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A.
A Pioneering Animal-Shelter Medicine Program
Narrator:
This is Science Today. The University of California,
Davis School of Veterinary Medicine is leading a
pioneering program aimed at improving care in animal
shelters. Kate Hurley, director of Maddie's Shelter
Medicine Program, says the focus is on instruction,
hands-on training for veterinary students, diagnostic
and medical support for shelters, as well as research
to improve shelter-animal medical care.
Hurley:
Death arising out of animal homelessness, either
because of disease that occurs in animal shelters,
behavioral problems that develop in the very difficult
environment of an animal shelter or just death because
no home can be found for the animal, is the leading
cause of death for dogs and cats in the United States.
Narrator:
The goal is to decrease the number of dogs and cats
euthanized at shelters and to improve the wellbeing
of the animals during shelter stays.
Hurley:
And this is not to judge animal shelters at
all -they're doing the best they can with minimal
resources.
Narrator:
For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
B.
A Robotic Device May One Day Assist the Disabled
Narrator:
This is Science Today. The Robotics Laboratory
at the University of California, Berkeley, makes robots
that help people. The robots they design are intended
to assist soldiers with heavy loads, but that may
not always be the case. Homayoon Kazerooni, a professor
of mechanical engineering, has hopes their robotic
device may one day help disabled people walk.
Kazerooni:
Now it happened that we are using a healthy person
in there, it happened that the application would be
firefighters and soldiers, but the building blocks
we developed at Berkeley will impact design of machines
for people who are not walking optimally.
Narrator:
Kazerooni emphasizes that the biological applications
have not yet begun to be investigated in earnest and
may not for several years, but the goal is a realistic
one.
Kazerooni:
We worked hard to make sure people would understand
this is a serious and realistic application and it's
far from science fiction and movies. We're simply
augmenting people's capability.
Narrator:
For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
C.
The Revolutionary Gamma Knife Procedure
Narrator:
This is Science Today. The gamma knife is a non-invasive
procedure that delivers highly focused radiation therapy
and is used for certain brain tumors. UCLA had the
first gamma knife in North America, but Dr. Neil Martin,
the chief of UCLA's Division of Neurosurgery, says
they're now using a more modern equivalent.
Martin:
A shaped beam computer-guided radiosurgery unit
that actually can hit the tumor with any shape field
as opposed to this fixed, spherical fields that the
gamma knife has used in the past. So no matter what
the configuration of the tumor, it cold be hit quite
precisely with radiation therapy.
Narrator:
And Martin says in many cases, that's the optimal
treatment.
Martin:
Surgery is still required in the majority of cases
of brain tumors, but the surgical approach is now
much more precise. They're computer-guided, they're
minimally invasive and they're a whole different experience
than what they were fifteen years ago.
Narrator:
UCLA's Division of Neurosurgery recently celebrated
their 50th year. For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
D.
Are You Eating Like Your Ancestors?
Narrator:
This is Science Today. If you don't eat like your
ancestors did, maybe you should. According to Douglas
Wallace, a professor of Molecular Medicine at the
University of California, Irvine, our metabolisms
are optimized to our ancestral climates, suggesting
that people from different climatic ancestries should
eat different diets - regardless of where they live
today.
Wallace:
If an individual's lineage is adapted to a colder
climate then a lot of the calories that they eat will
go to be making heat. Since we need a constant amount
of ATP to live, those people will need to eat more
calories.
Narrator:
But unlike our ancestors, today many of us change
climates quickly, and adopt the local lifestyle -
a practice that may increase our risk for developing
obesity and diabetes.
Wallace:
When people move from a tropical region, say in Africa,
to a colder region like New York City and then adopt
the lifestyle of the temperate people and start eating
a higher fat diet, they are going to have an excess
of calories.
Narrator:
For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
E.
Prenatal Screening Test or Diagnostic Testing?
Narrator:
This is Science Today. Prenatal screening tests are
a routine part of pregnancy. Miriam Kuppermann, a
professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University
of California, San Francisco, says choosing to have
a screening test or opting for diagnostic testing,
such as amniocentesis, is a very personal decision.
Kuppermann:
I think it's important for women to realize that if
they want to go testing, there are different options
for them. And for many women, screening might be the
right choice. It's where they can get sort of a better
sense of the risk of carrying an affected fetus. But
I think what's also important to know is that there
are tests that can definitively diagnose the presence
of a chromosomal abnormality.
Narrator:
Diagnostic testing is usually reserved for women
35 years or older.
Kupperman:
We are interested in doing a study actually to
see what would happen if women were in fact offered
all options - who is it that would chose to have the
invasive test, who would chose to go first to screening,
who would choose to decline testing altogether.
Narrator:
For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
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