Brits can't flirt or tell if woman is interested

LONDON: British men are particularly bad at flirting and most are unable to tell when a woman is being flirtatious, a new study has found.

According to statistics gathered by social anthropologist Jean Smith, flirting is all too rare in Britain and when it does take place, it's likely to fail. She found that flirting was rare in Britain and people just give up easily and went home; New Yorkers get right down to business; Parisians take refuge in ornate but timeproven ritual.

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'Star Trek' laser weapons to help shoot down drones

LONDON: US navy experts claimed to have come closer to developing 'Star Trek' inspired laser weapons capable of downing missiles, drones and aerial vehicles. They believe that within two years warships will be armed with weapons capable of firing deadly rays, capable of shooting down fighter jets and destroying missiles. Scientists at the office of naval research have developed a laser weapon that can down boats and drones at a fraction of the cost of conventional weapons.

"On directed energy, I'd say two years. We're well past physics," the Daily Express quoted Rear Admiral Matthew Klunder as saying. Last year the US navy staged a demonstration of a laser it had developed which was able to hit a dinghy from more than a mile away. A single beam fired at it caused the engine to burst into flames. A US air force laser weapon shot down five robotic planes in 2009. The following year, a Phalanx gun fitted with a laser beam "successfully tracked, engaged, and destroyed" a drone in flight over the sea.

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Smoking will 'kill a billion people worldwide this century'

PTI Oct 29, 2012, 02.17PM IST

LONDON: The half-trillion-dollar tobacco industry, likened to a terrorist movement, will kill up to a billion people worldwide this century due to smoking, unless the governments clamp down on the perpetrators, experts warn.

Smoking is described as the biggest public health disaster in the history of the world as it kills more than half of smokers, mostly from cancer.

John Seffrin, chief executive of the American Cancer Society, who was speaking at a high-level forum of the world's 100 leading cancer experts gathered in the Swiss resort of Lugano, who issued a stark warning to governments worldwide.

Experts said governments must do far more than they have done to control the global tobacco industry, either by raising cigarette prices dramatically, outlawing tobacco marketing or by taxing the multinational profits of the big cigarette firms.

Scientists have calculated that smoking kills more than half of abusers, mostly from cancer, and yet despite it being the single biggest avoidable risk of premature death, there are about 30 million new smokers a year, they said.

Experts note that if current trends continue, with cigarette companies targeting the non-smoking populations of the developing world, then hundreds of millions of people will be dying of cancer in the second half of this century.

The experts called for an outright ban on cigarettes and for the tobacco industry to be treated as a terrorist movement for the way it targets new markets with a product that it knows to be deadly when used as intended.

"We have a major global industry producing a product that is lethal to at least half the people who use it. It will kill, if current trends continue, a billion people this century," said Seffrin.

"It killed 100 million in the last century and we thought that was outrageous, but this will be the biggest public health disaster in the history of the world, bar none. It all could be avoided if we could prevent the terroristic tactics of the tobacco industry in marketing its products to children," Seffrin told The Independent.

"There is a purposeful intent to market a product that they know full well will harm their customers and over time will kill more than half of them. The industry needs to be reined in and regulated," he told the paper.

Tobacco causes about 22 per cent of cancer deaths each year, worldwide, killing some 1.7 million people, with almost 1 million of them dying from lung cancer, the paper said.

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Brits can't flirt or tell if woman is interested

LONDON: British men are particularly bad at flirting and most are unable to tell when a woman is being flirtatious, a new study has found.

According to statistics gathered by social anthropologist Jean Smith, flirting is all too rare in Britain and when it does take place, it's likely to fail. She found that flirting was rare in Britain and people just give up easily and went home; New Yorkers get right down to business; Parisians take refuge in ornate but timeproven ritual.

22.10 | 0 komentar | Read More

'Star Trek' laser weapons to help shoot down drones

LONDON: US navy experts claimed to have come closer to developing 'Star Trek' inspired laser weapons capable of downing missiles, drones and aerial vehicles. They believe that within two years warships will be armed with weapons capable of firing deadly rays, capable of shooting down fighter jets and destroying missiles. Scientists at the office of naval research have developed a laser weapon that can down boats and drones at a fraction of the cost of conventional weapons.

"On directed energy, I'd say two years. We're well past physics," the Daily Express quoted Rear Admiral Matthew Klunder as saying. Last year the US navy staged a demonstration of a laser it had developed which was able to hit a dinghy from more than a mile away. A single beam fired at it caused the engine to burst into flames. A US air force laser weapon shot down five robotic planes in 2009. The following year, a Phalanx gun fitted with a laser beam "successfully tracked, engaged, and destroyed" a drone in flight over the sea.

22.10 | 0 komentar | Read More

Smoking will 'kill a billion people worldwide this century'

PTI Oct 29, 2012, 02.17PM IST

LONDON: The half-trillion-dollar tobacco industry, likened to a terrorist movement, will kill up to a billion people worldwide this century due to smoking, unless the governments clamp down on the perpetrators, experts warn.

Smoking is described as the biggest public health disaster in the history of the world as it kills more than half of smokers, mostly from cancer.

John Seffrin, chief executive of the American Cancer Society, who was speaking at a high-level forum of the world's 100 leading cancer experts gathered in the Swiss resort of Lugano, who issued a stark warning to governments worldwide.

Experts said governments must do far more than they have done to control the global tobacco industry, either by raising cigarette prices dramatically, outlawing tobacco marketing or by taxing the multinational profits of the big cigarette firms.

Scientists have calculated that smoking kills more than half of abusers, mostly from cancer, and yet despite it being the single biggest avoidable risk of premature death, there are about 30 million new smokers a year, they said.

Experts note that if current trends continue, with cigarette companies targeting the non-smoking populations of the developing world, then hundreds of millions of people will be dying of cancer in the second half of this century.

The experts called for an outright ban on cigarettes and for the tobacco industry to be treated as a terrorist movement for the way it targets new markets with a product that it knows to be deadly when used as intended.

"We have a major global industry producing a product that is lethal to at least half the people who use it. It will kill, if current trends continue, a billion people this century," said Seffrin.

"It killed 100 million in the last century and we thought that was outrageous, but this will be the biggest public health disaster in the history of the world, bar none. It all could be avoided if we could prevent the terroristic tactics of the tobacco industry in marketing its products to children," Seffrin told The Independent.

"There is a purposeful intent to market a product that they know full well will harm their customers and over time will kill more than half of them. The industry needs to be reined in and regulated," he told the paper.

Tobacco causes about 22 per cent of cancer deaths each year, worldwide, killing some 1.7 million people, with almost 1 million of them dying from lung cancer, the paper said.

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Brits can't flirt or tell if woman is interested

LONDON: British men are particularly bad at flirting and most are unable to tell when a woman is being flirtatious, a new study has found.

According to statistics gathered by social anthropologist Jean Smith, flirting is all too rare in Britain and when it does take place, it's likely to fail. She found that flirting was rare in Britain and people just give up easily and went home; New Yorkers get right down to business; Parisians take refuge in ornate but timeproven ritual.

She said that Britain's problems start with men. Protocol dictates that men should approach women. Men know this, yet they are horrified at the idea of rejection. New York men can cope with rejection by laughing about it with their pals and move on; however, British men seem swallowed up in despair. Smith said that only 35% of British men could tell if a woman was flirting with them.

In Paris, 53% of men and 95% of women think they know what's happening.

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'Star Trek' laser weapons to help shoot down drones

LONDON: US navy experts claimed to have come closer to developing 'Star Trek' inspired laser weapons capable of downing missiles, drones and aerial vehicles. They believe that within two years warships will be armed with weapons capable of firing deadly rays, capable of shooting down fighter jets and destroying missiles. Scientists at the office of naval research have developed a laser weapon that can down boats and drones at a fraction of the cost of conventional weapons.

"On directed energy, I'd say two years. We're well past physics," the Daily Express quoted Rear Admiral Matthew Klunder as saying. Last year the US navy staged a demonstration of a laser it had developed which was able to hit a dinghy from more than a mile away. A single beam fired at it caused the engine to burst into flames. A US air force laser weapon shot down five robotic planes in 2009. The following year, a Phalanx gun fitted with a laser beam "successfully tracked, engaged, and destroyed" a drone in flight over the sea.

22.10 | 0 komentar | Read More

Smoking will 'kill a billion people worldwide this century'

LONDON: The half-trillion-dollar tobacco industry, likened to a terrorist movement, will kill up to a billion people worldwide this century due to smoking, unless the governments clamp down on the perpetrators, experts warn.

Smoking is described as the biggest public health disaster in the history of the world as it kills more than half of smokers, mostly from cancer.

John Seffrin, chief executive of the American Cancer Society, who was speaking at a high-level forum of the world's 100 leading cancer experts gathered in the Swiss resort of Lugano, who issued a stark warning to governments worldwide.

Experts said governments must do far more than they have done to control the global tobacco industry, either by raising cigarette prices dramatically, outlawing tobacco marketing or by taxing the multinational profits of the big cigarette firms.

