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A. Novel Fingerprint Detection Technology
Narrator: This is Science Today. Researchers at the Los Alamos National Laboratory have developed fingerprint detection technology that may someday expand forensic investigations. Chemist Chris Worley says the technology detects chemical elements left in fingerprint residue, such as salt. It's called micro-X-ray fluorescence.
Worley: We're using x-rays. They're invisible, but what we do is we take a tiny, thin beam of x-rays – probably the diameter on the order of a human hair – and hit the surface with this x-ray beam. It emits x-rays from the chemical elements present in that spot, for example potassium.
Narrator: This method can also detect additional information.
Worley: If a person has been handling a substance, for example, gun powder. Existing technology will show you perhaps a fingerprint based off of treating it with powders or whatever. But this method will not only see a fingerprint, it would detect elements in the print, so it gives you this extra chemical information that they didn't otherwise have.
Narrator: For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
B. A Move Towards Finer Scale Climate Modeling
Narrator: This is Science Today. Farmers who plant more crops, till the soil less and increase irrigation can have a significant impact on the climate. In fact, climate models used to predict climate change that included such agricultural practices, predicted lower temperatures than models that did not incorporate these factors. Climate scientist David Lobell of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory led the study.
Lobell: We looked at a few things that have been changing pretty quickly with time. One is irrigation and that's an interesting one because in some parts of the world it's expanding pretty fast. In other parts of the world it's either staying the same or it's decreasing. In California , I would put it in the class of decreasing because they're going away from the flood irrigations and more to the drip and sprinkler systems.
Narrator: So, what do these findings mean in terms of global warming?
Lobell: I think it's probably not high enough in the list of globally important things that it needs to be included, but I think as a general rule, I think the entire community of climate modelers are moving more towards finer scale modeling because that's where the adaptations occur – it's not at the global scale.
Narrator: For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
C.
The Link Between Sleep and Kids' Academic Performance
Narrator: This is Science Today. Simply put, healthy children learn better. Pediatrician Howard Taras of the University of California , San Diego School of Medicine, was recently commissioned by the National Coordinating Committee on School Health to review research studies to see what is really known about health and how it affects school performance.
Taras: The ones that we ended up writing about were obesity and how that affects school performance; physical activity, nutrition, asthma, sleep and how that affects school performance.
Narrator: Taras found the link between sleep and academic performance the most surprising.
Taras: I never realized just how much sleep seems to affect academic performance and most of those cases seem to be kids who may have large tonsils or adenoids obstructing a really good sleep at night. And there are a number of articles that show it's reversible so that kids will start improving academically once you correct that obstruction at night. So, it's nice when you have something that's reversible.
Narrator: For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
D.
Why Pediatric Cases of Multiple Sclerosis May Be Missed
Narrator: This is Science Today. Multiple sclerosis, or MS, is an inflammatory disease that affects the brain and spinal cord. Typically, it affects patients between ages 20 and 40 at the onset, but it can also affect children. Researcher Emmanuelle Waubant, of the University of California , San Francisco says of the 400,000 cases of MS diagnosed in this country every year, 10,000 are pediatric cases. But neurologists think that figure may be higher because cases are being missed.
Waubant: It's not so commonly diagnosed first because sometimes some symptoms are mild, so it requires a very good awareness of your body. Tingling in one leg or slight decrease in vision in one eye may not be perceived as being abnormal by a child, especially very young. If all this is mild, it may not be MS. It may be something else or nothing. So, if parents are worried, they should see their pediatrician.
Narrator: For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
E. 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 a 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 nanoscale 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.
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