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A.
Love, American Style
Narrator:
This is Science Today. When it comes to love and
marriage, Americans are apparently full of contradictions
-and surprisingly, this is considered a good thing.
Ann Swidler, a sociologist at the University of
California, Berkeley, studied American middle class
cultures and says the strongest contradiction she
found involved a 'Hollywood' conception of one true
love.
Swidler:
If you interview middle class and mid-life
people, they insist that love isn't like it is in
the movies. And if you believe that, they say, you'll
just be disillusioned. But those same people, when
they're solving a different set of problems, use
exactly that one true love idea in which love is
perfect - if it's right and true love lasts forever.
Narrator:
Swidler attributes this contradiction to cultural
beliefs that love and marriage should be a permanent
commitment and freely chosen. And this, she says,
is a good thing.
Swidler:
If you didn't have the cultural tools that allow
you to think about love in that way, you wouldn't
be able to bring yourself to make such fateful decisions.
Narrator:
For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
B.
Scientists Hope to Unravel the History of Mars
Narrator:
This is Science Today. Recent images of dust storms
on Mars are helping astronomers study its changing
surface and weather conditions and prepare for NASA's
mission to send rovers to explore the planet's surface
in 2004. Meanwhile, biochemist Mark Thiemens of the
University of California, San Diego has developed
a way to chemically interpret the make-up of Martian
meteorites. This can help scientists unravel the history
of the red planet - including signs of past life.
Thiemens: The meteorites we get
and analyze have come from different times in Martian
history, so by looking at those, one has sort of a
snapshot of what happened over time in the Martian
atmosphere.
Narrator: Thiemens says the Mars exploration
rovers will provide researchers with new samples.
Thiemens:
We can certainly continue in analysis of other of
these Martian meteorites that come from different
times, but we really need return samples - carefully
controlled and from areas where you might really get
at the information you need. That you can go down
to the precision and determine where your samples
come from, rather than random events.
Narrator:
For
Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
C.
Charting a Future Course in Microelectronics
Narrator:
This is Science Today. Within several years, it will
be impossible to cram any more components onto microchips
because the manufacturing techniques will have run
its course. That's one reason why physicist Sue Carter
of the University of California, Santa Cruz is hoping
to incorporate organics such as polymers, or plastics,
with the next generation of advanced materials.
Carter:
We usually think of plastics as structural materials
- like our computer monitor or in our car, but you
can actually make electronic circuits as plastics.
It's very easy to mold plastic in any forms and shapes
you want. It's very cheap to manufacture plastic -
you can actually bring plastic to the general public
at a much cheaper cost than you can other materials
which are much more expensive.
Narrator:
And are much more toxic …
Carter:
Lead is a common material, which is in every single
solder joint or every single electronic circuit you
see. It's the way they connect circuits together.
You could replace that material with a conducting
polymer, which would be much more environmentally
friendly.
Narrator:
This, Carter says will be the future of microelectronics.
For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
D.
One of the Essentials of Adult Life . . .
Narrator:
This is Science Today. Playtime isn't just for kids
- at least, for psychological reasons, it shouldn't
be. In fact, psychiatrist Lenore Terr of the University
of California, San Francisco, says when Sigmund Freud
said a happy, balanced life depended entirely on work
and love, he simply overlooked the importance of play.
Terr:
Adults need to continue playing way past their childhoods.
It is one of the three essentials of adult life.
Narrator:
And Terr says playing doesn't necessarily mean just
sports activities. There all sorts of ways to have
playful fun - some may play chess, others may listen
to music. But Terr cautions that play does not necessarily
mean leisure.
Terr:
Just because we keep trying to be couch potatoes,
does not mean that at the time we are being couch
potatoes that we are truly playing. Play requires
super concentration - concentration that is better
than the concentration that most of us have at ordinary
times in our work or at ordinary times over lunch
when we are talking to co-workers.
Narrator:
For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
E.
The Potential Uses of Anti-angiogenesis Therapy
Narrator:
This is Science Today. Cancer researchers have been
working with an antibody that blocks a protein called
vascular endothelial cell growth factor, or VEGF,
in an effort to shrink tumors and slow disease progression.
Dr. Emily Bergsland of the University of California,
San Francisco, says this is called anti-angiogenesis
therapy, because it inhibits new blood vessel growth.
Bergsland:
And the appeal of this is that this is a therapy
that can potentially be fairly, generally applicable
because it's thought that many tumor types, if not
all tumor types require the recruitment of blood vessels
in order to grow and metastasize. So these agents
could potentially be broadly applicable across tumor
types.
Narrator:
Bergsland and her colleagues have recently used anti-VEGF
specifically with metastatic colon cancer patients
and have found encouraging results.
Bergsland:
What's exciting about this study is it lends support
to the whole concept that angiogensis is important
to tumor growth and metastasis and this has been suspected
for a long time. But this was the first study that
showed in a randomized fashion that an agent specifically
developed to block this angiogenic factor, called
VEGF, can be efficacious.
Narrator:
For
Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
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