Black hole at heart of our galaxy erupted 2 million years ago

WASHINGTON: Scientists have for the first time found that a dormant volcano - a supermassive black hole - lying at the heart of our Milky Way galaxy last erupted two million years ago.

Astronomers have long suspected such an outburst occurred, but this is the first time it has been dated.

The evidence comes from a lacy filament of gas, mostly hydrogen, called the Magellanic Stream. This trails behind our galaxy's two small companion galaxies, the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds.

22.10 | 0 komentar | Read More

Densest galaxy ever discovered

WASHINGTON: Astronomers have discovered the densest galaxy ever to be found - packed with an extraordinary number of stars - about 54 million light years from our own Milky Way.

The ultra-compact dwarf galaxy, dubbed M60-UCD1, was found in what's known as the Virgo cluster of galaxies, researchers said.

Imagine the distance between the Sun and the star nearest to it - Alpha Centauri. That's a distance of about 4 light years. Now, imagine as many as 10,000 of our Suns crammed into that relatively small space.

22.10 | 0 komentar | Read More

Scientists come closer to making 'elusive' nuclear fusion reaction a reality

WASHINGTON: Researchers from National Ignition Facility have revealed that they are a lot more closer to igniting a self-sustained fusion reaction with high yields of energy, a feat likened to creating a miniature star on Earth.

Researchers at the National Ignition Facility (NIF) who collaborated with the Department of Energy's Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, report that there is at least one significant obstacle to overcome before achieving the highly stable, precisely directed implosion required for ignition, but they have met many of the demanding challenges leading up to that goal.

22.10 | 0 komentar | Read More

Black hole at heart of our galaxy erupted 2 million years ago

WASHINGTON: Scientists have for the first time found that a dormant volcano - a supermassive black hole - lying at the heart of our Milky Way galaxy last erupted two million years ago.

Astronomers have long suspected such an outburst occurred, but this is the first time it has been dated.

The evidence comes from a lacy filament of gas, mostly hydrogen, called the Magellanic Stream. This trails behind our galaxy's two small companion galaxies, the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds.

22.10 | 0 komentar | Read More

Densest galaxy ever discovered

WASHINGTON: Astronomers have discovered the densest galaxy ever to be found - packed with an extraordinary number of stars - about 54 million light years from our own Milky Way.

The ultra-compact dwarf galaxy, dubbed M60-UCD1, was found in what's known as the Virgo cluster of galaxies, researchers said.

Imagine the distance between the Sun and the star nearest to it - Alpha Centauri. That's a distance of about 4 light years. Now, imagine as many as 10,000 of our Suns crammed into that relatively small space.

22.10 | 0 komentar | Read More

Scientists come closer to making 'elusive' nuclear fusion reaction a reality

WASHINGTON: Researchers from National Ignition Facility have revealed that they are a lot more closer to igniting a self-sustained fusion reaction with high yields of energy, a feat likened to creating a miniature star on Earth.

Researchers at the National Ignition Facility (NIF) who collaborated with the Department of Energy's Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, report that there is at least one significant obstacle to overcome before achieving the highly stable, precisely directed implosion required for ignition, but they have met many of the demanding challenges leading up to that goal.

22.10 | 0 komentar | Read More

Black hole at heart of our galaxy erupted 2 million years ago

WASHINGTON: Scientists have for the first time found that a dormant volcano - a supermassive black hole - lying at the heart of our Milky Way galaxy last erupted two million years ago.

Astronomers have long suspected such an outburst occurred, but this is the first time it has been dated.

The evidence comes from a lacy filament of gas, mostly hydrogen, called the Magellanic Stream. This trails behind our galaxy's two small companion galaxies, the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds.

22.10 | 0 komentar | Read More

Densest galaxy ever discovered

WASHINGTON: Astronomers have discovered the densest galaxy ever to be found - packed with an extraordinary number of stars - about 54 million light years from our own Milky Way.

The ultra-compact dwarf galaxy, dubbed M60-UCD1, was found in what's known as the Virgo cluster of galaxies, researchers said.

Imagine the distance between the Sun and the star nearest to it - Alpha Centauri. That's a distance of about 4 light years. Now, imagine as many as 10,000 of our Suns crammed into that relatively small space.

22.10 | 0 komentar | Read More

Scientists come closer to making 'elusive' nuclear fusion reaction a reality

WASHINGTON: Researchers from National Ignition Facility have revealed that they are a lot more closer to igniting a self-sustained fusion reaction with high yields of energy, a feat likened to creating a miniature star on Earth.

Researchers at the National Ignition Facility (NIF) who collaborated with the Department of Energy's Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, report that there is at least one significant obstacle to overcome before achieving the highly stable, precisely directed implosion required for ignition, but they have met many of the demanding challenges leading up to that goal.

22.10 | 0 komentar | Read More

Black hole at heart of our galaxy erupted 2 million years ago

WASHINGTON: Scientists have for the first time found that a dormant volcano - a supermassive black hole - lying at the heart of our Milky Way galaxy last erupted two million years ago.

Astronomers have long suspected such an outburst occurred, but this is the first time it has been dated.

The evidence comes from a lacy filament of gas, mostly hydrogen, called the Magellanic Stream. This trails behind our galaxy's two small companion galaxies, the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds.

22.10 | 0 komentar | Read More

Densest galaxy ever discovered

WASHINGTON: Astronomers have discovered the densest galaxy ever to be found - packed with an extraordinary number of stars - about 54 million light years from our own Milky Way.

The ultra-compact dwarf galaxy, dubbed M60-UCD1, was found in what's known as the Virgo cluster of galaxies, researchers said.

Imagine the distance between the Sun and the star nearest to it - Alpha Centauri. That's a distance of about 4 light years. Now, imagine as many as 10,000 of our Suns crammed into that relatively small space.

22.10 | 0 komentar | Read More

Scientists come closer to making 'elusive' nuclear fusion reaction a reality

WASHINGTON: Researchers from National Ignition Facility have revealed that they are a lot more closer to igniting a self-sustained fusion reaction with high yields of energy, a feat likened to creating a miniature star on Earth.

Researchers at the National Ignition Facility (NIF) who collaborated with the Department of Energy's Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, report that there is at least one significant obstacle to overcome before achieving the highly stable, precisely directed implosion required for ignition, but they have met many of the demanding challenges leading up to that goal.

22.10 | 0 komentar | Read More

Black hole at heart of our galaxy erupted 2 million years ago

PTI Sep 23, 2013, 10.57PM IST

WASHINGTON: Scientists have for the first time found that a dormant volcano - a supermassive black hole - lying at the heart of our Milky Way galaxy last erupted two million years ago.

Astronomers have long suspected such an outburst occurred, but this is the first time it has been dated.

The evidence comes from a lacy filament of gas, mostly hydrogen, called the Magellanic Stream. This trails behind our galaxy's two small companion galaxies, the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds.

"For twenty years we've seen this odd glow from the Magellanic Stream," said lead researcher professor Joss Bland-Hawthorn at the University of Sydney, Australia, and a Fellow at the Australian Astronomical Observatory.

"We didn't understand the cause. Then suddenly we realised it must be the mark, the fossil record, of a huge outburst of energy from the centre of our galaxy," he said.

"It's been long suspected that our galactic centre might have sporadically flared up in the past. These observations are a highly suggestive 'smoking gun'," said Martin Rees, Astronomer Royal, who was one of the first people to suggest that black holes generate the power seen coming from quasars and galaxies with 'active' centres.

The galaxy's supermassive black hole is orbited by a swarm of stars whose paths help measure the black hole's mass: four million times the mass of the Sun, 'phys.org' reported.

The region around the black hole, called Sagittarius A, pours out radio waves, infrared, X-rays and gamma rays.

Infrared and X-ray satellites have seen a powerful 'wind' (outflow) of material from this central region. Antimatter boiling out has left its signature. And there are the 'Fermi bubbles' - two huge hot bubbles of gas billowing out from the galactic centre, seen in gamma-rays and radio waves.

"All this points to a huge explosion at the centre of our galaxy. What astronomers call a Seyfert flare," said team member Dr Philip Maloney of the University of Colorado in Boulder, US.

At a workshop at Stanford University in California earlier this year, researchers realised the Stream could be holding the memory of the galactic centre's past.

Struck by the fiery breath of Sagittarius A, the Stream is emitting light, much as particles from the Sun hit our atmosphere and trigger the coloured glows of the aurorae - the Northern and Southern Lights.

The brightest glow in the Stream comes from the region nearest the galactic centre.

"Geometry, the amount of energy from the original flare from Sagittarius A, the time the flare would take to travel to the Magellanic Stream, the rate at which the Stream would have cooled over time - it all fits together, it all adds up," said team member Dr Greg Madsen of the University of Cambridge in UK.

22.10 | 0 komentar | Read More

Densest galaxy ever discovered

WASHINGTON: Astronomers have discovered the densest galaxy ever to be found - packed with an extraordinary number of stars - about 54 million light years from our own Milky Way.

