in the future." And have you heard of the American Gut Project? This is a crowdcsourced, crowdfunded citizen science project co-founded by Rob Knight of UC San Diego. The project allows anyone to see what their microbiome looks like. "At the moment, I should point out that the benefit is primarily in terms of scientific knowledge and just understanding what makes a difference to your microbiome and what doesn’t. But as an increasing number of diseases get linked to the microbiome, it’s possible that in the future, we’ll be able to develop tests for particular diseases that are based on the microbiome." Don’t miss these and other episodes about University of California research – subscribe to UC Science Today on iTunes or follow us on Soundcloud. Thanks for listening. I’m Larissa Branin. Subscribe to Science Today: iTunes: apple.co/1TQBewD Stitcher: www.stitcher.com/podcast/science-today Follow us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/ucsciencetoday Stories mentioned in this roundup: https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/the_hospitalist https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/cloud_microphysics https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/american_gut

This week on Science Today. Did you know that nearly 40 percent of worldwide agricultural crops are destroyed by insects – in particular, fruit flies such as the spotted-wing Drosophila. These pests feed on ripening fruits, laying eggs inside berries and causing hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of agricultural damage. According to UC Riverside entomologist Anandasankar Ray, most flies go for rotting fruits that have fallen off plants. "But these flies will go after the ripening fruit. So this is of particular concern because when you have fruit or produce that is close to harvest, you really do not want to spray toxic chemicals on them." Ray describes a safe repellent they’ve developed, which successfully warded off hungry flies in the lab. Also in the lab, this one at UC Berkeley, we talk to engineer Chelsea Chen who is testing how their ChemoFilter works in a natural environment. This is a polymer membrane that can absorb excess, circulating chemotherapy drugs in one’s body after treatment. "We are trying to improve the design to mimic body environment more closely instead of just doing a simple benchtop experiment. So, we’re working on both a more real environment in vitro experiment and also the next step is the in vivo." And at UC San Francisco, doctors are seeing things in a whole new way – literally. Dr. Judy Yee describes how they’re using virtual holography to perform colonoscopies and how this technology may also be applied to other parts of the body and help surgeons prepare for procedures. "It will allow surgeons to get a sense of the size of lesions, the proximity to key structures like vessels and to potentially practice the approach to a tumor, for example." There’s just so much going on at the University of California – keep on top of all the latest discoveries and breakthroughs. Subscribe to UC Science Today on iTunes or Stitcher. You can also follow us on Soundcloud or Facebook. Be well, and until next time I’m Larissa Branin. Subscribe to Science Today: iTunes: apple.co/1TQBewD Stitcher: www.stitcher.com/podcast/science-today Follow us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/ucsciencetoday Stories mentioned in this roundup: https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/safe_replellents https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/chemofilter_testing https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/holography_medical

This week on Science Today. It’s been over three decades since Dr. Michael Harrison of the University of California, San Francisco performed the first fetal surgery – and now Harrison is teaming up with bioengineers at UC Berkeley to develop a better glue for fetal surgery. We met with engineer Phillip Messersmith to learn about this super adhesive, which is inspired by mussels. That’s right, the edible ocean dwellers. "The idea that we could borrow ideas from the mussel and use them in a synthetic material is something that we embraced. And so if you want to do that, you have to at least have some basic level of understanding of how this glue works in nature." Meanwhile, in another collaboration between UC San Francisco and UC Berkeley, researchers have joined forces to help the scientific community get a better understanding of how mosquitoes carrying the Zika virus can infect isolated placental cells. UCSF virologist Lenore Pereira explains how they did this. "We infected these cells with both the prototype African strain and the Nicaraguan strain from the new epidemics that have been associated with microcephaly. Somehow, cells were more susceptible to the Nicaraguan strains." Preventing the chain of infection from mother to fetus remains a challenge, but we’re glad to know scientists like Pereira and Dr. Eva Harris at UC Berkeley are on the case. It’s also great to learn that researchers at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory are leading an international study to conduct the first comprehensive study of cool roofs in China. Staff scientist Ronnen Levinson says these are the white coatings that provide energy cost savings by reflecting more sunlight than an ordinary dark roof. "We were taking something that was well understood elsewhere in the world and extending it to a very important country with a very large population that’s actively seeking to save energy and reduce its carbon footprint." Listen to this and other episodes. Subscribe to UC Science Today on iTunes or follow us on Soundcloud. Stay tuned for more great discoveries by University of California researchers. Until next time, I’m Larissa Branin. Subscribe to Science Today: iTunes: apple.co/1TQBewD Stitcher: www.stitcher.com/podcast/science-today Follow us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/ucsciencetoday Stories mentioned in this roundup: https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/mollusk_glue https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/zika_strains https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/cool_roof