Scientists have calculated that smoking kills more than half of abusers, mostly from cancer, and yet despite it being the single biggest avoidable risk of premature death, there are about 30 million new smokers a year, they said.

Experts note that if current trends continue, with cigarette companies targeting the non-smoking populations of the developing world, then hundreds of millions of people will be dying of cancer in the second half of this century.

The experts called for an outright ban on cigarettes and for the tobacco industry to be treated as a terrorist movement for the way it targets new markets with a product that it knows to be deadly when used as intended.

"We have a major global industry producing a product that is lethal to at least half the people who use it. It will kill, if current trends continue, a billion people this century," said Seffrin.

"It killed 100 million in the last century and we thought that was outrageous, but this will be the biggest public health disaster in the history of the world, bar none. It all could be avoided if we could prevent the terroristic tactics of the tobacco industry in marketing its products to children," Seffrin told The Independent.

"There is a purposeful intent to market a product that they know full well will harm their customers and over time will kill more than half of them. The industry needs to be reined in and regulated," he told the paper.

Tobacco causes about 22 per cent of cancer deaths each year, worldwide, killing some 1.7 million people, with almost 1 million of them dying from lung cancer, the paper said.

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Why women can’t do pull-ups

While the pull-up has been used by everyone from middle-school gym teachers to Marine drill sergeants to measure fitness, the fact is that many fit people, particularly women, can't do even one. To perform a pull-up , you place your hands on a raised bar using an overhand grip, arms fully extended and feet off the floor. Using the muscles in your arms and back, you pull yourself up until your chin passes the bar. Then the body is lowered until the arms are straight, and the exercise is repeated. The Marines say a male recruit should be able to do at least 3 pull-ups or chin-ups , but women are not required to do them. In school, 14-year-old boys can earn the highest award on the government's physical fitness test by doing 10 pull-ups or chinups : for 14-year-old girls, it's 2.

To find out just how meaningful a fitness measure the pull-up really is, exercise researchers from the University of Dayton found 17 normal-weight women who could not do a single overhand pull-up . Three days a week for three months, the women focused on exercises that would strengthen the biceps and the latissimus dorsi — the large back muscle that is activated during the exercise. They lifted weights and used an incline to practice a modified pullup , raising themselves up to a bar, over and over, in hopes of strengthening the muscles they would use to perform the real thing. They also focused on aerobic training to lower body fat. By the end of the training program, the women had increased their upper-body strength by 36 percent and lowered their body fat by 2 percent. But on test day, the researchers were stunned when only 4 of the 17 women succeeded in performing a single pull-up .

"We honestly thought we could get everyone to do one," said Paul Vanderburgh, a professor of exercise physiology at the University of Dayton. But Vanderburgh said the study and other research has shown that performing a pull-up requires more than simple upper-body strength. Men and women who can do them tend to have a combination of strength, low body fat and shorter stature. During training, because women have lower levels of testosterone, they typically develop less muscle than men, Vanderburgh explained. In addition, they can't lose as much fat. Men can conceivably get to 4 percent body fat; women typically bottom out at more than 10 percent. So no matter how fit they are, women typically fare worse on pull-up tests.

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Chinese man ends exam early, jailed

BEIJING: A man in central China has been sentenced to a year in jail for ringing a bell to end a national college entrance exam early, forcing students to hand in their papers nearly five minutes before the exam should have ended.

Xiao Yulong, 54, admitted having rung the bell at the school in the province of Hunan four minutes and 48 seconds early "by mistake" on June 8, meaning 1,050 students had to hand in their exams before they were required to do so, the official Xinhua news agency reported.

The incident led to thousands of students and parents gathering "multiple times" at the school and the local education bureau to demand that the government investigate, it said.

A court sentenced Xiao to one year in jail for negligence, Xinhua said. However, he was also given a one-year reprieve, Xinhua said, which means he may serve either very little or no time inside.

The national college entrance exam is a fiercely competitive test in which high school students battle for a limited number of university spaces, in country which sets great store on education as a means to social advancement.

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Scientists nail protein behind bad cholesterol

TORONTO: Canadian scientists have nailed a protein behind high levels of bad cholesterol (low-density lipoprotein or LDL), elevating the risk of heart disease.

The research proves that the protein in question, resistin, secreted by fat tissue, increases the production of LDL in human liver cells and also degrades LDL receptors in the liver, hampering the organ from clearing "bad" cholesterol.

Resistin accelerates the accumulation of LDL in arteries, increasing the risk of heart disease.

Shirya Rashid, senior study author and assistant professor of medicine at McMaster University, warned that a staggering 40 percent of people taking statins are resistant to their impact on lowering blood LDL.

"The bigger implication of our results is that high blood resistin levels may be the cause of the inability of statins to lower patients' LDL cholesterol," says Rashid, according to a Mcmaster's statement.

She believes the discovery could lead to revolutionary new therapeutic drugs, especially those that target and inhibit resistin and thereby increase the effectiveness of statins.

High blood cholesterol is a major risk factor for heart disease and stroke. It can lead to a buildup of plaque in the artery walls and narrowing of the arteries, causing a condition called atherosclerosis which can make it more difficult for blood to flow through the heart and body.

Being overweight also increases the likelihood of high blood pressure and diabetes, compounding the risks of heart disease and stroke.

"The possibilities for improved therapy for the causes of cardiovascular disease are very important," says Canadian Heart and Stroke Foundation spokesperson Beth Abramson.

She notes the research reconfirms the importance of maintaining a healthy weight and cholesterol level, two critical factors in the prevention of heart disease.

"Fortunately, we know a great deal about heart disease prevention and how to reverse some of the risks," says Abramson.

She urges Canadians to maintain their heart health through regular visits to their doctor, monitoring their weight and waist size, eating a variety of nutritious, low-fat foods and being physically active.

"It is equally important to take your medications as directed by your physician to help further reduce risks."

These findings were presented at the Canadian Cardiovascular Congress.

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First Pakistani to go into space will be a woman

Sky's not the limit: Namira Salim has been to both poles, skydived over Mount Everest.

ISLAMABAD: Once you've been to both poles, skydived over Mount Everest and set up your country's first consulate in Monaco, the question is: what next?

For 37-year-old explorer Namira Salim the answer is easy - become the first Pakistani to go into space. Her flight with Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic space tourism project is planned for next year. Although no date has been fixed for the venture's first commercial flight, she is looking forward to fulfilling a lifelong obsession.

"As a child I always believed I would go to space. It's not that I read about it one fine day and thought of signing up. I've always said this was in my DNA," she said in an interview from Dubai.

"I must have been less than five years old and I was crying very hard. My father was trying to pacify me and I was like 'I don't want anything, I just want to go to space. I don't want any toys, nothing , just send me to space' ."

But coming from a country with no major space programme of its own, where millions live in poverty, the journey to the stars was never likely to be straightforward. Pressured by her father to study, she kept up her passion for space in her spare time, joining astronomy clubs and spending nights gazing at the desert skies after her family moved to the UAE in the 1980s. "I always had this feeling that there was something very spiritual and divine associated with this whole thing," she said of her ambition. "As if something was really pulling me there and calling out to me, and I had to be there and I belonged there." Chasing your dreams doesn't always come cheap - Salim paid $200,000 to sign up with Virgin Galactic in 2007, funded with support from her family, who run a heavy construction equipment firm in the UAE.

Salim said the money she has paid is an investment in a commercial industry that will one day replace government space agencies and enable researchers , satellites - and tourists - to go up at a fraction of the current cost.

And she believes space travel can eventually play a role in world peace.

"We hope one day politicians could be taken up in space, and a space shuttle like this one we've built with Virgin is perfect for that. We could actually have peace summits and have conflict resolution in space."

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Chile's ALMA, Earth's largest radio telescope, probes for origins of universe

LLANO DE CHAJNANTOR, Chile: Earth's largest radio telescope is growing more powerful by the day on this remote plateau high above Chile's Atacama desert, where visitors often feel like they're planting the first human footprints on the red crust of Mars.

The 16,400-foot (5,000-meter) altitude, thin air and mercurial climate here can be unbearable. Visitors must breathe oxygen from a tank just to keep from fainting. Winds reach 62 mph (100 km) and temperatures drop to 10 below zero (minus 25 Celsius).

But for astronomers, it's paradise.

The lack of humidity, low interference from other radio signals and closeness to the upper atmosphere make this the perfect spot for the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array, or ALMA, which is on track to be completed in March.

So far, 43 of the 66 radio antennas have been set up and point skyward like 100-ton white mushrooms. Linked as a single giant telescope, they pick up wavelengths of light longer than anything visible to the human eye, and combine the signals in a process called interferometry, which gives ALMA a diameter of 9.9 miles (16 kilometers). The result is unprecedented resolution and sensitivity - fully assembled, its vision will be up to ten times sharper than NASA's Hubble Space Telescope.

