Now, nano 'fingerprints' to secure credit cards

SEOUL: Scientists have developed invisible nano 'fingerprints' that could be embedded into money, gadgets and credit cards, making it impossible to counterfeit the objects. Unique patterns made from tiny, randomly scattered silver nanowires have been created in an attempt to authenticate goods and tackle the growing problem of counterfeiting.

The nanoscale 'fingerprints' are made by randomly placing 20 to 30 individual nanowires, each with an average length of 10 to 50 micro metre, onto a thin plastic film, and could be used to tag a variety of goods from electronics and drugs to credit cards and bank notes.

According to the researchers, the 'fingerprints' are almost impossible to replicate because of the natural randomness of their creation and the difficulty associated with manipulating such small material. "It is nearly impossible to replicate the fingerprints due to the difficulty in trying to manipulate the tiny nanowires into a desired pattern," lead author of the research professor Hyotcherl Ihee, from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology and the Institute for Basic Science, said.

"The cost of generating such an identical counterfeit pattern would generally be much higher than the value of the typical product being protected," said Ihee.

Researchers estimate that the 'fingerprints' could be produced at a cost of less than $1 per single pattern, which was demonstrated in their study by synthesizing a solution containing individual silver nanowires, coating the nanowires with silica, doping them with specific fluorescent dyes and then randomly dropping them onto a transferable film made from flexible polyethylene terephthalate (PET).

The fluorescent dyes allowed the patterns, which are invisible to the naked eye, to be visually identified and authenticated under an optical microscope and could add another layer of complexity to the 'fingerprints' if a number of different coloured dyes are used.

The researchers said that the nanowire patterns could be tagged with a unique ID, or bar code, which could enable a quick search in a database and ease the process of authentication or counterfeit identification.

"Once a pattern is tagged and stored on a database using a unique ID, a certain substrate, whether a bank note or a credit card, could be authenticated almost immediately by observing the fluorescence images and comparing it with stored images," said "These authentication processes can be automated by using an algorithm that recognizes the positions and colours of the nanowires and digitizes the information in a database," Ihee said.
"Such digitised information could significantly reduce the size of the stored data and reduce the time required for the authentication process," said Ihee.

The research was published in the journal Nanotechnology.

22.10 | 0 komentar | Read More

Liquid water on Mars more evident now

LONDON: Water could be flowing on the red planet more recently that previously thought, says a study.

"We have discovered a very young crater in the southern mid-latitudes of mars that shows evidence of liquid water in Mars in recent past," said Andreas Johnsson from University of Gothenburg in Sweden.

With crater statistics, the researchers determined the age of the crater to be approximately 200,000 years.

It implied that the crater was formed long after the most recent proposed ice age on mars, which ended around 400,000 years ago, said the study.

The crater contains very well-preserved gullies and debris flow deposits. The geomorphological attributes of these landforms provide evidence that they were formed by the action of liquid water in geologically recent time.

The researchers could compare the landforms on mars with known debris flows on Svalbard with the aid of aerial photography and field studies.

The debris flows on Mars provide evidence that liquid water has been present in the region.

"Our fieldwork on Svalbard confirmed our interpretation of the Martian deposits. What surprised us was that the crater in which these debris flows have formed is so young," said Johnsson.

22.10 | 0 komentar | Read More

HIV slowly adapting to humans: Scientists

TORONTO: Scientists studying the evolution of HIV in North America have found evidence that the virus is slowly adapting over time to its human hosts.

However, this change is so gradual that it is unlikely to have an impact on vaccine design, researchers said.

"Much research has focused on how HIV adapts to antiviral drugs — we wanted to investigate how HIV adapts to us, its human hosts, over time," said lead author Zabrina Brumme, an assistant professor in the Faculty of Health Sciences at Simon Fraser University.

"HIV adapts to the immune response in reproducible ways. In theory, this could be bad news for host immunity — and vaccines — if such mutations were to spread in the population," said Brumme.

"Just like transmitted drug resistance can compromise treatment success, transmitted immune escape mutations could erode our ability to naturally fight HIV," said Brumme.

Researchers characterised the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) sequences from patients dating from 1979, the beginning of the North American HIV epidemic, to the modern day.

The team reconstructed the epidemic's ancestral HIV sequence and from there, assessed the spread of immune escape mutations in the population.

"Overall, our results show that the virus is adapting very slowly in North America. In parts of the world harder hit by HIV though, rates of adaptation could be higher," said Brumme.

"We already have the tools to curb HIV in the form of treatment — and we continue to advance towards a vaccine and a cure. Together, we can stop HIV/AIDS before the virus subverts host immunity through population-level adaptation," Brumme added.

The study was published in the journal PLOS Genetics.

22.10 | 0 komentar | Read More

Liquid water on Mars more evident now

LONDON: Water could be flowing on the red planet more recently that previously thought, says a study.

"We have discovered a very young crater in the southern mid-latitudes of mars that shows evidence of liquid water in Mars in recent past," said Andreas Johnsson from University of Gothenburg in Sweden.

With crater statistics, the researchers determined the age of the crater to be approximately 200,000 years.

It implied that the crater was formed long after the most recent proposed ice age on mars, which ended around 400,000 years ago, said the study.

The crater contains very well-preserved gullies and debris flow deposits. The geomorphological attributes of these landforms provide evidence that they were formed by the action of liquid water in geologically recent time.

The researchers could compare the landforms on mars with known debris flows on Svalbard with the aid of aerial photography and field studies.

The debris flows on Mars provide evidence that liquid water has been present in the region.

"Our fieldwork on Svalbard confirmed our interpretation of the Martian deposits. What surprised us was that the crater in which these debris flows have formed is so young," said Johnsson.

22.10 | 0 komentar | Read More

HIV slowly adapting to humans: Scientists

TORONTO: Scientists studying the evolution of HIV in North America have found evidence that the virus is slowly adapting over time to its human hosts.

However, this change is so gradual that it is unlikely to have an impact on vaccine design, researchers said.

"Much research has focused on how HIV adapts to antiviral drugs — we wanted to investigate how HIV adapts to us, its human hosts, over time," said lead author Zabrina Brumme, an assistant professor in the Faculty of Health Sciences at Simon Fraser University.

"HIV adapts to the immune response in reproducible ways. In theory, this could be bad news for host immunity — and vaccines — if such mutations were to spread in the population," said Brumme.

"Just like transmitted drug resistance can compromise treatment success, transmitted immune escape mutations could erode our ability to naturally fight HIV," said Brumme.

Researchers characterised the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) sequences from patients dating from 1979, the beginning of the North American HIV epidemic, to the modern day.

The team reconstructed the epidemic's ancestral HIV sequence and from there, assessed the spread of immune escape mutations in the population.

"Overall, our results show that the virus is adapting very slowly in North America. In parts of the world harder hit by HIV though, rates of adaptation could be higher," said Brumme.

"We already have the tools to curb HIV in the form of treatment — and we continue to advance towards a vaccine and a cure. Together, we can stop HIV/AIDS before the virus subverts host immunity through population-level adaptation," Brumme added.

The study was published in the journal PLOS Genetics.

22.10 | 0 komentar | Read More

Now, nano 'fingerprints' to secure credit cards

SEOUL: Scientists have developed invisible nano 'fingerprints' that could be embedded into money, gadgets and credit cards, making it impossible to counterfeit the objects. Unique patterns made from tiny, randomly scattered silver nanowires have been created in an attempt to authenticate goods and tackle the growing problem of counterfeiting.

The nanoscale 'fingerprints' are made by randomly placing 20 to 30 individual nanowires, each with an average length of 10 to 50 micro metre, onto a thin plastic film, and could be used to tag a variety of goods from electronics and drugs to credit cards and bank notes.

According to the researchers, the 'fingerprints' are almost impossible to replicate because of the natural randomness of their creation and the difficulty associated with manipulating such small material. "It is nearly impossible to replicate the fingerprints due to the difficulty in trying to manipulate the tiny nanowires into a desired pattern," lead author of the research professor Hyotcherl Ihee, from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology and the Institute for Basic Science, said.

"The cost of generating such an identical counterfeit pattern would generally be much higher than the value of the typical product being protected," said Ihee.

Researchers estimate that the 'fingerprints' could be produced at a cost of less than $1 per single pattern, which was demonstrated in their study by synthesizing a solution containing individual silver nanowires, coating the nanowires with silica, doping them with specific fluorescent dyes and then randomly dropping them onto a transferable film made from flexible polyethylene terephthalate (PET).

The fluorescent dyes allowed the patterns, which are invisible to the naked eye, to be visually identified and authenticated under an optical microscope and could add another layer of complexity to the 'fingerprints' if a number of different coloured dyes are used.

The researchers said that the nanowire patterns could be tagged with a unique ID, or bar code, which could enable a quick search in a database and ease the process of authentication or counterfeit identification.

"Once a pattern is tagged and stored on a database using a unique ID, a certain substrate, whether a bank note or a credit card, could be authenticated almost immediately by observing the fluorescence images and comparing it with stored images," said "These authentication processes can be automated by using an algorithm that recognizes the positions and colours of the nanowires and digitizes the information in a database," Ihee said.
"Such digitised information could significantly reduce the size of the stored data and reduce the time required for the authentication process," said Ihee.

The research was published in the journal Nanotechnology.

22.10 | 0 komentar | Read More

Now, you can control devices with tongue

LONDON: Researchers have developed a device that can be installed in a helmet and senses the wearer's tongue pressure through the cheek to control their smartphones. "The tongue is a well-developed muscle capable of fine-grain movements — so we thought it should be good for control interactions," said Japanese scientist Kai Kunze at Osaka Prefecture University.

"My personal motivation here was skiing. I like to check factors like my speed while on the slope, yet it's quite cumbersome to take out a smartphone and use a touchscreen in the cold," he said. A helmet with the built-in device could allow motorcyclists and skiers to control their personal technology.

The team strapped a pad with 64 pressure-sensing elements to the cheeks of six volunteers to mimic a sensor installed in a helmet. They asked them to try five tongue gestures: swipe up, swipe down, swipe left, swipe right and a pushy "click", 'New Scientist' reported. In 300 attempts, recognition accuracy was 98%, according to the study results presented at the Augmented Human conference in Kobe, Japan, last month.

