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A. Research Contributes to the National Effort to Develop Alternative Fuels
Narrator: This is Science Today. It's been over a year since the entire genome of the poplar tree was published. The sequencing - part of a national effort to develop alternative fuels – took place at the U.S. Department of Energy's Joint Genome Institute, or JGI, which is managed by the University of California. JGI researcher, Gerald Tuskan, led the study.
Tuskan: We chose the poplar tree as our first woody, perennial plant to sequence because there was an international community that has been investigating poplar for decades. There were extensive genetic maps and genetic resources available to us here that would help us or enable us to assemble the genome.
Narrator: This research may lead to the development of trees as an ideal ‘feedstock', for a new generation of biofuels, such as cellulosic ethanol.
Tuskan: We're trying to tease apart how cells are constructed so that we can more easily or readily deconstruct/convert them into ethanol for transportation use and the genome's enabled us to do this in a more efficient and effective manner.
Narrator: For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
B. Differentiating Alzheimer's Disease from Another Dementia
Narrator: This is Science Today. A non-invasive MRI technique that's called arterial spin labeling has been found to be as accurate as invasive scanning techniques in distinguishing between Alzheimer's disease and frontotemporal dementia. Norbert Schuff, who led the University of California, San Francisco study, says arterial spin labeling is a technique that basically measures the supply of blood flow in the brain.
Schuff: The beauty of this new technique is that it is entirely based on MRI techniques. So, you can easily attach it to the conventional MRI scan and in addition to that, we can measure the blood flow without any trace or injecting anything. Usually blood flow is measured by injecting some radioactive material or a dye.
Narrator: This technique's ability to distinguish between Alzheimer's disease and frontotemporal dementia is an important finding.
Schuff: At the early stage, those dementias are very difficult to separate. So, it will be very important to differentiate them at an early stage because they have different courses.
Narrator: For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
C.
A New Approach Towards Understanding Degenerative Disease
Narrator: This is Science Today. Researchers at the University of California, Santa Barbara have discovered a new approach to understanding the cellular processes of Alzheimer's and other degenerative diseases. Research scientist Ratnesh Lal, who led the study, says misfolded proteins in the cell membrane and changes in the electrical properties of cells, provide the explanation for the cell degeneration.
Lal: So all the effort in the last thirty-five years or so have been to see how the plaque causes the disease. So we are confident that you do not need the plaque to have the toxicity that you see in the cell. So then we're going to the actual cell level and show that indeed that's what happens.
Narrator: Understanding the basic cause of the formation of these plaques found in Alzheimer's and other degenerative diseases may lead to new therapeutics and diagnostic techniques.
Lal: So now the point is, you can control the activity of these structures by using chemicals and those chemicals are basically drug molecules.
Narrator: For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
D.
Can Sunlight Help Prevent Skin Cancer?
Narrator: This is Science Today. Can sunlight help prevent skin cancer? While the issue is controversial, Daniel Bikle, a professor of medicine and dermatology at the University of California, San Francisco, says evidence shows this may be the case for some skin cancers.
Bikle: Sunlight, ultraviolet light is important for the production of vitamin D in the skin. We know from the work now that I've done and others, that the skin only makes this hormone from vitamin D that's produced in the skin, but it also responds to this hormone in terms of promoting differentiation. Well, the problem with cancer is it's a state where differentiation fails. So the question is, if people are not making vitamin D within their skin and not converting that vitamin D in the skin to this hormone, are they more susceptible to developing skin cancer from whatever cause – chemicals or ultraviolet light?
Narrator: Bikle and colleagues at the San Francisco Veterans Affairs Medical Center will study this link further. For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
E. A National Lab Develops a Portable Radiation Monitoring System
Narrator: This is Science Today. In an effort to protect the nation from radiological or nuclear attack, physicists at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory have developed a portable radiation monitoring system. Nuclear physicist Dan Archer, says the Adaptive Radiation Area Monitor, or ARAM, can detect small amounts of radioactive materials from a distance and at speeds up to 60 miles per hour.
Archer: We developed the radiation detector system such that you could scan for radioactive material moving at highway speeds or pedestrian carry speeds or toll booth type speeds or packaged speeds on a conveyor belt, but the real novelty in this is being able to find very, very small amounts of radioactive material moving at sixty miles per hour down the road without ever having to slow the traffic down.
Narrator: The system was demonstrated successfully at Federal Express in Denver, and used to scan traffic in a major city. It has also been used as part of a larger network.
Archer: It's a commercially-available technology being used across the country, from coast-to-coast.
Narrator: For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
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