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A.
A Study Finds One's Neighborhood May Affect Asthma
Narrator: This is Science Today. Factors such as educational level, housing status and other socioeconomic factors have been thought to affect the health of people with asthma, but a University of California , San Francisco study of adults with asthma has found that one's neighborhood and surrounding area may also play a crucial role. Dr. Paul Blanc, a professor of medicine, led the study.
Blanc: What's been seen in the past generally is that there's greater asthma severity in the areas of urban poverty, but there are very few studies that have looked at both area socioeconomic status and individual socioeconomic status combined, we had the luxury of having both simultaneously.
Narrator: While the study showed worse health and poorer quality of life among those living in lower-income areas, they also showed poor lung function among those living in the suburbs.
Blanc: If I had to say what the bottom line of our study is, essentially no man is an island. It's not just you in isolation. There are other people around you and other human activities around you and those can relate to and impact your health status.
Narrator: For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
B.
An Air Pollution Center to Look into Nanomaterials
Narrator: This is Science Today. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has awarded the University of California , Davis a grant to establish the San Joaquin Valley Aerosol Health Effects Center , one of five new air pollution research centers. Kent Pinkerton, co-director of the center, says researchers from multiple disciplines will collaborate to study how indoor and outdoor pollutants affect human health – including nanomaterials.
Pinkerton: Nanomaterials are things like carbon nanotubes or nanowires, which are going to have important applications in the computer field in the future. The application of nanomaterials is tremendous – it will be used in thousands of different products in the future. It's still just a very young, emerging area, but actually there has been a tremendous amount of public interest in it because of just our past experience knowing that tiny particles tend to have big effects.
Narrator: For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
C. A Cell's Defense Mechanism Against Certain Bacterial Toxins
Narrator: This is Science Today. Many bacterial pathogens make toxins that undermine our immune systems and allow them to proliferate and cause disease. Raffi Aroian, an associate professor of biology at the University of California , San Diego , says the largest class of toxins that disease-causing toxin molecules make are called pore-forming toxins.
Aroian: They basically are proteins that the bacteria make that insert into the membranes of cells and they just cause holes to form in the cell.
Narrator: These pore forming toxins are what cause bacterial infections such as Staphylococcolus and streptococcus. For the first time, Aroian and his group discovered a mechanism that allows animal cells to fight off these bacterial toxins.
Aroian: If we could figure out a way to beef up our defenses against pore forming toxins, we actually could principally affect simultaneously a lot of bacterial diseases. We actually could improve our chances of succeeding without using an antibiotic against a whole host of bacterial diseases, including staph infections, strep infections, clostridia infections.
Narrator: For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
D.
New Insight into the Mind of a Child
Narrator: This is Science Today. Psychologists at the University of California , Davis' Center for Mind and Brain have found that young children increasingly recognize that they can feel good by following the rules and considering possible consequences. Using scenario-based studies, study leader Kristin Lagatutta found that contrary to popular belief, kids were not primarily motivated in their actions by punishment.
Lagattuta: We found that less than 20% of future-oriented explanations had anything to do with punishment. It seemed more about breaking some kind of trust or some kind of relationship with an authority figure versus, “I'm going to have to sit in my room or I'm going to lose privileges.” It was the emotions you might elicit in other people as a result of your own behavior.
Narrator: This research has implications for how children develop morals, as well as practical applications for educators and parents.
Lagattuta: Talking to them about consequences and continually reminding them about the consequence and when the consequence happens – show them.
Narrator: For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
E. How Mind-Body Interventions Impact the Immune System
Narrator: This is Science Today. Understanding how the mind-body approach may impact the immune system is a rather new area of investigation and really did not begin to emerge as a scientific discipline until about ten years ago. Dr. Michael Irwin, a researcher at UCLA's Jonsson Cancer Center has been studying how mind-body interventions may improve well-being and immunity.
Irwin: Recent work done here at UCLA has found that the practice of a very simple behavioral technique called Tai Chi Cha, which is a variant of Tai Chi, can significantly improve the immune system of older adults.
Narrator: Irwin specifically looked at an immune cell that is predictive of risk for developing a particular kind of viral infection called shingles, which affects older people, as well cancer and AIDS patients.
Irwin: I'm not suggesting that they forgo vaccinations against viral illnesses, but rather that this complimentary approach can augment at least this one aspect of the immune system that may promote health.
Narrator: For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
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