Catch up on the latest news and interviews on Elements in the past fortnight with Louise Ogden, Beki Hill and Richard Masters.
This time we look at a new approach to therapy, producing bones with a printer, and whether tablet computers are poised to replace your newspaper.
Image of Zebrafish retina. One of the Wellcome Collection Image Award winners. Rights: (Kara Cerveny/Wellcome Images).
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TRANSCRIPT
Richard Masters: Hello and welcome to the Elements podcast, where we bring you the best from Elements-science.co.uk every two weeks. I’m Richard Masters…
Beki Hill: And I’m Beki Hill. This time, scientists trying to print your bones…
Lorna Powell: Rather than laying down ink as your office printer would, it lays down solid particles- so it could be metal or plastic.
BH: ..psychiatrists getting you to tell your own story…
Paul Wallang: Probably as a consequence of the work of Freud… and I know that not everybody is an admirer of Freud, but I think that one thing that he did do was give the patients a voice
BH: And we’ll be listening in to a heated debate about this year’s must-have gadget, the tablet computer.
Anka Lindemann: Oh come on Louise, you get bacteria everywhere! And be honest, did you ever clean your computer keyboard?
BH: But first, let’s take a look at what’s hot on elements.
Richard Masters: Thanks Beki. The Wellcome trust has announced the winners of its eleventh annual image awards. These recognise the most striking and informative science pictures created using some extraordinary imaging techniques.
Pictures came from labs across the UK, and the winners include extreme close ups of mouse embryos, caterpillar prolegs and clotting blood. Lovely.
BH: I really like the zebrafish retina, but you can pick your own favourite from this year’s winners at www.elements-science.co.uk. Thanks to Jack Serle for putting the slideshow together. Now Richard, what have you been writing about this week?
RM: Well Beki I’ve discovered that the benefits of speaking two (or more) languages can extend beyond finding the toilets abroad. A team of researchers have found that lifelong bilingualism could delay the onset of Alzheimer’s disease.
In the study, data was collected from over 200 participants who had been diagnosed with the degenerative brain condition. They found that the half who were fluent in two or more languages first presented symptoms around five years later than their monolingual counterparts.
Beki .
BH: If I was to tell you that you might be able to print off a new copy of your femur as easily as your latest email you’d probably raise a sceptical eyeborw. But this possibility may not be as far away as it seems. Lorna Powell has joined us in the studio to talk about the latest research into 3D bone printing. So Lorna, what exactly is 3D bone printing? Is it just like using your office printer?
LP: Well actually it’s not that different in terms of the concept really. 3D printing was invented quite a few decades ago now, and it’s mainly used in building and architecture trades and rather than laying down ink as your office printer would, it lays down solid particles - so it could be metal or plastic - it moves backwards and forwards across the item, just adding a really thin layer of solid substance each time it moves across so it build up into a 3D solid object.
BH: But making parts for buildings is a bit different to printing off a spare set of bones; how is this going to be possible?
LP: Well one of the things they’ve been looking into is recreating body parts, say of very small bones in the hands that might have been snapped or broken in injury and are very difficult to replace because they have to be such a specific size and shape. So obviously recreating very small bones to match someone’s anatomy perfectly is a real big problem. So what you can do is take a scan of the hand, say, that’s been broken and put that scan through a computer to get the small bone’s size and shape, and then put all the constituents to make an artificial bone - so say you might do for a hip replacement - and print off a very small bone that is of perfect size and shape to do surgery with.
BH: So the companies who’ve been doing this with bones, have they got any plans for the future?
LP: Well this is the really exciting thing about 3D printing and the world of medicine, because theoretically you could print off any body part that you’d need. Obviously the artificial bones is an easy way of doing it because it’s not a living cell, but the new technique is that you could actually create living cells in a lab that are perfectly genetically matched to the patient you’re treating and by printing on to, say an agar plate that could support them as living tissues, you could theoretically create entire organs that are perfectly matched to patients that are waiting for, say a kidney transplant; which obviously has really far reaching applications and could significantly improve the lives of a lot of people.
BH: Excellent, so this has the potential to be a pretty impressive piece of kit. And if you want to find out more and read Lorna’s article you can find it on elements-science.co.uk.
RM: Now, whenever you go to the doctor you would expect to tell them a bit about your concerns and have a discussion about possible treatments. But there is an approach being explored by some doctors, who are taking this one step further. It’s called narrative medicine and I’m joined in the studio by James Brooks to tell us more….
So James, you spoke with Dr Paul Wallang, a psychiatrist who has recently published a paper on narrative medicine. What’s it all about?
James Brooks: Well narrative medicine- it attaches particular importance to the doctor patient relationship and especially communication within that relationship. Basically, the idea is that by enhancing communication between those two people then doctor’s diagnoses will actually improve by listening to the patient’s story, and also the patient will have a better experience of healthcare because they will be more involved. It’s got application in really I think all fields of medicine but it’s been particularly taken up in psychiatry, as Dr. Paul Wallang laid out to me.
PW: If we go right back to the 1700s and the enlightenment there was a general view at that point that reason should be very securely removed from unreasonable elements of society – people, generally, with mental illnesses. And that’s how the whole asylum system came about. When those asylums were established people were basically detained there against their will, they weren’t given any opportunity to prove their reason.
RM: So where does narrative medicine fit in all this?