This week on Science Today. University of California researchers are on the front lines when it comes to figuring out how the Zika virus makes its way to a fetus. Dr. Lenore Pereira of UC San Francisco, worked with UC Berkeley researchers, to show there are two routes used by Zika to make its way to a developing baby. "We were able to isolate human cells from the placenta and infect them with Zika virus and show that the virus could replicate in cells that came from the placenta itself or from the fetal membranes." The team also discovered that an existing antibiotic may be able to limit the damage wreaked by the virus. Meanwhile, UCSF researchers are also looking to keep healthy babies healthier later in life. Epidemiologist Janet Wojcicki discovered a link between breastfeeding and longer telomere length. Telomeres are the protective caps on our DNA and the shorter they are, the more risk of chronic disease. "We know from other studies that breastfeeding has a whole array of benefits, but we don’t really know in all cases what that mechanism is and so the fact that it’s impacting at the cellular level was very exciting." UC Berkeley chemists are also getting down to the level of neurons to find out just how the nutrient copper mediates conversations between cells. Chris Chang says they’ve been studying the interface between metals and neuroscience for a while. "And the thing that we ended up finding was that copper is important for having brain cells communicate with each other normally." Don’t miss the latest University of California research news. Subscribe to UC Science Today on iTunes or Stitcher. And don’t forget to look us up on Facebook. Until next time, I’m Larissa Branin. Subscribe to Science Today: iTunes: apple.co/1TQBewD Stitcher: www.stitcher.com/podcast/science-today Follow us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/ucsciencetoday Stories mentioned in this roundup: https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/zika_infection https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/breastfeeding_benefits https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/copper_brain

When the world realized that the Zika virus could cause birth defects, the mechanism was mystery to both the public and scientists. But researchers like Lenore Pereira of the University of California, San Francisco, in a joint effort with the University of California, Berkeley, sought answers and found two routes used by Zika to make its way to a fetus. "So we were able to isolate human cells from the placenta, and infect them with Zika virus, and show that the virus could replicate in cells that came from the placenta itself or from the fetal membranes. And the virus was very competent in growing and producing more of itself, which means that it could spread inside a placenta and across fetal membranes to infect the baby – either directly through the blood or maybe through the skin." Pereira and her team also discovered a protein common to the placental cells that Zika could infect, as well as an antibiotic that could block this interaction. For Science Today, I’m Larissa Branin.

If you or a loved one are putting off that colonoscopy because the thought of the procedure is off-putting, there’s a less invasive one that University of California, San Francisco’s Dr. Judy Yee helped pioneer. It’s called the virtual colonoscopy. "This is a new test that employs low radiation dose CT scan to acquire data that we can then view on advanced graphical workstations to create two-dimensional and three-dimensional views of the colon, to help physicians screen for colorectal cancer." And while we’re on the subject of three-dimensional work, we also meet up with lab engineer Chen Zhu of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Zhu was part of a team of scientists at the Livermore Lab and the University of California, Santa Cruz who successfully 3D-printed ultralight supercapacitors using an aerogel made out of the ‘miracle material’, graphene. So what does this breakthrough mean for you in the future? Well, how about a highly efficient energy storage system for your smartphone? "If you have iPhone in the future, it can store the energy very quickly and release the energy very fast. So it has very wide applications." Finally, we head back to UCSF to chat with epidemiologist Janet Wojcicki . In an obesity study that focused on Latino children, she found a connection between breastfeeding and telomere length. These are the protective caps on your DNA that are linked to a higher risk of health problems like heart disease and diabetes later in life. "Exclusive breastfeeding at 4 to 6 weeks of age and breastfeeding at six months were associated with longer telomere length in children at 4 to 5 years age." This study may open up a whole new way to predict and prevent conditions early in a child’s life. Hear these and other stories about University of California research by subscribing to UC Science Today on iTunes or Stitcher. Thanks for listening, I’m Larissa Branin. Subscribe to Science Today: iTunes: apple.co/1TQBewD Stitcher: www.stitcher.com/podcast/science-today Follow us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/ucsciencetoday Stories mentioned in this roundup: https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/virtual_colonoscopy https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/energy_storage https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/telomere_breastfeeding