"What surprises me is what is being observed. Until now, we haven't had such a capable observatory. We've never been able to observe with such resolution, such accuracy," says David Rabanus, ALMA's instrument group manager.

More than 900 teams of astronomers competed last year to be among the first to use the array, and scientists from around the world are already taking turns at the joysticks.

They're looking for clues about the dawn of the cosmos - from the coldest gases and dust where galaxies are formed and stars are born, to the energy produced by the Big Bang. So-called birthing clouds of cold gases and debris can look like ink stains with other telescopes, but ALMA can show their detailed structures.

ALMA also reaches farther beyond Earth's nitrogen-blue skies than any other radio telescope and has already captured images different from anything seen before by visible-light and infrared telescopes. After a 2003 groundbreaking, scientific operations began last year with a quarter of ALMA's final capacity.

Seeing in three dimensions made possible the recent discovery of a spiral structure surrounding R Sculptoris, providing new insights about how dying red giant stars implode and send off raw material that will later form into other stars. Those results were published in the scientific journal Nature. ALMA has even been able to detect sugar molecules in the gas surrounding a star about 400 light years away, proving the existence of life's building blocks there.

Jointly funded and managed by the United States, Canada, the European Union, Japan and Taiwan, the $1.5 billion project is an engineering triumph that launches Chile, already home to some of the world's largest optical telescopes, to the forefront of ground-based space exploration.

"We're talking about the United Nations of astronomy joined for a billion dollar adventure. Scientists are like kids playing with very expensive toys and these ones are technological developments that could change the world," said Jose Maza, a University of Chile astronomy professor.

But this space race isn't over: Australia and South Africa are competing to build The Square Kilometer Array, combining thousands of small dishes to create a radio telescope 50 times more sensitive than ALMA once completed in 2024.

ALMA's parts are shipped from all over the world and assembled at a warehouse 9,514 feet (2,900 meters) above sea level. The precision is micrometric. The telescope employs reflecting panels that must be aligned and glued so accurately to withstand each winter's subzero temperatures and bounce radio waves within a hundredth of a millimeter's precision.

The dishes are hauled up to their final destination by two custom-made 28-wheel transporters that roar along snaky roads, lined with oversized cactuses and grazing vicunas below the snow-peaked Licancabur volcano. The trip is only 22 miles (35 kilometers), but it takes five hours for the huge platforms to reach the plateau.

Each antenna is perched on a rotating steel pedestal with precisely installed copper lining to protect from lightning. Each dish has a sensitive receiver made of carbon fiber to avoid thermal expansion. The structures, 40 feet (12-meter) tall, lean closer together or farther apart as astronomers zoom in or get wider views. The ALMA correlator, which calculates more than 20 quadrillion operations per second, is the fastest computer ever used at an astronomical site. It compiles the data into a single large view.

"We came from the caves and we're here now just because of curiosity," said Rieks Jager, system integration manager at ALMA, as he stepped out of the control room near the "silent area" military-style barracks where astronomers sleep during the day. "It's not always clear what we study, or whether it's useful for society, but overall it's absolutely essential for humankind."

It's a quantum leap forward since Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei invented one of the first telescopes in the 17th century, discovering sunspots and valleys on the surface of the moon.

"Astronomy has been with us forever and we still have so much more to go," said Maza, the astronomy professor. "If we hadn't asked ourselves so many questions by looking at the stars we would still be ... hunting buffalos. At the end, all of man's development comes from the act of leaving the stones aside and looking upward at the twinkling stars and asking, 'Why?' "

ALMA reminds Juan Rodrigo Cortes, one of the observatory's astronomers, of a phrase from Antoine De Saint Exupery's book "The Little Prince" - "What is essential is invisible to the eyes."

"What's essential here is the material that creates stars, galaxies, clouds, that doesn't emit light visible to our eyes, but goes way beyond the infrared at much longer wavelengths, and that's why our eyes can't see it," Cortes said. "ALMA gives us eyes."

Scientists and researchers are willing to go to extremes to catch a glimpse of the universe through those eyes.

As many as 500 people at a time live at 9,500 feet above sea level in shipping containers modified as trailers. Alcohol is banned due to the sensitivity of the equipment, and those caught drinking after trips to the nearby city of San Pedro de Atacama must sleep at the security checkpoint while they dry out. Their shifts can last 12 hours daily for eight straight days.

Even the weather is unpredictable. Although the clearest of skies are the norm, this year, scientists have had to deal with mudslides, floods and thunderstorms. But most of the time, they seem to be far removed from the rest of the world.

Inside ALMA's control room, German astronomer Rainer Mauersberger had no idea he had put his orange sweater on backward. He was thinking about the formation of galaxies, hoping perhaps to spot a black hole.

"This project has to do with the origin of our life and our future," Mauersberger explained as he sat near a long table full of Halloween masks, used by the scientists to share a light moment or a laugh to break up the long days and nights of stargazing.

"It's about how can we predict our future climates, the evolution of the earth, the sun, our species," he said. "We know more about our universe, our culture, than we ever dreamt of 100 years ago. Our prediction is that the real surprises here will come with things that we can't even begin to imagine."

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Arctic thaw will release 850 billion tonnes carbon, says latest study

This is the first time an estimate of the nitrogen trapped in the Arctic permafrost has been released. Scientists had till now been using computer model based climate predictions.

NEW DELHI: Global warming just spun more out of control than thought. As much as 44 billion tons of nitrogen and 850 billion tons of carbon stored in the frozen wastes of Arctic could be released into the environment as the region begins to thaw over the next century, a new study led by the US Geological Survey said. The thawing process has already started with sea-ice levels at their lowest this summer.

What is staggering is the the new numbers put out by the USGS. If these are correct, it would mean that carbon quantity in the atmosphere will roughly double. It will greatly enhance the rate at which warming is already taking place and could cause widespread destruction of life and habitat.

This is the first time an estimate of the nitrogen trapped in the Arctic permafrost has been released. Scientists had till now been using computer model based climate predictions. The carbon estimate is consistent with previous modeling estimates and gives more credence to other scientific studies with similar carbon estimates.

"This study quantifies the impact on Earth's two most important chemical cycles, carbon and nitrogen, from thawing of permafrost under future climate warming scenarios," said USGS Director Marcia McNutt in a media release. "While the permafrost of the polar latitudes may seem distant and disconnected from the daily activities of most of us, its potential to alter the planet's habitability when destabilized is very real.""

To generate the estimates, scientists studied how permafrost-affected soils, known as Gelisols, thaw under various climate scenarios, the USGS said. They found that all Gelisols are not alike: some Gelisols have soil materials that are very peaty, with lots of decaying organic matter that burns easily these will impart newly thawed nitrogen into the ecosystem and atmosphere. Other Gelisols have materials that are very nutrient rich these will impart a lot of nitrogen into the ecosystem. All Gelisols will contribute carbon dioxide and likely some methane into the atmosphere as a result of decomposition once the permafrost thaws and these gases will contribute to warming. What was frozen for thousands of years will enter our ecosystems and atmosphere as a new contributor.

"The scientific community researching this phenomena has made these international data available for the upcoming Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. As permafrost receives more attention, we are sharing our data and our insights to guide those models as they portray how the land, atmosphere, and ocean interact," said study lead Jennifer Harden, USGS Research Soil Scientist.

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Milky Way black hole wakes up, eats dust cloud

Subodh Varma, TNN Oct 24, 2012, 01.17PM IST

(A black hole, three-to devour…)

NEW DELHI: The "gentle giant" black hole at the center of our galaxy, the Milky Way, has woken up and is munching on a dust cloud, scientists reported yesterday. This is the first time that direct observed evidence on the black hole called Sagittarius A* (pronounced Sagittarius A-star and abbreviated Sgr A*), has been collected.

Nasa's newest X-ray telescope, the Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR), launched in June this year caught x-rays being emitted from the center of the Milky Way. Sgr A* is usually quiet and hence invisible because like all black holes it's very high density doesn't allow any light to escape from it. This time however it has been caught in the middle of a flare-up.

"We got lucky to have captured an outburst from the black hole during our observing campaign," said Fiona Harrison, the mission's principal investigator at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in Pasadena.

"These data will help us better understand the gentle giant at the heart of our galaxy and why it sometimes flares up for a few hours and then returns to slumber."

NuSTAR captures the highest-energy X-rays to produce focused images. For two days in July, it teamed up with NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, which sees lower-energy X-ray light; and the W.M. Keck Observatory atop Mauna Kea in Hawaii, which took infrared images to observe Sgr A*. The results were dramatic and unexpected.

Compared to giant black holes at the centers of other galaxies, Sgr A* is relatively quiet. Active black holes tend to gobble up stars and other fuel around them. Sgr A* is thought only to nibble or not eat at all, a process that is not fully understood, NASA scientists said. When black holes consume fuel -- whether a star, a gas cloud or, as recent Chandra observations have suggested, even an asteroid -- they erupt with extra energy.