The ultra-compact dwarf galaxy, dubbed M60-UCD1, was found in what's known as the Virgo cluster of galaxies, researchers said.

Imagine the distance between the Sun and the star nearest to it - Alpha Centauri. That's a distance of about 4 light years. Now, imagine as many as 10,000 of our Suns crammed into that relatively small space.

That is about the density of a galaxy discovered by an international team of astronomers led by a Michigan State University faculty member.

"This galaxy is more massive than any ultra-compact dwarfs of comparable size and is arguably the densest galaxy known in the local universe," said Jay Strader, MSU assistant professor of physics and astronomy.

The galaxy was discovered in the Virgo cluster of galaxies, a collection of galaxies located about 54 million light years from our own Milky Way.

What makes M60-UCD1, so remarkable is that about half of its mass is found within a radius of only about 80 light years. This would make the density of stars about 15,000 times greater than found in Earth's neighbourhood in the Milky Way.

"Travelling from one star to another would be a lot easier in M60-UCD1 than it is in our galaxy. Since the stars are so much closer in this galaxy, it would take just a fraction of the time," Strader said.

The discovery of ultra-compact galaxies is relatively new - only within the past 10 years or so. Until then, astronomers could see these "things" way off in the distance but assumed they were either single stars or very-distant galaxies.

Another intriguing aspect of this galaxy is the presence of a bright X-ray source in its centre. One explanation for this is a giant black hole weighing in at some 10 million times the mass of our Sun.

Astronomers are trying to determine if M60-UCD1 and other ultra-compact dwarf galaxies are either born as really jam-packed star clusters or if they are galaxies that get smaller because they have stars ripped away from them.

The possible massive black hole, combined with the high galaxy mass and Sun-like levels of elements found in the stars, favour the latter idea.

A giant black hole at the centre of M60-UCD1 helps tip the scales against the scenario where this galaxy was once a star cluster, since such large black holes are not found in these types of objects.

The galaxy was discovered using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. Follow-up observations were done with NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and ground-based optical telescopes, including the Keck 10-metre telescope in Hawaii.

The study was published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters.

22.10 | 0 komentar | Read More

Scientists come closer to making 'elusive' nuclear fusion reaction a reality

WASHINGTON: Researchers from National Ignition Facility have revealed that they are a lot more closer to igniting a self-sustained fusion reaction with high yields of energy, a feat likened to creating a miniature star on Earth.

Researchers at the National Ignition Facility (NIF) who collaborated with the Department of Energy's Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, report that there is at least one significant obstacle to overcome before achieving the highly stable, precisely directed implosion required for ignition, but they have met many of the demanding challenges leading up to that goal.

To reach ignition, the NIF focuses 192 laser beams simultaneously in billionth-of-a-second pulses inside a cryogenically cooled hohlraum - a hollow cylinder the size of a pencil eraser.

Within the hohlraum is a ball-bearing-size capsule containing two hydrogen isotopes, deuterium and tritium (D-T). The unified lasers deliver 1.8 megajoules of energy and 500 terawatts of power--1,000 times more than the United States uses at any one moment--to the hohlraum creating an "X-ray oven" which implodes the D-T capsule to temperatures and pressures similar to those found at the center of the sun.

John Edwards, NIF associate director for inertial confinement fusion and high-energy-density science, said what they want to do is use the X-rays to blast away the outer layer of the capsule in a very controlled manner, so that the D-T pellet is compressed to just the right conditions to initiate the fusion reaction.

He said that in their article they reported that the NIF has met many of the requirements believed necessary to achieve ignition--sufficient X-ray intensity in the hohlraum, accurate energy delivery to the target and desired levels of compression--but that at least one major hurdle remains to be overcome, the premature breaking apart of the capsule.

The new study has been published in the journal Physics of Plasmas.

22.10 | 0 komentar | Read More

Soon, a smart phone which doubles up as a microscope

Kounteya Sinha, TNN Sep 19, 2013, 06.39AM IST

LONDON: Your smart phone may soon be able to double up as a high resolution microscope that can detect even the smallest virus.

University of California Los Angeles researchers have created a portable smartphone attachment that can be used to perform sophisticated field testing to detect viruses and bacteria without the need for bulky and expensive microscopes and lab equipment.

The device weighs less than half a pound.

Using this device which attaches directly to the camera module on a smartphone the team was able to detect single Human Cytomegalovirus (HCMV) particles.

HCMV is a common virus that can cause birth defects such as deafness and brain damage and can hasten the death of adults who have received organ implants who are infected with the HIV virus or whose immune systems otherwise have been weakened.

A single HCMV particle measures about 150-300 nanometres - a human hair is roughly 100,000 nanometres thick.

Aydogan Ozcan, a professor of electrical engineering and bioengineering at the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science said "This cell phone-based imaging platform could be used for detection of sub-wavelength objects, including bacteria and viruses and therefore could enable the practice of nanotechnology and biomedical testing in field settings and even in remote and resource-limited environments. These results also constitute the first time that single nanoparticles and viruses have been detected using a cell phone-based, field-portable imaging system".

In a separate experiment, Oscan's team also detected nanoparticles — specially marked fluorescent beads made of polystyrene — as small as 90-100 nanometres.

To verify these results, researchers used other imaging devices, including a scanning electron microscope and a photon-counting confocal microscope.

These experiments confirmed the findings made using the new cell phone-based imaging device.

Capturing clear images of objects as tiny as a single virus or a nanoparticle is difficult because the optical signal strength and contrast are very low for objects that are smaller than the wavelength of light.

Researchers here detail a fluorescent microscope device fabricated by a 3-D printer that contains a colour filter, an external lens and a laser diode.

The diode illuminates fluid or solid samples at a steep angle of roughly 75 degrees.

This oblique illumination avoids detection of scattered light that would otherwise interfere with the intended fluorescent image.

22.10 | 0 komentar | Read More

Scientists closer to developing universal flu vaccine

LONDON: A universal flu vaccine to protect against new strains of the bird and swine flu may be a step closer, thanks to new study led by an Indian-origin scientist.

Scientists used the 2009 flu pandemic to study why some people seem to resist severe illness.

Researchers at Imperial College London asked volunteers to donate blood samples just as the swine flu pandemic was getting underway and report any symptoms they experienced over the next two flu seasons.

They found that those who avoided severe illness had more CD8 T cells, a type of virus-killing immune cell, in their blood at the start of the pandemic.

They believe a vaccine that stimulates the body to produce more of these cells could be effective at preventing flu viruses, including new strains that cross into humans from birds and pigs, from causing serious disease.

"New strains of flu are continuously emerging, some of which are deadly, and so the Holy Grail is to create a universal vaccine that would be effective against all strains of flu," Professor Ajit Lalvani from the National Heart and Lung Institute at Imperial College London, said.

Today's flu vaccines make the immune system produce antibodies that recognise structures on the surface of the virus to prevent infection with the most prevalent circulating strains. But they are usually one step behind as they have to be changed each year as new viruses with different surface structures evolve.

Lalvani's team rapidly recruited 342 staff and students at Imperial to take part in their study in autumn 2009. The volunteers donated blood samples and were given nasal swabs.

They found that those who fell more severely ill with flu had fewer CD8 T cells in their blood, and those who caught flu but had no symptoms or only mild symptoms had more of these cells.

"The immune system produces these CD8 T cells in response to usual seasonal flu. Unlike antibodies, they target the core of the virus, which doesn't change, even in new pandemic strains. The 2009 pandemic provided a unique natural experiment to test whether T cells could recognise, and protect us against, new strains that we haven't encountered before and to which we lack antibodies," Lalvani said.

"Our findings suggest that by making the body produce more of this specific type of CD8 T cell, you can protect people against symptomatic illness. This provides the blueprint for developing a universal flu vaccine.

"We already know how to stimulate the immune system to make CD8 T cells by vaccination. Now that we know these T cells may protect, we can design a vaccine to prevent people getting symptoms and transmitting infection to others. This could curb seasonal flu annually and protect people against future pandemics," said Lalvani.

The findings are published in journal Nature Medicine.

22.10 | 0 komentar | Read More

US man grows new finger after horse bite

PTI Sep 19, 2013, 06.43AM IST

NEW YORK: A 33-year-old man in US has undergone a 'miraculous' medical procedure to grow back his index finger which was chomped down by an overzealous horse while he was feeding the animal.

Paul Halpern from Florida managed to save the severed digit and take it to the hospital, but doctors told him there was nothing they could do. Halpern then visited Dr Eugenio Rodriguez, a Deerfield Beach general surgeon who used an innovative procedure called xenograft implantation to regenerate the finger. Xenograft refers to transplantation of cells from one species to another.

Rodriguez created a scaffold of Halpern's missing finger, using tissue from a pig bladder, and attached it to the severed portion. The finger grew into the mold, generating new bone and soft tissue and a new fingernail.