Kunze is also working on putting the sensor in face masks worn to keep out flu, so people can control phones without touching them.

22.10 | 0 komentar | Read More

Liquid water on Mars more evident now

LONDON: Water could be flowing on the red planet more recently that previously thought, says a study.

"We have discovered a very young crater in the southern mid-latitudes of mars that shows evidence of liquid water in Mars in recent past," said Andreas Johnsson from University of Gothenburg in Sweden.

With crater statistics, the researchers determined the age of the crater to be approximately 200,000 years.

It implied that the crater was formed long after the most recent proposed ice age on mars, which ended around 400,000 years ago, said the study.

The crater contains very well-preserved gullies and debris flow deposits. The geomorphological attributes of these landforms provide evidence that they were formed by the action of liquid water in geologically recent time.

The researchers could compare the landforms on mars with known debris flows on Svalbard with the aid of aerial photography and field studies.

The debris flows on Mars provide evidence that liquid water has been present in the region.

"Our fieldwork on Svalbard confirmed our interpretation of the Martian deposits. What surprised us was that the crater in which these debris flows have formed is so young," said Johnsson.

22.10 | 0 komentar | Read More

HIV slowly adapting to humans: Scientists

TORONTO: Scientists studying the evolution of HIV in North America have found evidence that the virus is slowly adapting over time to its human hosts.

However, this change is so gradual that it is unlikely to have an impact on vaccine design, researchers said.

"Much research has focused on how HIV adapts to antiviral drugs — we wanted to investigate how HIV adapts to us, its human hosts, over time," said lead author Zabrina Brumme, an assistant professor in the Faculty of Health Sciences at Simon Fraser University.

"HIV adapts to the immune response in reproducible ways. In theory, this could be bad news for host immunity — and vaccines — if such mutations were to spread in the population," said Brumme.

"Just like transmitted drug resistance can compromise treatment success, transmitted immune escape mutations could erode our ability to naturally fight HIV," said Brumme.

Researchers characterised the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) sequences from patients dating from 1979, the beginning of the North American HIV epidemic, to the modern day.

The team reconstructed the epidemic's ancestral HIV sequence and from there, assessed the spread of immune escape mutations in the population.

"Overall, our results show that the virus is adapting very slowly in North America. In parts of the world harder hit by HIV though, rates of adaptation could be higher," said Brumme.

"We already have the tools to curb HIV in the form of treatment — and we continue to advance towards a vaccine and a cure. Together, we can stop HIV/AIDS before the virus subverts host immunity through population-level adaptation," Brumme added.

The study was published in the journal PLOS Genetics.

22.10 | 0 komentar | Read More

Parents, pupils trolling teachers with abuses in UK

LONDON: Students and parents in the UK are using social media and other online forums to abuse teachers, a survey has found. Some teachers have even received death threats, a survey by the NASUWT, the largest teachers' union in the country, found.

In its second annual survey of teachers, more than a fifth (21%) of respondents reported having had adverse comments posted about them on social media sites and of those, 64% were from pupils, 27% were from parents and 9% by both pupils and parents. Abusive language is common accompanied by remarks about teachers' appearance, competence or sexuality. The overwhelming majority of comments were posted by secondary pupils mainly on Facebook.

One teacher about to go on maternity leave was told online by a parent: "My son will fail now because of you." Another discovered a Facebook page set up by a pupil claiming the teacher wanted to kill him. One pupil told a teacher via Twitter: "You are a paedo and your daughter is a whore."

Nearly 47% of teachers received insulting comments and 50% had a comment made about their performance. More than a quarter (26%) had videos/photos of them posted without consent. Of those teachers receiving abuse from parents, 57% received insulting comments and 63% had a comment made about their performance.

Those of whom reported abuse to their head, 40% of the teachers said that no action was taken against pupils and 55% said no action was taken against parents. Where abuse was reported to the police, over 77% said no action was taken against pupils and 76% said no action was taken against parents.

22.10 | 0 komentar | Read More

Now, you can control devices with tongue

LONDON: Researchers have developed a device that can be installed in a helmet and senses the wearer's tongue pressure through the cheek to control their smartphones. "The tongue is a well-developed muscle capable of fine-grain movements — so we thought it should be good for control interactions," said Japanese scientist Kai Kunze at Osaka Prefecture University.

"My personal motivation here was skiing. I like to check factors like my speed while on the slope, yet it's quite cumbersome to take out a smartphone and use a touchscreen in the cold," he said. A helmet with the built-in device could allow motorcyclists and skiers to control their personal technology.

The team strapped a pad with 64 pressure-sensing elements to the cheeks of six volunteers to mimic a sensor installed in a helmet. They asked them to try five tongue gestures: swipe up, swipe down, swipe left, swipe right and a pushy "click", 'New Scientist' reported. In 300 attempts, recognition accuracy was 98%, according to the study results presented at the Augmented Human conference in Kobe, Japan, last month.

Kunze is also working on putting the sensor in face masks worn to keep out flu, so people can control phones without touching them.

22.10 | 0 komentar | Read More

Liquid water on Mars more evident now

LONDON: Water could be flowing on the red planet more recently that previously thought, says a study.

"We have discovered a very young crater in the southern mid-latitudes of mars that shows evidence of liquid water in Mars in recent past," said Andreas Johnsson from University of Gothenburg in Sweden.

With crater statistics, the researchers determined the age of the crater to be approximately 200,000 years.

It implied that the crater was formed long after the most recent proposed ice age on mars, which ended around 400,000 years ago, said the study.

The crater contains very well-preserved gullies and debris flow deposits. The geomorphological attributes of these landforms provide evidence that they were formed by the action of liquid water in geologically recent time.

The researchers could compare the landforms on mars with known debris flows on Svalbard with the aid of aerial photography and field studies.

The debris flows on Mars provide evidence that liquid water has been present in the region.

"Our fieldwork on Svalbard confirmed our interpretation of the Martian deposits. What surprised us was that the crater in which these debris flows have formed is so young," said Johnsson.

22.10 | 0 komentar | Read More

Parents, pupils trolling teachers with abuses in UK

LONDON: Students and parents in the UK are using social media and other online forums to abuse teachers, a survey has found. Some teachers have even received death threats, a survey by the NASUWT, the largest teachers' union in the country, found.

In its second annual survey of teachers, more than a fifth (21%) of respondents reported having had adverse comments posted about them on social media sites and of those, 64% were from pupils, 27% were from parents and 9% by both pupils and parents. Abusive language is common accompanied by remarks about teachers' appearance, competence or sexuality. The overwhelming majority of comments were posted by secondary pupils mainly on Facebook.

One teacher about to go on maternity leave was told online by a parent: "My son will fail now because of you." Another discovered a Facebook page set up by a pupil claiming the teacher wanted to kill him. One pupil told a teacher via Twitter: "You are a paedo and your daughter is a whore."

Nearly 47% of teachers received insulting comments and 50% had a comment made about their performance. More than a quarter (26%) had videos/photos of them posted without consent. Of those teachers receiving abuse from parents, 57% received insulting comments and 63% had a comment made about their performance.

Those of whom reported abuse to their head, 40% of the teachers said that no action was taken against pupils and 55% said no action was taken against parents. Where abuse was reported to the police, over 77% said no action was taken against pupils and 76% said no action was taken against parents.

22.10 | 0 komentar | Read More

Asteroids hit Earth with force of nuclear blasts

LONDON: Findings released for the first time by the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organization — which operates a network of sensors that monitors Earth around the clock, listening for the infrasound signature of nuclear detonations — confirmed that between 2000 and 2013, 26 explosions on Earth's atmosphere were detected, ranging in energy from 1,600 kilotons — all caused by asteroid impacts.

To put it in perspective, the atomic bomb that destroyed Hiroshima in 1945, exploded with an energy impact of 15 kilotons. While most of these asteroids exploded too high in the atmosphere to do any serious damage on the ground, the evidence is important in estimating the frequency of a potential "city-killer-size" asteroid. The Earth is continuously colliding with fragments of asteroids, the largest in recent times exploding over Tunguska, Siberia in 1908 with an energy impact of 5-15 megatons.

More recently, scientists witnessed the 600-kiloton impact in Chelyabinsk, Russia in 2013 and asteroid impacts greater than 20 kilotons occurred in South Sulawesi, Indonesia in 2009, in the Southern Ocean in 2004, and in the Mediterranean Sea in 2002.

The data shows "that asteroid impacts are not rare—but actually 3-10 times more common than we previously thought," said Ed Lu, co-founder and chief executive of the B612 Foundation. None of these 26 potentially-catastrophic asteroids were picked up or noticed in advance by any space- or Earth-based observatory. Experts used the data to point out how random perilous asteroids can be and what kind of threat they are to Earth.

22.10 | 0 komentar | Read More

Now, you can control devices with tongue

LONDON: Researchers have developed a device that can be installed in a helmet and senses the wearer's tongue pressure through the cheek to control their smartphones. "The tongue is a well-developed muscle capable of fine-grain movements — so we thought it should be good for control interactions," said Japanese scientist Kai Kunze at Osaka Prefecture University.

"My personal motivation here was skiing. I like to check factors like my speed while on the slope, yet it's quite cumbersome to take out a smartphone and use a touchscreen in the cold," he said. A helmet with the built-in device could allow motorcyclists and skiers to control their personal technology.

The team strapped a pad with 64 pressure-sensing elements to the cheeks of six volunteers to mimic a sensor installed in a helmet. They asked them to try five tongue gestures: swipe up, swipe down, swipe left, swipe right and a pushy "click", 'New Scientist' reported. In 300 attempts, recognition accuracy was 98%, according to the study results presented at the Augmented Human conference in Kobe, Japan, last month.

Kunze is also working on putting the sensor in face masks worn to keep out flu, so people can control phones without touching them.

22.10 | 0 komentar | Read More

Parents, pupils trolling teachers with abuses in UK

LONDON: Students and parents in the UK are using social media and other online forums to abuse teachers, a survey has found. Some teachers have even received death threats, a survey by the NASUWT, the largest teachers' union in the country, found.

