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A. A California Partnership to Combat Childhood Obesity
Narrator: This is Science Today. One out of three children born in the year 2000 will have diabetes sometime in their life. This U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention statistic dramatically illustrates the problem of childhood obesity in this country. Patricia Crawford, co-director of the Center for Weight and Health at the University of California, Berkeley, says this is not acceptable.
Crawford: We have to take drastic steps because our children's health is really at stake. We can no longer say, “well, we really want them to make healthy choices and all foods are good food in moderation”. I think we really have to look at the messages that we've been giving parents and say that it's not working – that the environment really promotes eating of these other foods and an inactive lifestyle and this in combination is putting your child at risk for very serious diseases.
Narrator: Crawford is part of a statewide effort with educators, park and recreation officials and healthcare providers to make California's children healthier through policy changes and new messaging campaigns. For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
B. The Role of Espionage in Bee Communication
Narrator: This is Science Today. A form of insect espionage may have driven the evolution of bee language. Biologist James Nieh of the University of California, San Diego, discovered that some species of bees pick up chemical clues left behind by other, competing bee species to guide their kin to food.
Nieh: This kind of very specific, symbolic type of communication is very rare in the animal world. And one of the things I have been looking at is the possibility that an advantage of language is that it is encoded. And so therefore, it might be useful if you have problems with competition and the competition is trying to spy out and find out what you know.
Narrator: Nieh has been studying the interaction between honeybees and stingless bees in Brazil. Understanding such forms of communication may benefit pharmaceutical companies interested in the medicinal value of stingless bee honey and resin.
Nieh: So knowing more about their communication system, how they find these flowers and bring back these nectars, which may have medicinal compounds may help us.
Narrator: For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
C.
A Pioneering Human Genetics Study
Narrator : This is Science Today. In 1998, researchers discovered the first mutation in proteins called melanocortin 4 receptors, which it turns out, are found in two to four percent of all severely obese people. Christian Vaisse, an assistant professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, is leading the pioneering Genetics of Human Obesity Study.
Vaisse: And so what we've been doing now is systematically screen a lot of patients for this receptor and then try to understand what this mutation did to the receptor and how they made this receptor dysfunctional and then try to learn more about how this receptor functioned normally.
Narrator: Vaisse recently discovered a new group of mutations in these receptors that interrupt the body's baseline level of activity, which is crucial to maintain normal body weight.
Vaisse: Many of the mutations that we found, they impaired the response to the melancortins, so if they don't activate a receptor anymore, they can't inhibit food intake anymore and therefore, you eat a little more.
Narrator: For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
D.
Climate Experts Help Predict Rainfall Patterns to Avert Famine
Narrator: This is Science Today. Climate experts at the University of California, Santa Barbara are leading an international team of scientists to help monitor and predict rainfall patterns in Central America and Africa to avert famine. Joel Michaelsen, who heads the team, says they received funding to increase their participation in a federal program called the Famine Early Warning System Network, or FEWS NET.
Michaelsen: Their overall mission is to try to monitor the development of crop yield during the growing season in different areas of the world, so that they can get advance notice if there are going to be serious problems with rainfall shortage or excess that would lead to crop shortages.
Narrator: Researchers at UC Santa Barbara are working with scientists in the field to develop computer tools.
Michaelsen: We develop software that allow them to take our data sets and evaluate different scenarios that allow them to map current patterns and see them over a regional scale.
Narrator: For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
E.
Abalone Shells May Guide Development of New Body Armor
Narrator: This is Science Today. Abalone shells, which are highly prized as a source of colorful, mother-of-pearl jewelry, are being considered as a possible guide for a new generation of lightweight bullet-stopping armor. Engineering researcher Marc Meyers of the University of California, San Diego says the seaweed-eating snail creates a tough shell with highly ordered, brick-like tiles – one of the toughest arrangements of tiles theoretically possible.
Meyers: We want to mimic these methods for synthesizing with our stronger materials. We need to understand how growth takes place if we are going to apply similar concepts to our synthetic materials and then produce materials that are one order of magnitude stronger than the existing one.
Narrator: The researchers joined technological forces with the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory to get the first detailed look at the protein structure of the abalone shell.
Meyers: It's up to us to understand first, how these organism create these structures and then how we can imitate them.
Narrator: For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
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