UC Science Today

When California passed a bill in 2014 requiring labeling on upholstered furniture that contained toxic flame retardant chemicals, it was touted as a big win for human health and the environment. And it was no doubt especially meaningful to epidemiologist Brenda Ezkenazi of the University of California, Berkeley’s School of Public Health.

"Our work contributed heavily into new laws that were put into effect by our governor to restrict the use of these chemicals in the foam of our couches, in electronic products."

Eskenazi and her colleagues collected data from a study they began in 1999, which followed 600 mothers and their children to measure the impact on health from pesticides, chemicals in plastics and flame retardants.

"We’ve collected about a 150 thousand biological samples in this cohort and measured many different things in those samples. The relationship of flame retardants with neurodevelopment, relationships to fertility and many other health outcomes. So, our work has direct policy implications."

When California passed a bill in 2014 requiring labeling on upholstered furniture that contained toxic flame retardant chemicals, it was touted as a big win for human health and the environment. And it was no doubt especially meaningful to epidemiologist Brenda Ezkenazi of the University of California, Berkeley’s School of Public Health.

"Our work contributed heavily into new laws that were put into effect by our governor to restrict the use of these chemicals in the foam of our couches, in electronic products."

Eskenazi and her colleagues collected data from a study they began in 1999, which followed 600 mothers and their children to measure the impact on health from pesticides, chemicals in plastics and flame retardants.

"We’ve collected about a 150 thousand biological samples in this cohort and measured many different things in those samples. The relationship of flame retardants with neurodevelopment, relationships to fertility and many other health outcomes. So, our work has direct policy implications."

When California passed a bill in 2014 requiring labeling on upholstered furniture that contained toxic flame retardant chemicals, it was touted as a big win for human health and the environment. And it was no doubt especially meaningful to epidemiologist Brenda Ezkenazi of the University of California, Berkeley’s School of Public Health.

"Our work contributed heavily into new laws that were put into effect by our governor to restrict the use of these chemicals in the foam of our couches, in electronic products."

Eskenazi and her colleagues collected data from a study they began in 1999, which followed 600 mothers and their children to measure the impact on health from pesticides, chemicals in plastics and flame retardants.

"We’ve collected about a 150 thousand biological samples in this cohort and measured many different things in those samples. The relationship of flame retardants with neurodevelopment, relationships to fertility and many other health outcomes. So, our work has direct policy implications."

When California passed a bill in 2014 requiring labeling on upholstered furniture that contained toxic flame retardant chemicals, it was touted as a big win for human health and the environment. And it was no doubt especially meaningful to epidemiologist Brenda Ezkenazi of the University of California, Berkeley’s School of Public Health.

"Our work contributed heavily into new laws that were put into effect by our governor to restrict the use of these chemicals in the foam of our couches, in electronic products."

Eskenazi and her colleagues collected data from a study they began in 1999, which followed 600 mothers and their children to measure the impact on health from pesticides, chemicals in plastics and flame retardants.

"We’ve collected about a 150 thousand biological samples in this cohort and measured many different things in those samples. The relationship of flame retardants with neurodevelopment, relationships to fertility and many other health outcomes. So, our work has direct policy implications."

You’ve probably heard the Doppler effect – think of the change in pitch of an ambulance or horn as it passes by. This occurs when the frequency of a wave stretches or compresses as it moves relative to its source. It’s also a phenomenon that has helped astronomers like graduate student Lauren Weiss of the University of California, Berkeley to find planets around distant stars.

"So, this is true with light, as well as sound. So we are measuring the change in pitch of the light, as the star moves in space. And the reason that light changes its pitch, or frequency, is that there’s a planet orbiting the star and making the star wobble back and forth."

Weiss says that the Doppler technique is not new in astronomy, but her team has recently made new discoveries with the help of one using the Automated Planet Finder, which is a robotic telescope.

"It is one of the first times a robot has used the Doppler method to find planets around other stars."