In its second annual survey of teachers, more than a fifth (21%) of respondents reported having had adverse comments posted about them on social media sites and of those, 64% were from pupils, 27% were from parents and 9% by both pupils and parents. Abusive language is common accompanied by remarks about teachers' appearance, competence or sexuality. The overwhelming majority of comments were posted by secondary pupils mainly on Facebook.

One teacher about to go on maternity leave was told online by a parent: "My son will fail now because of you." Another discovered a Facebook page set up by a pupil claiming the teacher wanted to kill him. One pupil told a teacher via Twitter: "You are a paedo and your daughter is a whore."

Nearly 47% of teachers received insulting comments and 50% had a comment made about their performance. More than a quarter (26%) had videos/photos of them posted without consent. Of those teachers receiving abuse from parents, 57% received insulting comments and 63% had a comment made about their performance.

Those of whom reported abuse to their head, 40% of the teachers said that no action was taken against pupils and 55% said no action was taken against parents. Where abuse was reported to the police, over 77% said no action was taken against pupils and 76% said no action was taken against parents.

22.10 | 0 komentar | Read More

Asteroids hit Earth with force of nuclear blasts

LONDON: Findings released for the first time by the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organization — which operates a network of sensors that monitors Earth around the clock, listening for the infrasound signature of nuclear detonations — confirmed that between 2000 and 2013, 26 explosions on Earth's atmosphere were detected, ranging in energy from 1,600 kilotons — all caused by asteroid impacts.

To put it in perspective, the atomic bomb that destroyed Hiroshima in 1945, exploded with an energy impact of 15 kilotons. While most of these asteroids exploded too high in the atmosphere to do any serious damage on the ground, the evidence is important in estimating the frequency of a potential "city-killer-size" asteroid. The Earth is continuously colliding with fragments of asteroids, the largest in recent times exploding over Tunguska, Siberia in 1908 with an energy impact of 5-15 megatons.

More recently, scientists witnessed the 600-kiloton impact in Chelyabinsk, Russia in 2013 and asteroid impacts greater than 20 kilotons occurred in South Sulawesi, Indonesia in 2009, in the Southern Ocean in 2004, and in the Mediterranean Sea in 2002.

The data shows "that asteroid impacts are not rare—but actually 3-10 times more common than we previously thought," said Ed Lu, co-founder and chief executive of the B612 Foundation. None of these 26 potentially-catastrophic asteroids were picked up or noticed in advance by any space- or Earth-based observatory. Experts used the data to point out how random perilous asteroids can be and what kind of threat they are to Earth.

22.10 | 0 komentar | Read More

Now, you can control devices with tongue

LONDON: Researchers have developed a device that can be installed in a helmet and senses the wearer's tongue pressure through the cheek to control their smartphones. "The tongue is a well-developed muscle capable of fine-grain movements — so we thought it should be good for control interactions," said Japanese scientist Kai Kunze at Osaka Prefecture University.

"My personal motivation here was skiing. I like to check factors like my speed while on the slope, yet it's quite cumbersome to take out a smartphone and use a touchscreen in the cold," he said. A helmet with the built-in device could allow motorcyclists and skiers to control their personal technology.

The team strapped a pad with 64 pressure-sensing elements to the cheeks of six volunteers to mimic a sensor installed in a helmet. They asked them to try five tongue gestures: swipe up, swipe down, swipe left, swipe right and a pushy "click", 'New Scientist' reported. In 300 attempts, recognition accuracy was 98%, according to the study results presented at the Augmented Human conference in Kobe, Japan, last month.

Kunze is also working on putting the sensor in face masks worn to keep out flu, so people can control phones without touching them.

22.10 | 0 komentar | Read More

Pentagon scientists show off life-size robot that resembles the 'Terminator'

WASHINGTON: US defense secretary Chuck Hagel got a first-hand look at a life-size robot that resembles Hollywood's "Terminator," the latest experiment by the Pentagon's hi-tech researchers.

But unlike the cinematic version, the hulking Atlas robot is designed not as a warrior but as a humanitarian machine that would rescue victims in the rubble of a natural disaster, officials said.

The 6-foot-2-inch Atlas is one of the entrants in a contest designed to produce a man-like life-saver machine, the brainchild of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).

The competition, which will require the bots to navigate rough terrain and enter buildings, was created in the aftermath of Japan's Fukushima quake and tsunami disasters.

DARPA, the Pentagon's research arm known for futuristic projects often evoking science fiction, showed off the Atlas robot to Hagel, but except for LED lighting, the humanoid was apparently switched off on a "static" display.

Brad Tousley, head of DARPA's Tactical Technology Office, told Hagel that Hollywood has created unrealistic expectations of what real robots can do.

Building robots that can climb ladders, open doors and carry objects requires daunting feats of engineering and computer science, he said.

Scientists also showed Hagel the latest technology for prosthetics, including a mechanical hand that responds to brain impulses and a prosthetic arm controlled by foot movements.

A wounded veteran who once worked with Hagel in the 1980s demonstrated one of the devices, giving the Pentagon chief a thumbs up with his prosthetic left arm.

"It's the first time in 45 years, since Vietnam, I'm able to use my left hand...," said Fred Downs, who lost his limb in a landmine explosion during the war.

He controlled the device using two accelerometers strapped to his feet, manipulating the elbow, wrist and fingers.

Hagel hugged Downs and shook his mechanical hand.

"He and I worked together many years ago," said Hagel, referring to a stint in the Veterans Administration during Ronald Reagan's presidency. "How you doing, Fred? How's your family?"

Hagel said the new technology would have a dramatic effect on the lives of wounded soldiers.

22.10 | 0 komentar | Read More

Scientists discover new mineral in Australia

MELBOURNE: Scientists have discovered a new mineral in Western Australia that is unique in structure and composition among the world's 4,000 known mineral species.

The mineral 'Putnisite' , described by a visiting research fellow at the University of Adelaide in Mineralogical Magazine, was found in a surface outcrop at Lake Cowan, north of Norseman in Western Australia. The new mineral occurs as tiny crystals, no more than 0.5 mm in diameter and is found on a volcanic rock. It appears as dark pink spots on dark green and white rock which, under the microscope, appears as square, cube-like crystals. It combines the elements strontium, calcium, chromium, sulphur, carbon, oxygen and hydrogen — a very unusual combination.

It has yet to be determined if the new mineral will have any practical use, researchers said. Putnisite has been named for Australian mineralogists Andrew and Christine Putnis.

22.10 | 0 komentar | Read More

Two black holes in death dance 2 billion light years away

NEW DELHI: Just by chance, the European space observatory XMM-Newton has discovered two supermassive black holes in one quiet galaxy 2 billion light years away, according to a paper to be published in the May 10 issue of the Astrophysical Journal. XMM-Newton usually looks at a fixed point for some time and then slews to the next fixed point. As it turns, scientists keep it on in case they happen to record something unusual. And, that is what happened - the observatory caught x-rays from a faraway galaxy.

There were some oddities in this observation. First, the x-rays originated from a quiet or ordinary galaxy, not from an active one. Second, an even more odd thing happened - the x-rays faded for about 21 days and then bounced back. All this left scientists scratching their heads in puzzlement.

Most massive galaxies in the universe have one supermassive black hole at their center. Two supermassive black holes are rare and indicate that the galaxy has merged with another. All double black hole galaxies that have been found till now are 'active', that is, they are constantly ripping gas clouds apart, in the prelude to crushing them out of existence. In the process of destruction, the gas is heated so much that it shines at many wavelengths, including X-rays. This gives the galaxy an unusually bright center, and leads to it being called active.

In this case the galaxy was not 'active' because there was no continuous x-ray stream coming out of it. In fact x-rays were dimming and brightening. According to lead author Fukun Liu from Peking University in China, this behavior can be explained by assuming that there are two black holes not one.

"This is exactly what you would expect from a pair of supermassive black holes orbiting one another," says Liu.

Liu suggests two possible configurations that would create this strange situation. In the first, the primary black hole contained 10 million solar masses and was orbited by a black hole of about a million solar masses in an elliptical orbit. In the second solution, the primary black hole was about a million solar masses in a circular orbit. In both cases, the separation between the black holes was relatively small: 0.6 milliparsec, or about 2 thousandths of a light-year. This is about the width of our solar system.

Being this close, the fate of this newly discovered black hole pair is sealed. They will radiate their orbital energy away, gradually spiraling together, until in about two million years time they will merge into a single black hole.

Now that astronomers have found this first candidate for a binary black hole in a quiescent galaxy, the search is inevitably on for more. XMM-Newton will continue its slew survey. This detection will also spur interest in a network of telescopes that search the whole sky for tidal disruption events.

"Once we have detected thousands of tidal disruption events, we can begin to extract reliable statistics about the rate at which galaxies merge," says Stefanie Komossa from the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy in Bonn, Germany.

22.10 | 0 komentar | Read More

Revealed: Scientists ‘edit’ DNA to correct adult genes and cure diseases

A genetic disease has been cured in living, adult animals for the first time using a revolutionary genome-editing technique that can make the smallest changes to the vast database of the DNA molecule with pinpoint accuracy.

Scientists have used the genome-editing technology to cure adult laboratory mice of an inherited liver disease by correcting a single "letter" of the genetic alphabet which had been mutated in a vital gene involved in liver metabolism.

A similar mutation in the same gene causes the equivalent inherited liver disease in humans - and the successful repair of the genetic defect in laboratory mice raises hopes that the first clinical trials on patients could begin within a few years, scientists said.

The success is the latest achievement in the field of genome editing. This has been transformed by the discovery of Crispr, a technology that allows scientists to make almost any DNA changes at precisely defined points on the chromosomes of animals or plants. Crispr — pronounced "crisper" — was initially discovered in 1987 as an immune defence used by bacteria against invading viruses. Its powerful genome-editing potential in higher animals, including humans, was only fully realised in 2012 and 2013 when scientists showed that it can be combined with a DNA-sniping enzyme called Cas9 and used to edit the human genome.Scientists have used the genome-editing technology to cure adult laboratory mice of an inherited liver disease by correcting a single "letter" of the genetic alphabet which had been mutated in a vital gene involved in liver metabolism.