This week on Science Today: Astrophysicist Richard Klein of the University of California, Berkeley gives us a glimpse at his new supercomputer simulation that covers 700,000 years of star formation. "So we start with these turbulent magnetized clouds. Follow the cloud for up to a million years of evolution, all the way to the point where stars can form in clusters." Klein is currently working on an even larger simulation and hopes they will lead to a comprehensive theory of star formation. With this next piece, we pull our heads out of the clouds and dive into the world of cephalopods – creatures like squid, octopus, and cuttlefish. Although these animals lead strikingly colorful lives, they’re thought to be colorblind. But UC Berkeley graduate student Alexander Stubbs theorizes that their bizarre pupil shape can in fact help them detect color. "And what we showed in this paper is that their fairly unique pupil shape – with a U-shaped pupil in cuttlefish and squid or a dumbbell shaped bar pupil in octopus – means that they blur their image, but in a color dependent way." To test his theory, Stubbs had to get creative. His father, Christopher Stubbs of Harvard University, programmed a computer simulation to model this type of eyesight, showing how this color blurring may help explain the paradox of cephalopod vision. We then visit UCLA, where we speak with professor Karen Gylys about how she creatively studies the brain to better understand Alzheimer’s disease. Gylys can essentially isolate synapses - the space between two neurons. "It’s cryopreserved so that we can get these little spherical, they’re called ‘synaptosomes.’ And so that gives us the ability to sort of see into the synapse – to study what’s happening. We actually purify thousands and thousands synapses." If you want learn more about research at the University of California, subscribe to UC Science Today on iTunes or Stitcher. You can also follow us on Facebook. Thanks for listening. I’m Larissa Branin. Subscribe to Science Today: iTunes: apple.co/1TQBewD Stitcher: www.stitcher.com/podcast/science-today Follow us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/ucsciencetoday Stories mentioned in this roundup: https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/supercomputer_stars https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/octopus_eye https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/synapse_brain

This week on Science Today. Your brain is a precious organ, and one way your body protects it is by using the blood-brain barrier. This is basically a filter set up between the blood in your circulatory system and your brain. The barrier determines which things will or will not pass through. At the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, bioengineer Monica Moya is hoping their 3D bioprinting technology can help recreate the structure. "So we’re trying to build the blood-brain barrier, which is the blood vessels in your brain that are responsible for making sure that not just anything gets across, but that’s an interesting field because sometimes you do want things to get across." A 3D printed blood-brain barrier would be helpful for something like drug research, because you actually want certain medications to pass through. We also speak with UC Berkeley chemist Chris Chang about another surprising feature of the brain – the metal nutrient copper. Chang explains how copper helps your body metabolize fat. "There’s a process which stops normal fat burning, and what we found was that copper stops or blocks what normally blocks fat burning. And so by blocking the block, then you actually allow fat burning to proceed." And did you know that NSAIDs, a common type of anti-inflammatory, can be bad for your heart? Researcher Aldrin Gomes of the University of California, Davis found that vitamin C might prevent this toxicity. "We pretreated the cells with vitamin C before we gave NSAIDs, and this prevented cell death." If you want to keep on top of the latest University of California research. Subscribe to UC Science Today on iTunes or Stitcher. You can also follow us on Facebook. I’m Larissa Branin, thanks for listening. Subscribe to Science Today: iTunes: apple.co/1TQBewD Stitcher: www.stitcher.com/podcast/science-today Follow us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/ucsciencetoday Stories mentioned in this roundup: https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/blood_brain_barrier https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/copper_fat https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/vitamin_c

