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This is today's Carolina Minute.

President Obama recently defended the American-led military assault on Libya.

USC history professor Kenneth Perkins says Mr. Obama was correct in saying we had a moral imperative to get involved to avert a disaster, but it could still end in disaster.

 I believe we did what we had to do. On the other hand, I also think that critical kinds of questions-I won't say that they weren't asked, but I will say there wasn't enough time to think them out carefully and people who are experts in the region,  but I don't think they were given enough time to think this out carefully...to formulate, not so much what to do...I think that was obvious...but what to do next.

Perkins says leaving Qaddafi in power leaves the U-S in a worst place than before-adding, Qaddafi's departure is a requirement for Libya to move forward..

 With this Carolina Minute, I'm Frenche Brewer.

This is today's Carolina Minute.

The U-S and its allies implemented a no-fly zone over Libya to keep Mommar Qaddafi from firing on his own people.

Yet, time and access to oil are on the side of the Libyan leader says USC history professor Kenneth Perkins, an expert on northern Africa.

The ability to repress a civilian population-we've see it in Tunisia, we've seen it in Egypt-the ability is pretty readily there. The thing is...is the government willing to do that? Is an army willing to fire on its own people? And of course in Tunisia and in Egypt, what turned the tide was that the army was not willing to do that. The Libyan army is probably in the end, not willing to do it either.

Perkins says the Libyan army may not fire on its own people, but hundreds of mercenaries loyal to Qaddafi, will do it, so it's extremely unlikely that Qaddafi will give up and walk away.

 With this Carolina Minute, I'm Frenche Brewer.

This is today's Carolina Minute.

Recent uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt and now Libya indicate that the people have had enough of corruption, repression and lost economic opportunities.

USC history professor Kenneth Perkins says there is also a key element unifying all these countries.

 I think the word that we ought to constantly have in the forefront of our minds is dignity, and I think that this is what it's all about.  These are people whose rulers have deprived them of dignity for thirty, forty years. They've reached a point where they were no longer afraid  of these rulers and were willing to go out on the streets, as happened in Tunis, as happened in Cairo and happened in Tripoli.

Perkins says the other catalyst that set off protestors in all of these countries was the choking off of free expression on the Internet and social media.

 With this Carolina Minute, I'm Frenche Brewer.

This is today's Carolina Minute.

Japan is facing a long road back to recovery. Radiation contamination will likely take a toll on business travel and tourism in the region struck by the earthquake and tsunami.

USC tourism expert Dr. Simon Hudson says Japan's recovery will be different from a resort destination's come back.

 People tend to forget quite quickly and in the Thailand tsunami, for example, they turned it around. they said the tsunami was good for us...it cleaned up all of our beaches and it made it much more pristine. It was good for the environment and their hotel occupancy was back probably took eighteen months, but certainly within a year, it was buzzing again.

Hudson says business tourists will likely lead leisure visitors because commerce still has to take place despite the environmental conditions.

 With this Carolina Minute, I'm Frenche Brewer.

This is today's Carolina Minute.

It's very common for national and international governments to have emergency plans in place in the, event of a natural disaster.

USC tourism expert Dr. Simon Hudson has written extensively on disaster recovery strategies and says it's also becoming commonplace for governments to plan for what to do after a disaster.

Destinations have realized, first of all they have to have a strategy in place. It's not good enough halfway through a crisis to say we've got to have a crisis management team.  Once you have a management plan in place it's very, very important to promote the destination...spend money to bring tourists back, and often that's done through P-R, familiarization trips...bringing journalists over...

Hudson says the Thailand government had an excellent disaster recovery strategy that let the world know that it was still open for business following the 2004 tsunami.

 With this Carolina Minute, I'm Frenche Brewer.

This is today's Carolina Minute.

While Japan struggles to clean up and restore its nuclear reactors, the immediate legacy may be what other countries will do with their nuclear plants.

USC management professor Manoj Malhotra says governments are now asking whether the benefits outweigh the risks?

 It's a clean source of energy, but you do have to dispose of the radioactive materials and we've had some controversy in this country and in this state. The Yucca Mountain waste coming to South Carolina and whether some of those landfills will be opened or closed. So I think that the idea of new plants being built is part of the legacy of the Japanese earthquakes that will have to be renovated.

Malhotra says if states and countries do away with using nuclear power, oil usage increases, so we must get prepared for even higher gas prices.

 With this Carolina Minute, I'm Frenche Brewer.

This is today's Carolina Minute.

From technology to automotive, Japan's commerce outreach is global. How much that will change because of the earthquake and tsunami is unclear.

USC management professor Manoj Malhotra says, there will be some disruptions but they won't be obvious in the U-S for awhile.