A similar mutation in the same gene causes the equivalent inherited liver disease in humans - and the successful repair of the genetic defect in laboratory mice raises hopes that the first clinical trials on patients could begin within a few years, scientists said.

The success is the latest achievement in the field of genome editing. This has been transformed by the discovery of Crispr, a technology that allows scientists to make almost any DNA changes at precisely defined points on the chromosomes of animals or plants. Crispr — pronounced "crisper" — was initially discovered in 1987 as an immune defence used by bacteria against invading viruses. Its powerful genome-editing potential in higher animals, including humans, was only fully realised in 2012 and 2013 when scientists showed that it can be combined with a DNA-sniping enzyme called Cas9 and used to edit the human genome.

Since then there has been an explosion of interest in the technology because it is such a simple method of changing the individual letters of the human genome — the 3 billion "base pairs" of the DNA molecule — with an accuracy equivalent to correcting a single misspelt word in a 23-volume encyclopaedia.

In the latest study, scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) used Crispr to locate and correct the single mutated DNA base pair in a liver gene known as LAH, which can lead to a fatal build-up of the amino acid tyrosine in humans and has to be treated with drugs and a special diet.

The researchers effectively cured mice suffering from the disease by altering the genetic make-up of about a third of their liver cells using the Crispr technique, which was delivered by high-pressure intravenous injections.

"We basically showed you could use the Crispr system in an animal to cure a genetic disease, and the one we picked was a disease in the liver which is very similar to one found in humans," said Professor Daniel Anderson of MIT, who led the study.

"The disease is caused by a single point mutation and we showed that the Crispr system can be delivered in an adult animal and result in a cure. We think it's an important proof of principle that this technology can be applied to animals to cure disease," Professor Anderson told The Independent. "The fundamental advantage is that you are repairing the defect, you are actually correcting the DNA itself," he said. "What is exciting about this approach is that we can actually correct a defective gene in a living adult animal."

Jennifer Doudna, of the University of California, Berkeley, who was one of the co-discoverers of the Crispr technique, said Professor Anderson's study is a "fantastic advance" because it demonstrates that it is possible to cure adult animals living with a genetic disorder.

"Obviously there would be numerous hurdles before such an approach could be used in people, but the simplicity of the approach, and the fact that it worked, really are very exciting," Professor Doudna said.

"I think there will be a lot of progress made in the coming one to two years in using this approach for therapeutics and other real-world applications," she added.

Delivering Crispr safely and efficiently to affected human cells is seen as one of the biggest obstacles to its widespread use in medicine.

Feng Zhang, of the Broad Institute at MIT, said that high-pressure injections are probably too dangerous to be used clinically, which is why he is working on ways of using Crispr to correct genetic faults in human patients with the help of adeno-associated viruses, which are known to be harmless.

Other researchers are also working on viruses to carry the Crispr technology to diseased cells - similar viral delivery of genes has already had limited success in conventional gene therapy.

Dr Zhang said that Crispr can also be used to create better experimental models of human diseases by altering the genomes of experimental animals as well as human cells growing in the laboratory.

Professor Craig Mello of the University of Massachusetts Medical School said that delivering Crispr to the cells of the human brain and other vital organs will be difficult. "Crispr therapies will no doubt be limited for the foreseeable future," he said.

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New groundbreaking technique may help cure diseases by 'editing' DNA

WASHINGTON: Researchers have for the first time cured a genetic disease in animals by editing their DNA.

In the latest study, scientists at (MIT) used Crispr — a technology that allows researchers to make almost any DNA change at precisely defined points on the chromosomes of animals or plants — to locate and correct the single mutated DNA base pair in a liver gene known as LAH, which can lead to a fatal build-up of the amino acid tyrosine in humans and has to be treated with drugs and a special diet, the Independent reported.

The researchers cured mice suffering from the disease by altering the DNA of about a 3 per cent of their liver cells using the Crispr technique, delivered via high-pressure intravenous injections.

Delivering Crispr safely and efficiently to affected human cells is presently one of the biggest obstacles to lead to its widespread use in medicine.

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Toilet flushes may help power homes

SEOUL: Tired of erratic power-cuts at home? Flushing your toilet may help!

Scientists have developed a novel way to harness the motion of water, including from raindrops cascading down a window or from a toilet flush, as a sustainable energy source that can power homes.

Researcher Youn Sang Kim and colleagues at Seoul National University and Korea Electronics Technology Institute (KETI) have adapted a transducer to convert the mechanical energy from water motion into electrical energy.

When dielectric materials are in water, an electrical double layer forms around the outside of the material.

Variations between water and a poly (4 vinyl phenol) dielectric layer were shown to induce electric charges at an electrode, 'Chemistry World' reported.

Researchers demonstrated that the motion from a 30 micro-litres water droplet in such a system was able to generate enough electricity to power a green light-emitting diode (LED).

"Using the energy harvesters based on this novel concept, we demonstrated the wide applicability toward natural water's motions, such as rain, rivers, and even sea waves as well," researchers said in an abstract in the journal Energy & Environmental Science.

"We believe that they can substantially inspire for new energy harvesting technology form ambient energy sources," they said.

The technology could also be used on surfaces outside of homes alongside solar and wind power-generating components.

"We hope our work can be applied to everyday life," said Kim.

This is a realistic possibility as the electrodes are flexible and transparent so could coat windows, roofs and even toilet bowls, to generate electricity from raindrops and water flow, the report said.

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In a first, stem cells cloned from human skin

NEW YORK: In a major breakthrough, scientists have for the first time grown stem cells from a man's skin using cloning techniques.

While the advancement could reopen the debate over ethics of human cloning, it could also lead to development of tissue in a lab that could be used for treating a wide range of adult diseases, including Alzheimer's.

Scientists cloned a mammal, Dolly the sheep for the first time in 1996.

"What we show for the first time is that you can actually take skin cells, from a middle-aged 35-year-old male, but also from an elderly, 75-year-old male" and use the DNA to create tissue with cells of an exact match, said Robert Lanza, a professor at Wake Forest University School of Medicine.

"I am happy to hear that our experiment was verified and shown to be genuine," said Shoukhrat Mitalipov, a development biologist at Oregon Health and Science University in the US.

Starting with a quality human egg is key to the cloning process, confirmed the study.

The researchers replaced the original DNA in an unfertilised egg with the donor DNA, and then cultured the cells in a lab dish.

They found that the stem cells were an exact match to the donor's DNA and therefore they could then be turned into various tissue types.

"In theory, you could use those stem cells to produce almost any kind of cell and give it back to a person as a therapy," Paul Knoepfler, associate professor at the University of California at Davis was quoted as saying.

The study appeared in the journal Cell Stem Cell.

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Nasa man, vital to 1969 lunar landing, dies at 95

SCABOROUGH: John C Houbolt, an engineer whose contributions to the US space programme were vital to Nasa's successful Moon landing in 1969, has died. He was 95.

Houbolt died on Tuesday at a nursing home in Maine of complications from Parkinson's disease, his son-in-law confirmed on Saturday.

As Nasa describes on its website, while under pressure during the US-Soviet space race, Houbolt was the catalyst in securing US commitment to the science and engineering theory that eventually carried the Apollo crew to the moon and back safely.

His efforts in the early 1960s are largely credited with convincing Nasa to focus on the launch of a module carrying a crew from lunar orbit, rather than a rocket from Earth or a spacecraft while orbiting the planet.

Houbolt felt a lunar orbit rendezvous would not only be less mechanically and financially onerous than building a rocket, but it also was the only option to meet President Kennedy's challenge before the end of the decade.

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No direct evidence of link between cellphone radiation and cancer: Oncologist

NEW DELHI: The preponderance of evidence shows that there is no link between cellphone radiation and cancer, said oncologist and renowned author Siddhartha Mukherjee.

"I would have suggested to WHO to downgrade cellphones in the list of carcinogens but there is a process to that," Mukherjee said in a media interaction at the India International Centre here on Monday.

"There are large studies which are pending, but we have to be scientifically accurate. There is no direct evidence but that does not mean that we stop investigating," he added.

Carcinogens are cancer causing substances.

The author further said that the landscape of cancer treatment has transformed over the years, and that there would be a transformation in all cancers and their treatments.

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SpaceX making Easter delivery of station supplies

CAPE CANAVERAL: A SpaceX supply ship rocketed toward the International Space Station on Friday, setting the stage for an Easter morning delivery and urgent spacewalking repairs later in the week.

Following its midday launch through cloudy skies, the Dragon cargo carrier was shown drifting away in the blackness of space, against the blue backdrop of Earth.

It's transporting 2 tons of goods, including a new spacesuit, spacesuit replacement parts, much-needed food, legs for Nasa's humanoid, Robonaut, a bevy of mating flies, and germs gathered from sports arenas and historic sites across the US.

Neither Nasa nor SpaceX packed any Easter goodies, but the families of the six astronauts sent private care packages.

"It will be a surprise for all of us when they open the hatch," said Nasa's human exploration chief, Bill Gerstenmaier.

The Dragon will reach the orbiting lab on Sunday morning. That pushes urgent spacewalking repairs to Wednesday; Nasa wants a bad backup computer replaced before something else breaks.

This was the second launch attempt this week for SpaceX after a month's delay.

On Monday, Nasa's commercial supplier was foiled by a leaky rocket valve. The valve was replaced, and the company aimed for a Friday liftoff despite a dismal forecast. Storms cleared out of Cape Canaveral just in time.

SpaceX's billionaire chief executive officer, Elon Musk, was delighted with the successful launch for Nasa, the customer. "This was a happy day," he told reporters from company headquarters in Hawthorne, California.

Last Friday, a critical backup computer failed outside the space station, and Nasa considered postponing the SpaceX flight. The primary computer is working fine, but numerous systems would be seriously compromised if it broke, too. A double failure also would hinder visits by the Dragon and other vessels.

"It's imperative that we maintain" backups for these external command-routing computer boxes, also called multiplexer-demultiplexers, or MDMs, said flight director Brian Smith said Friday. "Right now, we don't have that."

