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Home > UC Science Today > The weekly roundup - Sept 9th
Podcast: UC Science Today
Episode:

The weekly roundup - Sept 9th
Category: Science & Medicine
Duration: 00:02:12
Publish Date: 2016-09-08 19:00:00
Description: This week on Science Today. It’s been over three decades since Dr. Michael Harrison of the University of California, San Francisco performed the first fetal surgery – and now Harrison is teaming up with bioengineers at UC Berkeley to develop a better glue for fetal surgery. We met with engineer Phillip Messersmith to learn about this super adhesive, which is inspired by mussels. That’s right, the edible ocean dwellers. "The idea that we could borrow ideas from the mussel and use them in a synthetic material is something that we embraced. And so if you want to do that, you have to at least have some basic level of understanding of how this glue works in nature." Meanwhile, in another collaboration between UC San Francisco and UC Berkeley, researchers have joined forces to help the scientific community get a better understanding of how mosquitoes carrying the Zika virus can infect isolated placental cells. UCSF virologist Lenore Pereira explains how they did this. "We infected these cells with both the prototype African strain and the Nicaraguan strain from the new epidemics that have been associated with microcephaly. Somehow, cells were more susceptible to the Nicaraguan strains." Preventing the chain of infection from mother to fetus remains a challenge, but we’re glad to know scientists like Pereira and Dr. Eva Harris at UC Berkeley are on the case. It’s also great to learn that researchers at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory are leading an international study to conduct the first comprehensive study of cool roofs in China. Staff scientist Ronnen Levinson says these are the white coatings that provide energy cost savings by reflecting more sunlight than an ordinary dark roof. "We were taking something that was well understood elsewhere in the world and extending it to a very important country with a very large population that’s actively seeking to save energy and reduce its carbon footprint." Listen to this and other episodes. Subscribe to UC Science Today on iTunes or follow us on Soundcloud. Stay tuned for more great discoveries by University of California researchers. 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/mollusk_glue https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/zika_strains https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/cool_roof
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