According to CBS Miami, Halpern had to apply pulverised pig bladder tissue to his wounded finger each day and cover it with a protective saline sheet. Rodriguez said the powder stimulates stem cells in the finger to regenerate, which causes the growth.

22.10 | 0 komentar | Read More

Antarctica's underwater melt behind 90% of ice loss: Study

LONDON: Melting of Antarctica's submerged ice shelves accounts for as much as 90 per cent of ice loss in some areas, a new study suggests.

Iceberg production and melting causes 2,800 cubic kilometres of ice to leave the Antarctic ice sheet every year. Most of this is replaced by snowfall but any imbalance contributes to a change in global sea level, researchers said.

For many decades, experts have believed that the most important process responsible for this huge loss was iceberg calving - the breaking off of chunks of ice at the edge of a glacier.

New research, led by academics at the University of Bristol with colleagues at Utrecht University and the University of California, has used satellite and climate model data to prove that this sub-shelf melting has as large an impact as iceberg calving for Antarctica as a whole and for some areas is far more important.

The findings, published in the journal Nature, are crucial for understanding how the ice sheet interacts with the rest of the climate system and particularly the ocean.

During the last decade, the Antarctic ice-sheet has been losing an increasing amount of its volume. The annual turnover of ice equates to 700 times the four cubic kilometres per year.

Researchers found that, for some ice shelves, melting on its underbelly could account for as much as 90 per cent of the mass loss, while for others it was only 10 per cent.

Ice shelves which are thinning already were identified as losing most of their mass from this melting, a finding which will be a good indicator for which ice shelves may be particularly vulnerable to changes in ocean warming in the future.

The scientists used data from a suite of satellite and airborne missions to accurately measure the flow of the ice, its elevation and its thickness. These observations were combined with the output of a climate model for snowfall over the ice sheet.

They compared how much snow was falling on the surface and accumulating against how much ice was leaving the continent, entering the ocean and calving. By comparing these estimates, they were able to determine the proportion that was lost by each process.

"Understanding how the largest ice mass on the planet loses ice to the oceans is one of the most fundamental things we need to know for Antarctica. Until recently, we assumed that most of the ice was lost through icebergs," Professor Jonathan Bamber, from the University of Bristol's School of Geographical Sciences, said.

"Now we realise that melting underneath the ice shelves by the ocean is equally important and for some places, far more important. This knowledge is crucial for understanding how the ice sheets interact now, and in the future, to changes in climate," said Bamber.

22.10 | 0 komentar | Read More

Soon, a smart phone which doubles up as a microscope

Kounteya Sinha, TNN Sep 19, 2013, 06.39AM IST

LONDON: Your smart phone may soon be able to double up as a high resolution microscope that can detect even the smallest virus.

University of California Los Angeles researchers have created a portable smartphone attachment that can be used to perform sophisticated field testing to detect viruses and bacteria without the need for bulky and expensive microscopes and lab equipment.

The device weighs less than half a pound.

Using this device which attaches directly to the camera module on a smartphone the team was able to detect single Human Cytomegalovirus (HCMV) particles.

HCMV is a common virus that can cause birth defects such as deafness and brain damage and can hasten the death of adults who have received organ implants who are infected with the HIV virus or whose immune systems otherwise have been weakened.

A single HCMV particle measures about 150-300 nanometres - a human hair is roughly 100,000 nanometres thick.

Aydogan Ozcan, a professor of electrical engineering and bioengineering at the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science said "This cell phone-based imaging platform could be used for detection of sub-wavelength objects, including bacteria and viruses and therefore could enable the practice of nanotechnology and biomedical testing in field settings and even in remote and resource-limited environments. These results also constitute the first time that single nanoparticles and viruses have been detected using a cell phone-based, field-portable imaging system".

In a separate experiment, Oscan's team also detected nanoparticles — specially marked fluorescent beads made of polystyrene — as small as 90-100 nanometres.

To verify these results, researchers used other imaging devices, including a scanning electron microscope and a photon-counting confocal microscope.

These experiments confirmed the findings made using the new cell phone-based imaging device.

Capturing clear images of objects as tiny as a single virus or a nanoparticle is difficult because the optical signal strength and contrast are very low for objects that are smaller than the wavelength of light.

Researchers here detail a fluorescent microscope device fabricated by a 3-D printer that contains a colour filter, an external lens and a laser diode.

The diode illuminates fluid or solid samples at a steep angle of roughly 75 degrees.

This oblique illumination avoids detection of scattered light that would otherwise interfere with the intended fluorescent image.

22.10 | 0 komentar | Read More

US man grows new finger after horse bite

PTI Sep 19, 2013, 06.43AM IST

NEW YORK: A 33-year-old man in US has undergone a 'miraculous' medical procedure to grow back his index finger which was chomped down by an overzealous horse while he was feeding the animal.

Paul Halpern from Florida managed to save the severed digit and take it to the hospital, but doctors told him there was nothing they could do. Halpern then visited Dr Eugenio Rodriguez, a Deerfield Beach general surgeon who used an innovative procedure called xenograft implantation to regenerate the finger. Xenograft refers to transplantation of cells from one species to another.

Rodriguez created a scaffold of Halpern's missing finger, using tissue from a pig bladder, and attached it to the severed portion. The finger grew into the mold, generating new bone and soft tissue and a new fingernail.

According to CBS Miami, Halpern had to apply pulverised pig bladder tissue to his wounded finger each day and cover it with a protective saline sheet. Rodriguez said the powder stimulates stem cells in the finger to regenerate, which causes the growth.

22.10 | 0 komentar | Read More

Antarctica's underwater melt behind 90% of ice loss: Study

LONDON: Melting of Antarctica's submerged ice shelves accounts for as much as 90 per cent of ice loss in some areas, a new study suggests.

Iceberg production and melting causes 2,800 cubic kilometres of ice to leave the Antarctic ice sheet every year. Most of this is replaced by snowfall but any imbalance contributes to a change in global sea level, researchers said.

For many decades, experts have believed that the most important process responsible for this huge loss was iceberg calving - the breaking off of chunks of ice at the edge of a glacier.

New research, led by academics at the University of Bristol with colleagues at Utrecht University and the University of California, has used satellite and climate model data to prove that this sub-shelf melting has as large an impact as iceberg calving for Antarctica as a whole and for some areas is far more important.

The findings, published in the journal Nature, are crucial for understanding how the ice sheet interacts with the rest of the climate system and particularly the ocean.

During the last decade, the Antarctic ice-sheet has been losing an increasing amount of its volume. The annual turnover of ice equates to 700 times the four cubic kilometres per year.

Researchers found that, for some ice shelves, melting on its underbelly could account for as much as 90 per cent of the mass loss, while for others it was only 10 per cent.

Ice shelves which are thinning already were identified as losing most of their mass from this melting, a finding which will be a good indicator for which ice shelves may be particularly vulnerable to changes in ocean warming in the future.

The scientists used data from a suite of satellite and airborne missions to accurately measure the flow of the ice, its elevation and its thickness. These observations were combined with the output of a climate model for snowfall over the ice sheet.

They compared how much snow was falling on the surface and accumulating against how much ice was leaving the continent, entering the ocean and calving. By comparing these estimates, they were able to determine the proportion that was lost by each process.

"Understanding how the largest ice mass on the planet loses ice to the oceans is one of the most fundamental things we need to know for Antarctica. Until recently, we assumed that most of the ice was lost through icebergs," Professor Jonathan Bamber, from the University of Bristol's School of Geographical Sciences, said.

"Now we realise that melting underneath the ice shelves by the ocean is equally important and for some places, far more important. This knowledge is crucial for understanding how the ice sheets interact now, and in the future, to changes in climate," said Bamber.

22.10 | 0 komentar | Read More

Soon, a smart phone which doubles up as a microscope

Kounteya Sinha, TNN Sep 19, 2013, 06.39AM IST

LONDON: Your smart phone may soon be able to double up as a high resolution microscope that can detect even the smallest virus.

University of California Los Angeles researchers have created a portable smartphone attachment that can be used to perform sophisticated field testing to detect viruses and bacteria without the need for bulky and expensive microscopes and lab equipment.

The device weighs less than half a pound.

Using this device which attaches directly to the camera module on a smartphone the team was able to detect single Human Cytomegalovirus (HCMV) particles.

HCMV is a common virus that can cause birth defects such as deafness and brain damage and can hasten the death of adults who have received organ implants who are infected with the HIV virus or whose immune systems otherwise have been weakened.

A single HCMV particle measures about 150-300 nanometres - a human hair is roughly 100,000 nanometres thick.

Aydogan Ozcan, a professor of electrical engineering and bioengineering at the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science said "This cell phone-based imaging platform could be used for detection of sub-wavelength objects, including bacteria and viruses and therefore could enable the practice of nanotechnology and biomedical testing in field settings and even in remote and resource-limited environments. These results also constitute the first time that single nanoparticles and viruses have been detected using a cell phone-based, field-portable imaging system".

