UC Science Today

If you’ve ever wanted to be taller, you may want to consider living in space. It turns out that astronauts can grow as much as two inches taller under microgravity conditions because the lighter load causes the soft discs in their spines to expand. Biomechanics professor Grace O’Connell of the University of California, Berkeley says that under Earth’s gravity, the discs compress and squeeze out water.

"So just having gravity pull down on you all day long, the water flows out of the disc. We see the reverse with astronauts and patients that are bedridden for a very long period of time. Astronauts are actually taller when they come back because they have low loading and their disc continues to expand."

Narrator: But O’Connell says that astronauts are also at greater risk of back injury, which is what inspired her lab to study the properties of spinal discs.

"Astronauts have a significant problem with bone loss when they're in space. And that can cause other problems they have a higher rate of herniation, which causes significant back and leg pain."

If you thought NASA’s New Horizons flyby of Pluto was impressive, you may want to mark your calendars for Juno, a Jupiter-bound spacecraft that launched in August 2011 and is set to arrive in July 2016. Research fellow Lauren Weiss of the University of California, Berkeley’s Astronomy Department says that instead of flying by, Juno will orbit the gas giant for a full Earth year.

"The Juno Mission will try to determine whether Jupiter, our own gas giant, indeed has a rocky core because we’ve never actually made a conclusive detection of the rocky core of Jupiter yet. And it will take very careful measurements of the gravitational field, with changing heights, from Jupiter and positions around Jupiter."

Weiss says that the mission will hopefully reveal whether all planets have a rocky core.

"We think that all planets have a rocky interior. And so that will hopefully reveal whether the core is rocky."

If you thought NASA’s New Horizons flyby of Pluto was impressive, you may want to mark your calendars for Juno, a Jupiter-bound spacecraft that launched in August 2011 and is set to arrive in July 2016. Research fellow Lauren Weiss of the University of California, Berkeley’s Astronomy Department says that instead of flying by, Juno will orbit the gas giant for a full Earth year.

"The Juno Mission will try to determine whether Jupiter, our own gas giant, indeed has a rocky core because we’ve never actually made a conclusive detection of the rocky core of Jupiter yet. And it will take very careful measurements of the gravitational field, with changing heights, from Jupiter and positions around Jupiter."

Weiss says that the mission will hopefully reveal whether all planets have a rocky core.

"We think that all planets have a rocky interior. And so that will hopefully reveal whether the core is rocky."

Chances are we’ve all been inspired by nature at some point. But scientists at the University of California, Berkeley took their inspiration to the next level after developing a hybrid system of semiconducting nanowires and bacteria that’s modeled after photosynthesis. Study leader Chris Chang credits the merging fields of biology and nanotechnology for their breakthrough system, which can not only produce biomass, but also valuable chemical products including biodegradable plastics and pharmaceutical drugs.

"We're making not just one, but many, many, many different types of useful chemical products, and so acetate is a commodity chemical and something that we use in food, and pharmaceuticals, biodegradable polymers, as well as next generation fuels, all within the same type of system. And so it is a breakthrough in the complexity of what we've been able to make, by tapping the complexity of biology, and then merging it with our ability to make artificial nanotechnology, really, enabling biology to do what biology couldn't do before."

If you thought NASA’s New Horizons flyby of Pluto was impressive, you may want to mark your calendars for Juno, a Jupiter-bound spacecraft that launched in August 2011 and is set to arrive in July 2016. Research fellow Lauren Weiss of the University of California, Berkeley’s Astronomy Department says that instead of flying by, Juno will orbit the gas giant for a full Earth year.

"The Juno Mission will try to determine whether Jupiter, our own gas giant, indeed has a rocky core because we’ve never actually made a conclusive detection of the rocky core of Jupiter yet. And it will take very careful measurements of the gravitational field, with changing heights, from Jupiter and positions around Jupiter."

Weiss says that the mission will hopefully reveal whether all planets have a rocky core.

"We think that all planets have a rocky interior. And so that will hopefully reveal whether the core is rocky."

