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A.
Can Money Buy Happiness?
Narrator:
This is Science Today. Most people would agree that,
up to point, money brings happiness. But researcher
Ariel Malka of the University of California, Berkeley's
Institute for Personality and Social Research has
found that once enough money has been earned to
meet the basic needs, money in relation to happiness
is a very personal equation.
Malka:
Not surprisingly, we found that for those who
were very high on the extrinsic orientation-that
is, if you worked as a means of attaining money-money
did have a stronger positive effect on well being.
However, for those high in intrinsic orientation,
those making more money were actually less happy
than those making relatively little money.
Narrator:
Malka says that working a high paying job may actually
cause you to question why you're doing it and shake
your delicate sense of enjoyment of the job.
Malka:
So that is, if you're the type of person who
back in the day said that, sure, I value work for
intellectual fulfillment reasons, for the challenge
that it offers, for the opportunity for self expression,
and then you end up choosing a job on the basis
of income, your well-being is likely to take a more
serious hit.
Narrator:
For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
B.
Controlling Large Portion Sizes in Obese Children
Narrator:
This is Science Today. Health care professionals,
concerned about the rapid rise of obesity in children,
are looking into portion size and its link to weight
gain. Nutrition specialist, Lucia Kaiser, of the University
of California, Davis says there is some data indicating
that serving larger portions of food to kids will
make them eat more and have a higher body weight.
Kaiser: The good news though,
is that young children still have the ability to eat
just what they need, energy-wise, if they're provided
a good variety of nutritious foods.
Narrator: But studies also show that
fast food restaurants today are serving much greater
portions. So how can parents reverse or slow down
overeating at home and outside?
Kaiser:
If
there is some concern about a child's weight, this
should be discussed with the pediatrician and with
a nutritionist for a careful guidance that would involve
a family approach in changing the family-style of
eating, so that it isn't singling a child out and
restricting food.
Narrator:
For
Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
C.
New Sensors Used to Study Redwoods
Narrator:
This is Science Today. Until recently, fear of heights
was not an option for the biologists studying redwood
trees at the University of California, Berkeley. For
years, these intrepid climbers have installed heavy
gear onto trees that are over 300 feet tall, but today,
with the introduction of miniature wireless sensor
networks, researchers can stay on the ground while
the redwood trees go high tech. David Culler, a professor
of computer science, explains.
Culler:
The redwood tree is a big enough organism that
it has an entire ecosystem within it. And they really
would like a volumetric picture of everything that
is going on in there.
Narrator:
In order to get this broader picture, Culler has
teamed up with the UC Botanical Gardens to install
fifty lightweight, non-invasive sensor nodes onto
five redwood trees. This network of microsensors will
constantly track changes in light, temperature and
humidity.
Culler:
The redwood tree-it's very complicated. Parts of it
are wet, and parts of it are dry, and we don't really
know how an organism like that functions. And if we
can get this information, then they can go develop
models of the organism as a whole.
Narrator:
For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
D.
Using the Internet to Track Airborne Hazards
Narrator:
This is Science Today. If terrorists attack a city
with radioactive, chemical, or biological weapons,
emergency response teams will need to know how the
toxic material will move through the affected area.
A group of scientists at the Lawrence Livermore National
Laboratory first tracked airborne hazards in 1979
during the Three Mile Island accident. Lab scientist
John Nasstrom says much progress has been made in
creating models for the atmospheric movement of toxic
agents.
Nasstrom:
More recently we've developed a new Internet and web
technology which makes it much easier to access our
capabilities and this is the technology that we're
starting to bring to cities and demonstrate it and
show that it can be useful.
Narrator:
The program is being tested in Seattle this year.
Nasstrom:
And so we've started with the Fire Department. We've
started training the HAZMAT teams, for example, how
to use our software tools to quickly request a prediction
using an internet connection and getting a result
back from our three-dimensional atmospheric models
in about 5 to 10 minutes.
Narrator:
For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
E.
Drug Intervention Before Initial Spread of HIV Infection
Narrator:
This is Science Today. The latest AIDS research out
of the University of California, San Francisco, is
focusing on a medical treatment that could prevent
the transmission of HIV following an exposure. Dr.
Michelle Roland says their work focuses on intervention
before the initial spread of the infection.
Roland:
So what we think happens is that there is some
local infection, but that that infection for the vast
majority of the time cleared, and it's not until that
3-5 day time point when the virus has been integrated
into the actual immune system cells and circulating
in the bloodstream that the person is actually infected.
Narrator:
The treatment, called post-exposure prophylaxis, or
PEP, has to be started in that three-day window before
the virus takes hold in order to be effective.
Roland:
The risks are the symptomatic side effects, the potential
for more serious side effects. So the benefit is going
to be related to how risky it is, how likely it is
that you have been exposed to HIV.
Narrator:
For
Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
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