|
A.
The Scientific Advances in Alzheimer's Disease Research
Narrator: This is Science Today. Three molecules that appear to inhibit a key perpetrator of Alzheimer's disease have been discovered by researchers at the University of California , Santa Barbara . Ken Kosik, co-director of the university's Neuroscience Research Institute says each of the molecules discovered protects a brain protein called “tau”.
Kosik: We all have it in our brain, this tau protein, what happens to make this normal protein go wrong in this disease, it starts to collect from its normal distribution in the cell to forming an inclusion in the cell called the neurofibrilliary tangle. It's a structure made up of fibrils that just gradually strangle the cell, they just gradually kill the neuron.
Narrator: While their findings are not yet ready for the clinic, Kosik says scientific research moves a lot faster today.
Kosik: When some of the critical genes and proteins were first identified in Alzheimer's disease, three, four, five years elapsed before we were actually able to clone the genes that were responsible for these abnormal proteins. Now, that happens within days.
Narrator: For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
B. A National Lab Develops a Life-Saving Armor Kit for Gun Trucks
Narrator: This is Science Today. A gun truck kit developed by the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory is now providing convoy protection for American troops on the roads of Iraq . Milton Finger, the senior scientist who led the project, says gun trucks were initially used during the Vietnam War to escort convoys.
Finger: So we interviewed several veterans of the Vietnam War who drove these trucks, to get some general direction from them. We then also looked into our literature that Livermore and others had developed. Livermore had been actively involved in armor technology since the Vietnam War. It was that database then that suggested what we might to do protect vehicles gun trucks against the threats of today.
Narrator: Finger and his colleagues built an easy-to-assemble kit made of high, hard steel and ballistic fiberglass. Thirty more were built and used in the field, where they have been highly regarded by the troops.
Finger: We know of two instances specifically in which lives were saved.
Narrator: For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
C.
Mom Was Right About Eating Your Vegetables
Narrator: This is Science Today. A high vegetable diet has been associated with significantly cutting down the risk of developing pancreatic cancer. Epidemiologist Elizabeth Holly of the University of California , San Francisco led the study.
Holly: Some of the smaller studies that looked at the dietary factors that had shown somewhat of a protective effect with a higher intake of vegetables. So, that's something that we wanted to look at it very carefully. We found that if you examined types of vegetables, the most important, looking at all the vegetables together were onions and garlic.
Narrator: Also found to be highly protective were beans, yellow vegetables including carrots, sweet potatoes, corn and yellow squash; dark, leafy vegetables and cruciferous veggies, such as broccoli and brussel sprouts.
Holly: It goes back to what your mother and your grandmother told you, which was “eat your vegetables!” And that actually turns out to be the right thing to do, not just for pancreatic cancer, but other cancers as well – and other diseases.
Narrator: For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
D.
A UC Cancer Center Receives NCI Designation
Narrator: This is Science Today. The National Cancer Institute has renewed its designation of the University of California at Davis Cancer Center for another five years. The distinction comes with 14 million dollars in new federal funding to support the center's expanding research program, which includes a partnership with scientists at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
Balhorn: Livermore 's been working with UC Davis and the Cancer Center for quite some time. This is the first time that Livermore has joined forces at a very early stage at developing a cancer center and worked with them as equal partners at bringing in funding for the center and making a very strong link between the laboratory and one specific center.
Narrator: Rod Balhorn leads the Livermore Lab's Biomedical Division.
Balhorn: As the cancer center learned about the technologies that existed here, more and more people at the cancer center started looking at Livermore as a potential source for new technology. There are about two hundred people involved, both at Livermore and at the cancer center or the UC Davis campus.
Narrator: For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
E.
Efforts to Understand Ecosystems off the CA Coast
Narrator: This is Science Today. Building on a half century of research, scientists at the University of California , San Diego 's Scripps Institution of Oceanography are working on an unprecedented effort to uncover the mechanisms of ecosystems off California 's coast. Mark Ohman, a professor of biological oceanography, is leading the newly established California Current Ecosystem site.
Ohman: This is part of the long-term ecological research network of the National Science Foundation – and the pre-existing sites are almost all terrestrial sites. Now the NSF has decided to fund some ocean sites, permitting us to relate the ecological processes in the ocean that are acting on terrestrial ecosystems as well.
Narrator: A better understanding of coastal ecosystems will lead to better management of living and non-living resources.
Ohman: The California Current also helps modulate climate systems for the Western U.S. , so it's important to the weather patterns that we experience.
Narrator: For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
|
