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Home > UC Science Today > The weekly roundup - Sept 16
Podcast: UC Science Today
Episode:

The weekly roundup - Sept 16
Category: Science & Medicine
Duration: 00:01:59
Publish Date: 2016-09-13 19:00:00
Description: This week on Science Today. Did you know that nearly 40 percent of worldwide agricultural crops are destroyed by insects – in particular, fruit flies such as the spotted-wing Drosophila. These pests feed on ripening fruits, laying eggs inside berries and causing hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of agricultural damage. According to UC Riverside entomologist Anandasankar Ray, most flies go for rotting fruits that have fallen off plants. "But these flies will go after the ripening fruit. So this is of particular concern because when you have fruit or produce that is close to harvest, you really do not want to spray toxic chemicals on them." Ray describes a safe repellent they’ve developed, which successfully warded off hungry flies in the lab. Also in the lab, this one at UC Berkeley, we talk to engineer Chelsea Chen who is testing how their ChemoFilter works in a natural environment. This is a polymer membrane that can absorb excess, circulating chemotherapy drugs in one’s body after treatment. "We are trying to improve the design to mimic body environment more closely instead of just doing a simple benchtop experiment. So, we’re working on both a more real environment in vitro experiment and also the next step is the in vivo." And at UC San Francisco, doctors are seeing things in a whole new way – literally. Dr. Judy Yee describes how they’re using virtual holography to perform colonoscopies and how this technology may also be applied to other parts of the body and help surgeons prepare for procedures. "It will allow surgeons to get a sense of the size of lesions, the proximity to key structures like vessels and to potentially practice the approach to a tumor, for example." There’s just so much going on at the University of California – keep on top of all the latest discoveries and breakthroughs. Subscribe to UC Science Today on iTunes or Stitcher. You can also follow us on Soundcloud or Facebook. Be well, and until next time I’m Larissa Branin. Subscribe to Science Today: iTunes: apple.co/1TQBewD Stitcher: www.stitcher.com/podcast/science-today Follow us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/ucsciencetoday Stories mentioned in this roundup: https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/safe_replellents https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/chemofilter_testing https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/holography_medical
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