UC Science Today

Have you ever overheard people talking about a major plot twist in a movie and end up running out of the room to avoid hearing a spoiler? Well, psychologist Nicholas Christenfeld of the University of California, San Diego says you may want to stick around next time. He led a study in which participants were divided into two groups – one read short stories and rated how well they liked them at the end, and the other group read stories that were “spoiled” by having the endings given away.

"The name itself, ‘spoiler’, of course suggests that knowing the ending ruins the stories. Do they live up to their name? And what we found, remarkably, was if you spoil stories, they actually enjoy them more. That is, people reading these stories knowing the ending, with the ending completely given away, report greater pleasure reading them."

So, what’s going on? Christenfeld thinks that spoilers allow people to pay less attention to the plot, and focus more on other, richer aspects of the book, film, or TV show. So you may want to think about this the next time you’re about to hear who was the latest casualty on ‘Game of Thrones’.

A specific protein has been found to inhibit prostate cancer metastasis to the bone, which is where aggressive forms of the disease primarily spread. Study leader Gabriela Loots, a biomedical scientist at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, collaborated with researchers from University of California campuses at Merced and Davis.

"We were curious about what is it about the bone and what kinds of signals may the bone be sending out that may attract cancer cells to migrate to the bone and then form very aggressive tumors."

The team found that bone cells that were deficient in a secreted bone protein called sclerostin tended to create an environment that’s attractive to cancer cells to go there and grow.

One of the things that we’re interested in now is if we were to combine the antibody as a therapy, if that would potentially have some kind of beneficial outcome to these aggressive cancers that may be highly metastatic. So that would be something we’re interested in further investigating – to see can we can block metastasis?"

Do specific words activate certain regions of the brain? In a study funded by the National Science Foundation, neuroscientist Alexander Huth of the University of California, Berkeley imaged the brains of subjects while they listened to a radio show, then created a language map from the results. While playing a second episode of the show, the researchers were often able to predict which areas of the brain would respond to particular words.

"The aspect of language that we've been investigating is mostly semantics, which is the sort of meaning of language. And it turns out that different topics or different groups of meanings seem to be represented in different parts of the brain."

Although language maps can vary by person, Huth was surprised to see similar maps across different participants.

"Certainly, we want to scan more people. We want to see how this generalizes to other people."

Huth hopes this concept can someday be reversed, allowing us to predict words from brain activity, such as in the case of stroke patients.

Do specific words activate certain regions of the brain? In a study funded by the National Science Foundation, neuroscientist Alexander Huth of the University of California, Berkeley imaged the brains of subjects while they listened to a radio show, then created a language map from the results. While playing a second episode of the show, the researchers were often able to predict which areas of the brain would respond to particular words.

"The aspect of language that we've been investigating is mostly semantics, which is the sort of meaning of language. And it turns out that different topics or different groups of meanings seem to be represented in different parts of the brain."

Although language maps can vary by person, Huth was surprised to see similar maps across different participants.

"Certainly, we want to scan more people. We want to see how this generalizes to other people."

Huth hopes this concept can someday be reversed, allowing us to predict words from brain activity, such as in the case of stroke patients.

A specific protein has been found to inhibit prostate cancer metastasis to the bone, which is where aggressive forms of the disease primarily spread. Study leader Gabriela Loots, a biomedical scientist at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, collaborated with researchers from University of California campuses at Merced and Davis.

"We were curious about what is it about the bone and what kinds of signals may the bone be sending out that may attract cancer cells to migrate to the bone and then form very aggressive tumors."

The team found that bone cells that were deficient in a secreted bone protein called sclerostin tended to create an environment that’s attractive to cancer cells to go there and grow.

One of the things that we’re interested in now is if we were to combine the antibody as a therapy, if that would potentially have some kind of beneficial outcome to these aggressive cancers that may be highly metastatic. So that would be something we’re interested in further investigating – to see can we can block metastasis?"

Have you ever overheard people talking about a major plot twist in a movie and end up running out of the room to avoid hearing a spoiler? Well, psychologist Nicholas Christenfeld of the University of California, San Diego says you may want to stick around next time. He led a study in which participants were divided into two groups – one read short stories and rated how well they liked them at the end, and the other group read stories that were “spoiled” by having the endings given away.

"The name itself, ‘spoiler’, of course suggests that knowing the ending ruins the stories. Do they live up to their name? And what we found, remarkably, was if you spoil stories, they actually enjoy them more. That is, people reading these stories knowing the ending, with the ending completely given away, report greater pleasure reading them."

So, what’s going on? Christenfeld thinks that spoilers allow people to pay less attention to the plot, and focus more on other, richer aspects of the book, film, or TV show. So you may want to think about this the next time you’re about to hear who was the latest casualty on ‘Game of Thrones’.

What can the genetic material of sperm teach us about its function? Researcher Polina Lishko of the University of California, Berkeley is trying to better understand the cell’s physiology by documenting the RNA transcripts. These are essentially the instructions from which a protein is built based on a person’s DNA.

"So transcripts is like a template from which protein will be synthesized. They’re important for the sperm function, for the sperm structure, for the sperm identity."

Basically, Lishko and her team put together a reference manual for sperm research, which can help researchers predict what proteins a sperm cell might produce and why.

"We created a database of what proteins are present in the human sperm cell. This will provide a roadmap for other researchers to understand exactly what is there, and how human sperm cells are different from other cells."

What can the genetic material of sperm teach us about its function? Researcher Polina Lishko of the University of California, Berkeley is trying to better understand the cell’s physiology by documenting the RNA transcripts. These are essentially the instructions from which a protein is built based on a person’s DNA.

"So transcripts is like a template from which protein will be synthesized. They’re important for the sperm function, for the sperm structure, for the sperm identity."

Basically, Lishko and her team put together a reference manual for sperm research, which can help researchers predict what proteins a sperm cell might produce and why.

"We created a database of what proteins are present in the human sperm cell. This will provide a roadmap for other researchers to understand exactly what is there, and how human sperm cells are different from other cells."

Saturated fats do more than just make a person pack on calories. Endocrinologist Suneil Koliwad of the University of California, San Francisco found that saturated fats essentially short-circuit immune cells called macrophages, preventing them from cleaning up overwhelmed fat storage cells when a person is obese.

"Obesity is fundamentally the manifestation of the enlargement of fat cells in the body that expand as they fill up with fats that are taken in from the diet. And we’ve become interested in how macrophages change their activation state, when confronted by lipids that are present at high levels, most notably, in the context of obesity."

Koliwad looked at both mouse and human macrophages, and found that saturated fats triggered a pathway to inflammation different than that activated by an infection. There may be something worth studying in terms of how obesity produces inflammation that might be able to get at the mechanism of how diabetes takes root.

Saturated fats do more than just make a person pack on calories. Endocrinologist Suneil Koliwad of the University of California, San Francisco found that saturated fats essentially short-circuit immune cells called macrophages, preventing them from cleaning up overwhelmed fat storage cells when a person is obese.

"Obesity is fundamentally the manifestation of the enlargement of fat cells in the body that expand as they fill up with fats that are taken in from the diet. And we’ve become interested in how macrophages change their activation state, when confronted by lipids that are present at high levels, most notably, in the context of obesity."

Koliwad looked at both mouse and human macrophages, and found that saturated fats triggered a pathway to inflammation different than that activated by an infection. There may be something worth studying in terms of how obesity produces inflammation that might be able to get at the mechanism of how diabetes takes root.