Podcast Transcript

How Pollution Harms your Health

It is fairly easy to understand why airborne pollution might be bad for your lungs and contribute to allergic conditions such as asthma, but it is more difficult to explain why, on days when pollution levels are very high, other illnesses, including fatal heart attacks, are much more common. To tackle this problem a group of researchers gave volunteers air to breathe containing tiny carbon particles, like those produced by engines. The carbon particles were labelled with a harmless radioactive substance which allowed the scientists to follow where the particles had gone after they were breathed in. They were surprised to find that the particles found their way into the bloodstream within as little as 1 minute of being breathed in, possibly explaining, they say, the link between pollution and illnesses affecting other parts of the body besides just the lungs. (Circulation 2002; 105:411-4)

10th Mar 2002

Toxic Chemicals Are Causing Cancer in Whales

It turns out that high levels of toxic chemicals in seawater are causing cancers the develop in Whales. (that's the animal, not the country !) About 2% of marine mammals, including whales, die from intestinal cancers, but scientists studying a population of Beluga Whales living in St. Lawrence, Quebec, have found intestinal cancers in almost 25% of dead whales that they have examined. The small community of 650 whales lives in a region of St. Lawrence which is downstream of a large aluminium plant that produces high levels of toxic substances called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. These substances are well known to cause cancer and are also found in cigarette smoke. The whales are placed at risk because they dig around in the sediments, where these toxins collect, looking for food. So is it only the whales that are at risk? Apparently not - people living in the same area also have higher levels of intestinal and urinary cancers, compared with people living elsewhere in the country.

10th Mar 2002

So an Old Dog Can Learn New Tricks !

A few years ago scientists were very excited when they unexpectedly discovered new nerve cells being born in the brains of adult people and animals, because up until then, most people believed that new nerve cells were produced only in embryos and very young babies. But, although researchers could detect the newly born cells, they couldn't prove that the cells wired themselves up with other nerve cells so that they could send and receive electrical signals, or that they actually survived for a long enough time to be useful. This week, however, scientists studying the birth of new cells in the hippocampus, which is the part of the brain that is involved in laying down memories, have found that the new nerve cells do indeed survive and can transmit nerve impulses. Although the researchers don't yet know why the brain makes these new cells, they think that they could be intended to replace dead or dying nerve cells as we age. Alternatively they could allow our brains to adapt and learn new thingsby making new connections so quite literally permitting an old dog to learn new tricks.

10th Mar 2002

Puffa Jacket Tents

Last year the cold killed hundreds of people in refugee camps in Afghanistan - but a Cambridge scientist is hoping to change this. Next week Joseph Ashmore will travel to Afghanistan to test out a new kind of tent lining which he has developed along with a team of engineers and scientists from Cambridge University. The high-tech lining consists of a sandwich of polyester wadding, just like you would find in a puffa jacket, with a layer of polyester in the middle. It is breathable, cheap and light, and the tent's occupants will need 75% less fuel to keep warm. The lining has already been tested in a wind tunnel simulating a gale force wind - but the true test will come in Herat, Afghanistan, where they will be used for real to see how well they perform.

10th Mar 2002

Playstation Sensation - Synaesthetics Heaven

A new playstation sensation has been announced this week called Rez. This new offering has been developed by the Japanese company United Game Artists and promises to "overload your senses with a mix of psychedelic visuals and pulsating dance beats". The inventors claim that it creates a sense of synaesthesia, literally a crossing of the senses, so that you can "see" sounds or "taste" colours. The game takes place in a virtual world inside a computer and you play a hacker flying through cyberspace in search of the artificial intelligence at the heart of this world. And there we were thinking that this was a new game ! But there is a twist to the traditional shoot-em approach that makes Rez stand out. Every time you destroy one of the insect-like enemies, a sound is generated. Destroying enemies in patterns results in more elaborate sounds and effects, with the sounds then becoming patterns on the screen as you fly along. The inventors also claim that playing Rez can also be a group experience because whilst one person is plays the game, the others can watch the visuals and listen to the music. <Sounds a bit dodgy to me to be honest. "Anorak invites friends round to watch him play computer game...">

10th Mar 2002

Sweaty Palms Caused By Inherited Condition !