JB: Really I think the idea of narrative medicine comes at the end point of the process Dr. Wallang was describing there in that the patient is finally given a voice, and listened to and appreciated. In psychiatry specifically there’s a kind of narrative medicine or rather a therapy that’s grown out of the ideas of narrative medicine- called narrative therapy. That seeks to apply the precepts of narrative medicine very specifically in the field of psychiatry.
PW: Probably as a consequence of the work of Freud… and I know that not everybody is an admirer of Freud, but I think that one thing that he did do was give the patients a voice. But the important element there is that they’re given a voice through the analyst, through the therapist. What narrative medicine tries to do is liberate the patient’s voice so that you no longer need the therapist.
RM: So does narrative therapy rival other approached such as Cognitive Behavioural Therapy?
JB: Not really, and I don’t think its practitioners really see it as that, it’s more what Dr. Wallang called an adjunctive therapy, so it’s something that can be used in conjunction with other approaches. It’s more a continuation of the philosophy of narrative medicine which I think is looking to be applied in all fields of medicine rather than establishing narrative therapy as being the best therapy to go to. It’s much more a kind of a spreading out of a certain approach in this case in psychiatry.
PW: It’s about trying to get away from knowledge being the privilege of one particular person in healthcare. Knowledge should not be the domain of only the healthcare provider, it should also be shared with those people who are being cared for as well and that’s a very big difference to how therapies or psychiatric philosophy has been in the past.
RM: Thanks James, and you can hear that interview with Dr Paul Wallang, with music by Elliott Sharp, in full on the Elements’ website.
BH: So, are you one of the millions of people who’re the proud owners of an iPad? Or do you still prefer the rustle of newspaper pages between your fingertips? Anka Lindemann and Louise Ogden have thrashed this out on Elements -science.co.uk already, but we convinced them to get back into the ring for Round Two…
AL: Oh you and your newspaper again…. When are you going to join the 21st century?
LO: You and your tablet-loving – what`s wrong with the good old newspaper? It`s light, cheap and disposable. And I don`t need to live my life next to a charging dock.
AL: Ooooh, I`ve seen you with your smartphone Louise, don’t try to pretend! And it’s not like tablets run out of battery all the time. The new iPad 2 for example will come with a battery that will last for up to 10 hours! And with the Kindle, you can read for weeks until it needs to be charged again. Even you can’t complain about that!
LO: Well, the kindle isn’t really a tablet anyway, it’s an E-reader! I’d like to see someone trying to watch a movie on it! Nothing beats the smell of the printing press when you open a brand new book or a freshly delivered newspaper.
AL: And with the smell, you get inky black fingers…. no, thank you. I don’t miss that feeling. And there is nothing worse than starting your day sitting on the tube with a broadsheet and accidently hitting someone while turning the pages! It feels like I am doing a weird yoga exercise!
LO: Well for starters, I’d rather have inky fingers than touch a bacteria ridden screen that hasn’t been cleaned for days!
AL: Oh come on Louise, you get bacteria everywhere! And be honest, did you ever clean your computer keyboard?
LO: Ok fine, but you’d be mad to take your tablet on the tube anyway – it is a massive invitation for someone to come along and nick it.
AL: Who says you have to take your tablet out? You can also use it at home. Sitting on the couch, watching TV and at the same time, checking your emails or browsing the web. And all this without sitting on an uncomfortable desk chair.
LO: That’s what I have my laptop for. It seems to me that tablets are just another addition to an already extensive collection of gadgets. And if you own an iPad it’s already out-dated, the second incarnation will hitting the shelves soon. It’s impossible to keep up with all the updates and changes. A pen and paper is still the best option if you want a portable notepad.
AL: Well, that’s not necessarily true. People use their devices in different ways, and if you do write a lot on the go, having to type up all your notes at the end of the day can be reaaaaly draining. Having a tablet makes this much easier. You could even write a whole dissertation on it if you want to!
LO: We are going to end up with a generation of hunchbacks at this rate. Everyone crouched over their screens, isolated from the world, communicating through twitter. My idea of hell.
AL: Oh Louise…
RM: Thanks to Anka and Louise for slogging it out in the studio. Now let’s have a look at what delights await you in the next week on elements hyphen science .co.uk
First, with its humble beginnings as a search engine, today sees the multibillion pound net tech giant Google as not only spanning mapping, email and advertising services, but in the process of replacing the term “search online”. Ken Orletta tracks the rise of this household brand in his latest book Googled: The End of the World as We Know It, which Louise will be reviewing for the Elements website. Now, over to Beki for some tips about getting the most out of your favourite bands this summer.
BH: Indeed, with festival season just around the corner, there’s more to worry about than just the weather. Have you ever felt that while the bass reaches you loud and clear, the vocals of your favourite band just get lost in the crowd? New technology from researchers at the Technical University of Denmark may have the answer – with an FM transmitter acting as a go between, the noise from the stage can now be projected to your mobile phone with perfect timing. To find out how this is possible, keep an eye out on our website, elements hyphen science.co.uk.
RM: Well that’s about it for this fortnight’s elements podcast, thanks to Louise Ogden, Anka Lindemann, James Brooks and Lorna Powell.
Join us next time for more of the best news from elements hyphen science.co.uk. In the meantime, you can keep up to date with all of our latest stories by following us on Twitter @elementsscience or on our Facebook page.
This podcast was produced by Louise Ogden and presented by me, Richard Masters,
BH: And me, Beki Hill.
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