This week on Science Today. If you look on the back of a bottle of multivitamins, you might recognize some metal nutrients like zinc and iron. But would you recognize copper as a major contributor to human health? We speak with chemist Chris Chang of the University of California, Berkeley, who discovered that copper actually helps mice burn fat. "And so what happens is that if the mice don’t have enough copper in their fat cells, then they can’t undergo this process of fat burning, the act of breaking larger pieces of fat into smaller pieces of fat for energy." And it turns out that this lack of copper can set the stage for obesity. Our bodies require many nutrients to thrive, but other compounds might be outright harmful. Consider chemotherapy drugs, which can be toxic to the body and cause brutal side effects. That’s why researcher Chelsea Chen of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory created a small device called the ChemoFilter. This acts as chemical sponge to absorb the excess drug before it spreads to the rest of the body. "It is used to capture the chemotherapy drug, that’s past the tumor, before it enters the body’s circulation." The device can then be removed from the body after treatment. We also chat with bioinformatics scientist Jonathan Allen of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory about a new national panel that will study how microbial communities affect human health in “built environments” like an office building or even a hospital. "How can we apply the current technologies that are being used to study the microbiome in a broad array of research areas and apply them to really advance the field in building design and interactions with people?" Listen to this and other episodes about the University of California research. Subscribe to UC Science Today on iTunes or Stitcher. You can also follow us on Facebook. Thanks for listening and until next time, I’m Larissa Branin. Subscribe to Science Today: iTunes: apple.co/1TQBewD Stitcher: www.stitcher.com/podcast/science-today Follow us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/ucsciencetoday Stories mentioned in this roundup: https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/copper_obesity https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/chemo_filter https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/office_microbiome

This week on Science Today. Our bodies naturally produce byproducts that may not be too healthy for us but are usually adept at maintaining balance. So, when a medication leads to an excess of molecules that are harsh on the body, we should probably be concerned, right? Researcher Aldrin Gomes of the University of California, Davis says common pain relievers known as NSAIDs, like ibuprofen, do just this. "These NSAIDs were actually inducing something called reactive oxygen species – stuff that our body produces naturally but in small amounts." Aldrin explains how these molecules can stress heart cells and are even linked to disease. We then go from the heart to the skeletal system and hear from biomedical scientist Gabriela Loots of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. She's investigating the tendency of aggressive cancers to metastasize to bone. "There are certain molecules, for examples, that once secreted by the bone they seem to create this environment that’s very attractive to the cancer cells to go there and to grow." So Loots and her team are now trying to understand how to manipulate the environment of a tumor to prevent this spread. Also on the cellular scale, UCSF researcher Jeremiah Osteen is studying how a specific toxin in tarantula venom can very selectively target what’s known as a sodium channel, which much of the nervous system uses to carry signals to your brain." "What was very interesting and serendipitous for us was that it was selective for a certain subtype of sodium channel. And that’s really what allowed us to study that sodium channel using the toxin." Osteen says this toxin will help give insight into a particular pain pathway. Listen to this and other episodes about the University of California research. Subscribe to UC Science Today on iTunes or Stitcher. You can also follow us on Facebook. Thanks for listening. Until next time, I’m Larissa Branin. Subscribe to Science Today: iTunes: apple.co/1TQBewD Stitcher: www.stitcher.com/podcast/science-today Follow us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/ucsciencetoday Stories mentioned in this roundup: https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/pain_relief https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/cancer_bone https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/pain_pathway

