Science – Page 29 – UCSD-TV Blog

On Our Mind – Alzheimer's Disease

An estimated 5 million Americans have Alzheimer’s disease and that number will continue to rise. The impact will be felt not just in the homes of the diagnosed but by their caregivers, their loved ones, their communities, and beyond.

The Brain Channel’s flagship series On Our Mind is endeavoring in the next few months to take a closer look at Alzheimer’s disease. Join Dr. William Mobley as he meets with those on the front lines of this disease to discuss current and potential therapies, testing, clinical trials, neuropathology, public policy and so much more.

Stories in the Ice

Much like the rings of a tree can tell us about its particular history, air bubbles trapped within large bodies of ice reveal secrets about our past climate and atmospheric composition.

Scientists can extract a wealth of information by drilling thousands of meters down into earth’s massive continental ice sheets and extracting ice cores. By examining the cores, they can go back in time to periods much colder and considerably warmer than today.

Jeff Severinghaus from Scripps Institution of Oceanography describes how he delves into earth’s climate past and what he’s learned. “Humans have changed the atmosphere due to burning fossil fuels and you see that very clearly in the ice core records,” he explains. While we may not see dramatic climate changes during our lifetimes, our grandchildren most certainly will.

Don’t miss this eye-opening look into our past — and our future.

Watch Stories in the Ice: What can past climate tell us about our future?

Browse more videos from Perspectives in Ocean Science.

Engineering as a Force for the Public Good

Our series examining what it means to live the good life wraps up this week with the premiere of Engineering as a Force for the Public Good.

Al Pisano, Dean of the Jacobs School of Engineering at UC San Diego, gives a grand tour of cutting edge engineering projects that impact our quality of life – both daily and on a grand scale. Medical breakthroughs, transportation safety issues, sustainable energy solutions and more are just some of the projects that engineers at UC San Diego and beyond are working on in the hopes of creating a better future for everyone.

Watch Engineering as a Force for the Public Good with Al Pisano — The Good Life online now or click here to watch the entire The Good Life series.

Birth to Grandmotherhood: Childrearing In Human Evolution

They are the most precious product of humanity. Like all living things, they are why, at the most fundamental level, we exist — offspring. They are why a few thousand individuals spread out of Africa so many eons ago, and why we eventually populated every habitable environment on the planet.

So this time around, CARTA, The Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny asked, what role does childrearing have in making us human?

Here is what the symposium participants considered when asking themselves that question:

From the moment of birth, human infants require an inordinate amount of care and, unlike our nearest living relatives, remain dependent on a variety of caretakers during an unusually long maturation period followed by extraordinary adult longevity. How did such a distinctive pattern of development evolve and what other human features are linked to it?

When you look at it that way, which the experts of CARTA did, it becomes clear that our childrearing had something very important to do with our evolution, and this CARTA symposium takes a deep look at this – from the hormones that modify our behaviors and guide our development, to how different caretakers over the human lifespan mold the societies that mold the individuals that will carry humanity forward.

From the very first cognitive experiences an infant has with its mother, to the influence of breastfeeding and differences in breast milk itself, to how the organization of social economies affects and is affected by childrearing roles, this series provides fascinating insights into how we may have developed those most essential traits that made us, and hopefully will keep us, human.

Watch online: CARTA: Birth to Grandmotherhood: Childrearing in Human Evolution

For more CARTA videos, visit www.ucsd.tv/carta.

Oncology from Top to Bottom

If you are looking to work in the medical field, cancer is something you will be forced to face on a regular basis — especially considering that the incidences of cancer are rising, and currently the likelihood of contracting cancer in your lifetime is 1 in 2.

The latest video from the Foundations for Future Healthcare Providers series takes a look at oncology, specifically cancers within the gastrointestinal tract.

Dr. Andrew Ko, from the UCSF Comprehensive Cancer Center, specializes in gastrointestinal cancers and says that there are many different types, just about as many different types of gastrointestinal cancers as there are different gastrointestinal organs. The most dangerous and most prevalent of these gastrointestinal cancers is colorectal cancer, which is ranked #3 in incidence and in cancer-related mortality amongst all cancers in general.

Find out more about just how different and deadly these types of cancers are in “Oncology from Top to Bottom: A Survey of Cancers through the Gastrointestinal Tract”

See what else you can learn from the Foundations for Future Healthcare Providers series!