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A.
A Study Finds High Rate of Suicide Attempts for
Gay Men
Narrator:
This is Science Today. A recent study has found
that gay and bisexual men in urban areas attempt
suicide at a rate that's three times higher than
the overall rate for adult men in this country.
Researcher Jay Paul of the University of California,
San Francisco, also found that while the percentage
of gay men attempting suicide has stayed the same
over the past few decades, the initial suicide attempts
are occurring at a much younger age.
Paul:
In our oldest group the mean age of first suicide
attempt was about thirty-seven years, and in our
youngest group the mean age was just under seventeen
years old. Pretty big difference; pretty powerful
difference.
Narrator:
The study suggests some reasons for the age drop.
Paul:
One thing that we found was that there's been
a real increase in peoples' reports of anti-gay
harassment, repeated anti-gay harassment or victimization,
prior to the age of seventeen.
Narrator:
For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
B.Tracking
Pollutants in the Coastal Ocean
Narrator:
This is Science Today. Researchers at the University
of California, San Diego's Scripps Institution of
Oceanography are hoping to develop new ways to track
and predict pollutants in the coastal ocean. Physical
oceanographer John Largier says the effects of coastal
contamination, which includes urban runoff from storm
drains, are two-fold.
Largier: One is, at times it
can threaten out health - the public health aspects
- we might get sick if we swim in polluted water.
But probably the bigger and more challenging problem
that we need to overcome is the threat to sustainable
ecosystem.
Narrator: Largier directs an ocean-temperature
monitoring program to study how internal waves and
ocean circulation may affect the transport of pollutants.
Largier:
What we've been doing recently in San Diego is deploying
these thermosters or temperature recorders along the
coast, right from the border up to the La Jolla shores,
where our institution is.
Narrator:
So
far, Largier has found that while ocean circulation
can wash pollutants away, it can also trap them and
accumulate in bays and harbors. For Science Today,
I'm Larissa Branin.
C.
DNA Signatures Improve Anthrax Detection
Narrator:
This is Science Today. A research team at the Lawrence
Livermore National Laboratory has helped improve anthrax
detection by discovering new regions, or 'signatures',
of the DNA that are unique to the bacterium that causes
anthrax. Biomedical scientist Lyndsay Radnedge says
they've found 40 DNA signatures, which react with
all strains of anthrax, but not with closely-related
pathogens.
Radnedge:
The perfect DNA signature gives you no false
positives, gives you no false negatives. So, no false
positives means it doesn't cross-react with its near
neighbors. And no false negatives means that it absolutely
picks up all of the strains of anthrax in the worldwide
collection that we have.
Narrator:
The more DNA signatures there are, the quicker it
will be to compare any new strains that may be closely-related
to anthrax.
Radnedge:
Routinely in hospitals and such, a lot of clinical
microbiology can take a couple of days. It involves
growing the organisms and with DNA-based technologies,
you can interrogate environmental samples directly
and get an answer in an hour or two.
Narrator:
For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
D.
Buried Antarctic Dust Gives Climate Clues
Narrator:This
is Science Today. New instruments that drill deep
into the ice of Antarctica use reflected light to
detect dust particles. The dust gives scientists clues
about changes in the Earth's temperature. Physicist
Buford Price of the University of California, Berkeley
says the amount of dust varies with the climate.
Price:
When the Earth is very cold during an ice age, such
as the one that wiped out the hairy mammoths, the
winds are howling and sweeping up dust particles as
much as a hundred times more dust than you find during
the present, mild period.
Narrator:
Price says the dust can show that the Earth's temperature
has changed by as much as twenty or thirty degrees
in just one decade.
Price:
That is something that is of great interest to all
humans now-are we likely in the next decade or so
to find the Earth's temperature suddenly increasing
or decreasing by that much?
Narrator:
For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
E.
New Treatments for Back Pain on the Horizon
Narrator:
This is Science Today. Back pain affects over four
million Americans each year and the rate of back surgeries
to treat degenerative discs, including spinal fusion,
has dramatically risen over the years. Researchers
at the University of California, San Francisco are
working on new ways to treat this common ailment.
Orthopedic surgeon Dr. David Bradford, says one of
the possible treatments on the horizon is the use
of tissue engineering.
Bradford:
And that is using stem cell work to regenerate
tissue. We in our lab are doing that type of work,
as well as many centers around the world, trying to
find ways to regenerate a degenerative disc, therefore
restoring normal tissue.
Narrator:
Other technologies in development allow surgeons to
insert the inner portion of an artificial disc implant
by using an endoscope.
Bradford:
We at UCSF are working on that and have developed
such a prosthesis that we hopefully can do clinical
trials in Europe next year.
Narrator:
For
Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
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