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A. Kids on the Witness Stand Likely to Tell the Truth
Narrator: This is Science Today. Over the last thirty years, there has been an increase in the number of court cases involving children – some as young as two years of age. But how competent are children as witnesses in the court? Research from the University of California, San Diego has found that kids on the stand are likely to tell the truth – even if their parents ask them to lie. Kang Lee, an associate professor of psychology, led the study.
Lee: It tells us the competence examination that's in place in our courtroom has some impact on the child's truthfulness when they are giving testimony.
Narrator: Lee says this kind of finding is not only useful for the courts, but also for the entire process of criminal investigations.
Lee: Not just the judge who would ask kids about the implications of lying or the importance of truth telling, but also you can ask the police, the social workers to ask these kinds of questions before they actually engage in interviews in the kids about what's happening.
Narrator: The laboratory-based study included over 200 children and one parent per child. For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
B.
A Potential New Target for Obesity Drugs?
Narrator: This is Science Today. A brain protein already known to play a crucial role in the ‘feast or fast” signaling that controls the urge to eat, has also been found to impact the body's baseline regulation of energy balance. Christian Vaisse, an assistant professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, discovered that mutations in the protein – called the melanocortin 4 receptor – disrupts this energy balance.
Vaisse: All this amount of energy has to be directly compensated by an equal amount of food intake and when I say equal, it has be at least as much as you expend, which is necessary for survival. If your input is lower than your expenditure, you'll die. If your intake is a little bit higher, your storage is going to increase, so your fat mass is going to increase and it will lead to obesity.
Narrator: This discovery identifies a potential new target for obesity drugs.
Vaisse: Understanding the genetic make up and understanding what the molecular systems are that they are made of, will eventually help us to find drugs to modulate it.
Narrator: For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
C.
Medication Effective in Treating Minor Depression
Narrator: This is Science Today. Minor depression, a moderate version of a more severe depressive disorder, affects about 15 million Americans and is often underdiagnosed and undertreated. Yet, a multi-center study has found that it can be effectively treated with selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, such as Prozac. Dr. Lewis Judd, who chairs the psychiatry department at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, led the study.
Judd: So there is hope for people – a great majority of people in the hands of well-trained clinicians, eighty to ninety percent of people can be absolutely helped with depression.
Narrator: Judd adds that if minor depression is left untreated, it could lead to a more severe depressive disorder.
Judd: If you have a minor depression, it doesn't take much for it to escalate into a major depression. The issue is, having depression is not merely having the blues. It's a common and a serious illness and it has serious consequences if it's not treated.
Narrator: For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
D.
Physicists Seek to Better Understand the Earth's Core
Narrator: This is Science Today. Determining the melting point of iron is essential to determine temperatures at the boundaries of the Earth's core, as well as the crystal structure of the solid inner core. Various experiments have been conducted to find out, but there wasn't consensus. Now, scientists at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory have used what's called a two-stage gas gun to determine the melting point to be just over 87 hundred degrees Fahrenheit. Lab physicist Neil Holmes co-led the study.
Holmes: We're measuring the melting indirectly. What we know is that solids support, basically the same kind of sound waves we see in seismology. And what you see when it melts, there's an abrupt change in velocity and so we're using that as a measure of how the iron melts.
Narrator: Holmes and his colleagues have been trying to measure the temperature for fifteen years.
Holmes: It's a very hard problem – it's one of the easiest problems to ask and one of the hardest ones to solve. So a long-term goal of the work in the group is to determine a solidly grounded way to measure the temperature as well.
Narrator: For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
E.
Moisture Problems in the Home Need Attention
Narrator: This is Science Today. According to a report on damp indoor spaces and health by the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences, about 12% of American homes have water leaks around outdoors and another five to ten percent have water leaks from indoors. Bill Fisk, head of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory's Indoor Environment Department, was part of the committee that released this report.
Fisk : There's a lot of ways that buildings get moist. You can have water leaks from plumbing, water leaks from outdoors, moisture coming in below grade, you can very high moisture generation indoors, continuous cooking and not much ventilation with outdoor air.
Narrator: Damp indoor spaces may cause mold growth, which has been linked to a variety of respiratory problems. So Fisk says homeowners should take action if they notice a moisture problem.
Fisk: So if you have a roof leak, you should immediately try to get the roof leak repaired and better yet, replace your roof if you can financially before it starts leaking.
Narrator: For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
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