This week on Science Today. Pain isn’t just one sensation: we can ache, burn or sting. And these experiences often involve different pathways, some of which remain a mystery. So to learn more, researcher Jeremiah Osteen of the University of California, San Francisco looked to tarantula venom, and discovered two toxins that can target highly specific pain pathways. "And so what the toxins have given us the ability to do is to look very specifically at this particular type of pain pathway, to have a better understanding of what types of neurons are involved, what types of molecules are involved, in order to design better pain drugs." We also tackle the subject of pain-relief, and hear from UC Davis professor Aldrin Gomes, who studies a common type anti-inflammatory drug know as NSAIDs. Because the chronic use of pain relievers can actually increase a person’s risk of cardiovascular problems and stroke, Gomes decided to investigate further. "So we first did a screen of different NSAIDs to see if any of them would affect cardiac cells. And to our surprise, all the NSAIDs we tested affected the heart cells." From these topics in life sciences, we move on to learn about computer network security. Domingo Colon of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory tells us about a new comprehensive tool called NeMS that’s built to improve the digital security at government agencies. "So there are a lot of tools out there that provide different vantage points of network security, but what we needed was something a lot more specific that told us behaviorally what’s happening on our network, and also structurally, how is the composition of our network put together at any point in time." Don't miss these and other episodes about the latest University of California research. Subscribe to UC Science Today on iTunes or Stitcher. And don't forget to follow us on Facebook. I’m Larissa Branin. Thanks so much for listening. Subscribe to Science Today: iTunes: apple.co/1TQBewD Stitcher: http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/science-today Follow us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/ucsciencetoday Stories mentioned in this roundup: https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/venom_pain https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/nsaids https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/computer_networks

When you hear the word ‘radioactivity’, what do you think of? It might bring to mind nuclear disasters like Fukushima and Chernobyl. But it does exist naturally in our environment. So, physicist Kai Vetter of the University of California, Berkeley wants to change the way we think about radiation. "We have established what we call the Berkeley DoseNet program, aiming at providing simple radiation sensors to communities and to high schools, to enable the broader public to learn about the world we’re living in." And speaking of radiation, astronomer Imke de Pater of UC Berkeley has released the most detailed radio maps yet of Jupiter’s surface. "We could see just all kinds of different features. For example, the Great Red Spot, and other little ovals and storm systems on Jupiter." The maps are just in time for the arrival of NASA’s Juno space probe, which has begun its trip around the gas planet. Meanwhile, back here on terra firma, we meet the Livermore Lab’s Jonathan Allen – a bioinformatics scientist who has been tapped to join a national panel to study the relationship between ‘built environments’ and the microbiome. "So, everywhere we go, our skin is contacting surfaces and shedding bacteria on building surfaces and then also it’s coming from the natural environment, plants and the outdoor environment." To hear these and other episodes about the latest University of California research, subscribe to UC Science Today on iTunes or follow us on Facebook. Thanks for listening. Until next time, I’m Larissa Branin. Subscribe to Science Today on iTunes: apple.co/1TQBewD Follow us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/ucsciencetoday Stories mentioned in this roundup: https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/radiation_education https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/jupiter_map https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/built_environment

This week on Science Today. The liver is a resilient organ with the magical ability to regenerate itself, but when it’s damaged by liver cirrhosis, it can be pushed past the point of no return. Researcher Milad Rezvani of the University of California, San Francisco says that gene therapy could help restore patches of healthy tissue on a struggling liver. The successful experiments were run on a mouse model. "Right now we have shown that we can turn this one cirrhosis causing cell type into normal liver cells that function." And of course, we’d always prefer to prevent damage to our bodies before its irreparable. That’s why Dr. Cindy Leung of the University of California, San Francisco warns against giving children too much soda. She says that sugary drinks can actually accelerate aging by shortening our telomeres. These are the protective caps on our chromosomes that protect our DNA and if shortened, can lead to a range of maladies. "Drinking less sugary beverages would be one way to either halt or slow down their telomere shortening process. We need to promote other health behaviors that would help to lengthen our telomeres." We also venture into the physics realm this week with chemist Kevin Wilson of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. He’s been working on predicting the size of cloud droplets. "We were absolutely thrilled to be able to, from a physical chemistry perspective and a surface chemistry perspective, provide some insight into a process that is quite important for understanding cloud droplet formation and climate change in particular." To hear these and other episodes about the latest University of California research, subscribe to UC Science Today on iTunes or follow us on Facebook. Thanks for listening, I’m Larissa Branin. More information: Subscribe to Science Today on iTunes: apple.co/1TQBewD Follow us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/ucsciencetoday Stories mentioned in this roundup: https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/cirrhosis_lab https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/kids_soda https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/clouds_climate