Nasa decided late this week to use the gasket-like material already on board the space station for the repair, instead of waiting for the Dragon and the new, precision-cut material that Nasa rushed on board for the computer swap. Astronauts trimmed their own thermal material Friday to fit the bottom of the replacement computer, and inserted a fresh circuit card.

The space station's crew watched the launch via a live TV hookup; the outpost was soaring 260 miles (418 kilometers) above Turkey at the time of ignition. Video beamed down from Dragon showed the solar wings unfurling.

The shipment is close to five weeks late. Initially set for mid-March, the launch was delayed by extra prepping, then damage to an Air Force radar and, finally on Monday, the rocket leak.

Earlier, as the countdown entered its final few hours, Nasa's space station program manager Mike Suffredini said an investigation continues into the reason for last summer's spacesuit failure. The helmet worn by an Italian astronaut filled with water from the suit's cooling system, and he nearly drowned during a spacewalk.

Routine US spacewalks are on hold until engineers are certain what caused the water leak. The upcoming spacewalk by the two Americans on board is considered an exception because of its urgent nature; it will include no unnecessary tasks, just the 2-hour computer swap.

Nasa is paying SpaceX — Space Exploration Technologies Corp — and Virginia's Orbital Sciences Corp. to keep the orbiting lab well stocked. It was SpaceX's fourth trip to the space station. Russia, Japan and Europe also make periodic deliveries.

Unlike the other cargo carriers, the Dragon can bring items back for analysis.

Among the science samples going up on the Dragon and slated to return with it in a month: 200 fruit flies and their expected progeny, and germs collected from stadiums and sports arenas, as well as such notables as America's Liberty Bell and Sue, the T. rex fossil skeleton at Chicago's Field Museum.

Scientists will study the hearts of the returning flies — as many as 3,000 are expected for the trip home. The germ samples, once back on Earth, will be compared with duplicate cultures on the ground.

Staying up there — for as long as the space station lives — will be new legs for Nasa's humanoid, Robonaut. The indoor robot has been in orbit for three years, but only from the waist up.

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Earth’s twin where life can exist found

LONDON: Earth's twin - a habitable planet with its own atmosphere and solid surface where liquid water and possibly life can exist has been found outside our solar system.

The new planet, dubbed Kepler-186f, was discovered using Nasa's Kepler telescope launched in March 2009 to search for a habitable zone, earth-sized planets in our corner of the Milky Way galaxy.

A habitable zone planet orbits its star at a distance where any water on the planet's surface is likely to stay liquid. Since liquid water is critical to life on earth, many astronomers believe the search for extra-terrestrial life should focus on planets where liquid water occurs.

Around 1.11 times the radius of the earth, Kepler-186f is part of a multi-planet system around the star Kepler-186 which has five planets, one of which is in the centre of the habitable zone. While there have been other discoveries of earth-sized and smaller planets, those planets have been found in orbits that are too close to their host stars for water to exist in liquid form. Findings taken from three years of data show that the intensity and spectrum of radiation from Kepler-186f indicate that the planet could have an earth-like atmosphere and water at its surface which is likely to be in liquid form.

Kepler-186 is a dwarf star, much smaller and cooler than the Sun. These stars are numerous in our galaxy and have some features that make them promising places to look for life.

On the other hand, small stars tend to be more active than stars the size of our sun, sending out more solar flares and potentially more radiation toward a planet's surface.

"What makes this finding particularly compelling is that this Earth-sized planet, one of five orbiting this star, which is cooler than the Sun, resides in a temperate region where water could exist in liquid form," says Elisa Quintana of the SETI Institute and NASA Ames Research Centre.

San Francisco State University astronomer Stephen Kane and an international team of researchers announced the discovery on Friday.

"Some people call these habitable planets, which of course we have no idea if they are," said Kane. "We simply know that they are in the habitable zone, and that is the best place to start looking for habitable planets".

Notre Dame astro-physicist Justin R Crepp said "Kepler 186 is an M1-type dwarf star which means it will burn hydrogen forever, so there is ample opportunity to develop life around this particular star and because it has just the right orbital period water may exist in a liquid phase on this planet".

Crepp is building an instrument at Notre Dame named named "iLocater" that will be the first ultra-precise Doppler spectrometer to be fibre-fed and operated behind an adaptive optics system. His instrument, to be installed at the Large Binocular Telescope in Arizona, will identify terrestrial planets orbiting in the habitable zone of nearby M-dwarf stars, much closer to the Sun than Kepler-186, by achieving unprecedented radial velocity precision at near-infrared wavelengths.

After the astronomers were able to confirm that Kepler-186f was a planet, they used the transit information to calculate the planet's size. Kepler-186f is slightly bigger than Earth but the researchers are yet to know about its mass.

Kane said "Having the mass and radii of a planet allows the astronomers to calculate other features such as a planet's average density which can help say whether it's rocky or not. What happens there is that for radii between 1.5 and 2 Earth radii, the planet becomes massive enough that it starts to accumulate a very thick hydrogen and helium atmosphere, so it starts to resemble the gas giants of our solar system rather than anything else that we see as terrestrial".

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'Smart' device that engineers cells to kill cancer

NEW YORK: In a path-breaking discovery, biologists have created a new technology for modifying human cells to create therapeutics that could travel the body and selectively target and kill cancer cells without disrupting healthy cells.

This device is a protein biosensor that sits on the surface of a cell and can be programmed to sense specific external factors.

After detecting these factors, the device sends a signal into the engineered cell's nucleus to activate a gene expression programme.

"Till date, there was no way to engineer cells in a manner that allowed them to sense key pieces of information about their environment, which could indicate whether the engineered cell is in healthy tissue or sitting next to a tumour," explained Joshua Leonard, an assistant professor at Northwestern University's McCormick school of engineering and applied science.

For example, the engineered cell could detect big, soluble protein molecules that indicate that it is next to a tumour.

"Since this toxic programme would be activated only near tumour cells, such an approach could minimise side effects as well as improve therapeutic benefits," Leonard added.

The biosensor platform is highly modular, enabling the biosensors to be customised to recognise factors of relevance to various patients' needs.

"In that way, you could programme a cell-based therapy to specify which cells it should kill," Leonard added.

Doctors could potentially collect immune cells from a patient's body, engineer the cells using the biosensor platform and put them back into the patient.

"From there, the cells would do the work of detecting cancer or the disease they are designed to identify," the researchers added.

The study has been published in the journal ACS Synthetic Biology.

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Do you snuggle up in bed with your partner while you sleep?

LONDON: Snuggling up with your partner in bed has now been found to be a major relationship indicator among couples.

A study has found that an overwhelming majority (86%) of couples who slept less than an inch away from each other were happier with their relationship compared with two-thirds (66%) who slept more than 30 inches apart.

Research carried out at the Edinburgh International Science Festival has discovered what people's preferred sleeping position reveals about their relationships and personality.

The work, carried out by University of Hertfordshire psychologist Professor Richard Wiseman, involved asking over 1000 people to describe their preferred sleeping position and to rate their personality and quality of their relationship.

The research revealed the most popular sleep positions for couples, with 42% sleeping back to back, 31% sleeping facing the same direction and just 4% spending the night facing one another.

In addition, 12% of couples spend the night less than an inch apart whilst 2% sleep over 30 inches apart.

Professor Wiseman commented "One of the most important differences involved touching, with 94% of couples who spent the night in contact with one another were happy with their relationship, compared to just 68% of those that didn't touch".

In addition, the further apart the couple spent the night, the worse their relationship, with 86% of those who slept less than an inch apart from their partner being happy with their relationship, compared to only 66% of those who slept more than 30 inches apart.

The work also revealed that extroverts tended to spend the night close to their partners, and more creative types tended to sleep on their left hand side.

Professor Wiseman noted "This is the first survey to examine couples' sleeping positions, and the results allow people to gain an insight into someone's personality and relationship by simply asking them about their favourite sleeping position".

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Digital legacy to be a part of your will

LONDON: Leaving behind everything for your children? Don't forget your digital legacy.

Britons may soon include their email, social networking and online account ids with their passwords in their will.

The Law Society of England and Wales has now come up with a new and interesting advisory for those writing their will - don't forget your digital legacy.

People have been asked to leave clear instructions about what should happen to their social media, computer games and other online accounts after their death, according to the Law Society.

Having a list of all your online accounts, such as email, banking, investments and social networking sites will make it easier for family members to piece together your digital legacy, adhere to your wishes and could save time and money.

Not making your digital legacy clear could mean important or sentimental material- such as photographs on social networks - is never recovered.

Digital assets can also include music, films, email accounts and computer game characters.

Gary Rycroft, a member of the Law Society Wills and Equity Committee, said people should not assume family members know where to look online and to make details of their digital life absolutely clear.

Rycroft said "If you have a Twitter account, your family may want it deactivated and- if you have left clear instructions - it will be easier for your executors to have it closed. If you have an online bank account, your executors will be able to close it down and claim the money on behalf of your estate. This is recognized in the Law Society's Wills and Inheritance Quality Scheme Protocol, which recommends completion and maintenance of a Personal Assets Log, including digital assets and consideration of how to ensure that those dealing with the estate will be able to access those assets," Law Society president Nicholas Fluck said "As technology has evolved, so has the way we store information. Simple things such as photographs, which in the past we could have flicked through in a printed album, are now stored online. By making our wishes clear now, it will be easier for loved ones to recover pictures to cherish and will help with the more practical issues such as online bank accounts".

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Stroke recovery chances step up with exercise, expert advises

NEW DELHI: Regular exercise can speed recovery for stroke survivors and may reduce their risk of having another stroke, according to a leading academic.

The advice from an expert in stroke medicine contrasts with commonly held fears that exercise may trigger a further stroke.

Professor Gillian Mead has been researching the benefits of exercise on stroke recovery for more than 10 years. She will be speaking about her research at a public event this week as part of the Edinburgh International Science Festival.

People who have been physically active before their stroke are more likely to make a good recovery but less is known about how exercise can affect recovery after a stroke.

Her findings reveal that a structured physical training plan — including aerobic, strength and balance training — can help stroke survivors to become more mobile, improve their balance and reduce their disability.

