| Description |
1 online resource (streaming video file) (27 min. 6 sec.) ; 163553484 bytes |
| Summary |
Inside the minds of Parkinson's sufferers; have we fixed the hole in the ozone layer? Designing salt-tolerant crops; and when worms get drunk.BRAIN FREEZEParkinson's is a degenerative disorder that affects the brains and lives of tens of thousands of Australians, and as our population ages that statistic is going to get worse. But we know surprisingly little about what is going on in the minds of people with Parkinson's. Work at the Brain and Mind Institute is shedding new light on the disorder and offering new and innovative ways to cope with it. Of particular interest is a phenomenon known as freeze of gait, or FOG. To see what was happening in the brain of subjects when a FOG occurred, researchers came up with an innovative way of causing subjects to experience a walking freeze while lying in a Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging scanner.THE HOLE TRUTHMore than fifteen kilometres high in the stratosphere, the ozone layer forms a natural sunscreen protecting life on earth. But in the 1980s, startling evidence of the formation of a hole in the ozone layer was published in Nature magazine. Evil chlorofluorocarbons had hit the headlines.Australians were particularly worried because thinner ozone meant more skin cancer from higher levels of UV radiation.The world acted, and in1987, the Montreal Protocol took the first steps toward mitigating the problem. By 1990, CFCs were on the path to not being used anywhere and by the late 90s, they were gone. These days we hear more about carbon dioxide and methane than chlorofluorocarbons. Mark Horstman reports on whether the ozone problem is fixed, and how the global reaction at the time could inform our current climate change challenges.SHOCK SALTTo feed the planet's increasing population, production of staple crops like wheat and rice will need to dramatically increase. But climate change is predicted to have a detrimental impact on food production worldwide. Environmental stresses such as drought, salinity and temperature are reducing the quality and yields of many of our grain crops.Researchers in Adelaide are using new technology and breeding techniques to develop plant varieties that can cope better with these conditions. Maryanne Demasi gets out on the farm to find out how.DRUNKEN WORMSResearchers at Southhampton University have been looking at the effects of alcohol on the nervous system of C. Elegans. Surprisingly these worms deal with alcohol in a similar way to us |
| Notes |
Closed captioning in English |
| Event |
Broadcast 2010-08-05 at 20:00:00 |
| Notes |
Classification: G |
| Subject |
Brain -- Diseases.
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Climatic changes -- Evaluation.
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Ozone layer depletion -- Environmental aspects.
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Parkinson's disease.
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Plant varieties -- Research.
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Plant varieties -- Testing.
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New South Wales -- Sydney.
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South Australia -- Adelaide.
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| Form |
Streaming video
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| Author |
Demasi, Maryanne, reporter
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Fraser, Paul, contributor
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Hartnett, Brendan, contributor
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Horstman, Mark, reporter
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Lewis, Simon, contributor
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Newman, Paul, contributor
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Phillips, Graham, host
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Rengasamy, Pichu, contributor
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Shanklin, Jon, contributor
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Shea, Frank, contributor
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Tester, Mark, contributor
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Ward, Philip, contributor
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Willis, Paul, reporter
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Wilson, Andrew, contributor
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