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Home > UC Science Today > The weekly roundup - Jan 20th
Podcast: UC Science Today
Episode:

The weekly roundup - Jan 20th
Category: Science & Medicine
Duration: 00:02:14
Publish Date: 2017-01-19 18:00:00
Description: Time to catch up on Science Today stories. First up, environmental scientists are starting to use drone technology to monitor how forests are affected by droughts, particularly those that have been affecting the Golden State’s iconic sequoia trees. Molecular biologist Todd Dawson of UC Berkeley says with drones, researchers can get a more refined picture in areas where there has been a lot of tree mortality. That’s because in a matter of minutes, drones can allow researchers to survey canopies of individual trees and entire forests. "That means we are basically keeping our finger on the pulse of the forest change, which we have never been able to do with any of our other tools before." Next, if you have some pain relievers in your medicine cabinet, you may want to take a closer look at the back of the bottle. The FDA has been putting bigger warning labels on pain relievers like ibuprofen and other drugs known as NSAIDs because of their known risk to increase heart disease and stroke. Researcher Aldrin Gomes of UC Davis, who found that NSAIDs can cause cardiac cells to die after prolonged use, says he’s particularly interested in educating certain age groups about this. "Between 45 and 65, your risk of stroke from natural causes increases. And above 65, it increases even further. And when you add NSAIDs to this at these different age groups, it further increases your risk." So if you’re in this age group, try not to use NSAIDs on a regular basis. And finally, if your mind started to wander during this update, I won’t get offended; that’s because UC Santa Barbara’s Jonathan Schooler, a professor of psychological and brain sciences, told us that there’s some cognitive value to daydreaming. He conducted a study looking specifically at creative scientists and creative writers to see when they have innovative ideas. "What we found is that in both of these groups, about a third of their ideas happened while they’re mind wandering; we also find that the ideas that they have when they’re mind wandering are more likely to be an ‘ah-ha!’ kind of solution. Something where they really were not expecting it and more likely to involve overcoming an impasse." So if you’re not really tuning in to this right now, let’s hope it’s because you just had an ‘ah-ha!’ moment. That’s all for this week – for more stories about the latest University of California, research, subscribe to Science Today on iTunes or Stitcher. Until next week, 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/drones_trees https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/nsaids_age https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/daydreaming_cognition
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