Mead is currently investigating whether breaking up long periods of sitting or lying — so-called 'sedentary' behaviour — with short periods of movement might help to bring down the risk of having another stroke.

One in six people in Scotland will have a stroke in their lifetime and survivors can be left with varying degrees of disability. More than half of all people who survive a stroke require support to live independently.

Doctors in Edinburgh are now working with professional fitness trainers to integrate specialized exercise programs into mainstream care for stroke patients.

Mead said: "We're working with fitness experts to determine the best 'exercise prescription' for stroke survivors. It's also important that we understand more about the factors that put patients off from taking part in exercise programs, and how we can motivate them to take advantage of the benefits."

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Nasa images suggest that the planet is about to ‘give birth’ to a new moon

LONDON: New images from Nasa's Cassini-Huygens space probe suggest that Saturn may be in the process of forming a new moon, which has already been affectionately named by scientists as "Peggy".

The tiny, icy satellite has not been spotted directly, but a bulge in Saturn's A Ring — the brightest and outermost ring — suggests that the new arrival could soon join Saturn's already impressive family of 62 moons.

"We have not seen anything like this before," said astronomer Carl Murray, lead author of a study in Icarus which outlined the findings and the discoverer of the moon. "We may be looking at the act of birth, where this object is leaving the rings and heading off to be a moon in its own right."

Saturn's rings are comprised almost entirely of ice with a trace amount of rocky material and stretch from 7,000km to 80,000km above the surface of Saturn's equator with a thickness varying from 10 metres to 1 kilometre.

The rings are not solid, but are made up of countless individual fragments ranging in size from particles as small as a grain of sand to boulder-like lumps metres across. It's thought that the rings act as a galactic nursery for the planet's many moons, with material gradually clumping together in orbit until it gathers enough momentum to separate.

"The theory holds that Saturn long ago had a much more massive ring system capable of giving birth to larger moons," Murray said. "As the moons formed near the edge, they depleted the rings and evolved, so the ones that formed earliest are the largest and the farthest out."

The largest of Saturn's moons is Titan with a diameter of more than 5,000km and a mass nearly double that of our Moon. If Peggy does eventually grow up enough to leave home it would be tiny in comparison, perhaps only 0.5 miles in diameter.

Although many of Saturn's satellites eventually take on orbits many thousands of miles away from the planet, others stay closer to home, sculpting the rings by either collecting stray matter to sharpen their edges or carving out thin gaps like someone a giant snowball rolled through a snowy field.

However, Peggy's diminutive size suggests that Saturn's satellite-bearing days may soon be over, with each successive moon appearing smaller than the last as the supply of potentially moon-forming material is depleted.

"The object is not expected to grow any larger, and may even be falling apart," said Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

"But the process of its formation and outward movement aids in our understanding of how Saturn's icy moons, including the cloud-wrapped Titan and ocean-holding Enceladus, may have formed in more massive rings long ago."

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Nasa images suggest that Saturn is about to ‘give birth’ to a new moon

LONDON: New images from Nasa's Cassini-Huygens space probe suggest that Saturn may be in the process of forming a new moon, which has already been affectionately named by scientists as "Peggy".

The tiny, icy satellite has not been spotted directly, but a bulge in Saturn's A Ring — the brightest and outermost ring — suggests that the new arrival could soon join Saturn's already impressive family of 62 moons.

"We have not seen anything like this before," said astronomer Carl Murray, lead author of a study in Icarus which outlined the findings and the discoverer of the moon. "We may be looking at the act of birth, where this object is leaving the rings and heading off to be a moon in its own right."

Saturn's rings are comprised almost entirely of ice with a trace amount of rocky material and stretch from 7,000km to 80,000km above the surface of Saturn's equator with a thickness varying from 10 metres to 1 kilometre.

The rings are not solid, but are made up of countless individual fragments ranging in size from particles as small as a grain of sand to boulder-like lumps metres across. It's thought that the rings act as a galactic nursery for the planet's many moons, with material gradually clumping together in orbit until it gathers enough momentum to separate.

"The theory holds that Saturn long ago had a much more massive ring system capable of giving birth to larger moons," Murray said. "As the moons formed near the edge, they depleted the rings and evolved, so the ones that formed earliest are the largest and the farthest out."

The largest of Saturn's moons is Titan with a diameter of more than 5,000km and a mass nearly double that of our Moon. If Peggy does eventually grow up enough to leave home it would be tiny in comparison, perhaps only 0.5 miles in diameter.

Although many of Saturn's satellites eventually take on orbits many thousands of miles away from the planet, others stay closer to home, sculpting the rings by either collecting stray matter to sharpen their edges or carving out thin gaps like someone a giant snowball rolled through a snowy field.

However, Peggy's diminutive size suggests that Saturn's satellite-bearing days may soon be over, with each successive moon appearing smaller than the last as the supply of potentially moon-forming material is depleted.

"The object is not expected to grow any larger, and may even be falling apart," said Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

"But the process of its formation and outward movement aids in our understanding of how Saturn's icy moons, including the cloud-wrapped Titan and ocean-holding Enceladus, may have formed in more massive rings long ago."

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Genetic therapy may repair spinal chord: Study

LONDON: Damage to the central nervous system, the brain and spinal cord, is currently irreparable. But this may change soon as researchers have now discovered that genetic and chemical treatment could help regenerate damaged nerves.

Future therapies could help repair nerve damage after people suffer spinal cord injury or brain trauma, said the study.

"Due to the complexity of the structure of the central nervous system, regrowth leads most often to incorrect rewiring, such as pain," said Simone Di Giovanni, a neuroscientist and neurologist from Imperial College London.

"The peripheral nervous system is much more simple and has effective, although partial, regeneration," noted the researchers.

Most spinal cord injuries are caused by damage to axons, the long extensions of neurons that send messages around inside the nervous system, the study pointed out.

The researchers found that when nerves are damaged in the peripheral nervous system, they emit signals to switch on a program to initiate nerve growth.

This program is "epigenetic", meaning that it can activate or deactivate genes without altering DNA.

They also identified a protein, called P300/CBP— associated factor (PCAF), as being central to initiating nerve regrowth.

The researchers found that when this protein was injected into mice that had damage to their central nervous system, it significantly increased the number of nerve fibers that grew back.

"This work opens an exciting new field of investigation, placing epigenetic regulation as a new, very promising tool to promote regeneration and recovery after spinal injury," Di Giovanni told Live Science.

The study appeared in the journal Nature Communications.

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Parts of the world see 'blood Moon' in total lunar eclipse

CAPE CANAVERAL: Parts of the world saw a rare celestial event on Tuesday when the Earth's shadow fell across the Moon, turning it orange.

The lunar eclipse unfolded over three hours beginning at about 2am EDT, when the moon began moving into Earth's shadow. A little more than an hour later, the Moon could be seen eclipsed and bathed in an orange, red or brown glow.

Depending on local weather conditions, the eclipse was visible across a swathe of the United States.

Viewers from Florida to California and beyond went to viewing parties and social media and other websites to gawk and share photos of the so-called "blood moon".

A small crowd of stargazers who gathered on a roadside north of Los Angeles saw a sliver of still-illuminated moon and a reddish shadow cast across the lunar orb.

Others who were not so lucky took to Twitter to complain about cloud cover in New Jersey and Pittsburgh. An image of rain-streaked windows under impenetrable Atlanta skies could be seen. In the Pacific Northwest city of Seattle the skies were equally overcast.

The eclipse also was visible from Australia, New Zealand and all of the Americas.

Precise coloring depends primarily on the amount of volcanic ash and other aerosols floating in the atmosphere, SpaceWeather.com reports.

The celestial show was over by over by 5:30am EDT (0930 GMT), Nasa said on Twitter.

Eclipses occur two or three times per year when the sun, Earth and the full Moon line up so that the Moon passes through Earth's shadow.

Tuesday's eclipse will be the last full lunar eclipse visible from the United States until 2019, Nasa said.

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A Chinese company 3D printed 10 houses in a day

There's a lot you can do with a 3D printer. Now add "building a house in a day" to the list.

Make that 10 houses.

The WinSun Decoration Design Engineering Co. has printed 10 homes in 24 hours out of recycled materials.

This isn't the first attempt at 3D printing large structures in a short amount of time. Researchers in California are making a printer that can build a house in 24 hours.

In Amsterdam earlier this month, construction of a 3D-printed house began. The house is made out of plastic bricks that fit together like Lego. It's also being printed onsite.

The Chinese houses, on the other hand, weren't built onsite. They were printed in pieces and then put together in Shanghai's Qingpu district.

The pieces are made using recycled construction materials and industrial waste to form a concrete aggregate, Gizmodo reports. The 3D printer used to build the houses is 500 feet long, 33 feet wide and 20 feet high. Each home costs around $4,800.

"We purchased parts for the printer overseas, and assembled the machine in a factory in Suzhou," the company's CEO, Ma Yihe, told 3ders. "Such a new type of 3D-printed structure is environment-friendly and cost-effective."

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Saturn's rotation period revealed?

LONDON: In a thrilling revelation, scientists have ascertained the rotation period of the enigmatic hexagon-shaped structure in Saturn's uppermost clouds surrounding its north pole.

And the rotation period of the hexagon could be that of the planet itself, said the researchers.

Saturn is the only planet in the solar system whose rotation period is not yet known.

"The movement of the hexagon could be linked to the depths of Saturn, and the rotation period of this structure, which, as we have been able to ascertain, is 10 hours, 39 minutes and 23 seconds, could be that of the planet itself," said Agustan Sanchez-Lavega, head of the planetary sciences group at the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU) in Spain.

Researchers in the UPV/EHU's planetary sciences group, in collaboration with astronomers from various countries, observed Saturn's northern polar region in detail and confirmed that the hexagon continued in place.

Nasa's Voyager 1 and 2 space probes that passed for the first time over the planet Saturn in 1980 and 1981, discovered the hexagon-shaped structure in the planet's uppermost clouds.

After measuring the positions of the hexagon vertices with great precision, the researchers in the UPV/EHU's planetary sciences group determined that its movement remains extremely stable, and on the basis of the cloud movements, that the jet stream inside it remains unchanged.