In May this year scientists from Harvard and Johns Hopkins University reported their discovery of a feeding supermassive black hole in a galaxy some 2.5 billion light years away. It was gobbling up a red giant star consisting mainly of Helium.

In the case of Sgr A*, NuSTAR picked up X-rays emitted by consumed matter being heated up to about 100 million degrees Celsius and originating from regions where particles are boosted very close to the speed of light. Astronomers say these NuSTAR data, when combined with the simultaneous observations taken at other wavelengths, will help them better understand the physics of how black holes snack and grow in size.

""Astronomers have long speculated that the black hole's snacking should produce copious hard X-rays, but NuSTAR is the first telescope with sufficient sensitivity to actually detect them,"" said NuSTAR team member Chuck Hailey of Columbia University in New York City.

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Next-generation vaccines may eliminate pain of injection

ANI Oct 24, 2012, 05.49PM IST

(New vaccines being developed…)

WASHINGTON: New vaccines being developed by scientists from the School of Biological Sciences at Royal Holloway may eliminate the need for needles as they can be delivered via a nasal spray, or as on oral liquid or capsule.

Lead scientist Professor Simon Cutting, from the School of Biological Sciences at Royal Holloway, has developed the jabs through the use of probiotic spores.

He carried out fundamental studies into the biology of the bacterium Bacillus subtilis that attracted the attention of microbiologists due to its ability to form spores that can last millions of years before germinating under the appropriate environmental conditions.

"The mechanisms by which this process occurs have fascinated microbiologists for decades making it one of the most intensively studied bacteria. Its simple life cycle and ease of use make it an ideal laboratory subject," Professor Cutting said.

Professor Cutting discovered that the Bacillus spores act as ideal vehicles to carry antigens and promote an immune response.

"Rather than requiring needle delivery, vaccines based on Bacillus spores can be delivered via a nasal spray, or as on oral liquid or capsule. Alternatively they can be administered via a small soluble film placed under the tongue, in a similar way to modern breath freshners," he explained.

He added that, as spores are exceptionally stable, vaccines based on Bacillus do not require cold-chain storage alleviating a further issue with current vaccine approaches.

As well as eliminating the pain associated with needles, oral vaccines provide greater benefits including being safer to administer, especially in developing countries where HIV is rife, being inexpensive to produce and easier to store and reducing concerns of adverse reactions.

Professor Cutting has carried out pre-clinical evaluation of Bacillus-based vaccines for a number of diseases including Tuberculosis, influenza and tetanus but most recently he has been investigating the potential for use of the vaccines against a disease of particular relevance to the West - Clostridium difficile.

"C. difficile, is a gastrointenstinal infection that is commonly picked up following hospital stays and causes around 50,000 infections and 4,000 deaths per year in the UK, mostly in elderly patients. Currently, there is no vaccine against the disease, and although several approaches are currently undergoing clinical trials, none are expected to provide full protection, and new solutions are urgently needed," said Professor Cutting.

"Bacillus based vaccines offer distinct advantages as unlike other approaches, oral delivery can cause a more specific immune response in the gastrointenstinal tract to fully eliminate C.difficile," he added.

Professor Cutting has recently received private seed investment to form a company, Holloway Immunology, to develop the bacillus vaccine technology and concentrate on three lead vaccines for Tuberculosis, C. difficile infection and influenza (flu).

The company is currently looking for investors to help fast track the implementation of these jabs and contribute to the transformation of vaccine delivery around the globe.

22.10 | 0 komentar | Read More

Men who eat cheese may risk chance of becoming dad

PTI Oct 25, 2012, 05.30AM IST

(Young men who eat more than…)

LONDON: Young men who eat more than three slices of cheese a day may be risking their chances of becoming fathers, a new Harvard study has claimed. Researchers discovered that even small amounts of full-fat dairy food can dramatically impair fertility in men.

They found that men who eat even three portions of cheese a day had poorer quality sperm compared to others, the 'Daily Mail' reported. A portion includes 28 gm of cheese, a teaspoon of cream, a scoop of ice cream or glass of full-fat milk.

Researchers believe that female hormones that occur naturally in milk may be interfering with men's ability to reproduce.

Scientist from the Harvard School of Public Health in the US compared the diets of 189 men aged 19 to 25, all very fit and did at least one and a half hour's exercise a week.

They filled in a questionnaire, answering how often they ate dairy products, fruit, meat and other types of food during a typical week.

Researchers also looked at their sperm quality, including how fast it travelled and its shape. They found that the sperm of men who ate more than three portions of full-fat dairy food a day was of 25% poorer quality than those who had less.

22.10 | 0 komentar | Read More

Milky Way black hole wakes up, eats dust cloud

Subodh Varma, TNN Oct 24, 2012, 01.17PM IST

(A black hole, three-to devour…)

NEW DELHI: The "gentle giant" black hole at the center of our galaxy, the Milky Way, has woken up and is munching on a dust cloud, scientists reported yesterday. This is the first time that direct observed evidence on the black hole called Sagittarius A* (pronounced Sagittarius A-star and abbreviated Sgr A*), has been collected.

Nasa's newest X-ray telescope, the Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR), launched in June this year caught x-rays being emitted from the center of the Milky Way. Sgr A* is usually quiet and hence invisible because like all black holes it's very high density doesn't allow any light to escape from it. This time however it has been caught in the middle of a flare-up.

"We got lucky to have captured an outburst from the black hole during our observing campaign," said Fiona Harrison, the mission's principal investigator at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in Pasadena.

"These data will help us better understand the gentle giant at the heart of our galaxy and why it sometimes flares up for a few hours and then returns to slumber."

NuSTAR captures the highest-energy X-rays to produce focused images. For two days in July, it teamed up with NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, which sees lower-energy X-ray light; and the W.M. Keck Observatory atop Mauna Kea in Hawaii, which took infrared images to observe Sgr A*. The results were dramatic and unexpected.

Compared to giant black holes at the centers of other galaxies, Sgr A* is relatively quiet. Active black holes tend to gobble up stars and other fuel around them. Sgr A* is thought only to nibble or not eat at all, a process that is not fully understood, NASA scientists said. When black holes consume fuel -- whether a star, a gas cloud or, as recent Chandra observations have suggested, even an asteroid -- they erupt with extra energy.

In May this year scientists from Harvard and Johns Hopkins University reported their discovery of a feeding supermassive black hole in a galaxy some 2.5 billion light years away. It was gobbling up a red giant star consisting mainly of Helium.

In the case of Sgr A*, NuSTAR picked up X-rays emitted by consumed matter being heated up to about 100 million degrees Celsius and originating from regions where particles are boosted very close to the speed of light. Astronomers say these NuSTAR data, when combined with the simultaneous observations taken at other wavelengths, will help them better understand the physics of how black holes snack and grow in size.

""Astronomers have long speculated that the black hole's snacking should produce copious hard X-rays, but NuSTAR is the first telescope with sufficient sensitivity to actually detect them,"" said NuSTAR team member Chuck Hailey of Columbia University in New York City.

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Next-generation vaccines may eliminate pain of injection

ANI Oct 24, 2012, 05.49PM IST

(New vaccines being developed…)

WASHINGTON: New vaccines being developed by scientists from the School of Biological Sciences at Royal Holloway may eliminate the need for needles as they can be delivered via a nasal spray, or as on oral liquid or capsule.

Lead scientist Professor Simon Cutting, from the School of Biological Sciences at Royal Holloway, has developed the jabs through the use of probiotic spores.

He carried out fundamental studies into the biology of the bacterium Bacillus subtilis that attracted the attention of microbiologists due to its ability to form spores that can last millions of years before germinating under the appropriate environmental conditions.

"The mechanisms by which this process occurs have fascinated microbiologists for decades making it one of the most intensively studied bacteria. Its simple life cycle and ease of use make it an ideal laboratory subject," Professor Cutting said.

Professor Cutting discovered that the Bacillus spores act as ideal vehicles to carry antigens and promote an immune response.

"Rather than requiring needle delivery, vaccines based on Bacillus spores can be delivered via a nasal spray, or as on oral liquid or capsule. Alternatively they can be administered via a small soluble film placed under the tongue, in a similar way to modern breath freshners," he explained.

He added that, as spores are exceptionally stable, vaccines based on Bacillus do not require cold-chain storage alleviating a further issue with current vaccine approaches.

As well as eliminating the pain associated with needles, oral vaccines provide greater benefits including being safer to administer, especially in developing countries where HIV is rife, being inexpensive to produce and easier to store and reducing concerns of adverse reactions.

Professor Cutting has carried out pre-clinical evaluation of Bacillus-based vaccines for a number of diseases including Tuberculosis, influenza and tetanus but most recently he has been investigating the potential for use of the vaccines against a disease of particular relevance to the West - Clostridium difficile.

"C. difficile, is a gastrointenstinal infection that is commonly picked up following hospital stays and causes around 50,000 infections and 4,000 deaths per year in the UK, mostly in elderly patients. Currently, there is no vaccine against the disease, and although several approaches are currently undergoing clinical trials, none are expected to provide full protection, and new solutions are urgently needed," said Professor Cutting.

