UC Science Today

Can you fall in love after taking a quiz? This is Science Today. Psychologist Arthur Aron started studying the science of falling in love nearly 50 years ago as a graduate student at the University of California, Berkeley. Since then, he developed a set of 36 questions that he says can bring a close connection between two strangers.

"We’re confident that this procedure of answering 36 questions that gradually get more and more personal—that both people answer as well of a few other items in there like saying what you have in common, things you like about the other—that when you do these things you’re going to feel closer to the other person."

Aron tested the questions in his lab on two participants who ended up marrying each other six months later. But he says the questions were originally meant for accelerating intimacy rather than romance.

"We know these 36 questions get people closer. That can facilitate falling in love. Certainly if many other things are in place, and this happens, it could be the straw that breaks the camel’s back."

Can you fall in love after taking a quiz? This is Science Today. Psychologist Arthur Aron started studying the science of falling in love nearly 50 years ago as a graduate student at the University of California, Berkeley. Since then, he developed a set of 36 questions that he says can bring a close connection between two strangers.

"We’re confident that this procedure of answering 36 questions that gradually get more and more personal—that both people answer as well of a few other items in there like saying what you have in common, things you like about the other—that when you do these things you’re going to feel closer to the other person."

Aron tested the questions in his lab on two participants who ended up marrying each other six months later. But he says the questions were originally meant for accelerating intimacy rather than romance.

"We know these 36 questions get people closer. That can facilitate falling in love. Certainly if many other things are in place, and this happens, it could be the straw that breaks the camel’s back."

Can understanding the way birds process sound help make better hearing aids? Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley think so, so they're currently developing a hearing aid that would be able to distinguish between the main signals, such as a person’s voice, and cluttered background noises. Study leader Frederic Theunissen explains that the idea was inspired by studying birds, which are adept at listening in noisy environments.

"So they have all these different calls that they produce, and they're often produced in the background of noise, just because they're outside and the natural environment is noisy, can be windy, there can be other animals and so forth, and they're often also produced with many other animals from the same species also speaking. And I think anybody who's seen, you know, The March of the Emperor knows about the emperor penguin that, where the female, you know, leaves the male for a couple of months while she goes feeding in, he’s sitting on the egg, and then at some point, she comes back to the colony that has millions of male penguins there, right, and finds the mate. And a lot of this is based on vocal signals, right? They're very good at basically listening for sounds in noisy environments and finding them."

Can understanding the way birds process sound help make better hearing aids? Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley think so, so they're currently developing a hearing aid that would be able to distinguish between the main signals, such as a person’s voice, and cluttered background noises. Study leader Frederic Theunissen explains that the idea was inspired by studying birds, which are adept at listening in noisy environments.

"So they have all these different calls that they produce, and they're often produced in the background of noise, just because they're outside and the natural environment is noisy, can be windy, there can be other animals and so forth, and they're often also produced with many other animals from the same species also speaking. And I think anybody who's seen, you know, The March of the Emperor knows about the emperor penguin that, where the female, you know, leaves the male for a couple of months while she goes feeding in, he’s sitting on the egg, and then at some point, she comes back to the colony that has millions of male penguins there, right, and finds the mate. And a lot of this is based on vocal signals, right? They're very good at basically listening for sounds in noisy environments and finding them."

Researchers at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory have been busy fielding requests to use their microarray technology. The Microbial Detection Array can be used for a whole host of applications – from cancer research to identifying a plague victim from 14th Century England. Biologist Crystal Jaing says the applications for this technology are huge.

"We have used it for looking for food pathogens in food samples and recently, we applied it to agriculture to look at animal pathogens and food safety. It’s been really exciting using a technology like this to look at public health, look at environmental safety and look at food safety and drug safety."

There are even biodefense applications.

"Recently we have used this technology to analyze pathogens in wounded soldiers. And what we have found is that this technology is more sensitive than traditional technologies where very often a pathogen cannot be identified and that really delay how a soldier can be treated."

Researchers at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory have been busy fielding requests to use their microarray technology. The Microbial Detection Array can be used for a whole host of applications – from cancer research to identifying a plague victim from 14th Century England. Biologist Crystal Jaing says the applications for this technology are huge.

"We have used it for looking for food pathogens in food samples and recently, we applied it to agriculture to look at animal pathogens and food safety. It’s been really exciting using a technology like this to look at public health, look at environmental safety and look at food safety and drug safety."

There are even biodefense applications.

"Recently we have used this technology to analyze pathogens in wounded soldiers. And what we have found is that this technology is more sensitive than traditional technologies where very often a pathogen cannot be identified and that really delay how a soldier can be treated."

Are you a dog person or a cat person? How about both? In a new study led by the University of California, Berkeley, researchers looked at how people’s personality traits and their identification as a cat or a dog person influenced their relationships with their pets. Co-author Mikel Delgado says that those who expressed the most affection towards their pet also rated among the most conscientious and neurotic.

"People who said they were a dog person or that they were both a cat and a dog person did tend to score higher on that affection relationship. And we also found that people who scored highly in neuroticism and conscientiousness were also more likely to have a more affectionate relationship towards their pet."

Delgado says that these types of traits tend to work better with pets because pets require lifelong caregiving. The next step is to see if high affection means actually taking good care of your pet.

"Does that mean that you actually take them to the vet and feed them appropriate food and give them exercise and mental stimulation and enrichment?"

Are you a dog person or a cat person? How about both? In a new study led by the University of California, Berkeley, researchers looked at how people’s personality traits and their identification as a cat or a dog person influenced their relationships with their pets. Co-author Mikel Delgado says that those who expressed the most affection towards their pet also rated among the most conscientious and neurotic.

"People who said they were a dog person or that they were both a cat and a dog person did tend to score higher on that affection relationship. And we also found that people who scored highly in neuroticism and conscientiousness were also more likely to have a more affectionate relationship towards their pet."

Delgado says that these types of traits tend to work better with pets because pets require lifelong caregiving. The next step is to see if high affection means actually taking good care of your pet.

"Does that mean that you actually take them to the vet and feed them appropriate food and give them exercise and mental stimulation and enrichment?"

People react differently to different drugs based on their genetic make-up. At the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, medical scientist Mike Malfatti says they’re using their accelerator mass spectrometer to test what’s called microdoses of chemotherapy drugs.

"Where you give the person a very low level dose, one one-hundredths of what the therapeutic dose would be. It has a carbon-14 label tag on it. And with the chemotherapeutic drug that we’re working with, it binds your DNA and then that will kill the tumor cells if you have a high degree of binding in the DNA. And if you have a high degree, it’s a good indication that you will hopefully respond favorably to the drug."

The hope is to personalize cancer treatment. Malfatti and his colleagues are teaming up with the University of California, Davis’s Comprehensive Cancer Center.

"So, it’s a very good collaborative study between technology that we have here at the Lab and then the clinical patients that UC Davis has."

People react differently to different drugs based on their genetic make-up. At the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, medical scientist Mike Malfatti says they’re using their accelerator mass spectrometer to test what’s called microdoses of chemotherapy drugs.

"Where you give the person a very low level dose, one one-hundredths of what the therapeutic dose would be. It has a carbon-14 label tag on it. And with the chemotherapeutic drug that we’re working with, it binds your DNA and then that will kill the tumor cells if you have a high degree of binding in the DNA. And if you have a high degree, it’s a good indication that you will hopefully respond favorably to the drug."

The hope is to personalize cancer treatment. Malfatti and his colleagues are teaming up with the University of California, Davis’s Comprehensive Cancer Center.

"So, it’s a very good collaborative study between technology that we have here at the Lab and then the clinical patients that UC Davis has."