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A.
A Video Doctor Helps Patients with Risky Behaviors
Narrator:
This is Science Today. Imagine an interactive software
program in which a videotaped doctor fully evaluates
a patient's smoking, drinking and STD risks and
then offers advice on how to improve health? Researchers
at the University of California, San Francisco,
are working on such a program called the Video Doctor.
Lead researcher Barbara Gerbert says this novel
approach towards preventive health care addresses
a familiar problem.
Gerbert:
Physicians are too busy to do a really adequate job
of talking with patients about their risks and this
doctor on a computer never gets tired, is never judgmental,
never gets interrupted and instead gives consistent
messages in a tireless way.
Narrator:
So far the response to the Video Doctor has been positive.
Gerbert:
We have used it in several settings with thousands
of patients. They find the video doctor easy to use
and over and over again patients are really quite
pleased with using it.
Narrator:
For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
B.
Why Social Dining is Beneficial for the Young and
the Old
Narrator:
This is Science Today. Studies have found that elderly
people, who live and eat alone, often suffer from
poor nutrition. In fact, studies indicate the diets
of the elderly are frequently lacking in many essential
vitamins and minerals. But it's not as if they are
avoiding more nutritious foods. In fact, Joanne Ikeda,
a nutritionist at the University of California, Berkeley,
says solitary, elderly diners were just eating less.
Ikeda:
That is, they didn't have much of an appetite and
so they were apt to eat very little and try to get
it over with as quickly as possible.
Narrator:
Yet, seniors who had friends or relatives
to share meals with, or those with access to social
dining, such as in senior centers, tended to do better
nutritionally and emotionally. And it's not just seniors
who nutritionally benefit from social dining - Ikeda
says some studies found children do better, too.
Ikeda:
Children
who eat alone, tend to eat fewer fruits and vegetables.
If you're a parent, you can understand that! Vegetables
are not a high favorite of children.
Narrator:
For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
C.
What's Causing Extinction in our National Parks?
Narrator:
Extinction in our National Parks - too little land,
or too many people? This is Science Today. Sandy Harcourt,
an anthropologist and conservationist at the University
of California, Davis, says it turns out endangered
species - including bear, mountain sheep and wolves
- are affected not by the size of a park, but rather
by the amount of people living outside park boundaries.
Harcourt:
The graph of extinction against the amount of land
was a completely flat line and what it really looked
like is, what was killing off American large mammals
is what people are doing around the parks - the number
of people around the park is proportional to the number
of species going extinct in these parks.
Narrator:
Harcourt's findings dispel a common notion that
animals in our national parks are safe and it suggests
more has to be done to protect them.
Harcourt:
We have to manage what people are doing around the
national park as well. And the more people there are
around the national park, the heavier, the more intense,
our management of what those people do is going to
have to be.
Narrator:
For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
D.
The Benefits of Capturing Carbon Dioxide Emissions
from Power Plants
Narrator:
This is Science Today. When most power plants burn
fossil fuels like oil and coal, they also produce
carbon dioxide, or CO2, emissions that most scientists
believe cause global warming. But researchers led
by Ray Smith of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
are using rocket engine technology to produce a pure
stream of CO2 that can be kept out of the atmosphere
through a process called sequestration. The sequestered
CO2 could then be used to increase production from
older and lower-performing oil fields.
Smith:
This is a process that's being used today and in fact,
four percent of the domestic oil production is done
with what we call CO2 floods, that is the injection
of CO2.
Narrator:
An increase in the use of CO2 floods could sharply
boost domestic oil production.
Smith:
You can expect about two barrels of oil for each barrel
of liquid CO2 that you inject into the field and to
put that into perspective, it means we can potentially
produce five times as much energy coming out of the
ground as oil as the fossil fuel that we put into
the gas generator to make electricity.
Narrator:
For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
E.The
Latest on Sudden Oak Death Syndrome
Narrator:
This is Science Today. Tens of thousands of oak trees
along California's northern and central coast regions,
as well as southwestern Oregon, are dying of a fungal
disease called Sudden Oak Death Syndrome. While there
were concerns about the disease possibly spreading
to other areas - and even other states - for now it
seems to be primarily confined to the northern half
of California. Still, Dennis Pittenger, an urban horticulture
scientist at the University of California, Riverside,
says researchers are still puzzled by its origins
and don't yet know how to stop its movement.
Pittenger:
This is attacking several native species of oak and
we're looking at up to an eighty percent mortality
rating of trees that do become affected by this.
Narrator:
Researchers are still trying to solve the problem
in what's becoming a race against time.
Pittenger:
But
we're continuing to look for clues as to how to control
it and how it moves and how it spreads and we're just
hoping to find out as much as possible as soon as
possible, so that we can get some answers to these
questions.
Narrator:
For
Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
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