In a separate experiment, Oscan's team also detected nanoparticles — specially marked fluorescent beads made of polystyrene — as small as 90-100 nanometres.

To verify these results, researchers used other imaging devices, including a scanning electron microscope and a photon-counting confocal microscope.

These experiments confirmed the findings made using the new cell phone-based imaging device.

Capturing clear images of objects as tiny as a single virus or a nanoparticle is difficult because the optical signal strength and contrast are very low for objects that are smaller than the wavelength of light.

Researchers here detail a fluorescent microscope device fabricated by a 3-D printer that contains a colour filter, an external lens and a laser diode.

The diode illuminates fluid or solid samples at a steep angle of roughly 75 degrees.

This oblique illumination avoids detection of scattered light that would otherwise interfere with the intended fluorescent image.

22.10 | 0 komentar | Read More

US man grows new finger after horse bite

PTI Sep 19, 2013, 06.43AM IST

NEW YORK: A 33-year-old man in US has undergone a 'miraculous' medical procedure to grow back his index finger which was chomped down by an overzealous horse while he was feeding the animal.

Paul Halpern from Florida managed to save the severed digit and take it to the hospital, but doctors told him there was nothing they could do. Halpern then visited Dr Eugenio Rodriguez, a Deerfield Beach general surgeon who used an innovative procedure called xenograft implantation to regenerate the finger. Xenograft refers to transplantation of cells from one species to another.

Rodriguez created a scaffold of Halpern's missing finger, using tissue from a pig bladder, and attached it to the severed portion. The finger grew into the mold, generating new bone and soft tissue and a new fingernail.

According to CBS Miami, Halpern had to apply pulverised pig bladder tissue to his wounded finger each day and cover it with a protective saline sheet. Rodriguez said the powder stimulates stem cells in the finger to regenerate, which causes the growth.

22.10 | 0 komentar | Read More

Antarctica's underwater melt behind 90% of ice loss: Study

LONDON: Melting of Antarctica's submerged ice shelves accounts for as much as 90 per cent of ice loss in some areas, a new study suggests.

Iceberg production and melting causes 2,800 cubic kilometres of ice to leave the Antarctic ice sheet every year. Most of this is replaced by snowfall but any imbalance contributes to a change in global sea level, researchers said.

For many decades, experts have believed that the most important process responsible for this huge loss was iceberg calving - the breaking off of chunks of ice at the edge of a glacier.

New research, led by academics at the University of Bristol with colleagues at Utrecht University and the University of California, has used satellite and climate model data to prove that this sub-shelf melting has as large an impact as iceberg calving for Antarctica as a whole and for some areas is far more important.

The findings, published in the journal Nature, are crucial for understanding how the ice sheet interacts with the rest of the climate system and particularly the ocean.

During the last decade, the Antarctic ice-sheet has been losing an increasing amount of its volume. The annual turnover of ice equates to 700 times the four cubic kilometres per year.

Researchers found that, for some ice shelves, melting on its underbelly could account for as much as 90 per cent of the mass loss, while for others it was only 10 per cent.

Ice shelves which are thinning already were identified as losing most of their mass from this melting, a finding which will be a good indicator for which ice shelves may be particularly vulnerable to changes in ocean warming in the future.

The scientists used data from a suite of satellite and airborne missions to accurately measure the flow of the ice, its elevation and its thickness. These observations were combined with the output of a climate model for snowfall over the ice sheet.

They compared how much snow was falling on the surface and accumulating against how much ice was leaving the continent, entering the ocean and calving. By comparing these estimates, they were able to determine the proportion that was lost by each process.

"Understanding how the largest ice mass on the planet loses ice to the oceans is one of the most fundamental things we need to know for Antarctica. Until recently, we assumed that most of the ice was lost through icebergs," Professor Jonathan Bamber, from the University of Bristol's School of Geographical Sciences, said.

"Now we realise that melting underneath the ice shelves by the ocean is equally important and for some places, far more important. This knowledge is crucial for understanding how the ice sheets interact now, and in the future, to changes in climate," said Bamber.

22.10 | 0 komentar | Read More

Soon, a smart phone which doubles up as a microscope

Kounteya Sinha, TNN Sep 19, 2013, 06.39AM IST

LONDON: Your smart phone may soon be able to double up as a high resolution microscope that can detect even the smallest virus.

University of California Los Angeles researchers have created a portable smartphone attachment that can be used to perform sophisticated field testing to detect viruses and bacteria without the need for bulky and expensive microscopes and lab equipment.

The device weighs less than half a pound.

Using this device which attaches directly to the camera module on a smartphone the team was able to detect single Human Cytomegalovirus (HCMV) particles.

HCMV is a common virus that can cause birth defects such as deafness and brain damage and can hasten the death of adults who have received organ implants who are infected with the HIV virus or whose immune systems otherwise have been weakened.

A single HCMV particle measures about 150-300 nanometres - a human hair is roughly 100,000 nanometres thick.

Aydogan Ozcan, a professor of electrical engineering and bioengineering at the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science said "This cell phone-based imaging platform could be used for detection of sub-wavelength objects, including bacteria and viruses and therefore could enable the practice of nanotechnology and biomedical testing in field settings and even in remote and resource-limited environments. These results also constitute the first time that single nanoparticles and viruses have been detected using a cell phone-based, field-portable imaging system".

In a separate experiment, Oscan's team also detected nanoparticles — specially marked fluorescent beads made of polystyrene — as small as 90-100 nanometres.

To verify these results, researchers used other imaging devices, including a scanning electron microscope and a photon-counting confocal microscope.

These experiments confirmed the findings made using the new cell phone-based imaging device.

Capturing clear images of objects as tiny as a single virus or a nanoparticle is difficult because the optical signal strength and contrast are very low for objects that are smaller than the wavelength of light.

Researchers here detail a fluorescent microscope device fabricated by a 3-D printer that contains a colour filter, an external lens and a laser diode.

The diode illuminates fluid or solid samples at a steep angle of roughly 75 degrees.

This oblique illumination avoids detection of scattered light that would otherwise interfere with the intended fluorescent image.

22.10 | 0 komentar | Read More

US man grows new finger after horse bite

PTI Sep 19, 2013, 06.43AM IST

NEW YORK: A 33-year-old man in US has undergone a 'miraculous' medical procedure to grow back his index finger which was chomped down by an overzealous horse while he was feeding the animal.

Paul Halpern from Florida managed to save the severed digit and take it to the hospital, but doctors told him there was nothing they could do. Halpern then visited Dr Eugenio Rodriguez, a Deerfield Beach general surgeon who used an innovative procedure called xenograft implantation to regenerate the finger. Xenograft refers to transplantation of cells from one species to another.

Rodriguez created a scaffold of Halpern's missing finger, using tissue from a pig bladder, and attached it to the severed portion. The finger grew into the mold, generating new bone and soft tissue and a new fingernail.

According to CBS Miami, Halpern had to apply pulverised pig bladder tissue to his wounded finger each day and cover it with a protective saline sheet. Rodriguez said the powder stimulates stem cells in the finger to regenerate, which causes the growth.

22.10 | 0 komentar | Read More

Antarctica's underwater melt behind 90% of ice loss: Study

LONDON: Melting of Antarctica's submerged ice shelves accounts for as much as 90 per cent of ice loss in some areas, a new study suggests.

Iceberg production and melting causes 2,800 cubic kilometres of ice to leave the Antarctic ice sheet every year. Most of this is replaced by snowfall but any imbalance contributes to a change in global sea level, researchers said.

For many decades, experts have believed that the most important process responsible for this huge loss was iceberg calving - the breaking off of chunks of ice at the edge of a glacier.

New research, led by academics at the University of Bristol with colleagues at Utrecht University and the University of California, has used satellite and climate model data to prove that this sub-shelf melting has as large an impact as iceberg calving for Antarctica as a whole and for some areas is far more important.

The findings, published in the journal Nature, are crucial for understanding how the ice sheet interacts with the rest of the climate system and particularly the ocean.

During the last decade, the Antarctic ice-sheet has been losing an increasing amount of its volume. The annual turnover of ice equates to 700 times the four cubic kilometres per year.

Researchers found that, for some ice shelves, melting on its underbelly could account for as much as 90 per cent of the mass loss, while for others it was only 10 per cent.

Ice shelves which are thinning already were identified as losing most of their mass from this melting, a finding which will be a good indicator for which ice shelves may be particularly vulnerable to changes in ocean warming in the future.

The scientists used data from a suite of satellite and airborne missions to accurately measure the flow of the ice, its elevation and its thickness. These observations were combined with the output of a climate model for snowfall over the ice sheet.

They compared how much snow was falling on the surface and accumulating against how much ice was leaving the continent, entering the ocean and calving. By comparing these estimates, they were able to determine the proportion that was lost by each process.

