A. Cheap and Simple Earthquake
Safety
Narrator: This is Science Today. More and
more office buildings in earthquake zones are being
built with earthquake safety systems -- shock absorbers
or sliding bearings that isolate a building from
the movement of the ground beneath it. Civil engineer
Maria Feng of the University of California, Irvine
has designed a new system that lets a building slide
as much as it wants to in a small quake. In a large
quake, which might send it sliding into the building
next door, computer-controlled bearings kick in
and control the slide.
Feng: Compared to other control systems
the cost of this system is pretty low. The cost
actually for this system doesn't cost much because
controlling the pressure inside the bearing chambers
does not require much energy. So actually this can
be done by batteries.
Narrator: Which in a quake is a lot better
than relying on outside power. And Feng's system
has another advantage.
Feng: Because the control system
is simple -- the simpler, the more reliable it is.
Narrator: The system hasn't been used in
a real building yet, but Feng has already won awards
for designing it. For Science Today, I'm Steve Tokar.
B. A Little Alchemy Does
the Trick
Narrator: This is Science Today. Chemists
are learning how to design drugs from the ground
up. Using computers, they make 3-D molecular models
of drugs and the diseases they want to target, and
put them together to see how they might interact.
But what if you want to modify an already existing
drug? Chemist Andrew McAmmon of the University of
California, San Diego says the answer is a little
computational alchemy.
McAmmon: Taking a drug molecule
that maybe works pretty well but you want to make
it work better, so you take the various atoms in
the drug molecule and transform them into different
types of atoms. Transforming a hydrogen atom into
a fluorine atom -- one can carry out these calculations
in the computer.
Narrator: The computer then calculates how
the proposed change might make the drug more --
or less -- effective.
McAmmon: And in fact there are
now a number of compounds in clinical trials for
the treatment of influenza, the treatment of emphysema,
the treatment of HIV infections and other diseases.
Narrator: For Science Today, I'm Steve Tokar.
C. Be Glad You're Not A Caterpillar
Narrator: Think you have problems? Be glad
you're not a caterpillar. This is Science Today.
A caterpillar pest called the tobacco hornworm destroys
tomatoes, potatoes and other crops. Entomologist
Nancy Beckage of the University of California, Riverside
is studying its natural enemy, a parasitic wasp
that lays its eggs in the bloodstream of the hornworm.
The eggs hatch there and eventually burst out of
the caterpillar's skin to form cocoons.
Beckage: So often what you see
in the field are caterpillars with cocoons on their
backs. And then the adult wasps which emerge from
those cocoons then fly off to find new caterpillars
to parasitize. The host meanwhile cannot complete
its own metamorphosis, so the moth will never emerge
to reproduce.
Narrator: Along with eggs, the wasp injects
an AIDS-like virus that knocks out the caterpillar's
immune system.
Beckage: And we're trying to discover
the mechanisms, how this happens, in hopes of developing
novel pesticides based upon the action of these
natural parasites and their associated virus.
Narrator: For Science Today, I'm Steve Tokar.
D. A Kiss Isn't Always
Just A Kiss
Narrator: A KISS isn't always just a kiss.
This is Science Today. Environmental health expert
Katherine Hammond of the University of California,
Berkeley did a study showing that workplaces that
allow smoking expose non-smokers to dangerously
high levels of passive smoke. Now, closer to home,
she's working on a program called KISS -- Keeping
Infants Safe from Smoke. That is, their parents'
cigarette smoke.
Hammond: Young children are very
much at risk from passive smoking. It's been clearly
demonstrated that they have higher rates of bronchitis,
pneumonia, various lung diseases. And attacks of
asthma are much more serious among children whose
parents smoke, and they have them more frequently.
Narrator: Hammond is looking at ways to
motivate parents to reduce their kids' exposure
to passive smoke.
Hammond: Obviously the best would
be if the parents didn't smoke at all, but we understand
that smoking is a very very addictive habit, extremely
difficult to break, and I think we all of us have
to be tolerant of smokers. But at the same time
non-smokers should not be exposed to this toxic
material.
Narrator: For Science Today, I'm Steve Tokar.
E. The Medicalization of Childbirth
Narrator: This is Science Today. Psychologist
Robin DiMatteo of the University of California,
Riverside did a study of women who had recently
given birth for the first time, and found that the
pain of childbirth had taken them by surprise. No
one had told them what to expect. DiMatteo thinks
part of the reason is what she calls the medicalization
of childbirth.
DiMatteo: In traditional cultures,
women who are giving birth are supported by lots
of people, basically go through a very complex ritual
that is part of the physical process of giving birth
but there is an emotional rite of passage as well.
In our culture, women go off to a sterile place,
the hospital...
Narrator: ...where the women felt they had
been acted upon rather than having taken an active
role in giving birth.
DiMatteo: One mother, for example,
felt that she really needed to walk around and move
during labor but she wasn't allowed to, she was
supposed to lie still to have the fetal monitor
tracing come out right.
Narrator: For Science Today, I'm Steve Tokar.
