UC Science Today

In recent months, we’ve learned a lot about mosquitoes due to the spread of the Zika virus. For one thing, they have an incredibly sensitive olfactory system. Entomologist Anandsankar Ray of the University of California, Riverside explains that when we exhale carbon dioxide, it gets carried downwind in the shape of plumes that can travel quite a distance.

"And the mosquito, when it comes across one such plume, it starts flying upwind tracking these plumes moving closer and closer towards us. And when it’s really close, it picks up on other odors that we emit from our skin and recognizes that “oh, this is a human being that is going to be a source of blood and makes a beeline for us.”

But there is a crack in their olfactory armor that Ray and his colleagues are taking advantage of; it’s so sensitive that they can interfere with the system using simple, natural molecules to disrupt how they hone in on us.

There’s nothing like a trip back home to visit family and friends – or attending a college reunion - to make you ponder the passage of time. And as we reported this past week on Science Today, University of California, Berkeley physicist Richard Muller has proposed a new theory about the flow of time.

"My theory postulates that space and time are so tightly linked in general relativity, that if you create more space, you’re creating more time. If the expansion of the universe, starting with the Big Bang and now coasting ahead is constantly creating more space, it must also be creating new time."

Muller theorizes that that space between the galaxies and the newly created time is what we call ‘now’. Muller is collaborating with CalTech on this and has proposed using LIGO, an experiment that detects gravitational waves created by merging black holes, to test the theory. So we’ll stay tuned on that one. And on the subject of space, we also spoke to radiobiologist Matt Coleman of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory about his work developing a medical device that provides a comprehensive in-flight medical diagnostic system. This will help NASA in their push to better understand the long-tern effects of space travel.

"This tool we’re building, you know we think it’s going to have a huge health benefit, but it’s going to have a huge research benefit … and so getting this up into space and even on the International Space Station, it will have a huge benefit, just in the research that we can do."

And a new curriculum for medical students at the University of California, San Francisco will help with better treatment for patients here on terra firma. Dr. Anna Chang, who helped develop Bridges, says one aspect is to help doctors better communicate with their patients – including translating medical language commonly used into something patients, families and other care providers can comprehend.

"So, starting with day one, we are asking our students to practice what the world looks like from their patients’ perspectives."

These are just some of the University of California stories we covered this past week. Listen to these and other Science Today episodes on iTunes or Soundcloud. Thanks for listening - until next time, I’m Larissa Branin.

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https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/space_travel

https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/doctor_patient

There’s still a lot of the unknown when it comes to the long-term impacts of space travel, so there is a big push by NASA to better understand these effects. At the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, radiobiologist Matt Coleman is part of team that has developed a small medical device that provides a comprehensive in-flight medical diagnostic system. Coleman explains that it can detect diseases from long-term exposure to microgravity and exposure to radiation.

"This tool we’re building, you know we think it’s going to have a huge health benefit, but it’s going to have a huge research benefit because we don’t really know how do all of these things actually respond in space, in exploration, in research animals, let alone humans. And so getting this up into space and even on the International Space Station, it will have a huge benefit, just in the research that we can do."

The portable diagnostic device can also be used for battlefield medicine, in Third World countries or even in the case of a radiological event like Chernobyl or Fukishima.

The flow of time has been pondered by the likes of Aristotle, Augustine and Einstein. Now, physicist Richard Muller, a professor emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley, has proposed a new theory.

"My theory postulates that space and time are so tightly linked in general relativity that if create more space, you’re creating more time. If the expansion of time, starting with the Big Bang and now coasting ahead is constantly creating more space, it must also be creating new time and the newly creating space is the space between the galaxies and the newly created time is what we call ‘now’."

Muller’s theory of the flow of time led to a collaboration with Caltech that explains the theory in more detail – using mathematics – and proposes a way to test it using LIGO, an experiment that detects gravitational waves created by merging black holes. Stay tuned!

Your computer network at home or at the office probably has a list of things on them, like handsets, phones, tablets. Imagine now how that may look scaled up at a large government agency like the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. There, administrators have to view an entire network system from a vantage point of security. Computer scientist Domingo Colon says because there are needs that are lacking in some commercial offerings, they developed their own tool to watch and probe a network. It’s called Network Mapping Systems or NeMS.

"One of the things that our tool does is it provides a visualization of exactly what you have just done to your environment and so it helps reduce the complexity by providing a way for you to actually understand and visualize your changes. Not just the configuration information, not just one piece of data, but really to look at the entire organization, how it’s behaving, how it’s structured. It’s been used inside the government and now with the work of commercializing the product, we’re looking to get it out there to help the private sector because we all have the same threats facing us and cyber security is extremely costly when things go wrong."

In an effort to reduce carbon pollution and improve fuel economy, auto manufacturers are racing to produce cars using lightweight materials without sacrificing strength. The average car has about 300 pounds worth of cabling alone. This is for electrical conductivity. Materials scientist and mechanical engineer Suveen Mathaudhu of the University of California, Riverside says most of it is made out of pricey, thick copper.