For this study, the researchers used images taken from the Earth between 2008 and 2014; they used, among others, the astronomical cameras PlanetCam (developed by the Planetary Sciences Group itself) and Astralux, fitted to the telescopes of the Calar Alto Observatory in Almeraa (Spain).

They used the very high resolution images obtained by the Cassini spacecraft, which has been orbiting Saturn since 2004.

The UPV/EHU researchers suggest that the hexagon and its stream are the manifestation of a "Rossby wave" similar to those that form in the mid-latitudes of the earth.

On Saturn, "the hexagonal wavy motion of the jet stream is expected to be propagated vertically and reveal to us aspects of the planet's hidden atmosphere", Sanchez-Lavega pointed out.

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Ancient Mars not warm enough for liquid water: Study

NEW YORK: Evidence suggest that Mars was wet, but it was probably not consistently warm enough for making the water flow, a thrilling study reveals.

Signs of flowing water on Mars include layered sediments presumed to have been laid down in ancient lakes, as well as rugged canyons and lowlands apparently sculpted by massive floods.

These prompted researchers to suggest that the red planet, now frigid and dry, was warm and wet throughout its early history.

But that would have required an atmosphere much thicker than today's, a prospect that now seems unlikely, said Edwin Kite, a planetary scientist at Princeton University in the US.

The evidence against the idea that ancient Mars held a thick atmosphere for more than a few millennia at a time lies in the sizes of the planet's craters, said the researchers.

If Mars had once possessed a denser atmosphere, they said, small objects would have broken up as they passed through it, as they do in Earth's atmosphere, rather than surviving largely intact to blast craters.

The researchers used images from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, to catalogue more than 300 craters pockmarking an 84,000 sq km area near the planet's equator.

"It's not the size of the smallest craters, but the size distribution of the entire population that's important," Kite said.

"The thickness of the atmosphere was less than one-third what some teams say would be needed to consistently keep Mars' surface above freezing," said Sanjoy Som, an astrobiologist with the Blue Marble Space Institute of Science in the US.

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Stem cells grown on 'soft carpets' function better

NEW YORK: The fluffiness of the medium of which human embryonic stem cells are growing affects the type of specialised cells they eventually become, a study has shown.

The researchers coaxed human embryonic stem cells to turn into working spinal cord cells more efficiently by growing the cells on a soft, ultra fine carpet made of a key ingredient in Silly Putty.

"To realise promising clinical applications of human embryonic stem cells, we need a better culture system that can reliably produce more target cells that function well," said Jianping Fu, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering at University of Michigan.

"Our approach is a big step in that direction, by using synthetic micro-engineered surfaces to control mechanical environmental signals," he added.

This research is the first to directly link physical, as opposed to chemical, signals to human embryonic stem cell differentiation.

Differentiation is the process of the source cells morphing into the body's more than 200 cell types that become muscle, bone, nerves and organs.

Fu said the findings raise the possibility of a more efficient way to guide stem cells to differentiate and potentially provide therapies for diseases such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (Lou Gehrig's disease), Huntington's or Alzheimer's.

In the specially engineered growth system - the 'carpets' Fu and his colleagues designed - microscopic posts of the Silly Putty component polydimethylsiloxane serve as the threads.

The team found that stem cells they grew on softer carpets turned into nerve cells much faster and more often than those they grew on stiffer surfaces.

After 23 days, the colonies of spinal cord cells that grew on the softer micropost carpets were four times more pure and 10 times larger than those growing on either traditional plates or rigid carpets.

The researchers verified that the new motor neurons they obtained on soft micropost carpets showed electrical behaviours comparable to those of neurons in the human body.

"This is extremely exciting," Fu said.

Researchers believe stem cell therapies might help patients grow new nerve cells.

The study was published online in Nature Materials.

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Regular exercise can extend a person’s lifespan: Study

TORONTO: Exercising regularly may not only improve the quality of life but also extend a person's lifespan by up to five years, a new research suggests.

According to Canadian sports medicine physician Mark Tarnopolsky, regular exercise can slow the speed at which humans age.

The research suggests that older adults receive the most benefits when combining endurance exercise with resistance exercise.

Tarnopolsky is a professor and division head of Neuromuscular and Neurometabolic Disorders in the department of pediatrics at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario.

His clinical research focuses predominately on therapies for mitochondrial cytopathies; however, his group is also involved in clinical trials in Duchenne muscular dystrophy, Friedreich's ataxia and Pompe disease.

The study was presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Medical Society for Sports Medicine (AMSSM) in New Orleans, US.

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Hear smart

Smart digital hearing aids are transforming the way people with impairments hear. They have noise reduction and pair with smartphone apps to let users take calls, stream video

Tuheen Chakraborty, a tabla player with the band Indian Ocean, suffered partial hearing loss in a car crash in 1999. But when he is up on stage he never trips up on the taal or misses a note. What allows him this near normal connect to the aural world is the smart digital hearing aid he switched to recently. It can be remotely connected to electronic equipment - such as speakers and mobile phones - and filters out ambient noise so that he can hear clearly.

Like Chakraborty, a growing number of people with mild to severe hearing loss are turning to smart hearing devices. Unlike simple digital aids which have been around for a while, the new advanced aids can be remotely connected to public announcement systems or microphones and receive data streamed through apps. Some of the models even enable the user to hear normally in very noisy settings like a cricket match, a crowded restaurant or a concert hall.

Leading the pack of sophisticated listening devices are GN ReSound's Linx and Starkey's Halo. These aids, launched earlier this year, can be integrated with Apple's iOS products, like iPhone and iPad. These smart, and very small, hearing aids are integrated with your iPhone via an interactive app, which streams audio data like conversations and music to the phone and allows the user to adjust the volume, treble and bass. Both these aids are now available in India in addition to models from other leading brands like Widex and Siemens. Hearing aid users can also download smart hearing apps like RealClarity, Aud1 and EarMachine, for Rs 250 to Rs 300 from the internet.

Digital technology has radically transformed the soundscape for the hearing-impaired who earlier had to rely only on analog aids. They were boxy, unsightly contraptions which helped one hear but had problems like an echo, a lag and in crowded situations, one had to struggle to make sense of the muddled medley of noises.

"Smart digital devices amplify only those sound frequencies which the wearer cannot hear clearly. On the other hand, people who use analog aids always complain that they hear the ceiling fan just as loudly as the voice of the person talking to t h e m , " s ay s D r Someshwar Singh, a Delhi-based consultant ENT surgeon. He says he prescribes 20-30 of these sleeker, smarter digital hearing aids in a month. Brigadier Sivinder Singh, a retired army officer, uses Starkey Surflink, a Bluetooth-like device, which connects his Starkey hearing aid with his android phone. "When my phone rings, Surflink via an app on my phone transmits the sound directly to my hearing aid. Nobody else hears it ringing," says Singh whose hearing was impacted from exposure to deafening artillery sounds.

Wireless accessories, like Surflink, transmit sound via FM spectrum or Bluetooth platform to digital hearing aids placed either inside or behind the ear. These accessories connect the hearing aid to a number of electronic gadgets - FM radio, TV, mobile phones, cordless phones etc. With Siemens' ePen, users can change the volume, flip programmes or turn the aid off and on. GN Resound's Remote Control 2 has a bigger display so that the user doesn't fumble while adjusting the controls.

Smart hearing aids, however, are expensive. A good quality aid starts at Rs 30,000 and can go up to as much as Rs 2 lakh and more. The analog variants only cost between Rs 500 and Rs 2,000. The cost factor forces most hearing-impaired - currently 6% of India's population - to opt for analog devices.

In government-run schools, for instance, hearing impaired students are provided free analog aids but with uniform calibration. "They are of little use because every child has a different degree of hearing loss," says Devangi Dalal who runs Josh, a Mumbai-based NGO which works with hearing impaired children.

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Nasa to grow lettuce in space

WASHINGTON: Astronauts will now turn into cosmic gardeners and grow lettuce in space as Nasa is all set to send the largest ever plant growth chamber to the International Space Station (ISS).

The US space agency will launch the Vegetable Production System (VEGGIE) aboard SpaceX's Dragon capsule on Monday.

The plant growth chamber will grow lettuce inside prototype flight pillows that will help the plants withstand zero gravity, 'The Verge' reported.

Red, blue, and green light emitting diodes (LEDs) will help sustain the vegetables, and the plant chamber itself can grow to 11.5 inches wide and 14.5 inches deep, Nasa said.

This will be "the largest plant growth chamber for space to date," according to Nasa payload scientist Gioia Massa.

The project was originally slated to launch late last year, but faced delays meant to ensure all safety precautions were taken, the report said.

It is now hoped that the chamber will eventually be used to grow a wider variety of vegetables, and even be used for recreational gardening, the report said.

The chamber may even be used for more ambitious projects, like providing food for the average person back on Earth.

After extensive testing on weightless horticulture, Nasa is confident the lack of gravity will not impede growth.

However, space-borne microbes that may develop during growth are a cause of concern.

Therefore, the lettuce will undergo extensive testing before astronauts chow down.

In case the programme is a success, it could be easily scaled up to provide a lasting supplement to the ISS food supply.

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Mars has a volcanic 'heart'!

WASHINGTON: After the discovery of "Australia" by Nasa's Curiosity Rover, scientists have now located a heart shape on Tharsis Bulge, a region home to some of the Red planet's biggest ancient volcanoes.

Formed most likely through volcanic activity, the heart shape was spotted by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment camera aboard Nasa's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter orbiting 170 miles above.

Located south of the huge shield volcano Ascraeus Mons, it measures approximately 200 metre across. The feature is multi-layered and rises above the surrounding landscape.

"Perhaps this feature is an ancient vent structure (an opening in the ground from which volcanic lava emerges) that has been more resistant to erosion than the surrounding area, so that it resembles 'inverted' terrains," planetary scientist Ramy El-Maarry was quoted as saying.

Inverted terrains often occur when some part of the landscape becomes hardened to erosion.

Nasa's Mars rover Curiosity's camera earlier photographed a rather interesting-looking rock formation that resembles Australia.