You’ve probably heard the Doppler effect – think of the change in pitch of an ambulance or horn as it passes by. This occurs when the frequency of a wave stretches or compresses as it moves relative to its source. It’s also a phenomenon that has helped astronomers like graduate student Lauren Weiss of the University of California, Berkeley to find planets around distant stars.

"So, this is true with light, as well as sound. So we are measuring the change in pitch of the light, as the star moves in space. And the reason that light changes its pitch, or frequency, is that there’s a planet orbiting the star and making the star wobble back and forth."

Weiss says that the Doppler technique is not new in astronomy, but her team has recently made new discoveries with the help of one using the Automated Planet Finder, which is a robotic telescope.

"It is one of the first times a robot has used the Doppler method to find planets around other stars."

You’ve probably heard the Doppler effect – think of the change in pitch of an ambulance or horn as it passes by. This occurs when the frequency of a wave stretches or compresses as it moves relative to its source. It’s also a phenomenon that has helped astronomers like graduate student Lauren Weiss of the University of California, Berkeley to find planets around distant stars.

"So, this is true with light, as well as sound. So we are measuring the change in pitch of the light, as the star moves in space. And the reason that light changes its pitch, or frequency, is that there’s a planet orbiting the star and making the star wobble back and forth."

Weiss says that the Doppler technique is not new in astronomy, but her team has recently made new discoveries with the help of one using the Automated Planet Finder, which is a robotic telescope.

"It is one of the first times a robot has used the Doppler method to find planets around other stars."

You’ve probably heard the Doppler effect – think of the change in pitch of an ambulance or horn as it passes by. This occurs when the frequency of a wave stretches or compresses as it moves relative to its source. It’s also a phenomenon that has helped astronomers like graduate student Lauren Weiss of the University of California, Berkeley to find planets around distant stars.

"So, this is true with light, as well as sound. So we are measuring the change in pitch of the light, as the star moves in space. And the reason that light changes its pitch, or frequency, is that there’s a planet orbiting the star and making the star wobble back and forth."

Weiss says that the Doppler technique is not new in astronomy, but her team has recently made new discoveries with the help of one using the Automated Planet Finder, which is a robotic telescope.

"It is one of the first times a robot has used the Doppler method to find planets around other stars."

You’ve probably heard the Doppler effect – think of the change in pitch of an ambulance or horn as it passes by. This occurs when the frequency of a wave stretches or compresses as it moves relative to its source. It’s also a phenomenon that has helped astronomers like graduate student Lauren Weiss of the University of California, Berkeley to find planets around distant stars.

"So, this is true with light, as well as sound. So we are measuring the change in pitch of the light, as the star moves in space. And the reason that light changes its pitch, or frequency, is that there’s a planet orbiting the star and making the star wobble back and forth."

Weiss says that the Doppler technique is not new in astronomy, but her team has recently made new discoveries with the help of one using the Automated Planet Finder, which is a robotic telescope.

"It is one of the first times a robot has used the Doppler method to find planets around other stars."

Despite the rising prevalence of kidney stones in the U.S. over the past three decades, there hasn’t been much drug development to help prevent them. Dr. Thomas Chi of the University of California, San Francisco’s Department of Urology says while there haven’t been many successful treatment options, new surgical strategies have done amazingly well.

"It used to be that you'd have to have a giant open surgery, to open the kidney in order to get the stones out, and you'd lose a lot of kidneys that way, and a lot of blood loss. Nowadays, we have lots of minimally invasive options, most of those we specialize here at UCSF, and that includes shockwave therapy, small cameras that go into the kidney to use lasers to break up stones. And for really large stones, we can just make a small incision about a dime-size in your back, to go in and grind up stones. So the days of open surgery are pretty much over nowadays."

Chi is working to better understand how stones form, which he hopes will lead to new drug therapies in the future.

"So, we’re doing pretty good on the surgery front, but we really want to prevent people from getting stones in the first place."