"If we could get a fraction of that conductivity in aluminum it would not only be cheaper to implement, it would be lighter weight even though it will never had the conductively that copper will inherently have – and so one of the interesting things that we can do is we can use nanostructured features in aluminum to maintain the conductivity that it has while boosting the strength of the aluminum. And that provides motivation for people to start using lighter weight conductive aluminum cable versus copper cable, which now comes at a cost premium and a weight premium as well, so you’re solving two problems at once."

This week on Science Today. A recent UCLA study has found that diet and exercise can reduce protein build-ups linked to Alzheimer’s disease in those who have subtle memory loss, but have yet been diagnosed with dementia.

"A few years ago, nobody ever thought that you could measure a change with just an exercise intervention, so there are some big advances being made."

That’s Alzhiemer’s disease researcher Karen Gylys, who we interviewed recently at UCLA about her own novel work looking at Alzheimer’s disease progression in the synapses. Since the disease is so complicated, Gylys explains it will take more than just one solution to stave it off, but she is bolstered by her work and those of her colleagues’. And at the UC San Francisco, medical students and are excited to be part of a new curriculum called Bridges, gives us a glimpse into what doctors of the future may be like. Dr. Anna Chang, who helped develop the coursework, says they’re basically pioneering the way medical students are being taught.

"Never before have 150 first year medical students gone out to the clinical settings and been challenged to answer questions like, what do you see? What ideas do you have? And what can you do to improve the lives of patients? We are giving our medical students a chance to do so from the moment that they step in the door."

And materials scientists and mechanical engineer Suveen Mathaudhu of UC Riverside describes how car manufacturers are striving to reduce carbon pollution and improve fuel efficiency by producing cars using lightweight materials without sacrificing strength. Mathaudhu says just the copper cabling alone in the average car, which is used for electrical conductivity, weighs about 300 pounds.

"If we could get a fraction of that conductivity in aluminum, it would not only be cheaper to implement, it would be lighter weight. So, one of the interesting things that we can do is we can use nanostructured features in aluminum to maintain the conductivity that it has while boosting the strength of the aluminum."

Learn more about University of California research – subscribe to Science Today on iTunes or follow us on Facebook. Thanks for listening, I’m Larissa Branin.

Subscribe to Science Today:

iTunes: apple.co/1TQBewD

Stitcher: www.stitcher.com/podcast/science-today

Follow us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/ucsciencetoday

Stories mentioned in this roundup:

https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/alzheimers_diet

https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/bridges_students

https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/cars_lightweight

Trying to influence behavior in public health campaigns can be tricky because education alone, while important, doesn't always change behavior. And so when it happens naturally, it's a big deal. In an encouraging sign in the fight against obesity, Kris Madsen of the University of California, Berkeley, found a 21 percent drop in the consumption of sugary drinks after the city of Berkeley, California implemented a penny-per-ounce tax on sugar-sweetened beverages.

"Looking at the 21 percent drop to me is the most exciting finding of my career because it suggests that here's something that actually has a really big impact and it's incredibly simple and straightforward."

Overall, the results suggest that a general excise tax like this, coupled with a public-awareness campaign, can have major benefits.

"The other thing that we saw that was really promising in the study was people were drinking more water. So, it looks like people were switching from sugar-sweetened beverages to really what I would say is the healthiest alternative."

What will doctors of the future be like? The medical school at the University of California, San Francisco has launched a unique curriculum called Bridges, which may offer us a glimpse into how future physicians will be trained. Dr. Anna Chang, a professor of geriatric medicine, was involved in planning Bridges from the start.

"We are pioneering the way that we're teaching medical students and we are ahead of others in the country in the scope and depth of what we're doing."

Chang explains that doctors practicing today started medical school by just memorizing facts. So what makes Bridges so different?

"Never before have 150 first-year medical students gone out to the clinical settings and been challenged to answer questions like, what do you see? What ideas do you have? And what ca you do to improve the lives of patients? So, we are giving our medical students a chance to do so from the moment that they step in the door."

A recent UCLA study has found that diet and exercise can reduce protein build-ups linked to Alzheimer's disease in those who have subtle memory loss, but have yet been diagnosed with dementia.

"The data that lifestyle, that diet and exercise can impact cognition relatively quickly, that's pretty new data. A few years ago, nobody ever thought that you could measure a change with just an exercise intervention, so there are some big advances being made."

That's Alzheimer's disease researcher Karen Gylys of the UCLA School of Nursing. We interviewed Gylys recently about her own novel work looking at Alzheimer's disease progression in the synapses, where the brain cells transmit impulses. At the time, she explained how complicated Alzheimer's is and how it will take more than just one solution to stave it off, but she was bolstered by findings that exercise and a Mediterranean-rich diet were linked to lower levels of plaques in brain scans.

"Understanding the power of these lifestyle interventions makes me optimistic."