"Understanding how the largest ice mass on the planet loses ice to the oceans is one of the most fundamental things we need to know for Antarctica. Until recently, we assumed that most of the ice was lost through icebergs," Professor Jonathan Bamber, from the University of Bristol's School of Geographical Sciences, said.

"Now we realise that melting underneath the ice shelves by the ocean is equally important and for some places, far more important. This knowledge is crucial for understanding how the ice sheets interact now, and in the future, to changes in climate," said Bamber.

22.11 | 0 komentar | Read More

Soon, a smart phone which doubles up as a microscope

LONDON: Your smart phone may soon be able to double up as a high resolution microscope that can detect even the smallest virus.

University of California Los Angeles researchers have created a portable smartphone attachment that can be used to perform sophisticated field testing to detect viruses and bacteria without the need for bulky and expensive microscopes and lab equipment.

The device weighs less than half a pound.

Using this device which attaches directly to the camera module on a smartphone the team was able to detect single Human Cytomegalovirus (HCMV) particles.

HCMV is a common virus that can cause birth defects such as deafness and brain damage and can hasten the death of adults who have received organ implants who are infected with the HIV virus or whose immune systems otherwise have been weakened.

A single HCMV particle measures about 150-300 nanometres - a human hair is roughly 100,000 nanometres thick.

Aydogan Ozcan, a professor of electrical engineering and bioengineering at the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science said "This cell phone-based imaging platform could be used for detection of sub-wavelength objects, including bacteria and viruses and therefore could enable the practice of nanotechnology and biomedical testing in field settings and even in remote and resource-limited environments. These results also constitute the first time that single nanoparticles and viruses have been detected using a cell phone-based, field-portable imaging system".

In a separate experiment, Oscan's team also detected nanoparticles — specially marked fluorescent beads made of polystyrene — as small as 90-100 nanometres.

To verify these results, researchers used other imaging devices, including a scanning electron microscope and a photon-counting confocal microscope.

These experiments confirmed the findings made using the new cell phone-based imaging device.

Capturing clear images of objects as tiny as a single virus or a nanoparticle is difficult because the optical signal strength and contrast are very low for objects that are smaller than the wavelength of light.

Researchers here detail a fluorescent microscope device fabricated by a 3-D printer that contains a colour filter, an external lens and a laser diode.

The diode illuminates fluid or solid samples at a steep angle of roughly 75 degrees.

This oblique illumination avoids detection of scattered light that would otherwise interfere with the intended fluorescent image.

22.11 | 0 komentar | Read More

US man grows new finger after horse bite

NEW YORK: A 33-year-old man in US has undergone a 'miraculous' medical procedure to grow back his index finger which was chomped down by an overzealous horse while he was feeding the animal.

Paul Halpern from Florida managed to save the severed digit and take it to the hospital, but doctors told him there was nothing they could do. Halpern then visited Dr Eugenio Rodriguez, a Deerfield Beach general surgeon who used an innovative procedure called xenograft implantation to regenerate the finger. Xenograft refers to transplantation of cells from one species to another.

Rodriguez created a scaffold of Halpern's missing finger, using tissue from a pig bladder, and attached it to the severed portion. The finger grew into the mold, generating new bone and soft tissue and a new fingernail.

According to CBS Miami, Halpern had to apply pulverised pig bladder tissue to his wounded finger each day and cover it with a protective saline sheet. Rodriguez said the powder stimulates stem cells in the finger to regenerate, which causes the growth.

22.11 | 0 komentar | Read More

Soon, implantable electronic shrink wrap to heal human hearts

WASHINGTON: Researchers have revealed that laminating devices, which could enhance human health and performance by marrying electronics with the human body, onto tissues could help achieve natural motions, without mechanical constraint.

John A Rogers, PhD, of the departments of materials science, engineering, and chemistry, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and editorial advisory board member for ACS Nano, talked about materials for a new generation of electronic devices that promise to revolutionize health care in the world of tomorrow, at the American Chemical Society meeting.

Rogers said that materials, mechanics designs and manufacturing systems are now available for electronic systems that achieve effective elastic moduli and bending stiffness's matched to the surfaces of major organs of the body, including the skin, the heart and the brain.

The researcher said that laminating such devices onto these tissues leads to conformal contact, and adequate adhesion based on van der Waals interactions alone, in a manner that can accommodate natural motions, without mechanical constraint.

The key aspects of this type of technology were highlighted, with an emphasis on the materials, the soft lithographic manufacturing methods and several examples of clinically relevant modes of use.

22.10 | 0 komentar | Read More

Genetic variation in humans mapped

LONDON: Scientists have developed a comprehensive map that can help point the genetic causes of differences between people, providing powerful clues for diagnosis, prognosis and intervention of different diseases.

The study led by researchers from the University of Geneva (UNIGE)'s Faculty of Medicine, offers the largest-ever dataset linking human genomes to gene activity at the level of RNA.

Understanding how each person's unique genome makes them more or less susceptible to disease is one of the biggest challenges in science today, researchers said.

Geneticists study how different genetic profiles affect how certain genes are turned on or off in different people, which could be the cause of a number of genetic disorders.

The study conducted by over 50 scientists from nine European institutes, measured gene activity (gene expression) by sequencing RNA in human cells from 462 individuals.

The study adds a functional interpretation to the most important catalogue of human genomes.

"The richness of genetic variation that affects the regulation of most of our genes surprised us," said study coordinator Tuuli Lappalainen.

"It is important that we figure out the general laws of how the human genome works, rather than just delving into individual genes," said Lappalainen.

The biological discovery was enabled by a staggering amount of RNA data from multiple human populations.

"We have set new standards for production, analysis and dissemination of large RNA-sequencing datasets," said Peter't Hoen from Leiden University Medical Center, who coordinated technical analysis of the data.

Knowing which genetic variants are responsible for differences in gene activity among individuals can give powerful clues for diagnosis, prognosis and intervention of different diseases, researchers said.

Emmanouil Dermitzakis, who led the study, emphasised that the study has profound implications for genomic medicine.

"Understanding the cellular effects of disease-predisposing variants helps us understand causal mechanisms of disease," Dermitzakis said.

"This is essential for developing treatments in the future," he said.

The study was published in journal Nature.

22.10 | 0 komentar | Read More

Antarctica's underwater melt behind 90% of ice loss: Study

LONDON: Melting of Antarctica's submerged ice shelves accounts for as much as 90 per cent of ice loss in some areas, a new study suggests.

Iceberg production and melting causes 2,800 cubic kilometres of ice to leave the Antarctic ice sheet every year. Most of this is replaced by snowfall but any imbalance contributes to a change in global sea level, researchers said.

For many decades, experts have believed that the most important process responsible for this huge loss was iceberg calving - the breaking off of chunks of ice at the edge of a glacier.

New research, led by academics at the University of Bristol with colleagues at Utrecht University and the University of California, has used satellite and climate model data to prove that this sub-shelf melting has as large an impact as iceberg calving for Antarctica as a whole and for some areas is far more important.

The findings, published in the journal Nature, are crucial for understanding how the ice sheet interacts with the rest of the climate system and particularly the ocean.

During the last decade, the Antarctic ice-sheet has been losing an increasing amount of its volume. The annual turnover of ice equates to 700 times the four cubic kilometres per year.

Researchers found that, for some ice shelves, melting on its underbelly could account for as much as 90 per cent of the mass loss, while for others it was only 10 per cent.

Ice shelves which are thinning already were identified as losing most of their mass from this melting, a finding which will be a good indicator for which ice shelves may be particularly vulnerable to changes in ocean warming in the future.

The scientists used data from a suite of satellite and airborne missions to accurately measure the flow of the ice, its elevation and its thickness. These observations were combined with the output of a climate model for snowfall over the ice sheet.

They compared how much snow was falling on the surface and accumulating against how much ice was leaving the continent, entering the ocean and calving. By comparing these estimates, they were able to determine the proportion that was lost by each process.

"Understanding how the largest ice mass on the planet loses ice to the oceans is one of the most fundamental things we need to know for Antarctica. Until recently, we assumed that most of the ice was lost through icebergs," Professor Jonathan Bamber, from the University of Bristol's School of Geographical Sciences, said.

"Now we realise that melting underneath the ice shelves by the ocean is equally important and for some places, far more important. This knowledge is crucial for understanding how the ice sheets interact now, and in the future, to changes in climate," said Bamber.

22.10 | 0 komentar | Read More

Dog behaviour could help design social robots

ANI Sep 13, 2013, 10.57PM IST

WASHINGTON: A researcher has said that behaviour of dogs could help robot designers fine-tune their future designs.

Lead author Gabriella Lakatos of the Hungarian Academy of Science and Eotvos Lorand University, found that dogs react sociably to robots that behave socially towards them, even if they look nothing like a human.

This animal behaviour study tested the reaction of 41 dogs.

They were divided into two groups depending on the nature of human-robot interaction: 'asocial' or 'social.' One set of dogs in the 'asocial group' first observed an interaction between two humans (the owner and the human experimenter) and then observed an 'asocial' interaction between the owner and the robot.