Do you worry about having clammy handshake and seeming really nervous in interviews because of sweaty palms? Scientists at UCLA, the University of California, have found that this embarrassing affliction is not a sign of nervousness, but is instead a more widespread problem, called hyperhidrosis, which is inherited from our parents. But, the good news is that it can be treated. "Traditionally, this syndrome was thought of as stress-related and has not been taken seriously by the medical community," said Dr Samuel Ahn of UCLA's Division of Vascular Surgery. "This is one of the first studies helping to support that 'sweaty palms' is a real physiological disorder that can be passed from generation to generation," Ahn said. The UCLA researchers have found that "sweaty-palm syndrome" is genetic and not nervous and affects up to five percent of the population. What's more, if one parent has the disorder, the study found that children have a 28 percent chance of also having hyperhidrosis," the UCLA research concluded. Help is at hand, however, because doctors have now developed a successful treatment for sweaty palms using "minimally invasive" surgery in which they cut a nerve supplying the sweat glands in the hands.

10th Mar 2002

NASA MARS EXPLORATION PROJECT FINDS LOTS OF WATER
This week scientists from NASA's Mars Exploration Programme have been publishing some extraordinary results produced by the Odyssey spacecraft, which reached Mars late last October. Odyssey began activating its scientific instruments for mapping the planet in mid-February and has now sent back some extremely interesting results. The 300 million dollar orbiting spacecraft is equipped with special cameras that can tell what minerals and other substances are present in the martian soil by analysing the pattern of radiation given off by the surface of the planet as it is continuously bombarded by cosmic energy from outer space. Preliminary results from the first surveys have revealed large amounts of ice within the upper three feet of the planet's surface in places other than at the poles, where researchers has already concluded that there must be ice. Where there is water, scientists believe, there could be the right conditions for life to flourish, but we'll have to wait and see !
Space scientists announce techniques to produce oxygen and water for colonists on Mars.
Background information on the Beagle Mars mission.
Show featuring space scientist Dr. Simon Goodwin discussing future missions to Mars.

10th Mar 2002

Mind Reading - Scientists Are Getting Better at It

Scientists are getting better and better at mind reading. Armed with a brain scanner they can find out just what is going on in your grey matter. And they are discovering the answers to all sorts of burning questions. Here are just a few:
Why can't you tickle yourself?
Apparently it's all to do with a small area at the back of the brain called the cerebellum. Scientists at University College London found that the cerebellum lit up when volunteers tickled themselves, but not when a robotic tickling device was used. They think that this killjoy area of the brain sends out messages to cancel out sensations that it is expecting. In this way we can ignore routine sensations like pressure on our feet when walking, but react when something unexpected happens like stubbing a toe.
Why don't bilingual people get tongue-tied?
Scientists have also looked into the brains of bilingual people to work out why they don't muddle their languages. They have found that bilingual brains react differently to words than brains that only know one language. The bilingual person doesn't have separate storage areas for each language, but has a special filter in the brain which automatically rejects words of the language that it is not speaking.
Do animals dream?
Eavesdropping on the brains of sleeping rats has confirmed what you might have suspected when watching your cat having a nap...that animals do have dreams. Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston monitored the brain activity of rats as they ran along a maze to find food and found a unique pattern of activity. When they listened in on the brains of rats during the rapid eye movement (REM) phase of their sleep, half of the rodents showed these same patterns- the animals were dreaming of the maze.

10th Mar 2002

National No Smoking Day Coming Up

It's National No Smoking day on Wednesday so now's your chance to give up for good. But you might be more successful armed with a few facts to help you.
- 75% of smokers say they want to stop, but 10 years later 65% of them will still be smoking.
- Your chance of remaining a non-smoker for over a year if you decide to give up one day "just like that" is about 5%
- If you approach your doctor for some advice your chances rise to about 6%
- If you use nicotine replacement therapy (NRT), and that's in the form of chewing gum or patches, your chances increase to 15%
- If you use Zyban, the relatively-new anti-smoking drug, then your chances are best of all at about 25-30%
- Hypnosis and certain pyschological techniques also work well for some people and have about a 20% success rate.
So the moral is, it's very tough giving up smoking but here's why you should do it:
- Smoking directly kills over 110,000 people in the UK a year - that's the same as a jumbo-jet crashing every day.
- Smoking causes heart disease, strokes and cancers, not just of the lungs but also the stomach, bowel, pancreas and breast. Statistically-speaking smoking is far worse for your heart and blood vessels than for your lungs. Most smokers don't live long enough to get cancer because they die of heart disease first.
- If you are a woman who has not yet had children, you are actually harming your future babies because you carry all of your eggs around with you from the moment you are born, and chemicals in tobacco smoke damage eggs.
- 1 year after quitting, your risk of having a heart attack drops to less than half what it was previously.
- 10 years after quitting, your risk of lung cancer, strokes and heart attacks is practically the same as if you had never smoked.

10th Mar 2002