"Bacillus based vaccines offer distinct advantages as unlike other approaches, oral delivery can cause a more specific immune response in the gastrointenstinal tract to fully eliminate C.difficile," he added.

Professor Cutting has recently received private seed investment to form a company, Holloway Immunology, to develop the bacillus vaccine technology and concentrate on three lead vaccines for Tuberculosis, C. difficile infection and influenza (flu).

The company is currently looking for investors to help fast track the implementation of these jabs and contribute to the transformation of vaccine delivery around the globe.

22.10 | 0 komentar | Read More

Men who eat cheese may risk chance of becoming dad

Young men who eat more than three slices of cheese a day may be risking their chances of becoming fathers, a new Harvard study has claimed.

LONDON: Young men who eat more than three slices of cheese a day may be risking their chances of becoming fathers, a new Harvard study has claimed. Researchers discovered that even small amounts of full-fat dairy food can dramatically impair fertility in men.

They found that men who eat even three portions of cheese a day had poorer quality sperm compared to others, the 'Daily Mail' reported. A portion includes 28 gm of cheese, a teaspoon of cream, a scoop of ice cream or glass of full-fat milk.

Researchers believe that female hormones that occur naturally in milk may be interfering with men's ability to reproduce.

Scientist from the Harvard School of Public Health in the US compared the diets of 189 men aged 19 to 25, all very fit and did at least one and a half hour's exercise a week.

They filled in a questionnaire, answering how often they ate dairy products, fruit, meat and other types of food during a typical week.

Researchers also looked at their sperm quality, including how fast it travelled and its shape. They found that the sperm of men who ate more than three portions of full-fat dairy food a day was of 25% poorer quality than those who had less.

22.10 | 0 komentar | Read More

Kissing dogs can cause gum disease

Man's best friend can also give him gum disease! Researchers have found that dogs have a lot of bacteria in their mouths and these can be transmitted to humans and cause periodontal problems.

NEW YORK: Man's best friend can also give him gum disease! Researchers have found that dogs have a lot of bacteria in their mouths and these can be transmitted to humans and cause periodontal problems.

In a study published in the Archives of Oral Biology, Japanese researchers scraped plaque off the choppers of 66 dogs and 81 humans at an animal clinic and a dog obedience school — and putting the slimy stuff under the microscope, New York Daily News reported. Mouths of dogs were rife with the bacteria that causes gum disease in human beings like Porphyromonas gulae, Tannerella forsythia, and the Campylobacter rectus. There were smaller percentages of the same bacteria in the humans.

"The results suggest that several periodontopathic species could be transmitted between humans and their companion," researchers wrote. Dr Ann Hohenhaus at Animal Medical Center in Manhattan said the study doesn't prove conclusively that kissing dogs poses any danger.

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Milky Way black hole wakes up, eats dust cloud

A black hole, three-to devour an approaching cloud of dust and gas known as G2.

NEW DELHI: The "gentle giant" black hole at the center of our galaxy, the Milky Way, has woken up and is munching on a dust cloud, scientists reported yesterday. This is the first time that direct observed evidence on the black hole called Sagittarius A* (pronounced Sagittarius A-star and abbreviated Sgr A*), has been collected.

Nasa's newest X-ray telescope, the Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR), launched in June this year caught x-rays being emitted from the center of the Milky Way. Sgr A* is usually quiet and hence invisible because like all black holes it's very high density doesn't allow any light to escape from it. This time however it has been caught in the middle of a flare-up.

"We got lucky to have captured an outburst from the black hole during our observing campaign," said Fiona Harrison, the mission's principal investigator at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in Pasadena.

"These data will help us better understand the gentle giant at the heart of our galaxy and why it sometimes flares up for a few hours and then returns to slumber."

NuSTAR captures the highest-energy X-rays to produce focused images. For two days in July, it teamed up with NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, which sees lower-energy X-ray light; and the W.M. Keck Observatory atop Mauna Kea in Hawaii, which took infrared images to observe Sgr A*. The results were dramatic and unexpected.

Compared to giant black holes at the centers of other galaxies, Sgr A* is relatively quiet. Active black holes tend to gobble up stars and other fuel around them. Sgr A* is thought only to nibble or not eat at all, a process that is not fully understood, NASA scientists said. When black holes consume fuel -- whether a star, a gas cloud or, as recent Chandra observations have suggested, even an asteroid -- they erupt with extra energy.

In May this year scientists from Harvard and Johns Hopkins University reported their discovery of a feeding supermassive black hole in a galaxy some 2.5 billion light years away. It was gobbling up a red giant star consisting mainly of Helium.

In the case of Sgr A*, NuSTAR picked up X-rays emitted by consumed matter being heated up to about 100 million degrees Celsius and originating from regions where particles are boosted very close to the speed of light. Astronomers say these NuSTAR data, when combined with the simultaneous observations taken at other wavelengths, will help them better understand the physics of how black holes snack and grow in size.

""Astronomers have long speculated that the black hole's snacking should produce copious hard X-rays, but NuSTAR is the first telescope with sufficient sensitivity to actually detect them,"" said NuSTAR team member Chuck Hailey of Columbia University in New York City.

22.10 | 0 komentar | Read More

Next-generation vaccines may eliminate pain of injection

New vaccines being developed by scientists can be delivered via a nasal spray, or as on oral liquid or capsule.

WASHINGTON: New vaccines being developed by scientists from the School of Biological Sciences at Royal Holloway may eliminate the need for needles as they can be delivered via a nasal spray, or as on oral liquid or capsule.

Lead scientist Professor Simon Cutting, from the School of Biological Sciences at Royal Holloway, has developed the jabs through the use of probiotic spores.

He carried out fundamental studies into the biology of the bacterium Bacillus subtilis that attracted the attention of microbiologists due to its ability to form spores that can last millions of years before germinating under the appropriate environmental conditions.

"The mechanisms by which this process occurs have fascinated microbiologists for decades making it one of the most intensively studied bacteria. Its simple life cycle and ease of use make it an ideal laboratory subject," Professor Cutting said.

Professor Cutting discovered that the Bacillus spores act as ideal vehicles to carry antigens and promote an immune response.

"Rather than requiring needle delivery, vaccines based on Bacillus spores can be delivered via a nasal spray, or as on oral liquid or capsule. Alternatively they can be administered via a small soluble film placed under the tongue, in a similar way to modern breath freshners," he explained.

He added that, as spores are exceptionally stable, vaccines based on Bacillus do not require cold-chain storage alleviating a further issue with current vaccine approaches.

As well as eliminating the pain associated with needles, oral vaccines provide greater benefits including being safer to administer, especially in developing countries where HIV is rife, being inexpensive to produce and easier to store and reducing concerns of adverse reactions.

Professor Cutting has carried out pre-clinical evaluation of Bacillus-based vaccines for a number of diseases including Tuberculosis, influenza and tetanus but most recently he has been investigating the potential for use of the vaccines against a disease of particular relevance to the West - Clostridium difficile.

"C. difficile, is a gastrointenstinal infection that is commonly picked up following hospital stays and causes around 50,000 infections and 4,000 deaths per year in the UK, mostly in elderly patients. Currently, there is no vaccine against the disease, and although several approaches are currently undergoing clinical trials, none are expected to provide full protection, and new solutions are urgently needed," said Professor Cutting.

"Bacillus based vaccines offer distinct advantages as unlike other approaches, oral delivery can cause a more specific immune response in the gastrointenstinal tract to fully eliminate C.difficile," he added.

Professor Cutting has recently received private seed investment to form a company, Holloway Immunology, to develop the bacillus vaccine technology and concentrate on three lead vaccines for Tuberculosis, C. difficile infection and influenza (flu).

The company is currently looking for investors to help fast track the implementation of these jabs and contribute to the transformation of vaccine delivery around the globe.

22.10 | 0 komentar | Read More

IVF raises hopes of having a baby even at 40

LONDON: Scientists have developed an IVF process which they claim could give a woman in her early forties the same chance of becoming pregnant as a 32-year-old. Researchers from Colorado claim the screening treatment could boost a 42-year-old's odds of having a baby from 13% to 60%.

It works by picking only the embryos most likely to create a healthy foetus, slashing the odds of miscarriage, the Daily Mail reported.

The treatment also involves the embryos being frozen for at least a month after the In vitro fertilization (IVF) to allow the woman's reproductive organs to return to normal. Scientists believe that the powerful fertility-boosting drugs given during IVF can harm the embryo if it is put into the womb too soon.

A woman aged 40 to 42 typically has a low chance of becoming pregnant with IVF and is unlikely to conceive naturally. Patients will have to pay 2,000 for the test, on top of a cycle of IVF costing 3,000 to 4,000 a course. The process has already been used on 1,200 women in the US. The US scientists claim their procedure is the most advanced of several being developed to boost pregnancy odds.

