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A.
Developing Tools to Combat Job Burnout
Narrator: This is Science Today. For over three decades, Christina Maslach has been studying job burnout. The social psychologist from the University of California, Berkeley is a pioneer in the field and she has identified six core dimensions of job burnout: workload, control, reward, community, fairness and values.
Maslach: We've been able to identify sign posts of those six areas that people could use themselves or they can use within their office and then think about what would make a difference, what would make it better. Out of all this research, it's not just that we're learning more about stress and burnout, but the tools that we've developed to do the research actually it turns out now are useful for people to use on their own to address this problem.
Narrator: Maslach adds that today's ergonomic workplace should also take into account how humans are psychologically built.
Maslach: At some point, you've gotta say, how do we create an environment that actually supports human beings to be creative, innovative, good team player, reliable – all of the kinds of things that people bring to the job.
Narrator: For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
B.
An Essential Component of the Brain's Wiring System
Narrator: This is Science Today. Myelin is the fatty insulation that coats the axons of neurons, or the brain's internal wiring. Dr. George Bartzokis, a professor of neurology at the UCLA School of Medicine, has found evidence that the breakdown of myelin insulation is implicated in early developmental disorders.
Bartzokis: When you have problems myelinating circuits very early, you get severe learning disabilities and you get things like autism. If you start having problems myelinating a little bit later, you may end up with ADHD and a little bit later, you may end up with schizophrenia.
Narrator: Bartzokis says genetic defects or even nutritional deficiencies can prevent the production of myelin. Omega-3 fatty acids can help fortify myelin and the Food and Drug Administration now requires the supplementation of essential fatty acids in baby formula.
Bartzokis: Because it's been known for many, many years that breastfed babies had a higher IQ and after all this looking around for why that would be, one of the possibilities is that in breast milk, they get more essential fatty acids and therefore they can develop their brain better.
Narrator: For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
C.
Crop Protection that's Worth Crowing About
Narrator: This is Science Today. Hungry crows can be a major threat to almond crops, so researchers at the University of California, Davis have developed a simple, cost-efficient device to make this problem fly away. Study leader Michael Delwiche says the battery-operated electronic unit plays four different recordings of crow distress calls at timed intervals to spook the real ones away from the almond crops.
Delwiche: The unit was designed to turn on during the day, to shut off at night, so that it had good power management. And it's on a stainless steel hook and you hang it on a branch on the almond tree at about, anywhere from four to six feet and it'll run easily two months without needing recharge.
Narrator: In California almond orchards, Delwiche says crows can cause up to a thousand dollars per acre in crop damage in a single season.
Delwiche: In some orchards, they are a real problem. They can actually come in and virtually decimate the crop. That really was sort of the precipitating factor for this research.
Narrator: Broadcast distress calls have been used for over a decade to chase away crows, but this device was designed to save power and prevent the birds from getting used to the calls. For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
D.
A Tropical Forest Study Reveals that Nature Encourages Diversity
Narrator: This is Science Today. An analysis of seven tropical forests around the world reveals that nature encourages diversity by selecting for less common trees as the trees mature. Biology professor, Christopher Wills, of the University of California , San Diego , led the study.
Wills: People of course have been questioning why diversity should be maintained. They've been proposing theories for why it should be maintained, but there's been very little good hard evidence about what impact is going on at the ecosystem level. So our study shows that these processes really are happening in a wide variety of different ecosystems in the tropics.
Narrator: In forests throughout the New and Old World tropics, Wills found that older trees are more diverse than younger ones – meaning, diversity is actually selected for as each of the forests mature.
Wills: Now that we've established that there are active processes going on, we can begin to ask how can we decide among the various theories that help to explain this diversity?
Narrator: For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
E. Careful Planning Helps Transition from Conventional to Organic Production
Narrator: This is Science Today. Farmers can make a smooth transition from conventionally-grown crops to organic production with careful planning and by diversifying their crops. Those were the findings of a three-year, nationally-funded study led by Louise Jackson, a specialist in the Department of Land, Air and Water Resources at the University of California, Davis.
Jackson: One of the things that they did was they greatly diversified their crop mix. Normally the main crops they grow on much of the conventional land in the area is lettuce, broccoli, cauliflower, spinach, celery and during the organic transition, they used many more different kinds of crops, and cover crops. And not only diversify, but go for smaller-scale plantings.
Narrator: Jackson adds that planting at certain times of the year to avoid pests was also important.
Jackson: They carefully looked at the types of pests that might occur in the area and they purposely set planting dates so that they would not coincide with some of the greatest potential pest outbreaks.
Narrator: For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
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