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Home > UC Science Today > The weekly roundup - July 22nd
Podcast: UC Science Today
Episode:

The weekly roundup - July 22nd
Category: Science & Medicine
Duration: 00:01:51
Publish Date: 2016-07-19 19:00:00
Description: This week on Science Today. Pain isn’t just one sensation: we can ache, burn or sting. And these experiences often involve different pathways, some of which remain a mystery. So to learn more, researcher Jeremiah Osteen of the University of California, San Francisco looked to tarantula venom, and discovered two toxins that can target highly specific pain pathways. "And so what the toxins have given us the ability to do is to look very specifically at this particular type of pain pathway, to have a better understanding of what types of neurons are involved, what types of molecules are involved, in order to design better pain drugs." We also tackle the subject of pain-relief, and hear from UC Davis professor Aldrin Gomes, who studies a common type anti-inflammatory drug know as NSAIDs. Because the chronic use of pain relievers can actually increase a person’s risk of cardiovascular problems and stroke, Gomes decided to investigate further. "So we first did a screen of different NSAIDs to see if any of them would affect cardiac cells. And to our surprise, all the NSAIDs we tested affected the heart cells." From these topics in life sciences, we move on to learn about computer network security. Domingo Colon of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory tells us about a new comprehensive tool called NeMS that’s built to improve the digital security at government agencies. "So there are a lot of tools out there that provide different vantage points of network security, but what we needed was something a lot more specific that told us behaviorally what’s happening on our network, and also structurally, how is the composition of our network put together at any point in time." Don't miss these and other episodes about the latest University of California research. Subscribe to UC Science Today on iTunes or Stitcher. And don't forget to follow us on Facebook. I’m Larissa Branin. Thanks so much for listening. Subscribe to Science Today: iTunes: apple.co/1TQBewD Stitcher: http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/science-today Follow us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/ucsciencetoday Stories mentioned in this roundup: https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/venom_pain https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/nsaids https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/computer_networks
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