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Milky Way came into present state as Earth and Sun formed

WASHINGTON: NASA scientists have discovered that Milky Way settled gradually into its present state only around the time the Sun and Earth were forming.

Disc galaxies like our own Milky Way were believed to have been formed billions of years ago, however, now scientists have found they settled into the present state as the Sun and solar system were being formed.

"Astronomers thought disk galaxies in the nearby universe had settled into their present form by about 8 billion years ago, with little additional development since," Susan Kassin, an astronomer at Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt.

"The trend we've observed instead shows the opposite, that galaxies were steadily changing over this time period," Kassin said in a statement.

NASA has studied hundreds of galaxies and found that they have continued to evolve contrary to the belief that they reached their current state billions of years before the planets.

Scientists studied 544 galaxies from the W M Keck Observatory in Hawaii and found that billions of years ago, galaxies were chaotic and random but over time, rotated into disc-shaped systems.

The larger the galaxy, the more settled its mass became and over time, there were fewer mergers, they said.

The study, called the Deep Extragalactic Evolutionary Probe 2 (DEEP2) Redshift Survey, examined galaxies between two billion and eight billion light-years from Earth.

Scientists focused on galaxies with emission lines bright enough to give information about its internal workings.

It is now believed that the Milky Way was still evolving around the time the Sun formed, although the physical processes behind this are still to be determined.

Researchers say the distant blue galaxies they studied are gradually transforming into rotating disk galaxies like our own Milky Way.

"Previous studies removed galaxies that did not look like the well-ordered rotating disks now common in the universe today," said co-author Benjamin Weiner, an astronomer at the University of Arizona in Tucson.

"By neglecting them, these studies examined only those rare galaxies in the distant universe that are well-behaved and concluded that galaxies didn't change," Weiner said.

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Blocking sunlight at specific areas can stop Arctic melting

WASHINGTON: Solar geo-engineering can be applied to save the Arctic ice cap if targeted at specific regions of the planet, rather than cooling everywhere equally, a new study has found.

Researchers found that by tailoring geo-engineering efforts by region and by need, a new model promises to maximise the effectiveness of solar radiation management while mitigating its potential side effects and risks.

Solar geo-engineering, the goal of which is to offset the global warming caused by greenhouse gases, involves reflecting sunlight back into space.

By increasing the concentrations of aerosols in the stratosphere or by creating low-altitude marine clouds, the as-yet hypothetical solar geo-engineering projects would scatter incoming solar heat away from Earth's surface.

"By contrast, our research uses a more systematic approach to understand how geoengineering might be used to limit a specific impact," Gordon McKay Professor of Applied Physics at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS).

We found that tailored solar geo-engineering might limit Arctic sea ice loss with several times less total solar shading than would be needed in a uniform case," McKay said.

Generally speaking, greenhouse gases tend to suppress precipitation, and an offsetting reduction in the amount of sunlight absorbed by Earth would not restore it.

Both greenhouse gases and aerosols affect the distribution of heat and rain on this planet, but they change the temperature and precipitation in different ways in different places.

The researchers suggest that varying the amount of sunlight deflected away from Earth both regionally and seasonally could combat some of this problem.

"These results indicate that varying geo-engineering efforts by region and over different periods of time could potentially improve the effectiveness of solar geo-engineering and reduce climate impacts in at-risk areas," co-author Ken Caldeira said in a statement.

"While more work needs to be done, we have a strong model that indicates that solar geo-engineering might be used in a far more nuanced manner than the uniform one-size-fits-all implementation that is often assumed," Caldeira said.

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Silvery fish break law of physics to hide from predators

The Bristol researchers found that the skin of sardines and herring contain not one but two types of guanine crystal - each with different optical properties.

WASHINGTON: The skin of silvery fish maintains high reflectivity to help them conceal from predators, such as dolphin and tuna, according to a new research.

Reflective surfaces polarize light, a phenomenon that fishermen or photographers overcome by using polarizing sunglasses or polarizing filters to cut our reflective glare.

However, PhD student Tom Jordan from the Bristol Centre for Complexity Sciences and his supervisors Professor Julian Partridge and Dr Nicholas Roberts in Bristol's School of Biological Sciences found that these silvery fish have overcome this basic law of reflection - an adaptation that may help them evade predators.

Previously, it was thought that the fish's skin - which contains "multilayer" arrangements of reflective guanine crystals - would fully polarize light when reflected. As the light becomes polarized, there should be a drop in reflectivity.

The Bristol researchers found that the skin of sardines and herring contain not one but two types of guanine crystal - each with different optical properties.

By mixing these two types, the fish's skin doesn't polarize the reflected light and maintains its high reflectivity.

"We believe these species of fish have evolved this particular multilayer structure to help conceal them from predators, such as dolphin and tuna. These fish have found a way to maximize their reflectivity over all angles they are viewed from. This helps the fish best match the light environment of the open ocean, making them less likely to be seen," Dr Roberts said.

As a result of this ability, the skin of silvery fish could hold the key to better optical devices.

"Many modern day optical devices such as LED lights and low loss optical fibres use these non-polarizing types of reflectors to improve efficiency. However, these man-made reflectors currently require the use of materials with specific optical properties that are not always ideal. The mechanism that has evolved in fish overcomes this current design limitation and provides a new way to manufacture these non-polarizing reflectors," Tom Jordan said.

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MRI scans can help spot paedophiles

A differently-wired brain.

WASHINGTON: Paedophiles have a differently-wired brain as it could be a biological problem some are born with, new research has claimed adding that a potential offender can be identified through MRI scans.

Experts believe they can identify paedophilia through MRI and IQ tests and just like clinical depression or bipolar disorder it can be treated and maybe one day cured.

Five studies have concentrated on abnormalities detected in paedophiles' brains, with results discerning irregularities in the frontal lobe to observing paedophiles brain activity when they see images of naked children, the Daily Beast reported.

Sex offenders appear to have significantly less white matter - a substance that connects different parts of the brain - than those who are paedophiles, according to research by James Cantor, associate professor of psychiatry at the University of Toronto.

Cantor is working with new types of magnetic resonance imaging scans known as diffusion tensor imaging to get a better sense of what he calls "the literal crosswiring of the brain" commonly found in paedophiles.

He believes that a lack of connection between brains's parts could mean that paedophiles struggle to differentiate between sexual objects.

Cantor's research found that the sexual predators generally have lower IQs and are disproportionately left-handed compared to the overall population.

However, not everyone is convinced that stopping paedophilia is as simple as taking a pill or reading an MRI. Thomas Plante, a psychology professor at California's Santa Clara University who has done extensive research on child abuse within the Catholic Church argues that treating paedophilia is particularly difficult.

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Deadly 2011 earthquake linked to groundwater extraction

WASHINGTON: An earthquake that killed nine people in Spain last year may have been triggered by decades of pumping water from a nearby natural underground reservoir, suggesting human activities played a role in moving Earth's crust, scientists reported on Sunday.

The study published in the journal Nature Geoscience centered on the May 11, 2011, quake in the southern Spanish town of Lorca. In addition to the nine deaths, this relatively modest earthquake of magnitude 5.1 damaged numerous buildings in Lorca, an agricultural center.

The study's lead author, Pablo Gonzalez of the University of Western Ontario, said he and his colleagues reckoned that the quake was related to a drop in the level of groundwater in a local aquifer, which can create pressure at the Earth's surface.

To test that theory, they used satellite data to see how the terrain was deformed by the earthquake, and found that it correlated to changes in the Earth's crust caused by a 273-yard (250-metre) drop in the natural groundwater level over the last five decades due to groundwater extraction.

Their findings suggest that human-induced stress on faults like the one near Lorca, known as the Alhama de Murcia Fault, can not only cause an earthquake but also influence how far the fault will slip as a result.

The groundwater was tapped by deeper and deeper wells to irrigate fruits and vegetables and provide water for livestock.

While this research does not automatically relate to other earthquakes, it could offer clues about quakes that occur near water in the future, Gonzalez said by telephone.

"We cannot set up a rule just by studying a single particular case, but the evidence that we have collected in this study could be necessary to expand research in other future events that occur near ... dams, aquifers and melting glaciers, where you have tectonic faults close to these sources," Gonzalez said.

He said this was different from a rash of minor earthquakes seen in Texas over the last two years, some of which occurred near wells where wastewater was injected deep underground.

In an accompanying article, Jean-Philippe Avouac of the California Institute of Technology said the implications could be far-reaching "if ever the effect of human-induced stress perturbations on seismicity is fully understood."

"For now, we should remain cautious ... We know how to start earthquakes, but we are still far from being able to keep them under control," Avouac wrote.

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Now, a device to help stutterers speak fluently

While the device does not cure stuttering, it helps the user reduce his or her stuttering frequency and can improve the user's quality of life.

WASHINGTON: Researchers have developed a cellphone-sized, portable device that could help people who stutter speak more fluently.

