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Home > UC Science Today > The weekly roundup - Jan 28th
Podcast: UC Science Today
Episode:

The weekly roundup - Jan 28th
Category: Science & Medicine
Duration: 00:01:50
Publish Date: 2017-01-26 18:00:00
Description: Hey there! It’s been another action-packed week, full of interesting research from around the University of California system. First up, did you know our brains take more time to develop than previously thought? Neither did researcher; they thought most of the development that happened after birth was simply fine-tuning. But Neurologist Mercedes Parades of UC San Francisco discovered that our brains are still developing right after birth – with young neurons moving to the frontal lobe of the brain where they become functional. "And this is something new, both in terms of how long brain development is still ongoing, but also the fact that this is a period right around the time of birth and there is a lot of pathological changes that can happen and the brain is vulnerable." This new understanding of what’s happening in newborn babies' brains will help scientists get a better sense of what triggers developmental disorders. Next, we go from babies to Baby Boomers. They make up the ‘silver tsunami’, a metaphor used to describe a spike in the aging American population, mostly due to the greying of the Baby Boomer generation. Dr. Dilip Jeste of UC San Diego says there’s some misapprehension about this great grey wave coming towards us. Specifically, that they’re a drag and are just going to bog us down with costs. "That’s wrong. I strongly believe that intergenerational activities are critical for successful aging because it’s mutually beneficial. If we keep older people happier and engaged and involved in intergenerational activities, they will be healthier. If they’re healthier, the health care cost is going to go down. So, we need to take good care of older people – not out of compassion, but even from the point of view of economics; it saves us money." And Jeste adds, older people can transfer a lot of wisdom to the younger generation. To hear these and other stories, subscribe to Science Today on iTunes or check out on Facebook. 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/brain_development https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/silver_tsunami
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