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A.
An Avionics System that Deters Plane Hijackings
Narrator:
This is Science Today. In response to the September
11th hijackings, computer scientist Edward Lee of
the University of California, Berkeley, has proposed
an avionics system called "soft walls."
This system creates invisible barriers in the sky
to protect cities against attack by hijacked planes-making
it impossible for a plane to go into a no-fly zone.
Lee:
Many of the newer planes actually have computers
that mediate the commands that the pilot issues.
And it's possible to modify the software to keep
the aircraft from entering spaces in which you don't
want it to enter.
Narrator:
The system would create a virtual bubble around
a city-where the boundary of the bubble is the "soft
wall" and the inside of the bubble is a no-fly
zone. If a plane tries to go into a "soft wall,"
the computer diverts the plane and the pilot will
feel an external force pushing it away.
Lee:
We don't want the pilot to feel like some demon
has taken over the controls. We want it to feel
like there's something outside.
Narrator:
Lee is currently working with Boeing on prototypes
of the system. For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
B.
The Facial Action Coding System
Narrator:
This is Science Today. Around the world, hundreds
of people in law enforcement, medicine and psychology
have learned a technique to decipher facial expressions.
It's called the Facial Action Coding System and it
was developed over 20 years ago by Dr. Paul Ekman,
a psychology professor at the University of California,
San Francisco.
Ekman: Our research system allows
us to measure anything that the face does. And one
can conceivably make more than ten thousand expressions.
Each one a different appearance, but you never see
that. But it's not uncommon in a 30-minute conversation
to see two or three hundred different expressions
that are occurring, but the three most common are
the non-enjoyment smile, the enjoyment smile and the
raising of eyebrows.
Narrator: There are seven clear facial
signals of human emotion. They are: anger, sadness,
fear, surprise, disgust, contempt and happiness. For
Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
C.
The Downside of Getting Paid to Do What You Love
Narrator:
This is Science Today. It may seem counterintuitive,
but getting paid to do something that you enjoy can
actually make you enjoy it less. Ariel Malka of the
University of California, Berkeley's Institute of
Personality and Social Research, says that getting
paid for an enjoyable task makes people question why
they're doing it and undermines their feelings of
autonomy.
Malka:
Past research has shown that if you give people
an enjoyable task to do and then pay some of them
for doing it, those who get paid for doing the task
will actually report less enjoyment of the task subsequently
and they'll be less likely to do it for enjoyment
reasons.
Narrator:
This reaction reflects people's dislike for feeling
as though they've been coaxed into the task for the
reward. It could also explain why people who are highly
paid, but chose their job for non-money related reasons,
are dissatisfied.
Malka:
We think that maybe on a larger scale what might be
going on among people high in intrinsic orientation
who have higher paying jobs. That is the money sort
of causes them to question why they're working that
job and this threatens their feelings of autonomy.
And this in turn, has implications for their wellbeing.
Narrator:
For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
D.
Patient Deaths and Ill Health Linked to a Nurse Shortage
Narrator:This
is Science Today. A recent, national study has found
that a shortage of nurses contributes to nearly a
quarter of the problems that result in death or injury
to hospital patients. Charlene Harrington, a social
and behavioral scientist at the University of California,
San Francisco, says this shortage has also been identified
in nursing homes.
Harrington:
The nurses that go to work for nursing homes tend
to be less well educated than the ones that go to
hospitals because they're making about fifteen percent
below what they would make in a hospital. So you have
a very unstable labor situation.
Narrator:
Harrington was part of a study based on an expert
panel of nursing home care, which recommends better
staffing.
Harrington:
It's really a deplorable situation because in
this country, probably a third of the nursing homes
are below standard. And there's one point eight million
people in nursing homes and so one third of them are
getting poor care and that is in large part because
of poor staffing.
Narrator:
For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
E.
The Promise and Challenge of Predicting Diabetes
Narrator:
This is Science Today. Right now people who suffer
from diabetes can only hope to manage the disease
by regulating their insulin levels. But a new drug
developed by Jeffrey Bluestone of the University of
California, San Francisco, has shown promise in treating
patients who are still in the early stages of Type
1 diabetes. Bluestone says the implications of the
drug go beyond its immediate impact.
Bluestone:
We can intervene in this disease early on, and
if we can identify individuals who are at high risk
of getting the disease then we could maybe even intervene
before they become diabetic which is of course what
we'd all like.
Narrator:
But identifying those susceptible to diabetes is difficult.
Scientists know that obesity is a big factor in Type
2 diabetes, but diet alone is not the answer.
Bluestone:
Since both Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes are increasing
significantly in numbers, there must be more to it.
Whether it's a genetic component in our population
and our breeding, or whether it's some environmental
aspect of virus infections or something like that,
nobody knows.
Narrator:
For
Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
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