The remaining dogs in this group participated in these interactions in the reverse order.

Then, in the 'social group,' one set of dogs watched an interaction between the owner and the human experimenter followed by observing a 'social' interaction between the owner and the robot.

The remaining dogs in this group also participated in these interactions in the reverse order. These interactions were followed by sessions in which either the human experimenter or the robot pointed out the location of hidden food in both the 'asocial' and the 'social' groups.

The level of sociality shown by the robot was not enough to elicit the same set of social behavioral reactions from the dogs that they normally display in their close relationship with humans. However, the researchers recorded definite positive social interactions between the animals and the robot. For instance, the dogs spent more time near the robot or gazing at its head when the PeopleBot behaved socially.

The researchers believe that the dogs' previous experience with the robot, while watching their owners interact with the PeopleBot, may have also influenced their attitude towards it when they confronted it during the pointing phase.

The study has been published in Springer's journal Animal Cognition.

22.10 | 0 komentar | Read More

An orange a day can keep cancer away

IANS Sep 14, 2013, 06.38PM IST

BRASILIA: On reviewing available research on cancer prevention and the benefits of orange, scientists say orange could prove to be crucial in the prevention of cancer.

In a forthcoming review article from Nutrition and Cancer: An International Journal, a publication of Routledge, researchers reviewed available evidence that links orange juice with cancer chemoprevention, reports Science Daily.

The review article, 'Orange Juice and Cancer Chemoprevention' discusses the putative mechanisms involved in the process and the available data in terms of evidence-based medicine.

Despite its potential toxicity (if taken in excess), orange juice has many potential positive effects when it comes to cancer, particularly because it is high in anti-oxidants.

Evidence from previous studies has indicated that orange juice can reduce the risk of leukemia in children, as well as aid in chemoprevention against mammary, hepatic, and colon cancers.

"Orange juice could contribute to chemoprevention at every stage of cancer initiation and progression",the researchers explained.

22.10 | 0 komentar | Read More

Icy comet collisions can produce building blocks of life

WASHINGTON: A new study suggests that the building blocks of life can spontaneously come into existence when icy comets smash into planets.

Scientists have discovered a "cosmic factory" for producing the building blocks of life, amino acids, in the research.

The team from Imperial College London, the University of Kent and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory have discovered that when icy comets collide into a planet, amino acids can be produced.

These essential building blocks are also produced if a rocky meteorite crashes into a planet with an icy surface.

The researchers suggest that this process provides another piece to the puzzle of how life was kick-started on Earth, after a period of time between 4.5 and 3.8 billion years ago when the planet had been bombarded by comets and meteorites.

"Our work shows that the basic building blocks of life can be assembled anywhere in the Solar System and perhaps beyond. However, the catch is that these building blocks need the right conditions in order for life to flourish. Excitingly, our study widens the scope for where these important ingredients may be formed in the solar system and adds another piece to the puzzle of how life on our planet took root," Dr Zita Martins, co-author of the paper from the department of earth science and Engineering at Imperial College London, said.

The abundance of ice on the surfaces of Enceladus and Europa, which are moons orbiting Saturn and Jupiter respectively, could provide a perfect environment for the production of amino acids, when meteorites crash into their surface, say the researchers.

The researchers discovered that when a comet impacts on a world it creates a shock wave that generates molecules that make up amino acids. The impact of the shock wave also generates heat, which then transforms these molecules into amino acids.

The study is published in the journal Nature Geoscience.

22.10 | 0 komentar | Read More

Apes plan, communicate their trips in advance

AP Sep 12, 2013, 02.46AM IST

WASHINGTON: It's the ape equivalent of Google Maps and Facebook. The night before a big trip, Arno the orangutan plots his journey and lets others know where he is going with a long, whooping call.

What he and his orangutan buddies do in the forests of Sumatra tells scientists that advance trip planning and social networking aren't just human traits,

A new study of 15 wild male orangutans finds that they routinely plot out their next day treks and share their plans in long calls, so females can come by or track them, and competitive males can steer clear.

The researchers closely followed the males as they traveled on 320 days during the 1990s. The results were published Wednesday in the journal PLoS One.

Typically, an orangutan would turn and face in the direction of his route and let out a whoop, sometimes for as long as four minutes. Then he'd go to sleep and 12 hours later set on the heralded path, said study author Carel van Schaik, director of the Anthropological Institute at the University of Zurich.

"This guy basically thinks ahead," van Schaik said. "They're continuously updating their Google Maps so to speak. Based on that, they're planning what to do next."

The apes didn't just call once, but they keep at it, calling more than 1,100 times over the 320 days.

"This shows they are very much like us in this respect," van Schaik said. "Our earliest hominid ancestor must have done the same thing."

Scientists had seen such planning in zoos and controlled experiments, but this study provides solid evidence of travel planning in the wild, said Frans de Waal of Emory University, who was not part of the study.

Van Schaik said he and colleagues happened upon the trip calls by accident nearly 20 years ago, first with the dominant male Arno, who they followed more than the other 14 males. They waited to publish the results because he thought few people would believe orangutans could do such planning. But in recent years, the lab and captivity studies have all shown such planning.

Based on previous studies and monitoring, van Schaik figured the male lets the world know his plans so females can come to him or stay close. Some females may want to stay within earshot in case they are harassed by other males and need protection. Others can come to mate.

22.10 | 0 komentar | Read More

Dog behaviour could help design social robots

ANI Sep 13, 2013, 10.57PM IST

WASHINGTON: A researcher has said that behaviour of dogs could help robot designers fine-tune their future designs.

Lead author Gabriella Lakatos of the Hungarian Academy of Science and Eotvos Lorand University, found that dogs react sociably to robots that behave socially towards them, even if they look nothing like a human.

This animal behaviour study tested the reaction of 41 dogs.

They were divided into two groups depending on the nature of human-robot interaction: 'asocial' or 'social.' One set of dogs in the 'asocial group' first observed an interaction between two humans (the owner and the human experimenter) and then observed an 'asocial' interaction between the owner and the robot.

The remaining dogs in this group participated in these interactions in the reverse order.

Then, in the 'social group,' one set of dogs watched an interaction between the owner and the human experimenter followed by observing a 'social' interaction between the owner and the robot.

The remaining dogs in this group also participated in these interactions in the reverse order. These interactions were followed by sessions in which either the human experimenter or the robot pointed out the location of hidden food in both the 'asocial' and the 'social' groups.

The level of sociality shown by the robot was not enough to elicit the same set of social behavioral reactions from the dogs that they normally display in their close relationship with humans. However, the researchers recorded definite positive social interactions between the animals and the robot. For instance, the dogs spent more time near the robot or gazing at its head when the PeopleBot behaved socially.

The researchers believe that the dogs' previous experience with the robot, while watching their owners interact with the PeopleBot, may have also influenced their attitude towards it when they confronted it during the pointing phase.

The study has been published in Springer's journal Animal Cognition.

22.10 | 0 komentar | Read More

An orange a day can keep cancer away

BRASILIA: On reviewing available research on cancer prevention and the benefits of orange, scientists say orange could prove to be crucial in the prevention of cancer.

In a forthcoming review article from Nutrition and Cancer: An International Journal, a publication of Routledge, researchers reviewed available evidence that links orange juice with cancer chemoprevention, reports Science Daily.

The review article, 'Orange Juice and Cancer Chemoprevention' discusses the putative mechanisms involved in the process and the available data in terms of evidence-based medicine.

Despite its potential toxicity (if taken in excess), orange juice has many potential positive effects when it comes to cancer, particularly because it is high in anti-oxidants.

Evidence from previous studies has indicated that orange juice can reduce the risk of leukemia in children, as well as aid in chemoprevention against mammary, hepatic, and colon cancers.

"Orange juice could contribute to chemoprevention at every stage of cancer initiation and progression",the researchers explained.

22.10 | 0 komentar | Read More

Apes plan, communicate their trips in advance

AP Sep 12, 2013, 02.46AM IST

WASHINGTON: It's the ape equivalent of Google Maps and Facebook. The night before a big trip, Arno the orangutan plots his journey and lets others know where he is going with a long, whooping call.

What he and his orangutan buddies do in the forests of Sumatra tells scientists that advance trip planning and social networking aren't just human traits,

A new study of 15 wild male orangutans finds that they routinely plot out their next day treks and share their plans in long calls, so females can come by or track them, and competitive males can steer clear.

The researchers closely followed the males as they traveled on 320 days during the 1990s. The results were published Wednesday in the journal PLoS One.

Typically, an orangutan would turn and face in the direction of his route and let out a whoop, sometimes for as long as four minutes. Then he'd go to sleep and 12 hours later set on the heralded path, said study author Carel van Schaik, director of the Anthropological Institute at the University of Zurich.

"This guy basically thinks ahead," van Schaik said. "They're continuously updating their Google Maps so to speak. Based on that, they're planning what to do next."

