UC Science Today

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory scientist Dick Post passed away recently at age 96. We met with him several months ago to chat about his most recent work - that's right, he was STILL working. In fact, Dick had some of the most productive years of his career after he reached 90 years of age.

Few scientists have had a career as long as Post's. He joined the Livermore Lab within weeks of its founding and then worked faithfully, day in and day out, for 63 years — the Laboratory’s entire history.

Even fewer scientists can be said to be one of the three founders of magnetic fusion energy research in the United States.

In our final interview with Dick, he told us what made him tick all these years.

RIP to a wonderful man and a great mind.

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory scientist Dick Post passed away recently at age 96. We met with him several months ago to chat about his most recent work - that's right, he was STILL working. In fact, Dick had some of the most productive years of his career after he reached 90 years of age.

Few scientists have had a career as long as Post's. He joined the Livermore Lab within weeks of its founding and then worked faithfully, day in and day out, for 63 years — the Laboratory’s entire history.

Even fewer scientists can be said to be one of the three founders of magnetic fusion energy research in the United States.

In our final interview with Dick, he told us what made him tick all these years.

RIP to a wonderful man and a great mind.

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory scientist Dick Post passed away recently at age 96. We met with him several months ago to chat about his most recent work - that's right, he was STILL working. In fact, Dick had some of the most productive years of his career after he reached 90 years of age.

Few scientists have had a career as long as Post's. He joined the Livermore Lab within weeks of its founding and then worked faithfully, day in and day out, for 63 years — the Laboratory’s entire history.

Even fewer scientists can be said to be one of the three founders of magnetic fusion energy research in the United States.

In our final interview with Dick, he told us what made him tick all these years.

RIP to a wonderful man and a great mind.

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory scientist Dick Post passed away recently at age 96. We met with him several months ago to chat about his most recent work - that's right, he was STILL working. In fact, Dick had some of the most productive years of his career after he reached 90 years of age.

Few scientists have had a career as long as Post's. He joined the Livermore Lab within weeks of its founding and then worked faithfully, day in and day out, for 63 years — the Laboratory’s entire history.

Even fewer scientists can be said to be one of the three founders of magnetic fusion energy research in the United States.

In our final interview with Dick, he told us what made him tick all these years.

RIP to a wonderful man and a great mind.

People with negative biases tend to focus heavily on negative thoughts or outcomes. Psychologist Sonia Bishop of the University of California, Berkeley says that negativity bias is common in individuals with high anxiety.

"If you ask people to say how likely is it that something bad will happen to me in the future or something good or if you ask people to pay attention to different things, what you'll find quite often is that Individuals high in anxiety will show this tendency to find it easier to switch their attention towards something which is negative, that they may remember more negative things, and that they may also judge that negative events are more likely happen to them in the future."

Bishop says that this can influence our decision-making and risk-taking behaviors.

"We think that that may well be influenced by some of these problems of decision-making. Because if you can't understand why something happened that seemed to be very negative, then maybe you would be much more worried about negative events happening in the future."

People with negative biases tend to focus heavily on negative thoughts or outcomes. Psychologist Sonia Bishop of the University of California, Berkeley says that negativity bias is common in individuals with high anxiety.

"If you ask people to say how likely is it that something bad will happen to me in the future or something good or if you ask people to pay attention to different things, what you'll find quite often is that Individuals high in anxiety will show this tendency to find it easier to switch their attention towards something which is negative, that they may remember more negative things, and that they may also judge that negative events are more likely happen to them in the future."

Bishop says that this can influence our decision-making and risk-taking behaviors.

"We think that that may well be influenced by some of these problems of decision-making. Because if you can't understand why something happened that seemed to be very negative, then maybe you would be much more worried about negative events happening in the future."

People with negative biases tend to focus heavily on negative thoughts or outcomes. Psychologist Sonia Bishop of the University of California, Berkeley says that negativity bias is common in individuals with high anxiety.

"If you ask people to say how likely is it that something bad will happen to me in the future or something good or if you ask people to pay attention to different things, what you'll find quite often is that Individuals high in anxiety will show this tendency to find it easier to switch their attention towards something which is negative, that they may remember more negative things, and that they may also judge that negative events are more likely happen to them in the future."

Bishop says that this can influence our decision-making and risk-taking behaviors.

"We think that that may well be influenced by some of these problems of decision-making. Because if you can't understand why something happened that seemed to be very negative, then maybe you would be much more worried about negative events happening in the future."

People with negative biases tend to focus heavily on negative thoughts or outcomes. Psychologist Sonia Bishop of the University of California, Berkeley says that negativity bias is common in individuals with high anxiety.

"If you ask people to say how likely is it that something bad will happen to me in the future or something good or if you ask people to pay attention to different things, what you'll find quite often is that Individuals high in anxiety will show this tendency to find it easier to switch their attention towards something which is negative, that they may remember more negative things, and that they may also judge that negative events are more likely happen to them in the future."

Bishop says that this can influence our decision-making and risk-taking behaviors.

"We think that that may well be influenced by some of these problems of decision-making. Because if you can't understand why something happened that seemed to be very negative, then maybe you would be much more worried about negative events happening in the future."

People with negative biases tend to focus heavily on negative thoughts or outcomes. Psychologist Sonia Bishop of the University of California, Berkeley says that negativity bias is common in individuals with high anxiety.

"If you ask people to say how likely is it that something bad will happen to me in the future or something good or if you ask people to pay attention to different things, what you'll find quite often is that Individuals high in anxiety will show this tendency to find it easier to switch their attention towards something which is negative, that they may remember more negative things, and that they may also judge that negative events are more likely happen to them in the future."

Bishop says that this can influence our decision-making and risk-taking behaviors.

"We think that that may well be influenced by some of these problems of decision-making. Because if you can't understand why something happened that seemed to be very negative, then maybe you would be much more worried about negative events happening in the future."

Accelerator Mass Spectrometry, or AMS, is a technique for measuring isotope ratios with very high selectively, sensitivity and precision. It was originally developed as a geophysical instrument to do carbon dating of artifacts. About two decades ago, the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory developed it to do biomedical applications.

"We were kind of the pioneers in that front and it’s just kind of taken off from there. We’ve looked at low levels of environmental toxicants and now we’re getting into the human area so we can do actual real world human experiments using this type of technology."

That’s medical scientist Mike Malfatti of the Livermore Lab. He’s been using a new biological AMS instrument to develop a test to predict how people will respond to chemotherapeutic drugs. Malfatti and this team have been working with colleagues at the University of California, Davis.

"It’s really opened up a lot of opportunities for us – almost a whole new field of study being able to actually do real in-human studies where previously those studies weren’t able to be done."