Chances are we’ve all been inspired by nature at some point. But scientists at the University of California, Berkeley took their inspiration to the next level after developing a hybrid system of semiconducting nanowires and bacteria that’s modeled after photosynthesis. Study leader Chris Chang credits the merging fields of biology and nanotechnology for their breakthrough system, which can not only produce biomass, but also valuable chemical products including biodegradable plastics and pharmaceutical drugs.

"We're making not just one, but many, many, many different types of useful chemical products, and so acetate is a commodity chemical and something that we use in food, and pharmaceuticals, biodegradable polymers, as well as next generation fuels, all within the same type of system. And so it is a breakthrough in the complexity of what we've been able to make, by tapping the complexity of biology, and then merging it with our ability to make artificial nanotechnology, really, enabling biology to do what biology couldn't do before."

Chances are we’ve all been inspired by nature at some point. But scientists at the University of California, Berkeley took their inspiration to the next level after developing a hybrid system of semiconducting nanowires and bacteria that’s modeled after photosynthesis. Study leader Chris Chang credits the merging fields of biology and nanotechnology for their breakthrough system, which can not only produce biomass, but also valuable chemical products including biodegradable plastics and pharmaceutical drugs.

"We're making not just one, but many, many, many different types of useful chemical products, and so acetate is a commodity chemical and something that we use in food, and pharmaceuticals, biodegradable polymers, as well as next generation fuels, all within the same type of system. And so it is a breakthrough in the complexity of what we've been able to make, by tapping the complexity of biology, and then merging it with our ability to make artificial nanotechnology, really, enabling biology to do what biology couldn't do before."

Chances are we’ve all been inspired by nature at some point. But scientists at the University of California, Berkeley took their inspiration to the next level after developing a hybrid system of semiconducting nanowires and bacteria that’s modeled after photosynthesis. Study leader Chris Chang credits the merging fields of biology and nanotechnology for their breakthrough system, which can not only produce biomass, but also valuable chemical products including biodegradable plastics and pharmaceutical drugs.

"We're making not just one, but many, many, many different types of useful chemical products, and so acetate is a commodity chemical and something that we use in food, and pharmaceuticals, biodegradable polymers, as well as next generation fuels, all within the same type of system. And so it is a breakthrough in the complexity of what we've been able to make, by tapping the complexity of biology, and then merging it with our ability to make artificial nanotechnology, really, enabling biology to do what biology couldn't do before."

A healthy spine has disc tissue between the vertebrae, which has a swelling property that absorbs water and acts as a shock absorber. Bioengineering professor Grace O’Connell of the University of California, Berkeley says that herniated discs and other disc degenerative cases don’t re-swell as much, which can affect the nerves around them and trigger lower back and leg pain.

"So somebody with a herniated disc, the inner part of their disc squeezes out of the back, and either the body will care of it or a surgeon will go in and remove that material. And that material is actually very important for allowing the disc to re-swell. So if you lose that material, your disc can’t re-swell as much as it could before."

O’Connell’s says that understanding the biomechanics of healthy disc tissue can lead to new treatments that reduce physical stress.

"If we want to replace the tissue or design a total joint replacement for the intervertebral disc, we need to know how the healthy disc functions. So we’re moving towards understanding that a little bit better."

It’s well known that screening for mutations in certain breast cancer genes can help determine a woman’s risk of breast and ovarian cancer. Now, a new study led by John Witte of the University of California, San Francisco suggests that a similar test could be done for prostate cancer. Witte says that unlike other diseases, the test would be based on over 100 smaller, known genetic risk factors.

"Here we're in a situation, for most people, they don't carry that one really big mutation. Instead, they have this huge range of different mutations that each one by itself has a very small increase in risk. So what we showed in this study was that, if you actually combine a hundred of these different genetic factors together, then your risk is much higher."

Witte says that the test could provide clinical value as more genetic variants are discovered.

"You may be able to actually screen someone and look at their germ line DNA and determine who's at the highest risk of prostate cancer in a magnitude that's similar to those breast cancer genes, which are commonly tested for now in women."