|
A. The Truth About False Memories
Narrator: This is Science Today. As many of us may have experienced, our memories are highly susceptible to distortion and suggestion. Elizabeth Loftus, a pioneer in false memory research and a psychologist at the University of California, Irvine has proven this to be the case.
Loftus: It turns out that we actually sometimes believe that thing happen to us or even have memories for things that never happened. And in the work that I do, I actually deliberately try to plant false beliefs for false memories into the minds of people so I can watch this process happen. So, we have gotten people to believe that they were lost in a shopping mall for an extended time, that they were frightened and crying and had to be rescued and reunited with the family. We've gotten people to believe that they broke a window and cut their hand; or that they met and shook hands with Bugs Bunny at Disneyland. All of these are things that didn't happen, and yet we can get people to remember that they did.
Narrator: For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
B. Is Red Wine the Key to the 'French Paradox'?
Narrator: This is Science Today. The French Paradox refers to an observation that people in France have lower rates of heart disease, despite having a diet rich in saturated fats. Their high consumption of red wine is thought to be the reason behind this trend. Andy Waterhouse, the chair of the Department of Viticulture and Enology at the University of California, Davis, says early studies seemed to indicate that a compound found in red grape skins called resveratrol was responsible for the French Paradox.
Waterhouse: What we found, though, was that the level in wine is very low and probably couldn't explain the whole French Paradox. So, we started looking at other compounds and did a lot of research on what's called catechin. It's another phenol – it's called a flavenoid. And we actually showed that when drinkers consume wine, that catechin shows up in their blood and that's supposed to be the cause of reducing heart disease. But the difficulty is in getting clean data from epidemiological studies.
Narrator: For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
C.
Americans Spend Too Little Time with Primary Care Doctors
Narrator: This is Science Today. The average American spends less time in their primary care doctor's office than the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention currently recommends. Dr. Andrew Bindman of the University of California , San Francisco , who led the study, says there are a few factors contributing to this trend. One is that many patients opt to go directly to specialists.
Bindman: In the United States , only about a third of our doctors are primary care and we've been seeing lately that there's actually been a growing disinterest in this field for many of our U.S. medical graduates. So we have created incentives in part through higher salary to specialists. We have many more of our students going into specialty care.
Narrator: Bindman recommends the U.S. health care system address this growing pay disparity, since primary doctors focus more on preventative care and can treat patients before they need a specialist.
Bindman: When we turn our health care system increasingly over to specialists, it's not that they don't believe in these messages, it's just that their training is much more about taking care of a very specific disease entity.
Narrator: For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
D.
Researchers Investigate New Ways to Clean Up Water
Narrator: This is Science Today. Microbial proteins growing on timbers at the base of a flooded, abandoned mine has been found to clean up polluted water by removing sulfate and at the same time, taking out the heavy metals excreted from the abandoned mines. Physicist Peter Weber of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory was one of the authors of the study.
Weber: This is research that's being driven by the Department of Energy's need for developing new technologies for cleaning up water. So, this is research that we're looking specifically at abandoned mine sites and looking at the acid mine drainage issues – the pollution coming from these mines from subsurface waters into surface waters.
Narrator: The researchers want to understand how the material behaves in the environment.
Weber: How we can control that in the environment, enables us to do our cutting edge nanotechnology research knowing that we have the capability downstream to protect the environment, to protect the public.
Narrator: For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
E. Broccoli: Nature's Wonder Food
Narrator: This is Science Today. Researchers at the University of California , Berkeley have discovered that the Brassica family of vegetables, which includes broccoli, contains a potent compound that has immune-boosting properties that can protect against viral and bacterial infections, as well as cancer. Len Bjeldanes, a toxicology professor who led the study, says the chemical is called diindolylmethane, or DIM, and it's released when chewed and digested.
Bjeldanes: Broccoli is basically a wonder food and this is without any regard to the chemical that we're working with. Broccoli contains the greatest variety and the greatest amounts of vitamins of any plant. And so in addition to that, you add these other cancer protective and immune-activating chemicals, it's something that you should really take very seriously.
Narrator: The study was performed in mice, but Bjeldanes says the next step is studying the effects of this chemical in humans.
Bjeldanes: We want to look at specifics; what are the responses? How much of this material does it take to get the response and go at it from that point of view.
Narrator: For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
|
