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A.
A Fundamental Discovery Made About Human Bone
Narrator: This is Science Today. A fundamental discovery about the properties of human bone has been made by researchers at the University of California , Santa Barbara . Engineer Georg Fantner, who led the study, describes their surprise in finding a sort of ‘glue' at a molecular level in human bone.
Fantner: One would think it's very well-studied material and then you're looking at something and you find something that people have never seen before. You first start to wonder: did I see something wrong or did I do the sample preparation wrong or could this really be what we think it is?
Narrator: The researchers used an Atomic Force Microscope to get a nano-scale level look at this “glue” in human bone.
Fantner: We think that the presence of the glue is very important for the strength and therefore obviously, if it degrades by age, if you don't have it anymore, that is one of the reasons why your bones get brittle.
Narrator: Fantner says the next step is to find out what the glue actually consists of. The discovery may lead to therapy for bone fracture, or even to prevention. For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
B.
American Troops Benefit from Gun Truck Armor Kits
Narrator: This is Science Today. Gun truck armor kits developed by researchers and engineers at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory are providing convoy protection for American troops in Iraq . Milton Finger, a senior scientist at the Lab, says the kits they designed have modular panels that can fit any truck, anywhere.
Finger: And it has a great deal of flexibility, so if for any reason, things have to be modified or changed real time, its a simple matter of un-bolting and re-bolting them. So it isn't customized in the sense that it only fits one truck, it is a universal design.
Narrator: So far, 31 gun trucks have been outfitted with these armor protection kits and there's an order for 85 more. Finger says they've proven to be very successful with the troops and have already saved lives.
Finger: You work on things and some things have a way of finding their way into the system one way or another, but nothing has instantaneously gratifying as this, where you get immediate feedback from people whose lives have been saved. And that's quite different.
Narrator: For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
C. An 'EZ' Communication Board Helps ICU Patients & Staff
Narrator: This is Science Today. There are two different types of intensive care patients: those who anticipate being in the ICU for elective surgeries and those who are trauma patients. All awake unable to speak because they are intubated and while nurses are trained to deal with such patients and attend to their needs, the EZ-Board, a communication board developed by UCLA nurse Lance Patak is making it easier.
Patak: The EZ-Board is a dry erase board actually that was actually designed by patients in this scenario and its a dry erase board that has pre-printed text on it.
Narrator: There are several columns for patients to express needs and wants – such as, “I am thirsty” or “I want to be bathed”. There's even a pain level chart on the backside of the board.
Patak: They can actually provide subjective data to their practitioner so that we can provide an individual plan of care to this patient. And I think that actually is one of the most important aspects of this board.
Narrator: For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
D.
The Difference Between Drug Dependence & Addiction
Narrator: This is Science Today. Medications, such as opioids or Valium-type drugs, alter your body's physiological response, so everyone becomes physically dependant on them. But Pamela Pierce Palmer, director of the University of California , San Francisco Pain Management Center , explains there's a difference between getting physically dependent on these medications and becoming addicted.
Palmer: All the drugs you become physically dependent on, it just means that you have to slowly taper off them. So, an asthmatic can't just stop a steroid, they'll have a crisis situation. A pain patient just can't stop an opiate – they'd have massive withdrawal. They can, in both situations though, slowly taper off the medication.
Narrator: On the other hand, Palmer says an addict is escalating their use of the drug to treat a psychological problem.
Palmer: They're psychologically dependent on the medication and they will put themselves in harm's way in order to continue using the medication, even though it's not helping them physiologically. And so there's a whole different problem with the addicts versus the physically dependent patients.
Narrator: For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
E.
Scratching the Surface of Age-Related Memory Research
Narrator: This is Science Today. Memory research conducted at the University of California, Santa Cruz has found that older adults tend to ‘accentuate the positive and eliminate the negative' in their memories more than younger adults. Mara Mather, who led the study, says people are often surprised by how malleable memory is, but researchers are just begun to scratch the surface – especially when it comes to age-related changes that seem to influence decision making.
Mather: In the past, researchers have very much had the idea that age is a time of decline and so almost any age difference that you see is interpreted as, “there must be some sort of decline in the brain that's leading to this change.” Whereas, there seems to be some changes related to age that are not about decline so much as they are about changing goals and different things becoming important. And so, I think it's important for us as scientists not to immediately jump to the conclusion that any age difference is that the older adults are doing worse for some reason.
Narrator: For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
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