| Description |
1 online resource (streaming video file) (24 min. 11 sec.) ; 145981348 bytes |
| Summary |
The dangers of mixing too many medications; native rats fighting for their habitat; solving the shortcomings of batteries; clever New Caledonian crows.POLYPHARMACYAustralia is becoming a pill-popping nation. Around 200 million prescriptions are filled every year. Some researchers believe many of these scripts are not only unnecessary -they're actually making people sicker.This cocktail of prescribed, over the counter and alternative medications is known as polypharmacy: where patients are on a number of different medications at the same time. The drugs can interact with each other and put people in hospital. Dr Maryanne Demasi investigates what is being done to manage the problem.RAT WARSIntroduced species have caused all sorts of problems for Australian natives over the years. Just think rabbits, cane toads - and of course that very early pest: the European Black Rat. It could have slipped ashore even before Captain Cook had time to plant the flag! The black rat's been particularly devastating for our native bush rat.Dr Paul Willis finds new research that indicates the bush rat may be capable of holding its own against the invader when in its native bush habitat. In fact, it was the citizens of Sydney that displaced the native rats in the first place as part of an eradication program during the plague of the early 20th century. The challenge now is to remove the black rat from native bushland and establish the natives before more black rats can move in.BORN AGAIN BATTERIESChances are there's an electronic device within reach that's powered by battery - your TV remote, mobile phone or wristwatch. Batteries are everywhere in our lives. But they have some significant shortcomings: they don't deliver power or recharge quickly and they have a limited lifetime.So how do we make batteries better? Tanya Ha discovers that the battery powering the devices of the future may not be a battery at all.ANIMAL ACTION - CLEVER COWSThe New Caledonian crow is one of the few species apart from humans known to manufacture and modify tools. University of Auckland researchers have been testing the reasoning power of wild crows, by giving them complex problems to solve |
| Notes |
Closed captioning in English |
| Event |
Broadcast 2010-08-12 at 20:00:00 |
| Notes |
Classification: G |
| Subject |
Bush rat.
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Drugs -- Side effects.
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Polypharmacy.
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Storage batteries.
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Territoriality (Zoology)
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Australia.
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| Form |
Streaming video
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| Author |
Banks, Peter, contributor
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Cleary, Grainne, contributor
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Couteur, David Le, contributor
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Demasi, Maryanne, reporter
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Dickman, Chris, contributor
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Ha, Tanya, reporter
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Hilmer, Sarah, contributor
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McEnally, Carmel, contributor
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McEnally, Jack, contributor
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Meldrum, Joan, contributor
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Pandolfo, Tony, contributor
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Phillips, Graham, host
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Sinclair, Paul, contributor
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Thorburn, Agnes, contributor
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Willis, Paul, reporter
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