This week on Science Today. Is there anything one can’t make with 3D printing technology? How about living blood vessels? We visit Monica Moya at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory to find out more about how she created 3D bioprints of a vasculature system using natural ‘bioinks'. "So one of our inks is made out of the same stuff that you find in a blood clot. And we intentionally do this because we are in a sense, are co-engineering with the cells." Given this this ability to print vasculature, the feasibility of 3D printable organs doesn’t seem so farfetched anymore. On a somewhat related note, we next take a look at organoids, or miniature lab models that mimic the physiology of real organs. These systems are helping researchers in their quest to learn as much as possible about Zika virus. Finding a good lab model has been challenging, so UC San Francisco's Arnold Kriegstein and his colleagues are stepping in to examine the options. "We were looking at what other model systems could be used to study how the Zika virus infects cells". And we sort of went out on a limb for this last one. Nadav Ahituv of UCSF tells us about how novel genes associated with limb development in bats may help us understand how our own arms and legs grow. "So when our limbs grow, we basically have webbing between them, and then that webbing sort of dies, but in the bat forelimbs, that webbing remains and makes part of the wing." To listen to these and other episodes about University of California research, subscribe to UC Science Today on iTunes or follow us on Facebook. I’m Larissa Branin. Thanks for listening. More information: Subscribe to Science Today on iTunes: apple.co/1TQBewD Follow us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/ucsciencetoday Stories mentioned in this roundup: https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/vasculature_bioprint https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/organoid_lab https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/limbs_bats

This week on Science Today. The oldest documented person lived to 122. Was it luck, or was it genetics? Researchers at UC Berkeley recently found two genes in mice and worms that may explain why some humans can live past one hundred. "These genes are the number one correlation of extreme longevity." And while UC Berkeley scientists study aging at the molecular level, researchers at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and UC Davis are looking to prevent the wear and tear our bodies experience over a lifetime. For instance, when a person suffers a traumatic joint injury, it often leads to damaged cartilage and this results in the development of osteoarthritis. "We try to understand what happens at the joint level, what are all the factors that contribute to post traumatic osteoarthritis." We’ll also check in with a UC San Francisco study exploring resilience in the classroom, and how mentoring programs may be tailored to encourage these qualities in young students. "Motivation, grit, mindset – these are all concepts that are very popular in education right now, on how to raise a successful child." To listen to these and other episodes about University of California research, subscribe to UC Science Today on iTunes or follow us on Facebook. Thanks for listening, I’m Larissa Branin. Subscribe to Science Today on iTunes: http://apple.co/1TQBewD Follow us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ucsciencetoday/

This is Science Today. Low calorie diets in the early lives of some animals have long been associated with metabolic changes that increase lifespan. In experiments on mice and worms known as C.elegans, biologist Andrew Dillin of the University of California, Berkeley and his team uncovered two critical genes responsible for these striking changes. Dillin’s laboratory also discovered that these metabolic shifts are caused by genetic switches, or enzymes that can control these genes and be manipulated by the researchers as well. "These genes are the number one correlation of extreme longevity. So the ones that are long-lived have these two genes very highly upregulated, and the animals that are short-lived have these two genes downregulated." Basically, the long-lived organisms express these genes more than the short-lived ones. These observations may also reflect aging in humans. "The next step is, can we begin to look at super centenarians, people that are living well into their hundreds. Do they have alterations in these genes that people that are only living to be 80 or 70 don’t have?" For Science Today, I’m Larissa Branin.

Larissa Branin reports on a DOE-funded program that brings middle and high school science teachers to the Lawrence Livermore and Lawrence Berkeley National Labs each summer to give them hands-on experience as research scientists. This segment appears in the Fall 2010 edition of UCTV’s “State of Minds.” [Education] [Show ID: 20201]

Larissa Branin reports on a DOE-funded program that brings middle and high school science teachers to the Lawrence Livermore and Lawrence Berkeley National Labs each summer to give them hands-on experience as research scientists. This segment appears in the Fall 2010 edition of UCTV’s “State of Minds.” [Education] [Show ID: 20201]