A.
MRI Technology Used to Enhance Valuable, Online Fish Collection
Narrator: This is Science Today. Using a novel approach, researchers at the University of California , San Diego have applied magnetic resonance imaging technology, or MRI, to create a high resolution, 3-D online catalog of fishes from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography's Marine Vertebrate Collection. Curator Philip Hastings says this is one of the world's most comprehensive and valuable libraries of preserved fish specimens.
Hastings : The collection includes approximately six thousand species of fishes. One of the research goals of the Scripps Fish Collection is to study the evolution of fishes and we interpret the evolution and ecology to some extent of fishes based on their internal anatomy. Describing internal anatomy of fishes is relatively difficult. It requires tedious dissection of whole specimens, but this new technology will now allow us to go in and actually in a very much more rigorous way examine the internal anatomy of specimens without having to do these very tedious dissections.
Narrator: For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
B.
A Protein Discovered to Affect Stretching of Blood Vessels
Narrator: This is Science Today. Researchers at the University of California , San Diego are studying what makes blood vessels stretch to handle the constant pressure from blood flow. According to bioengineering professor Shu Chien, a protein called Rho looks to be responsible for controlling whether the vessel fibers stretch in the proper direction.
Chien: Rho can detect the force and respond to that in such a way that they will trigger the contractile elements inside the cell which involve other proteins in such a way that they make the stress fibers change their orientation.
Narrator: Chien and his team saw that chemically inhibiting Rho caused the fibers to stretch in the wrong direction, which could have dangerous consequences.
Chien: The significance is in that, if the stress fibers do not orient properly, the stress is always there, very high, and that triggers some molecular events. Some of these molecular events will cause the cells to function abnormally such as undergoing programmed cell death.
Narrator: For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
C.
Researchers Prepare for the Next Big Quake in California
Narrator: When will the next big earthquake strike California ? This is Science Today. Some experts say an earthquake of magnitude 7 or higher is due to hit the Golden State within the next twenty years. Rather than predict what's to come or wait for an event to happen, civil and environmental engineer, Ayman Mosallam of the University of California , Irvine says they look to the past to see how structures will hold up in the future.
Mosallam: So what we do, we simulate that ahead of time. So we know the weakness in each system and different types of structures, different types of buildings and even equipment, even furniture. And we simulate different past earthquake signals.
Narrator: By entering data through a computer, the researchers have replicated signals from past earthquakes including the Mexico temblor of 1984 and the Kobe, Japan and Northridge , California quakes. These signals are then sent to a 10 by 12 foot concrete slab called the shake table. Mossallam says their goal in engineering terms is to make buildings tougher.
Mosallam: And that's exactly our slogan. We want out buildings and structures to be tough.
Narrator: For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
D. Chemists Aim to Replicate Nature Using Artificial Materials
Narrator: This is Science Today. Carbon has several forms, including diamond and graphite, and now researchers at the University of California , Riverside are looking into using another form, an extremely strong cylindrical molecule called the carbon nanotube, as a scaffold to help heal broken bones. Chemistry professor, Robert Haddon describes the process.
Haddon: Our approach is based on the idea of working with nature to try to replicate what nature does but while using artificial materials. The idea is that, in order to regrow the bone, some structural direction or some sort of placement inside the body might be necessary.
Narrator: The size and strength of carbon nanotubes makes them ideal for regrowing bone.
Haddon: It is the strongest material known, yet it's much lighter than conventional strong materials such as steel. The size is what probably sets them apart. The diameter of a nanotube is about a nanometer is about 100,000 times thinner than a human hair.
Narrator : For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
E.
Is There a Market in California for More Organic Production?
Narrator: This is Science Today. Over the past decade, annual sales of organic products have gone up at least twenty percent, making the industry the fastest growing sector of agriculture. Louise Jackson of the University of California, Davis' Department of Land, Air and Water Resources says one of the big issues about demand is a market.
Jackson : Is there a market for more organic production? As I understand it, California 's market economy is likely to support a little more organic. If there was a bigger market, I believe that organic production in California could meet that demand.
Narrator: Jackson recently conducted a three-year study of the conversion to organic agriculture of more than 150 acres of farmland in the Salinas Valley of California. She found that flexible management techniques and careful planning are key to a smooth, successful transition.
Jackson : This is an important study because it showed that organic production could go on quite feasibly in the midst of conventional production in a very intensive agriculture area, the Salinas Valley .
Narrator: For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
