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A.
A Revolutionary Robotic and Technology Center
Narrator:
This is Science Today. A revolutionary robotic and
technology center is up and running at UCLA. It's
called the Center for Advanced Surgical and Interventional
Technology, or CASIT, and it's one of the first
of its kind in the nation. Dr. Carlos Gracia, chief
of UCLA's Minimal Invasive Surgery, is co-director
of CASIT.
Gracia:
One of the thrusts is in working with minimally invasive
surgery. It's clear since 1990 that minimum invasive
surgery is really the road that everybody's taking.
It's been very strong in general surgery - that's
GI. It is now enjoying tremendous growth and popularity
advances in neurology, it soon will be the same in
vascular surgery.
Narrator:
CASIT incorporates the use of robotics and imaging
research and development to form the operating room
of the future.
Gracia:
Robots are going to be used in surgery for
a variety of different functions. It has been evolved
to date as a tool to enhance individual surgical
performance because the robot lets you do more things
than you can otherwise.
Narrator:
For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
B.
Efforts Underway to Reduce Spam E-mail
Narrator:
This is Science Today. In an effort to reduce the
amount of spam in your E-mail's inbox, web-based E-mail
groups are working with computer vision researchers
to update their security systems. Jitendra Malik,
a professor of computer science at the University
of California, Berkeley, says in order to separate
human users from computer-robots, security screenings
target the human ability to easily decipher a distorted
word.
Malik: Human beings, when we
look at some scene in front of us, we are able to
recognize objects, identify people, that sort of thing.
And computer programs have so far, found this quite
difficult to duplicate.
Narrator:
But
Malik recently cracked an existing security code,
called EZ-Gimpy, which is currently used by Yahoo!
Malik:
Even though our technique does break it, since we
have not made the code publicly available, it is so
far not the case that various spam artists have been
able to use our technique to try to defeat the Yahoo
system.
Narrator: For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
C.
The Benefits of Using Clean Fossil Fuels in the Third
World
Narrator:
This is Science Today. About one and a half million
premature deaths a year are attributed to the use
of solid fuels for household cooking and heating.
Professor Kirk Smith, chair of environmental health
studies at the University of California, Berkeley,
says this indoor air pollution problem, which mainly
affects the rural poor of the Third World, could be
helped by efficient use of fossil fuels.
Smith:
We should rather look at petroleum fuels in particular,
that can be burned very cleanly at the local level,
as instead of something that is to be avoided, to
actually be something that should be applied to this
problem.
Narrator:
Smith is currently observing the health benefits in
a population using improved stoves that burn clean
fossil fuels.
Smith:
The other, of course, benefit for using clean fossil
fuels for the third world poor is that it moves away
from this problem of local production of air pollution
that is so damaging to health.
Narrator:
The Environmental Protection Agency is also sponsoring
these improved stoves. For Science Today, I'm Larissa
Branin.
D.
How the Sequenced Rice Genome is Affecting Research
Narrator:
This is Science Today. You've no doubt heard about
the Human Genome Project, in which researchers identified
and sequenced an approximate 30 thousand genes of
human DNA. But have you heard about the rice genome?
Researchers have completed a high quality draft sequence
of the entire rice genome. At the University of California,
Davis, Pamela Ronald, an expert in rice genetics,
says such knowledge has led to a frenzy of activity.
Ronald:
You can use that information for improved breeding.
You can use that information to try to identify different
variants of a particular gene that might have improved
properties by looking in seed banks, for example.
Narrator:
Ronald
says that was once a mammoth task.
Ronald:
Now with the genome sequencer, a researcher can
focus on a particular gene and if they have an idea
of the property of that gene, they can go into the
seed bank, go and pick out a seed for example, that
may have been notated to have enhanced drought tolerance.
And they can then compare the gene that they believe
is involved in drought tolerance.
Narrator:
For
Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
E.
Doctors Dropping out of Managed Care
Narrator:
This is Science Today. In the state of California,
doctors are dropping out of managed care. According
to a University of California, San Francisco study,
only fifty-eight percent of physicians are accepting
new patients with HMO coverage. Researcher Catherine
Dower helped conduct the study - called the California
Physicians Survey - and says the majority of doctors
reported satisfaction with their work, but were dissatisfied
with the challenge of maintaining business.
Dower:
The reimbursement rates, cost of living and some of
the financial factors. There's also the paperwork
and bureaucracy entailed in the managed care organizations.
So they were finding much satisfaction with their
delivery of care, but they were very unsatisfied based
on some of their reimbursement rates.
Narrator:
Dower says these are issues that need to be dealt
with.
Dower:
Many physicians are leaving. If they go out of the
managed care system, if they are in a community where
they see enough self-paying patients, they can maintain
their business that way, but they're not offering
their services to the full range of people who need
care.
Narrator:
For
Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
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