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This is SCIENCE IN THE NEWS, in VOA Special English. I'm SarahLong.

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And I'm Bob Doughty. Coming up this week: businesses signal theirinterest in a technology known by the letters R.F.I.D.

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Researchers study the mentalhealth of American soldiers just back from war.

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And, find out the results of a memory test between collegestudents and … five year olds.

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Many business leaders are excitedabout a technology known as radio frequency identification. R.F.I.D.technology sends information to a central computer about thelocation of products in factories, stores and other places.

The system uses radio signals to communicate between a tinyelectronic device and a reader. The device is a microchip only a fewmillimeters in size. The chip stores information. The reader cancollect the information from up to ten meters away or, with somesystems, from much farther.

Radio frequency identification has existed for years. But recentimprovements make it much less costly. Business leaders say theyexpect R.F.I.D. systems to be in general use around the world withinfive to ten years.

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The recent improvements are largely the result of efforts by thehuge American company Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart officials wanted to improvethe way the company follows its products to its thousands of stores.So, as their first step, they told their top one-hundred suppliersto start using R.F.I.D. devices by January of next year.

The United States Defense Department also wants its suppliers touse R.F.I.D systems. Reports say the Wal-Mart and Defense Departmentdecisions will together affect more than fifty-thousand suppliers.

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The European Union is considering the use of such systems inmoney to help prevent illegal copying of euros. And interest grows.Libraries place radio frequency identification devices in books.Hospitals put chips on medicine bottles.

Animal owners place the devices under the skin of pets to helplocate them in case of trouble. Some humans have chips under theirskin for the same reason.

The attorney general of Mexico, Rafael Macedo de la Concha,announced last month that he has a chip in his arm. He said otherpeople in his office are also equipped with the devices. One reasonis security. The chip will permit them to enter a new center with asecure computer system for crime investigators in Mexico. Also,Mister Macedo said the chip could be used to locate someone who isattacked or kidnapped.

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New and different uses are being found for radio frequencyidentification chips. Some people are concerned. They worry that theincreasing use of this technology will threaten a person's right toprivacy.

Chips can be used to follow the movements of individual productsor shipments. The devices can also warn a business if someone triesto steal. But critics say the technology might be used to collectinformation on people who buy the products. Also, employers coulduse the technology to record the movements of workers who wearidentification with a chip inside.

Makers of R.F.I.D. systems say they recognize that the technologycould be used to violate people's rights. These companies sayprivacy is their biggest area of research. They say they are workingto make sure their technology is not a threat to people.

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The most common technology now to identify goods uses a bar code.Each product is marked with a series of lines called a UniversalProduct Code. It must pass in front of a laser scanner to be read.

The first product ever scanned for sale was a pack of chewinggum. The event took place at a market in Troy, Ohio, on Junetwenty-sixth, nineteen-seventy-four.

Sharon Buchanan was the worker who scanned it. This June, she wasback at the market to cut a cake in honor of the thirtiethanniversary.

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A study has examined rates of mental health problems in someAmerican soldiers after they returned from Iraq or Afghanistan. Themilitary study says disorders appear more common among those whofought in the war in Iraq.

Researchers from the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research didthe study. They collected information from more than six-thousandsoldiers and Marines. The New England Journal of Medicine publishedthe findings. Doctors say this is the first large study ofpsychological problems in soldiers during a continuing conflict.

The report says almost seventeen percent of the soldiers whoserved in Iraq reported signs of severe depression or some kind ofpost-traumatic stress disorder. The rate found in soldiers whoserved in Afghanistan was about eleven percent.

Post-traumatic stress disorder can cause the sudden return of badmemories. It can lead to such things as uncontrollable crying, aninability to sleep and problems with social situations.

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Doctor Charles Hoge led the study. He is chief of the Departmentof Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Walter Reed institute.His team asked soldiers to answer a series of questions before theywent to war and a few months after they returned. The report offersseveral reasons for the higher number of disorders found among thesoldiers back from Iraq.

For example, the study says almost ninety percent of soldierswere attacked or trapped by enemy forces during their duty in Iraq.This was true of less than sixty percent of those who served inAfghanistan. The study also reports that more than ninety percent ofthe Iraq veterans said they were shot at. That compared to sixty-sixpercent of those sent to Afghanistan.

And, the study says almost half who served in Iraq said they wereresponsible for the death of an enemy fighter. That was true oftwelve percent of those sent to Afghanistan as part of theAmerican-led war against terrorism.

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The Army researchers also compared the soldiers to Vietnamveterans. The report says rates of stress disorders were higheramong those who fought in Vietnam. That war ended innineteen-seventy-five. But Doctor Hoge notes that Vietnam veteranswere not studied until years later. Those studies led to therecognition of post-traumatic stress disorder as a disorder. Also,it has been noted that many soldiers who returned from Vietnam weretreated poorly by their country.

Research has also been done on the mental health of soldiers whofought in the first Persian Gulf War. One expert on post-traumaticstress disorder says the research found that cases increased in thetwo years after soldiers returned home.

In the new study, many soldiers said they worried that they wouldbe seen as weak if they sought treatment. But the Defense Departmentsays it is making much more intensive efforts than in the past tohelp soldiers deal with mental health problems.

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Children often think they know more than their parents. Well, itappears that children may at least remember more than adults.

Researchers did a study at Ohio State University, in the AmericanMidwest. They asked children and adults to identify pictures theyhad seen earlier. Researchers Vladimir Sloutsky [pronouncedslutskee] and Anna Fisher wrote a report on their findings for thejournal Psychological Science.

It is traditional to think that memory increases as a child growsolder and has more to remember. But the findings of the Ohio Stateteam dispute that idea.

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The team used a group of seventy-seven children. Their averageage was five years old. Seventy-one college students were in asecond group. The researchers had both groups look at pictures ofcats, bears and birds.

In one test, the researchers showed them twenty-eight pictures.Both groups were asked if they had seen each picture earlier. Thechildren recognized about four times as many pictures as the adults.The adults answered correctly only seven percent of the time.

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Vladimir Sloutsky says the children did better because theystudied the pictures for similarities. The children looked carefullyto see if an animal looked like an animal they had seen earlier. Theadults, however, used a different thought process.

The researcher says this kind of reasoning blocks out unconnectedinformation. For example, the adults looked at a picture of a cat.As soon as they recognized the object as a cat, they stoppedlooking. They did not study the details. So most of their answerswere wrong.

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SCIENCE IN THE NEWS was written by Nancy Steinbach, Caty Weaverand Jerilyn Watson. Cynthia Kirk was our producer. This is BobDoughty.

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And this is Sarah Long.. Join us again next week for more newsabout science, in Special English, on the Voice of America.