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Home > UC Science Today > The weekly roundup - Feb 10
Podcast: UC Science Today
Episode:

The weekly roundup - Feb 10
Category: Science & Medicine
Duration: 00:01:43
Publish Date: 2017-02-10 23:42:22
Description: If you could do something to avoid facing the dental drill, wouldn’t you do it? This week on Science Today, we chatted with Dr. Peter Rechmann of the UC San Francisco School of Dentistry about a new approach they’re using there called Caries Management by Risk Assessment, or CAMBRA. Basically, it means fighting cavities before they invade your teeth. "You recommend to a patient some behavior change and additional chemical interventions like fluoride, which makes the teeth harder, like chlorhexidine, which kills bacteria." Rechmann says adding chewing gum with xylitol can also save teeth in the pre-cavity stage. He’s even seen lesions in x-rays that would have otherwise called for the drill, completely disappear. So next time, you may want to think twice before passing up an offer for gum..just make sure it’s a brand with xylitol. Next, we visit UC Berkeley, where we learned how researchers there are designing a water filter made of a material so thin, it’s 2-dimensional. Baoxia Mi says they make these membrane filters by organizing the nanomaterial graphene oxide into single layers of carbon, and then stacking them together. "This material has a lot of properties that are suitable for membrane filtration, especially for water purification – disinfection, absorption, or some other properties, that can help us enhance the removal of water contaminants." Unlike current membrane filters, Mi’s design does not require as much energy to push the water through the membrane, since water passes quickly across graphene. Really, there’s so much exciting research like this going on like the University of California, so please come back for more. You can subscribe to Science Today on iTunes or follow us on Soundcloud. 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/cavity_prevention https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/graphene_filters
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