The device created by researchers from the University of Mississippi is battery-powered and easy to use.

The team began working on the device after Greg Snyder, associate professor of communications sciences and disorders, and himself a lifelong stutterer, demonstrated how he could speak much more fluently simply by feeling his throat.

"By feeling my throat vibrate when I speak, I get tactile speech feedback, which significantly reduces my stuttering," Snyder said.

While the device does not cure stuttering, it helps the user reduce his or her stuttering frequency and can improve the user's quality of life, Snyder added.

"Our device is portable, battery-powered and easy to use," said Paul Goggans, lead partner in the instrument's design and fabrication.

"These are important attributes because other behavioural treatments for stuttering are more intense; they require too much concentration and are exhausting," Goggans said.

Even after a long day of speech therapy, a stutterer might have no progress to show the next day, but the patient is tired because he or she worked so hard, Goggans said.

"This creation is offering a promising alternative that can be discreetly and easily used every day by adults," he said in a statement.

The patent rights to the device have been licensed to Hyperion Technology Group Inc of Tupelo.

"The stigma surrounding stuttering is overwhelming and cruel," Snyder said.

"For any number of reasons, I was able to successfully emerge from the challenges of stuttering and have stayed focused on finding a new and better treatment for others. It just makes sense to me that if we can wear prosthetics like eyeglasses to help with our vision and hearing aids to enhance our hearing, then why not a prosthetic to help with speech?" Snyder added.

A prototype of the device was presented at the 2012 Society of Neuroscience conference in New Orleans.

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3D printed airplane successfully takes test flight

WASHINGTON: Researchers have successfully built and flown an unmanned aerial vehicle, using 3D printing technology.

Engineering students from the University of Virginia posted a YouTube video of a plastic turbofan engine they had designed and built using 3D printing technology.

Executives at Mitre Corporation, a McLean-based defence contractor, saw the video and sent an announcement to the School of Engineering and Applied Science that they were looking for two summer interns to work on a new project involving 3D printing.

Only one student, Steven Easter, then a third-year mechanical engineering major, responded to the job announcement.

Easter got the assignment to build over the summer an unmanned aerial vehicle, using 3D printing technology. In other words, a plastic plane, to be designed, fabricated, built and test-flown.

The engineers worked with inputs from their adviser, mechanical and aerospace engineering professor David Sheffler, a University of Virginia Engineering School alumnus and 20-year veteran of the aerospace industry.

It was a daunting project - producing a plane with a 6.5-foot wingspan, made from assembled "printed" parts. The students sometimes put in 80-hour workweeks, with many long nights in the lab, according to a university statement.

"It was sort of a seat-of-the-pants thing at first - wham, bang. But we kept banging away and became more confident as we kept designing and printing out new parts," Easter said.

Sheffler said he had confidence in them "the entire way." The way eventually led to assembly of the plane and four test flights in August and early September at Milton Airfield near Keswick. It achieved a cruising speed of 72.4 kph and is only the third 3-D printed plane known to have been built and flown.

During the first test, the plane's nosepiece was damaged while the plane taxied around the field.

"We dogged it, but we printed a new nose," Easter said in a statement.

That ability to make and modify new parts is the beauty of 3D printing, said Sheffler, who works with students in the Engineering School's Rapid Prototyping Lab.

Their task now is to build an improved plane-lighter, stronger, faster and more easily assembled. The project also is their fourth-year thesis.

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Menopause does not cause weight gain, but increases belly fat: Study

MUMBAI: A comprehensive review by the International Menopause Society has found that going through the menopause does not cause a woman to gain weight. However, the hormonal changes at the menopause are associated with a change in the the way that fat is distributed, leading to more belly (abdominal) fat.

To mark World Menopause Day on October 18, the International Menopause Society has developed a state-of-the-science review on weight gain at the menopause. This report is published in the peer-reviewed journal, Climacteric.

Being overweight or obese is a major worry for many women, andthrough midlife, women tend to gain on average around 0.5 kg per year (around 1lb per year). This can have significant consequences, as being overweight or obese is associated with a range of conditions including depression, hypertension, cardiovascular disease and diabetes. Globally, around 1.5 billion adults are overweight, and of these around 300 million women are obese. Obesity rates have doubled since 1980, especially in Western countries.
There are a variety of reasons for the increase, not only lifestyle reasons. In general, more women than men are obese, and fluctuations in sex hormones have been proposed as being implicated in the weight gain.
The review group considered the evidence on why women gain weight around the menopause. They found that absolute weight gain is determined by non hormonal factors, rather than the menopause itself.

The key finding was that the way fat is deposited changes at the menopause; studies indicate that this is due to the drop in estrogen levels at menopause. Irrespective as to whether women do or do not gain weight at midlife, after the menopause, women experience a shift in their fat stores to their abdomen .

According to review leader, professor Susan Davis from Monash University, Melbourne, Australia, "It is a myth that the menopause causes a woman to gain weight. It's really just a consequence of environmental factors and ageing which cause that. But there is no doubt that the new spare tyre many women complain of after menopause is real, and not a consequence of any changes they have made. Rather this is the body's response to the fall in estrogen at menopause: a shift of fat storage from the hips to the waist".

The review notes that increased abdominal fat increases the risk of future metabolic disease, such as diabetes and heart disease, in postmenopausal women. It also noted that, contrary to popular opinion, estrogen therapy (HRT) does not cause women to put on weight. There is good evidence that HRT can prevent abdominal fat increasing after menopause.

The IMS is calling for women to be more aware of the problems associated with excess weight, and to take early steps to ensure that they don't gain excess weight after the menopause.
Professor Davis said, "What this translates to in real terms is that women going through the menopause should begin to try to control their weight before it becomes a problem, so if you have not been looking after yourself before the menopause, you should certainly start to do so when it arrives. This means for all women being thoughtful about what you eat and for many, being more active every day. Estrogen therapy (HRT) can also help. But each woman is different, so at the menopause, it is important to discuss your health with your doctor".

IMS President, Tobie de Villiers (Cape Town, South Africa), said "Weight gain is a major risk factor for a variety of diseases, including diabetes and cardiovascular disease.
Heart disease is by far the number one killer of postmenopausal women, and this risk is increased by excess weight. Women need to be aware of this, especially at the menopause when estrogen levels drop. A woman may need to adjust her lifestyle to ensure a healthier life after the menopause. In fact, I would say that a woman should consider using the menopause as a marker, a reason to review her overall health, with her doctor, so that she can take her own decisions on how her life moves forward".

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Breastfeeding cuts breast cancer risk?

Breastfeeding can reduce a woman's risk of developing certain types of breast cancers, a new study has claimed.

Researchers from the Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health found that breastfeeding reduces the risk for estrogen receptor-negative and progesterone receptornegative breast cancer.

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No joke: New tech turns air into petrol

LONDON: A small British firm claimed to have developed a revolutionary new technology that can produce petrol using just air and electricity.

A company in the north of England has developed the 'air capture' technology to create synthetic petrol which experts have hailed as a potential "game-changer" in the battle against climate change and a saviour for the world's energy crisis.

The technology, presented to a London engineering conference this week, works by removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, The Telegraph reported. The 'petrol from air' technology involves taking sodium hydroxide and mixing it with carbon dioxide before 'electrolysing' the sodium carbonate that it produces to form pure carbon dioxide.

Hydrogen is then produced by electrolysing water vapour captured with a dehumidifier.

The company, Air Fuel Syndication, uses the carbon dioxide and hydrogen to produce methanol which in turn is passed through a gasoline fuel reactor, creating petrol.

Company officials claimed to have produced five litres of petrol in less than three months from a small refinery in Stockton-on-Tees, Teesside. The fuel produced can be used in any regular petrol tank and, if renewable energy is used to provide the electricity it could become "completely carbon neutral".

The company hopes to build a large plant, which could produce more than a tonne of petrol every day, within two years and a refinery size operation within the next 15 years.

Institution of Mechanical Engineers officials said that while the technology is "too good to be true but it is true", and said that it could prove to be a "game-changer" in the battle against climate change. Stephen Tetlow, the IMechE chief executive, hailed the breakthrough as "truly groundbreaking".

"It has the potential to become a great British success story, which opens up a crucial opportunity to reduce carbon emissions," he was quoted as saying by the paper.

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Study reveals childhood poverty and stress shape up genes and immunity

The research team discovered that childhood poverty, but not socioeconomic status as an adult, was correlated with the marks or methylation patterns left on genes.

TORONTO: Childhood poverty, stress in adulthood and demographics such as age, sex and ethnicity, all leave an imprint on a person's genes, a new study has found.

A University of British Columbia and Centre for Molecular Medicine and Therapeutics (CMMT) study has found that this imprint could play a role in our immune response.

The study looks at how experiences beginning before birth and in the years after can affect the course of a person's life.

Known as epigenetics, or the study of changes in gene expression, this research examined a process called DNA methylation where a chemical molecule is added to DNA and acts like a dimmer on a light bulb switch, turning genes on or off or setting them somewhere in between.

