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Home > UC Science Today > The weekly roundup - August 26
Podcast: UC Science Today
Episode:

The weekly roundup - August 26
Category: Science & Medicine
Duration: 00:01:52
Publish Date: 2016-08-23 19:00:00
Description: If you or a loved one are putting off that colonoscopy because the thought of the procedure is off-putting, there’s a less invasive one that University of California, San Francisco’s Dr. Judy Yee helped pioneer. It’s called the virtual colonoscopy. "This is a new test that employs low radiation dose CT scan to acquire data that we can then view on advanced graphical workstations to create two-dimensional and three-dimensional views of the colon, to help physicians screen for colorectal cancer." And while we’re on the subject of three-dimensional work, we also meet up with lab engineer Chen Zhu of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Zhu was part of a team of scientists at the Livermore Lab and the University of California, Santa Cruz who successfully 3D-printed ultralight supercapacitors using an aerogel made out of the ‘miracle material’, graphene. So what does this breakthrough mean for you in the future? Well, how about a highly efficient energy storage system for your smartphone? "If you have iPhone in the future, it can store the energy very quickly and release the energy very fast. So it has very wide applications." Finally, we head back to UCSF to chat with epidemiologist Janet Wojcicki . In an obesity study that focused on Latino children, she found a connection between breastfeeding and telomere length. These are the protective caps on your DNA that are linked to a higher risk of health problems like heart disease and diabetes later in life. "Exclusive breastfeeding at 4 to 6 weeks of age and breastfeeding at six months were associated with longer telomere length in children at 4 to 5 years age." This study may open up a whole new way to predict and prevent conditions early in a child’s life. Hear these and other stories about University of California research by subscribing to UC Science Today on iTunes or Stitcher. Thanks for listening, 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/virtual_colonoscopy https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/energy_storage https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/telomere_breastfeeding
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