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A.
New Lighting Technology Offers Cost & Environmental Benefits
Narrator: This is Science Today. New lighting technology that offers quality, cost and environmental benefits has been developed by researchers at the University of California , Davis . It's called field emission lamps and electrical engineering professor Charles Hunt says it was developed using non-toxic carbon foam.
Hunt: It looks very much like a charcoal briquette. The difference is, it's porous, so as a consequence it's extremely light. We can make this carbon foam very, very inexpensively.
Narrator: Unlike greenish fluorescent lighting, field emission lamps can exactly match the spectrum of natural daylight while maintaining the energy efficiency of fluorescent lamps.
Hunt: There's some real advantages beyond just the energy conservation and the basic spectral content. We also have advantages of the lack of mercury in our environment, so it's environmentally-friendly.
Narrator: The university is currently negotiating agreements to license the technology for commercial development.
Hunt: People should keep their eyes open for this because 3417 it's very likely that other major producers will come forward and start making these lamps as well.
Narrator: For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
B.
Another Possible Use for Virtual Colonoscopy
Narrator: This is Science Today. Virtual colonoscopy, a non-invasive technique that uses X-rays delivered through a CT scanner, has been found to be effective in revealing disease outside of the colon, too. Dr. Judy Yee of the University of California , San Francisco , is chief of radiology at the San Francisco Veterans Affairs Medical Center .
Yee: What we found was that 63% of patients actually had a finding outside of the colon. Not all of those were significant. Nine percent had a significant finding. By that, what I mean is the finding actually led to an intervention. Either additional follow-up or actual surgery to have something removed.
Narrator: Yee says some of the findings they identified outside of the colon using virtual colonoscopy included lung cancers, kidney cancers and liver masses.
Yee: Because patients are not symptomatic for the problem that we have identified outside of the colon, we tend to identify disease outside of the colon at an earlier stage.
Narrator: For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
C.
New Research Efforts are Underway for Alzheimer's Disease
Narrator: This is Science Today. Researchers at the Neuroscience Research Institute at the University of California , Santa Barbara have discovered three molecules from a search of up to 100 thousand compounds that seem to inhibit one of the key perpetrators of Alzheimer's disease. Ken Kosik, co-director of the institute, says each of these three molecules protects a protein called tau', which becomes hopelessly tangled up in the brains of Alzheimer's patients. Kosik adds that this discovery may lead to the development of new drugs for the disease.
Kosik: People often think about this kind of work as going on in a pharmaceutical industry. And indeed, the more common path over the past many decades has been for drug discovery to occur within the industry and not so much in academia as we have done. But that trend is rapidly changing, I think, for the better.
Narrator: Kosik adds that as the baby boomers age, the incidence of Alzheimer's Disease, which is already increasing, will rise much more. For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
D.
A Heart Disease that Affects Cats ... and Humans
Narrator: This is Science Today. A gene mutation responsible for a heart disease in cats and is also a leading cause of death in young athletes, has been identified by researchers at the University of California , Davis . Veterinary cardiologist, Mark Kittleson, says the inherited disease is called hypertrophic cardiomyopathy and it causes excessive thickening of the heart muscle of the left ventricle.
Kittleson: It's the most common heart disease in cats and is also a very common heart disease in humans. It's estimated that one in every five hundred humans has hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. One of the common scenarios is a young athlete that will go out for football practice and drop dead on the football field.
Narrator: The particular gene mutation the group has identified in cats has not been identified in humans yet, but their research may provide a valuable model for investigation.
Kittleson: Maybe down the road, there will be some hope for genetic engineering for individuals that are already affected.
Narrator: For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
E. A Historical Look at How One Disease Fights Another
Narrator: This is Science Today. The concept of one disease fighting off or preventing another is not new. In fact, one of the best known examples dates back to 1798, when Edward Jenner used cowpox to prevent smallpox.
Stiehm: Jenner found out that milkmaids who were milking cows got an illness called cowpox and they were subsequently immune to getting smallpox. So, he took the material the source from this one girl and gave it to a child and this child was protected against smallpox. And so cowpox, which is the disease that cows get protects against another disease called smallpox.
Narrator: Dr. E. Richard Stiehm, a professor of pediatrics at UCLA, has written a paper chronicling the phenomenon of disease vs. disease and says the concept could possibly be used today.
Stiehm: This concept that one disease makes another disease less severe tells us a great deal about both diseases and often will lead to therapeutic advances, vaccines, special diets, etc.
Narrator: For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
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