A.
New Research Looks into Infants Mouthing Behavior
Narrator:
This is Science Today. As many parents know,
babies and toddlers are particularly attracted to
glossy, reflective surfaces and they tend to mouth
these shiny objects. According to Richard Coss,
a psychologist at the University of California,
Davis, this may be a holdover from when early primates
were seeking water for survival. To understand this
mouthing tendency, Coss compared how young children
reacted to dull and shiny dinner plates and found
the youngsters preferred to mouth the shiny plates.
Coss:
People have known about mouthing in the sense that
they've seen it a lot, but no one had systematically
looked at the differences of textures or surface
finishes that might affect mouthing.
Narrator:
Coss' study has implications for the safe design
and manufacturing of toys, utensils, plastic bags,
household products and appliances.
Coss:
I think the next step is to find ways of developing
some specifications or at least some ideas that
might mitigate some of the mouthing that might be
applicable to containers and so on or possibly plastic
bags.
Narrator:
For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
B.
Hospitalists Have Positive Impact on End-of-Life
Care
Narrator:
This is Science Today. Doctors who focus specifically
on managing the care of hospitalized patients are
called 'hospitalists'. Dr. Steve Pantilat, who directs
the palliative care service at the University of
California, San Francisco, is a hospitalist himself.
Pantilat:
A hospitalist is an internist - internal medicine
doctor, a sub-specialist in internal medicine, a
pediatrician or family practice physician - who
assumes the care of a hospitalized patient instead
of that patient's primary care physician.
Narrator:
A study co-led by Pantilat found that hospitalists
have a positive impact on end-of-life care, despite
concerns they don't know the dying patients as well
as their primary care provider might. But Pantilat
says the hospitalist bring many advantages to the
care of hospitalized patients.
Pantilat:
They bring expertise from doing this a lot, they
are more available to the patients and families
to talk about specific issues, to act on results
of tests that happen and they can help to make the
hospital system run better.
Narrator:
For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
C.
Sharks and Tunas Have Similar Swimming Systems
Narrator:
This is Science Today. You may think the common
tuna and the powerful great white shark don't have
much in common, but it turns out that tunas and
lamnid sharks - a group that includes the great
white and mako - share a similar high performance
swimming system. Robert Shadwick, a professor in
the Marine Biology Division at the Scripps Institution
of Oceanography, who co-led the research, says there's
been very few studies on shark swimming.
Shadwick:
Possibly due to the fact that they're harder to
come by or they're not as easy to keep captive in
certain species. So, I guess our work has done two
things, which is point out the really interesting
parallels with the development in tunas and also
pretty much start off a series of papers on locomotion
in sharks, which was a pretty empty field at the
time we started.
Narrator:
Powerful red muscles in the front of lamnid sharks
and tunas transfer energy to the tail region - producing
powerful locomotion in an area of the body that
is physically separated. These characteristics distinguish
lamnids and tunas from virtually all other fish,
making them more like each other than they are even
to their closest relatives. For Science Today, I'm
Larissa Branin.
D.
Designing Molecular Structures at the Atomic Level
Narrator:
This is Science Today. Creating designer molecules,
one atom at a time may sound farfetched, but that's
just what researchers at the University of California
are doing. Michael Crommie, a physics professor
at UC Berkeley and a staff scientist at the Lawrence
Berkeley National Laboratory, developed a technique
to attach individual potassium atoms to soccer ball
shaped carbon-60 molecules, which are known as "buckyballs".
This effectively changes their electronic properties.
Crommie:
We showed that we are able to take an individual
molecule and attach individual atoms to the surface
of the molecule. Those atoms then donate their charge
to the molecule by changing the number of electrons
[at the site of the molecule]. We can also remove
those atoms as well.
Narrator:
The ability to control the properties of individual
atoms is an important factor in the field of nanotechnology.
Crommie:
One of the main applications that people are
interested in is molecular electronics. A very important
trend in industry is to make smaller and faster
electronic devices. Pretty soon we'll have devices
at the molecular and even atomic scale.
Narrator:
For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
E.
HIV Patients at High Risk for Hepatitis C Have Low
Treatment Rates
Narrator:
This is Science Today. Low-income HIV patients,
who are at the highest risk for Hepatitis C infection,
have the lowest rates of treatment. According to
David Bangsberg, an associate professor of medicine
at the University of California, San Francisco,
seventy percent of HIV-infected urban poor in San
Francisco are co-infected with Hepatitis C. Yet
despite good access to medical care, only 4% are
being treated for their hepatitis infection.
Bangsberg:
One of the reasons treatment was rare is that this
is a complex population. Not only is drug use a
common problem, but mental illness is a common challenge
as well as unstable housing and homelessness and
so that makes this a challenging population to treat.
Narrator:
Despite the challenges, Bangsberg says patients
can be treated using an integrated approach.
Bangsberg:
Which can simultaneously address the problems
of mental illness, problems of substance use, as
well as very complicated infectious diseases like
HIV and hepatitis C.
Narrator:
For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
