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A. Infants May Know
More Than We Think
Narrator: This is Science Today. Research at
the University of California, Irvine, found babies
have some sense of reasoning about objects in the
physical world. Gavin Huntley-Fenner, who led the
study, says previous research found babies are surprised
when one of two solid objects suddenly disappear behind
a screen.
Huntley-Fenner: Folks took that to be about
number. We looked at that question, to see whether
those results have to do with number or whether they're
due to something else.
Narrator: That something else may be reasoning.
Huntley-Fenner altered the same test using sand, a
non-cohesive substance.
Huntley-Fenner: We poured one pile of sand
in front of them so they could see it, then we hid
it and we poured another pile of sand in a different
location. And then the screen came down and by magic,
there was only one there. In that case babies didn't
care if there was only one pile of sand. We wanted
to argue that in a fundamental way, babies are like
adults. That is, they divide the world into things
that you will track as individuals and things that
you won't try to treat as an individual.
Narrator: For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
B.
Genetic Engineering And The Environment
Narrator: This is Science Today. Over the years,
thousands of sites in this country have been contaminated
with trichloroethylene, or TCE. This solvent is a
suspected carcinogen used in dry cleaning and industrial
degreasers. Dr. Thomas Wood of the University of California,
Irvine, is working to genetically engineer bacteria
to carry an enzyme to degrade the solvent.
Wood: Our idea is to engineer bacteria that
will hang out in the rhizosphere which is the area
around the plant roots and the plant will feed those
bacteria, so you don't have to add any nutrients at
all. You also don't have to dig up the soil to treat
the soil. The bacteria just continuously make this
enzyme to get through trichloroethylene.
Narrator: Once perfected in the lab, Wood has
long-term goals.
Wood: What we'd really like to do now is grow
trees and take advantage of the bacteria that colonize
tree roots to get rid of trichloroethylene. The tree
we're shooting for is poplar tree, since it has roots
that basically go from the surface down to the groundwater,
covering all the soil between the surface and the
aquifer and getting rid of TCE along the way.
Narrator: For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
C.
Just How Hardy Are You?
Narrator: This is Science Today. How do you
hold up in times of crisis or stress? Do you dig in
and get through, thriving on the challenge? Or do
you fall apart? Many people consider how you react
to be a moment of truth in which your inherent nature
comes to surface. But Dr. Salvatore Maddi, a psychologist
at the University of California, Irvine, says that's
not so. Maddi, who calls these skills hardiness, trains
people to learn these skills.
Maddi: We think of it as a combination of attitudes
and skills that help you cope with stressful circumstances,
whether the stresses are big or small. The attitudes
are what we came to call the three C's - commitment,
control and challenge.
Narrator: Then there's the coping and social
support skills, such as putting stressful situations
into perspective and learning to resolve conflicts
with others.
Maddi:
The research has also concerned itself with evaluating
the effects of our hardy training and it shows that
the hardy training really works in the sense that
it increases hardiness, but in addition, it improves
performance, conduct, morale and health.
Narrator: For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
D. The Future Of
Immunotherapy And Cancer
Narrator: This is Science Today. Understanding
how cancer interacts with the immune system has changed
over the last few decades. That's why, as we approach
the 21st Century, immunotherapy is at the forefront
of cancer research. Dr. Robert Figlin of UCLA says
this understanding is partly due to better technology.
Figlin: We now have the tools that we didn't
have before and I think that as most people would
think and I agree - we're really on the horizon of
disease and treatment specific immune therapy as opposed
to non-specific, hoping that the immune system will
somehow figure out a way to deal with it.
Narrator: Figlin says researchers have also
realized patients need to be treated earlier before
the cancer and chemotherapy have overwhelmed the immune
system.
Figlin: We're treating patients earlier in
the course of their disease and ultimately what's
called adjunctive therapy - giving therapy at a time
when a person's at risk but does not have clinical
evidence of cancer - is the place where immunotherapy
is going to have it's biggest role.
Narrator: For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
E.
Preventing The Second Phase Of Heart Attack
Narrator: This is Science Today. A heart attack
has two phases of injury. The first is when a blood
clot forms in a coronary artery, blocking blood flow.
But there's a second, less well appreciated phase
called reperfusion injury. Dr. Marcus Horwitz, of
UCLA, says reperfusion injury actually causes about
sixty percent of the total damage to the heart after
an attack.
Horwitz: It would occur with any heart attack
victim or stroke. Wherever you have a situation where
blood supply is cut off from an organ, such as the
heart and then that blood supply is restored, reperfusion
injury will take place.
Narrator: In this phase, white blood cells
flow to the oxygen deprived heart tissue, releasing
toxic molecules which damage the heart. This can't
happen without iron, so Horwitz is working with an
iron-binding tuberculosis molecule to prevent this
toxic reaction.
Horwitz: The molecule that we have prevents
iron from participating in that chemical reaction
so that the toxic oxygen molecule is now produced
and reperfusion injury does not take place.
Narrator: For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
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