All supply chains globally do carry inventories and those inventories have a buffering effect. For example, when we think about Japan, we think about the auto industry...Toyota, Honda, and other companies too. They've got plants all over the globe. 3:31/3:37 Actually, the Honda plant in marysville, Ohio makes complete automotive units, like the accords and sends them back to Japan, so it's not that things are only coming from here, things made in the U-S-A go back to Japan.

Malhotra says eventually the inventory will be depleted because products waiting to be shipped from Japan were destroyed in the disaster.

 With this Carolina Minute, I'm Frenche Brewer.

This is today's Carolina Minute.

Fears about radiation contamination continue as radioactive material is released into the air around Japan's nuclear plants.

University of South Carolina radiation safety expert Daniel Zurosky explains the specific radiation we need to fear.

 The kind of radiation that we're talking about with the nuclear power plant is called ionizing radiation. Ionizing has the ability to remove electrons from atoms and when they do that they make something called an ion pair. If we're talking about something that radiates a table top, that's really of no consequence, but if you're talking about a living system where this kind of thing occurs, you could actually do some damage to the body.

For instance, Zurosky says ION radiation contamination could change the D N A of your body, altering the physiology of the cell, possibly leading to diseases such as cancer.

 With this Carolina Minute, I'm Frenche Brewer.

This is today's Carolina Minute.

As Japanese workers at the damaged nuclear power plants struggle to repair the reactors, there is great fear for their lives and the safety of the general public.

Radiation penetrates the air, food and water, and USC radiation safety expert Daniel Zurosky explains how much is too much radiation exposure.

 There is a certain degree of variability in the human population to radiation. The very young and the very old seem to be more radiation sensitive than those past the growth stage.  What the scientists do is attach something called the L-D 50 dose and that refers to the lethal dose that would kill 50 percent of a population. Now, the lethal dose for radiation is about 400-500 rads. So that would be too much radiation for the average person. Zurosky says smaller doses of radiation can cause problems too-showing up as leukemia five years afterwards, or solid tumors ten years later.

 With this Carolina Minute, I'm Frenche Brewer.

This is today's Carolina Minute.

Survivors of the Japanese earthquake are contending with unthinkable problems, not the least of which is radiation contamination.

While their over-exposure came suddenly, USC radiation safety expert Daniel Zurosky says we all get it in small doses daily.

 We do have a lot of background radiation that we're exposed to. This comes from things like the sun distance stars,also there is a certain amount of radioactivity in the cement, in the walls, and so this add to what we call background radiation. You could also have radon gas that emits from the soil, and this all contributes to it. It's believed in south Carolina thatwe have a background of maybe 150-200 mili-rem per year from background sources.

Additionally, Zurosky says we're exposed to radiation when we ingest it in nuclear medicine for a diagnostic study.

 With this Carolina Minute, I'm Frenche Brewer.

This is today's Carolina Minute.

Thousands of U-S soldiers are returning home to battle another foe--post traumatic stress disorder.

USC public health researcher Shawn Youngstedt is the lead investigator on a study that's showing promising results in the treatment of PTSD. It's called bright light therapy.

 Which has been used for depression extensively. It's very well know for winter depression to give people bright light. It alleviates depression. But it seems to be as effective for non-seasonal depression Since it reduces depression we would think that it might also be effective for anxiety. anxiety and depression are very similar disorders. 

            Youngstedt explains that bright light therapy exposes a person's eyes to intense but safe amounts of light for a specific and regular length of time.

With this Carolina Minute, I'm Frenche Brewer.

This is today's Carolina Minute.

A treatment called bright light therapy is showing promise in the treatment of post traumatic stress in war veterans.

USC public health researcher Shawn Youngstedt is leading the research into this treatment and explains how it works.

 These are commercial light boxes that are used clinically and in experiments. They emit very bright lights, about equivalent to being outside on a sunny day, which is more light than most people experience indoors, and we're able to control the light very carefully. The veterans turn the light on for 30 minutes every morning for four weeks. 

            Youngstedt says it's too early to say whether bright light therapy will become standard treatment for combat PTSD, but it has shown to be effective in helping soldiers sleep better...relieving anxiety and stress

With this Carolina Minute, I'm Frenche Brewer.

This is today's Carolina Minute.

Military and medical researchers are studying whether bright light therapy will become standard protocol for returning war veterans.

USC public health researcher Shawn Youngstedt says they believe that this particular therapy could help in the treatment of post traumatic stress disorder in combat soldiers.

 Bright light seems to increase the levels of serotonin in the brain. Another reason why bright light is thought perhaps to help is by shifting the body clock. And the abnormal body clock has also been associated with mental health problems and bright light in the morning can help advance the body clock and it might help also be part of the mechanism by which bright light is helpful. 

            Youngstedt says bright light therapy has proven to be effective in relieving stress, anxiety and depression.