Research has shown that a person's life experiences play a role in shaping DNA methylation patterns.

The research team discovered that childhood poverty, but not socioeconomic status as an adult, was correlated with the marks or methylation patterns left on genes.

"We found biological residue of early life poverty," said Michael Kobor, who led the research.

"This was based on clear evidence that environmental influences correlate with epigenetic patterns," said Kobor.

The amount of stress hormones produced by adults was also linked with variations in DNA methylation.

Like the chicken and the egg, Kobor says it is unknown whether increased stress as an adult could leave marks on DNA or whether the marks may play a role in the amount of stress hormones released.

Researchers also found that methylation patterns were predictive of future immune responses, suggesting that early life experiences could play a role in our response to illness later in life.

The study was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

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Prehistoric fish holds the secret to your smile

LONDON: Humans owe their pretty grins to a prehistoric fish which roamed the oceans over 400-million-years ago, a new study has found.

The gruesome gnashers of the primitive fish called Compagopiscis suggests humans may have developed working teeth and jaws much earlier than previously thought.

A 380 million-year-old fossil of the fish, found in Australia, was examined under the latest high energy X rays to create a 3-D image of what it would have looked like.

Researchers led by the University of Bristol, who studied the jaws of Compagopiscis, found that these earliest jawed vertebrates possessed teeth too. This indicates our whites evolved along with, or soon after, the evolution of jaws, they said.

"We were able to visualize every tissue, cell and growth line within the bony jaws, allowing us to study the development of the jaws and teeth. We could then make comparisons with the embryology of living vertebrates, thus demonstrating that placoderms possessed teeth," lead author, Dr Martin Ruecklin of the University of Bristol said.

"This is solid evidence for the presence of teeth in these first jawed vertebrates and solves the debate on origin of teeth," co-author, Philip Donoghue of the University of Bristol's School of Earth Sciences said.

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Stunning meteor showers light up California sky

Jonathan Braidman, an astronomer at Oakland's Chabot Space and Science Center, told the station what Pierce and others saw were small, car-sized pieces of rock and metal from the asteroid belt.

OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA: Streaking fireballs lighting up California skies and stunning stargazers are part of a major meteor shower, and the show is just getting started, professional observers said.

The Oakland Tribune (http://bit.ly/S4VDjB ) reports the exploding streaks were especially visible Wednesday night over the San Francisco Bay area and other parts of Northern California, with reports of bright fireballs and loud booms from Santa Cruz County to Mendocino County.

"Happened to look over, saw like a crescent shaped object, reddish orange in color,'' Edward Pierce told KGO-TV. "As it went away it started getting larger. Kind of expanding.''

Jonathan Braidman, an astronomer at Oakland's Chabot Space and Science Center, told the station what Pierce and others saw were small, car-sized pieces of rock and metal from the asteroid belt.

It crashed through the earth's atmosphere, ``ionizing and setting the air on fire in its wake,'' he said.

National Weather Service forecaster Steve Anderson tells the Tribune that warm temperatures and cloud-free skies are making the bright lights more visible, a phenomenon that should only increase as the weekend approaches and the shower continues.

The fireballs are part of the large, fast Orionid meteor shower, so-named because it has the Orion constellation as a backdrop.

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New technology can produce 'petrol from air'

LONDON: A small British firm claimed to have developed a revolutionary new technology that can produce petrol using just air and electricity.

A company in the north of England has developed the "air capture" technology to create synthetic petrol which experts have hailed as a potential "game-changer" in the battle against climate change and a saviour for the world's energy crisis.

The technology, presented to a London engineering conference this week, works by removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, The Telegraph reported.

The 'petrol from air' technology involves taking sodium hydroxide and mixing it with carbon dioxide before 'electrolysing' the sodium carbonate that it produces to form pure carbon dioxide.

Hydrogen is then produced by electrolysing water vapour captured with a dehumidifier.

The company, Air Fuel Syndication, uses the carbon dioxide and hydrogen to produce methanol which in turn is passed through a gasoline fuel reactor, creating petrol.

Company officials claimed to have produced five litres of petrol in less than three months from a small refinery in Stockton-on-Tees, Teesside.

The fuel that is produced can be used in any regular petrol tank and, if renewable energy is used to provide the electricity it could become "completely carbon neutral".

The company hopes to build a large plant, which could produce more than a tonne of petrol every day, within two years and a refinery size operation within the next 15 years.

Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE) officials admitted that while the described technology is "too good to be true but it is true", and said that it could prove to be a "game-changer" in the battle against climate change.

Stephen Tetlow, the IMechE chief executive, hailed the breakthrough as "truly groundbreaking".

"It has the potential to become a great British success story, which opens up a crucial opportunity to reduce carbon emissions," he was quoted as saying by the paper.

"Air capture technology ultimately has the potential to become a game-changer in our quest to avoid dangerous climate change," Dr Tim Fox, the organisation's head of energy and environment, added.

Peter Harrison, the company's 58-year-old chief executive said that he was "excited" about the technology's potential, which "uses renewable energy in a slightly different way".

"People do find it unusual when I tell them what we are working on and realise what it means. It is an opportunity for a technology to make an impact on climate change and make an impact on the energy crisis facing this country and the world, said Mr Harrison, a civil engineer from Darlington, County Durham.

"It looks and smells like petrol but it is much cleaner and we don't have any nasty bits," he said.

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Harvard scientists suggest moon made from earth

The earth was spinning much faster at the time the Moon was formed, and a day lasted only two to three hours, they said.

A new theory put forward by Harvard scientists suggests the moon was once part of the earth that spun off after a giant collision with another body.

In a paper published on Wednesday in the journal Science, Sarah Stewart and Matija uk said their theory would explain why the earth and moon have similar composition and chemistry.

The earth was spinning much faster at the time the Moon was formed, and a day lasted only two to three hours, they said.

With the Earth spinning so quickly, a giant impact could have launched enough of the Earth's material to form a moon, the scientists said in an explanation published on a Harvard website. www.fas.harvard.edu/~planets/sstewart/Moon.html

According to the new theory, the Earth later reached its current rate of spinning through gravitational interaction between its orbit around the Sun and the Moon's orbit around Earth.

The scientists noted that their proposition differed from the current leading theory, which holds that the Moon was created from material from a giant body that struck the Earth.

Stewart is a professor of earth and planetary sciences at Harvard, and uk, an astronomer and an investigator at the SETI Institute, which supports research into the search for extraterrestrial life. The latter was conducting post-doctoral research at Harvard.

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Why we can see even in dim light

WASHINGTON: A new research by UC Davis researchers has discovered that the key chemical process that corrects for potential visual errors in low-light conditions.

Understanding this fundamental step could lead to new treatments for visual deficits, or might one day boost normal night vision to new levels.

Like the mirror of a telescope pointed toward the night sky, the eye's rod cells capture the energy of photons - the individual particles that make up light. The interaction triggers a series of chemical signals that ultimately translate the photons into the light we see.

The key light receptor in rod cells is a protein called rhodopsin. Each rod cell has about 100 million rhodopsin receptors, and each one can detect a single photon at a time.

Scientists had thought that the strength of rhodopsin's signal determines how well we see in dim light. But UC Davis scientists have found instead that a second step acts as a gatekeeper to correct for rhodopsin errors. The result is a more accurate reading of light under dim conditions.

Individual rhodopsin errors are relatively small in magnitude - on the order of a few hundredths of a second - but even this much biological noise can affect how well the signal gets transmitted to the rest of the brain, the researchers said.

The gatekeeper protects us from "seeing" more light than is actually there - a misreading that would have endangered an ice-age hunter, as it would a driver at dusk today. The correction may prevent the photon receptor from swamping the intricate chemical apparatus that leads to accurate light perception.

"The rhodopsin receptor is the site where physics meets biology - where a photon of light from the physical world must get interpreted for the nervous system," explained Marie Burns, professor of ophthalmology and vision science at UC Davis School of Medicine and lead author of the study.

"Biology is messy. Rhodopsin does a remarkable but not perfect job," she stated.

Burns and her colleagues studied rod cells in the laboratory and discovered that calcium plays the gatekeeper role.

They found that rhodopsin activity changed calcium levels in the cells and that over-active rhodopsins changed calcium levels at a faster rate than normal. This faster change led calcium to trigger a series of chemical steps to counter the over-active rhodopsin signal by producing an equal and opposite signal, thereby correcting false information before it gets sent on to the rest of the visual system.

They uncovered this fundamental new level of control by measuring how long individual rhodopsin receptors remained active in response to flashes of light, and then determining how much calcium's gatekeeping function modified the rhodopsin signals.

"Basic research like ours often doesn't translate to immediate clinical treatments for known diseases, but understanding fundamental processes has long-term significance," Burns said.

"In the case of our research, this understanding can prove essential for progress on a range of vision deficits that are currently poorly understood and untreatable," she added.

A report on their research appears in the October issue of the journal Neuron.

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