The apes didn't just call once, but they keep at it, calling more than 1,100 times over the 320 days.

"This shows they are very much like us in this respect," van Schaik said. "Our earliest hominid ancestor must have done the same thing."

Scientists had seen such planning in zoos and controlled experiments, but this study provides solid evidence of travel planning in the wild, said Frans de Waal of Emory University, who was not part of the study.

Van Schaik said he and colleagues happened upon the trip calls by accident nearly 20 years ago, first with the dominant male Arno, who they followed more than the other 14 males. They waited to publish the results because he thought few people would believe orangutans could do such planning. But in recent years, the lab and captivity studies have all shown such planning.

Based on previous studies and monitoring, van Schaik figured the male lets the world know his plans so females can come to him or stay close. Some females may want to stay within earshot in case they are harassed by other males and need protection. Others can come to mate.

22.10 | 0 komentar | Read More

Dog behaviour could help design social robots

WASHINGTON: A researcher has said that behaviour of dogs could help robot designers fine-tune their future designs.

Lead author Gabriella Lakatos of the Hungarian Academy of Science and Eotvos Lorand University, found that dogs react sociably to robots that behave socially towards them, even if they look nothing like a human.

This animal behaviour study tested the reaction of 41 dogs.

They were divided into two groups depending on the nature of human-robot interaction: 'asocial' or 'social.' One set of dogs in the 'asocial group' first observed an interaction between two humans (the owner and the human experimenter) and then observed an 'asocial' interaction between the owner and the robot.

The remaining dogs in this group participated in these interactions in the reverse order.

Then, in the 'social group,' one set of dogs watched an interaction between the owner and the human experimenter followed by observing a 'social' interaction between the owner and the robot.

The remaining dogs in this group also participated in these interactions in the reverse order. These interactions were followed by sessions in which either the human experimenter or the robot pointed out the location of hidden food in both the 'asocial' and the 'social' groups.

The level of sociality shown by the robot was not enough to elicit the same set of social behavioral reactions from the dogs that they normally display in their close relationship with humans. However, the researchers recorded definite positive social interactions between the animals and the robot. For instance, the dogs spent more time near the robot or gazing at its head when the PeopleBot behaved socially.

The researchers believe that the dogs' previous experience with the robot, while watching their owners interact with the PeopleBot, may have also influenced their attitude towards it when they confronted it during the pointing phase.

The study has been published in Springer's journal Animal Cognition.

22.10 | 0 komentar | Read More

An orange a day can keep cancer away

BRASILIA: On reviewing available research on cancer prevention and the benefits of orange, scientists say orange could prove to be crucial in the prevention of cancer.

In a forthcoming review article from Nutrition and Cancer: An International Journal, a publication of Routledge, researchers reviewed available evidence that links orange juice with cancer chemoprevention, reports Science Daily.

The review article, 'Orange Juice and Cancer Chemoprevention' discusses the putative mechanisms involved in the process and the available data in terms of evidence-based medicine.

Despite its potential toxicity (if taken in excess), orange juice has many potential positive effects when it comes to cancer, particularly because it is high in anti-oxidants.

Evidence from previous studies has indicated that orange juice can reduce the risk of leukemia in children, as well as aid in chemoprevention against mammary, hepatic, and colon cancers.

"Orange juice could contribute to chemoprevention at every stage of cancer initiation and progression",the researchers explained.

22.10 | 0 komentar | Read More

Heart attack risk rises in winter, dips in summer

Subodh Varma, TNN Sep 2, 2013, 01.12PM IST

(A study says the risk of getting…)

NEW DELHI: The risk of getting a heart attack is highest in winter and lowest in summer, according to latest research based on analysis of more than 100,000 patients in seven European countries.

The researchers found that levels of several cardiovascular risk factors (such as blood pressure, waist circumference and total cholesterol) were higher in winter (January to February) and lower in summer (June to August) compared to the annual average.

The findings were presented at the congress of the European Society of Cardiology currently meeting at Amsterdam by Dr Pedro Marques-Vidal from Switzerland. The study used cross-sectional data from 10 population based studies in 7 countries. Information was obtained on cardiovascular risk factors in 107,090 subjects aged 35 to 80 years. The country breakdown was as follows: 21,128 subjects in Belgium, 15,664 in Denmark, 1,626 in France, 18,370 in Italy, 25,532 in Norway, 9,359 in Russia and 15,411 in Switzerland.

Levels of blood pressure, lipids, glucose, body mass index (BMI, kg/m2) and waist circumference were compared according to season. All data were adjusted for age, gender and smoking. Data on blood pressure, lipids and glucose were adjusted for BMI and whether or not the patient was taking medication.

'The study suggests that particular care with CVD prevention should be taken over the winter months,' said principal investigator Pedro Marques-Vidal. 'It is important that emergency resources are strengthened in winter.'

Systolic blood pressure levels were on average 3.5 mmHg lower in summer than in winter. One explanation for the lower blood pressure levels seen in the summer, he speculated, is that higher ambient temperatures lead to vasodilation (broadening of blood vessels) and perspiration. It is also possible that higher levels of physical activity and a different dietary intake in summer may reduce obesity.

Waist circumference was on average 1 cm smaller in summer than in winter, while total cholesterol was, on average, 0.24 mmol/L lower in summer than in winter. Dr Marques-Vidal said: ""We observed a seasonal variation in waist circumference but BMI did not change throughout the year. We have no clear explanation for this finding. Total cholesterol may increase during the winter because of changes in eating habits. There was no seasonal variation in glucose, probably because several cohorts did not collect blood samples in the fasting state. We have begun a study on seasonality of food intake which may help explain these findings.""

"Our large scale study shows that some cardiovascular risk factors take holidays over the summer. This may explain why deaths from cardiovascular disease are higher in winter than summer. People need to make an extra effort to exercise and eat healthily in the winter to protect their health," Dr Marques-Vidal added.

""Our team is currently conducting another study to find out if the seasonal pattern in cardiovascular risk factors reverses in the southern hemisphere, where seasons are inverted relative to the northern hemisphere. Based on preliminary data, it does seem to be the case. The overall study is expected to collect information on almost 200,000 subjects from over 12 countries," he said.

22.11 | 0 komentar | Read More

Dutch ‘vegetarian butcher’ turns plants into ‘meat’

AFP Sep 9, 2013, 05.21AM IST

THE HAGUE: Never mind last month's revolutionary testtube beef burger grown from meat stem cells. The Dutch are way ahead with a 'vegetarian butcher' who transforms plants into 'meat'. Dubbed the 'Frankenburger', the lab-grown beef developed at a cost of more than 250,000 euros ($330,000) was unveiled by scientists and served to volunteers in what was billed as a food revolution.

"But we are much more advanced, so-much-so that we have built an unassailable lead over meat produced from stem cells," said Jaap Korteweg, founder of the 'Vegetarian Butcher' .

While the 'cultured beef' in London was made using strands of meat grown from muscle cells taken from a living cow, the Dutch butcher needs only plant matter to make his 'meat' .

Korteweg's shop on a main street in downtown The Hague is packed with a range of products from veggie 'hamburger' patties to 'meatballs' and 'tuna' salad.

One of the secret ingredients is a soy paste, which when put through a special pressurisation machine, imitates meat fibres, a technology invented by the University of Wageningen in the central Netherlands. The demand for an environmentally friendly and vegetarian alternative to meat is growing, with meat production notoriously inefficient, requiring huge swathes of land to grow the crops to feed the animals.

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Japan sets new date for satellite rocket launch

Japan's state-run space agency on Monday said the launch of its next-generation solid-fuel rocket had been rescheduled for September 14 after the first attempt was suspended seconds before lift-off.

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) plans to launch the Epsilon rocket from the Uchinoura Space Centre in Kagoshima, southwestern Japan, on Saturday afternoon, according to the Jiji news agency.

An attempted launch on August 27 was automatically halted just 19 seconds before blast-off when a ground control computer falsely detected a positional abnormality.

JAXA said it has now improved the software that led to the error, Jiji reported.

Japan hopes the rocket, which was supposed to launch with just two laptop computers in a pared down command centre, will become competitive in the global space business.

The three-stage Epsilon -- 24 metres (79-feet) long and weighing 91 tonnes -- was scheduled to release the telescope "SPRINT-A" at an altitude of 1,000 kilometres (620 miles).

SPRINT-A is the world's first space telescope for remote observation of planets including Venus, Mars and Jupiter from its orbit around Earth, the agency said.

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Scientists amazed by how much dolphins remember

Aug 10, 2013, 06.52PM IST

(The scientists based their…)

LONDON: A scientific study shows that dolphins are the animals with the greatest memory-storage capacity after humans, according to the British magazine Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

The research, carried out by a scientific team from the University of Chicago, found that dolphins were able to recognize the whistle of a former member of their school, even if it went its separate ways 20 years before.

According to the study, these long-term memories are a product of complex social connections that dolphins developed over their eons of evolution.