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3D printed cancer cells to mimic tumors

WASHINGTON: Researchers have successfully created a 3D model of a cancerous tumour using a 3D printer, an advance that can be used to test the efficacy and safety of new cancer drugs and therapies.

The model, which consists of a scaffold of fibrous proteins coated in cervical cancer cells, has provided a realistic 3D representation of a tumour's environment and could help in the discovery of new drugs and cast new light on how tumours develop, grow and spread throughout the body.

The model consists of a grid structure, 10 mm in width and length, made from gelatin, alginate and fibrin, which recreates the fibrous proteins that make up the extracellular matrix of a tumour.

The grid structure is coated in Hela cells - a unique, 'immortal' cell line that was originally derived from a cervical cancer patient in 1951.

Although the most effective way of studying tumours is to do so in a clinical trial, ethical and safety limitations make it difficult for these types of studies to be carried out on a wide scale.

With the advent of 3D printing, it is now possible to provide a more realistic representation of the environment surrounding a tumour, which the researchers have demonstrated in this study by comparing results from their 3D model with results from a 2D model.

In addition to testing if the cells remained viable, or alive, after printing, the researchers also examined how the cells proliferated, how they expressed a specific set of proteins, and how resistant they were to anti-cancer drugs.

The proteins studied were part of the MMP protein family. These proteins are used by cancer cells to break through their surrounding matrix and help tumours to spread.

Resistance to anti-cancer drugs, which was also studied, is a good indicator of tumour malignancy.

The results revealed that 90 per cent of the cancer cells remained viable after the printing process.

"We have provided a scalable and versatile 3D cancer model that shows a greater resemblance to natural cancer than 2D cultured cancer cells," said Professor Wei Sun, from Tsinghua University, China, and Drexel University, US.

The study was published the journal Biofabrication.

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‘Jesus’ wife’ text not a modern forgery: Study

BOSTON: New scientific tests suggest a fragment of papyrus in which Jesus speaks of "my wife" is more likely an ancient document than a forgery , according to an article published on Thursday by the Harvard Theological Review. The text, which is written in Coptic and is roughly the size of a business card, specifically contains the phrase "Jesus said to them, my wife."

Karen King, a Harvard professor of divinity, says the papyrus probably dates to eighth century Egypt, based on radiocarbon dating and tests on the ink's chemical composition . "If it was written in the eighth or even the ninth century, it's still an ancient document," she said in a conference call Thursday.

"It's not a modern forgery." But, she stressed, the fragment doesn't prove that the historical Jesus was actually married.

Most reliable evidence from early Christianity is silent on Jesus' marital status, King added. If anything , she says, the papyrus provides insight into early Christianity's debates over family life.

"Early Christians were extremely interested in whether or not they should marry or be celibate or whether it was OK to have a family or whether one should remain virginal ," King said, adding, that the papyrus , which contains about eight partial lines of text, appears to make the case that mothers and wives can be disciples. Jesus references his mother , wife, and another female as his disciples apparently discuss whether a woman — identified as "Mary" — can join their ranks. According to King's translation, the text then reads "Jesus said to them, "My wife ... " That is followed in the next line by "... she is able to be my disciple ... " King originally revealed existence of the papyrus in 2012.

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Space station computer outage may force spacewalk

CAPE CANAVERAL: A computer outage at the International Space Station may require a spacewalk by astronauts and threatens to delay next week's launch of a commercial supply ship for Nasa.

Nasa said on Friday night that a backup computer on the outside of the orbiting lab is not responding to commands.

The main computer, called an MDM or multiplexer-demultiplexer, is working fine, and the six-man crew is in no danger, officials said. But these computers control some robotic functions that would be needed for the upcoming supply run by SpaceX, one of two U.S. companies contracted by Nasa to keep the space station well stocked. A backup computer would need to be operating for redundancy of those robotic systems.

SpaceX is supposed to launch the unmanned Dragon capsule on Monday from Cape Canaveral. It contains nearly 5,000 pounds (2267.99 kilograms)of supplies and science experiments.

The mission is already a month late because of extra prep time needed by the California company and unrelated damage to an Air Force radar-tracking device needed for rocket launches.

Late Friday, Mission Control was trying to determine whether the computer can be repaired or must be replaced. A replacement would have to be accomplished by spacewalking astronauts.

Nasa is still aiming for a Monday launch by SpaceX. But that could change, depending on the status of the bad computer.

Astronauts use the space station's big robot arm to grab onto the Dragon capsule and attach it to the outpost.

The space station is currently home to two Americans, one Japanese and three Russians.

Nasa is paying Space Exploration Technologies Corp. _ or SpaceX _ and the Virginia-based Orbital Sciences Corp. to make space station deliveries. Russia, Japan and Europe also conduct occasional supply runs.

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Optimism tied to lower risk of heart failure

WASHINGTON: Want to reduce your risk of heart failure? Think positive.

Optimism — an expectation that good things will happen — can significantly lower the risk of developing heart failure in older adults, a new study has found.

Researchers from the University of Michigan and Harvard University found that compared to the least optimistic people in the study, the most optimistic people had a 73 per cent reduced risk of heart failure over the follow-up period.

Eric Kim, a doctoral student in the U-M Department of Psychology and the study's lead author, and colleagues analysed data on 6,808 older adults from the Health and Retirement Study, a nationally representative panel study of people over age 50 in the US.

The participants, who were followed for four years, provided background information about themselves, health history and psychological data.

In order to help rule out the possibility that other factors could better explain the link between optimism and heart failure, the researchers adjusted for factors that might impact heart failure risk, including demographic factors, health behaviours, chronic illnesses and biological factors.

Higher optimism was associated with a lower risk of heart failure during the study's follow-up period - a finding that could eventually contribute to creating new strategies in the health care industry to prevent or delay the onset of this epidemic, Kim said.

The researchers said that the protective effect of optimism might be explained by previous research, which has shown that optimism is associated with important health behaviours (eating healthier diets, exercising more, managing stress), enhanced physiological functioning and other positive health outcomes that are strongly linked with a decreased risk of heart failure.

The findings appear in the journal Circulation: Heart Failure.

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Your childhood memories go further back than you think, new study says

NEW DELHI: It is generally believed by psychologists that the earliest memories of any person go back to about 3.5 years of age. Now, a new study led by a Cornell University scientist indicates that people may be able to remember even earlier events, but they mistakenly shift the time to later. This shifting starts in childhood and even adults make similar mistakes.

The study also found that girls had better memories and could go back further in time than boys, on an average.

The researchers asked a group of kids aged 4-13 years to remember the earliest event in their lives and also their age at the time. Then returned a year or two later to ask again about earliest memories - and at what age the children were when the events occurred.

But the children who originally answered, for example, "I think I was 3 years old when my dog fell through the ice," postdated that same earliest memory by as much as nine months when asked - in follow-up interviews a year or two years later - to recall again. In other words, as time went by, children thought the same memory event occurred at an older age than they had thought previously.

"The age estimates of earliest childhood memories are not as accurate as what has been generally assumed," report Qi Wang of Cornell University and Carole Peterson of Memorial University of Newfoundland in the March 2014 online issue of Developmental Psychology. "Using children's own age estimates as the reference, we found that memory dating shifted to later ages as time elapsed."

Childhood amnesia refers to our inability to remember events from our first years of life. Until now, cognitive psychologists estimated the so-called childhood amnesia cutoff at 3.5 years - the average age of our very earliest memory, the authors noted in their report. But the research on kids has prompted Wang and Peterson to question the 3.5-year cutoff for childhood amnesia.

"This can happen to adults' earliest childhood memories, too," says Wang, professor of human development and director of the Social Cognition Development Laboratory in Cornell's College of Human Ecology. "We all remember some events from our childhood. When we try to reconstruct the time of these events, we may postdate them to be more recent than they actually were, as if we are looking at the events through a telescope. Although none of us can recall events on the day of our birth - childhood amnesia may end somewhat earlier than the generally accepted 3.5 years."

Parents might help because they have more clues (e.g., where they lived, what their children looked like at the time of events) to put their children's experiences along a timeline. When asked, for example, "How old was Evan when Poochie fell through the ice?" they erred less than Evan had. Still, they are not free from errors in their time estimates.

The only way to settle that, Wang and Peterson mused, would be to look for documented evidence - a parent's diary, for instance, or a newspaper account of Poochie's memorable rescue.

The study confirmed a finding made by Wang in 2013 that a gender-related difference existed as far as extent of memories goes.

"Females generally, although not always, exhibit superior retention of episodic memories than males," Wang and Peterson wrote in the 2014 report. The gender differences, according to the researchers, may reflect the development of life narratives in late childhood and early adolescence, where girls often tell lengthier and more coherent life stories than boys.

"The narrative organization of life events," they speculated, "may allow girls to better remember the events over time, compared with boys."

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Optimism associated with lower risk of heart failure, study says

MUMBAI: Researchers from the University of Michigan and Harvard University found that optimism — an expectation that good things will happen — among people age 50 and older significantly reduced their risk of heart failure. Compared to the least optimistic people in the study, the most optimistic people had a 73-per cent reduced risk of heart failure over the follow-up period.

Eric Kim, a doctoral student in the U-M Department of Psychology and the study's lead author, and colleagues analyzed data on 6,808 older adults from the Health and Retirement Study, a nationally representative panel study of people over age 50. Respondents, who were followed for four years, provided background information about themselves, health history and psychological data.

In order to help rule out the possibility that other factors could better explain the link between optimism and heart failure, the researchers adjusted for factors that might impact heart failure risk, including demographic factors, health behaviors, chronic illnesses and biological factors.

Higher optimism was associated with a lower risk of heart failure during the study's follow-up period—a finding that could eventually contribute to creating new strategies in the health care industry to prevent or delay the onset of this epidemic, Kim said.

The researchers said that the protective effect of optimism might be explained by previous research, which has shown that optimism is associated with important health behaviors (eating healthier diets, exercising more, managing stress), enhanced physiological functioning and other positive health outcomes that are strongly linked with a decreased risk of heart failure.

The study's other authors were Jacqui Smith, a professor in U-M's Department of Psychology and Institute for Social Research, and Laura Kubzansky, a professor at Harvard's Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences.

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