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 Childre
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.