The scientists based their research on relations among 56 bottlenose dolphins in captivity, brought together from six different aquariums in the US and the Bermudas for breeding purposes.

They first recorded their whistles and, decades later, played the recordings back to them on underwater loudspeakers to observe the dolphins' reactions when they heard the call of animals they had not seen for many years.

"When the dolphins heard a call, they were much more likely to hang around the loudspeakers for a long time," research chief Jason Bruck said.

According to Bruck, finding that dolphins recall such old memories is an "unprecedented" phenomenon in the study of animal behaviour.

The most astonishing case for researchers involved two female dolphins, Bailey and Allie, that had lived together during the first years of their lives.

Bailey instantly recognized Allie's whistle 20 years and six months after they had last been in contact.

The scientists concluded that dolphins also have a great ability to recall certain events, which places their knowledge-storing ability at a level comparable to that of humans, chimpanzees and elephants.

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‘Happiness can affect your genes’

Agencies Jul 31, 2013, 07.01AM IST

WASHINGTON: Happiness can affect your genes in a healthy or unhealthy way depending on what causes you to feel pleasure , a first-of-its-kind study has found.

US researchers found that human bodies recognize at the molecular level that not all happiness is created equal and respond in ways that can help or hinder physical health. They found that different types of happiness have surprisingly different effects on the human genome. People who have high levels of what is known as eudaimonic well-being â€" the kind of happiness that comes from having a deep sense of purpose and meaning in life â€" showed very favourable gene-expression profiles in their immune cells.

They had low levels of inflammatory gene expression and strong expression of antiviral and antibody genes.

However, people who had relatively high levels of hedonic well-being â€" the type of happiness that comes from consummatory self-gratification â€" actually showed just the opposite . They had an adverse expression profile involving high inflammation and low antiviral and antibody gene expression .

Steven Cole, a University of California, Los Angeles professor of medicine, and his colleagues , including first author Barbara L Fredrickson at the University of North Carolina, have been examining how the human genome responds to stress, misery, fear and all kinds of negative psychology.

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Heart attack risk rises in winter, dips in summer

NEW DELHI: The risk of getting a heart attack is highest in winter and lowest in summer, according to latest research based on analysis of more than 100,000 patients in seven European countries.

The researchers found that levels of several cardiovascular risk factors (such as blood pressure, waist circumference and total cholesterol) were higher in winter (January to February) and lower in summer (June to August) compared to the annual average.

The findings were presented at the congress of the European Society of Cardiology currently meeting at Amsterdam by Dr Pedro Marques-Vidal from Switzerland. The study used cross-sectional data from 10 population based studies in 7 countries. Information was obtained on cardiovascular risk factors in 107,090 subjects aged 35 to 80 years. The country breakdown was as follows: 21,128 subjects in Belgium, 15,664 in Denmark, 1,626 in France, 18,370 in Italy, 25,532 in Norway, 9,359 in Russia and 15,411 in Switzerland.

Levels of blood pressure, lipids, glucose, body mass index (BMI, kg/m2) and waist circumference were compared according to season. All data were adjusted for age, gender and smoking. Data on blood pressure, lipids and glucose were adjusted for BMI and whether or not the patient was taking medication.

'The study suggests that particular care with CVD prevention should be taken over the winter months,' said principal investigator Pedro Marques-Vidal. 'It is important that emergency resources are strengthened in winter.'

Systolic blood pressure levels were on average 3.5 mmHg lower in summer than in winter. One explanation for the lower blood pressure levels seen in the summer, he speculated, is that higher ambient temperatures lead to vasodilation (broadening of blood vessels) and perspiration. It is also possible that higher levels of physical activity and a different dietary intake in summer may reduce obesity.

Waist circumference was on average 1 cm smaller in summer than in winter, while total cholesterol was, on average, 0.24 mmol/L lower in summer than in winter. Dr Marques-Vidal said: ""We observed a seasonal variation in waist circumference but BMI did not change throughout the year. We have no clear explanation for this finding. Total cholesterol may increase during the winter because of changes in eating habits. There was no seasonal variation in glucose, probably because several cohorts did not collect blood samples in the fasting state. We have begun a study on seasonality of food intake which may help explain these findings.""

"Our large scale study shows that some cardiovascular risk factors take holidays over the summer. This may explain why deaths from cardiovascular disease are higher in winter than summer. People need to make an extra effort to exercise and eat healthily in the winter to protect their health," Dr Marques-Vidal added.

""Our team is currently conducting another study to find out if the seasonal pattern in cardiovascular risk factors reverses in the southern hemisphere, where seasons are inverted relative to the northern hemisphere. Based on preliminary data, it does seem to be the case. The overall study is expected to collect information on almost 200,000 subjects from over 12 countries," he said.

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World’s fastest switch created

Kounteya Sinha, TNN Jul 30, 2013, 07.31AM IST

LONDON: US department of energy's (DOE) SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory have clocked the fastest-possible electrical switching in magnetite, a naturally magnetic mineral.

Their results could drive innovations in the tiny transistors that control the flow of electricity across silicon chips, enabling faster , more powerful computing devices. Scientists using SLAC's Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) X-ray laser found that it takes only 1 trillionth of a second to flip the on-off electrical switch in samples of magnetite, which is thousands of times faster than in transistors being used now.

While magnetite's basic magnetic properties have been known for thousands of years, the experiment shows how much still can be learned about the electronic properties of magnetite.

"This breakthrough research reveals for the first time the speed limit for electrical switching in this material," said Roopali Kukreja, a materials science researcher at SLAC and Stanford University, who is a lead author of the study.

The study shows how such conducting and non-conducting states can co-exist and create electrical pathways in next-generation transistors. Scientists first hit each sample with a visiblelight laser, which fragmented the material's electronic structure at an atomic scale, rearranging it to form the islands. The laser blast was followed closely by an ultra bright, ultra short X-ray pulse that allowed researchers to study, for the first time, the timing and details of changes in the sample excited by the initial laser strike.
By slightly adjusting the interval of the X-ray pulses, they precisely measured how long it took the material to shift from a non-conducting to an electrically conducting state, and observed the structural changes during this switch.

The magnetite had to be cooled to minus 190 degrees Celsius to lock its electrical charges in place, so the next step is to study more complex materials and room-temperature applications, Kukreja said. The researchers have already conducted follow-up studies focusing on a hybrid material that exhibits similar ultrafast switching properties at near room temperature , which makes it a better candidate for commercial use than magnetite.

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‘Happiness can affect your genes’

Agencies Jul 31, 2013, 07.01AM IST

WASHINGTON: Happiness can affect your genes in a healthy or unhealthy way depending on what causes you to feel pleasure , a first-of-its-kind study has found.

US researchers found that human bodies recognize at the molecular level that not all happiness is created equal and respond in ways that can help or hinder physical health. They found that different types of happiness have surprisingly different effects on the human genome. People who have high levels of what is known as eudaimonic well-being â€" the kind of happiness that comes from having a deep sense of purpose and meaning in life â€" showed very favourable gene-expression profiles in their immune cells.

They had low levels of inflammatory gene expression and strong expression of antiviral and antibody genes.

However, people who had relatively high levels of hedonic well-being â€" the type of happiness that comes from consummatory self-gratification â€" actually showed just the opposite . They had an adverse expression profile involving high inflammation and low antiviral and antibody gene expression .

Steven Cole, a University of California, Los Angeles professor of medicine, and his colleagues , including first author Barbara L Fredrickson at the University of North Carolina, have been examining how the human genome responds to stress, misery, fear and all kinds of negative psychology.

22.11 | 0 komentar | Read More

Scientists amazed by how much dolphins remember

Aug 10, 2013, 06.52PM IST

(The scientists based their…)

LONDON: A scientific study shows that dolphins are the animals with the greatest memory-storage capacity after humans, according to the British magazine Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

The research, carried out by a scientific team from the University of Chicago, found that dolphins were able to recognize the whistle of a former member of their school, even if it went its separate ways 20 years before.

According to the study, these long-term memories are a product of complex social connections that dolphins developed over their eons of evolution.

The scientists based their research on relations among 56 bottlenose dolphins in captivity, brought together from six different aquariums in the US and the Bermudas for breeding purposes.

They first recorded their whistles and, decades later, played the recordings back to them on underwater loudspeakers to observe the dolphins' reactions when they heard the call of animals they had not seen for many years.

"When the dolphins heard a call, they were much more likely to hang around the loudspeakers for a long time," research chief Jason Bruck said.

According to Bruck, finding that dolphins recall such old memories is an "unprecedented" phenomenon in the study of animal behaviour.

The most astonishing case for researchers involved two female dolphins, Bailey and Allie, that had lived together during the first years of their lives.

Bailey instantly recognized Allie's whistle 20 years and six months after they had last been in contact.

The scientists concluded that dolphins also have a great ability to recall certain events, which places their knowledge-storing ability at a level comparable to that of humans, chimpanzees and elephants.

22.11 | 0 komentar | Read More