With this Carolina Minute, I'm Frenche Brewer.

This is today's Carolina Minute.

USC medical researchers are experimenting with a device that emits intense bright light, as treatment for combat post traumatic stress disorder.

Leading the study is Shawn Youngstedt who explains that the light is contained in a box, and patients are asked to use it while going about their daily routines.

 We want to avoid it from being too much of a burden, so we ask them to receive one of these devices while they're doing something else...while they're on the computer, eating their breakfast, reading the paper or watching TV, so it doesn't seem like they're doing something extra.  we're finding that people with that mindset are more likely to do what they're asked to do.            

 Youngstedt says patients are required to use the light therapy treatment 30 minutes a day for two weeks.

With this Carolina Minute, I'm Frenche Brewer.

This is today's Carolina Minute.

Post traumatic stress disorder is considered the most common mental health problem among combat veterans.

Yet, treating PTSD is tough, and USC medical researcher Shawn Youngstedt explains why drug treatment is not that effective.

 Partly because PTSD is really a muti-dimensional mental health problem.  A drug that might improve some symptoms like sleep, drugs that reduce depression actually exacerbate sleep problems like the  S S R I's often exacerbate sleep and we know that it has negative side effects.             Youngstedt says a treatment that may help PTSD is intense bright light therapy, which is being used in clinical trials by a group of Iraq and Afghanistan combat veterans.

With this Carolina Minute, I'm Frenche Brewer.

This is today's Carolina Minute.

The Oscar winning movie "The King's Speech" about the relationship between the King of England and his Australian speech therapist has shined the spotlight on stuttering.

USC speech language pathologist Charley Adams says helping the patient begins with trust.

 Stuttering is not caused by stress and anxiety but it's definitely exacerbated by it. so, it was important for Lionel Logue to establish that level of comfort so that that level of anxiety would go down and he certainly needed his trust because a lot of what we do in therapy and what you saw in the movie was very unconventional. So speech therapy often requires sort of a leap of faith and people aren't going to leap if they don't trust you.

Adams says stuttering affects about one percent of the world's population, including approximately three million Americans.

With this Carolina Minute, I'm Frenche Brewer.

This is today's Carolina Minute.

The speech condition stuttering affects about one percent of the world's population-including an estimated three million Americans.

USC speech language pathologist Charley Adams says the cause of stuttering is still a mystery.

 There are likely different origins of stuttering. We do know that brains, when they're stuttering, are doing things differently than brains that aren't stuttering. We have imaging studies that show us this. What we don't know yet is if that differential brain activity is causing the stuttering or it's the effect of the stuttering. In fact, we're working on some research right now trying to tease out that difference with some functional MRI studies.

Adams says speech pathologists work with patients on the motor aspects of speech and the psychological component of stuttering.

With this Carolina Minute, I'm Frenche Brewer.

This is today's Carolina Minute.

Speech experts say most stuttering develops as children are learning language

USC clinical professor Charley Adams advises parents who suspect a problem, to consult a speech language therapist specifically experienced in stuttering.

 Many children go through periods of disfluency as they're developing language. You've got developmental explosions of language and of motor skills. Speaking is both a task of motor skills and language tasks, so it's not surprising that lots of kids experience disfluent speech as they're going through this development But it takes the experience of a speech language pathologist to determine if this is something more likely to hang on.

Adams says there is no cure for stuttering, but next time, offers advice to parents on helping a child deal with stuttering.

With this Carolina Minute, I'm Frenche Brewer.

This is today's Carolina Minute.

When a child stutters, often a parent's first instinct is to tell him to slow down.

However, USC speech pathologist Charley Adams cautions parents to do the opposite.

 The best thing that parents can do is basically do nothing. Let the child finish sentences. Don't try to guess what they're trying to say. Just treat them as if they're not stuttering. try to respond to what they say, and not to how they say it.

This is difficult for a lot of parents to do. It's also important for parents to provide a slow speech model for their kids with lots of pauses. Adams says correcting a child stutterer starts the cycle of fear as he tries harder not to stutter when he speaks.

With this Carolina Minute, I'm Frenche Brewer.

This is today's Carolina Minute.

The movie "The King's Speech" showed that not even wealth could keep the King of England from suffering the crippling and incurable condition of stuttering.

USC speech pathologist Charley Adams says the message is inspirational.

 Which is doing wonders in terms of increasing awareness about stuttering and because of the way that the movie was treated, I think that stuttering has gained a new sense of dignity that it's never had and certainly in the popular media.  And if you put it in the context of the time in which the movie is  set, it's even more important because back then it was believed that stuttering was just a psychological problem and possibly caused by a harsh upbringing. Adams says stutterers can achieve at the same level as others...even becoming the leader of a monarchy.

With this Carolina Minute, I'm Frenche Brewer.