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Cern to test new particle model

Written By Unknown on Sabtu, 28 Februari 2015 | 22.10

GENEVA: The Higgs particle can disintegrate into particles of dark matter, according to a new model that is being tested at the particle physics laboratory Cern.

Physicists describe the smallest constituents of nature - elementary particles and forces acting between them using a set of theories known as "the Standard Model".

This model was developed in the 1970s and has been very successful, particularly in predicting the existence of undiscovered particles. The last in the series was the Higgs particle, or the 'Higgs Boson', the existence of which was confirmed by the scientists at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at Cern in 2012.

The problem is that there are several things the Standard Model is unable to explain, for example dark matter, that makes up a large part of the universe. Many particle physicists are therefore working on developing new, more comprehensive models.

One of them is Christoffer Petersson, who carries out research in theoretical particle physics at Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden and the Universite Libre in Belgium.Together with two colleagues, he has proposed a particle model based on what is known as supersymmetry.

This model contains more elementary particles than the Standard Model, including dark matter particles. In addition, the model gives the Higgs particle different properties than the Standard Model predicts.

It proposes that the Higgs particle can disintegrate into a photon (a particle of light) and particles of dark matter. However, these properties are quite difficult to discover. Petersson's model has met with a response at Cern. Two independent experimental stations - Atlas and CMS - at the LHC are now looking for the very properties of the Higgs particle his model predicts.

"It's a dream for a theorist in particle physics. LHC is the only place where the model can be tested," said Petersson. "If the model is found to fit, it would completely change our understanding of the fundamental building blocks of nature."

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Thinking of God makes people bigger risk-takers

WASHINGTON: Reminders of God can make people more likely to seek out and take risks, according to a new research.

The findings suggest that people are willing to take these risks because they view God as providing security against potential negative outcomes.

"References to God pervade daily life - on any given day you might see the word 'God' printed on US currency, drive behind a car with a bumper sticker that references God, or use one of the many colloquial expressions that use the word 'God'," said lead researcher Daniella Kupor of Stanford University Graduate School of Business.

"In fact, the word 'God' is one of the most common nouns in the English language," Kupor said.

Many previous studies had indicated that religiosity and participation in religious activities are associated with decreases in people's engagement in risky behaviours like substance abuse and gambling, but Kupor and her colleagues noticed that the risks examined in these studies tended to share a negative moral component.

The researchers hypothesised that thinking about God may have a different effect in relation to risks that have no moral connotation, since people tend to view God as a source of protection and security.

In a group of online survey studies with nearly 900 participants, the researchers found that people who were reminded of God - either by working on word scrambles that included God-related words or by reading a paragraph about God - were more willing to engage in various risky behaviours than those participants who were not prompted to think about God.

In one study, the researchers posted variations of three ads online and recorded the click-through rates for each.

There were ads that promoted an immoral risk ("Learn how to bribe"), ads that promoted a non-moral risk ("Find skydiving near you"), and ads that promoted no risk ("Find amazing video games").

In some cases, the ads included a mention of God (eg, "God knows what you're missing! Find skydiving near you.")

The findings were clear: When the ad included a reference to God, people clicked on the skydiving (non-moral risk) ad more often, but they clicked on the bribing (moral risk) less often. People clicked about the same number of times on the computer games ad, with or without a mention of God.

"We were surprised to find that even a simple colloquial expression - 'God knows what you're missing' - influences whether people click on a real online ad that is promoting a risky behaviour," said Kupor.

Additional findings indicated that people who were reminded of God perceived less danger in various risky behaviours than participants who were not reminded of God.

They reported more negative feelings toward God when they lost their potential winnings in a risk-related game, suggesting that they had expected God to protect them from losing the money and were disappointed in the outcome.

The study is published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.

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22.10 | 0 komentar | Read More

Asian herb may protect against Ebola

WASHINGTON: A molecule derived from an Asian herb may protect against Ebola by switching off channels which the virus uses to enter and infect cells, a study suggests.

Researchers said the molecule called Tetrandrine has shown to be potent in inhibiting infection of human white blood cells in vitro or petri dish experiments and prevented Ebola in mice. Scientists at Texas Biomedical Research Institute have been working on stopping the virus before it has a chance to enter or interact with cellular factors.

The Ebola virus begins its entry into a cell by first binding to several types of cell surface proteins. Then the virus is taken into the cell and follows an endosomal route, or membrane-bound route that transports it to various cell compartments.

"With this research, we discovered that two pore channels (TPCs) are the key calcium sensor involved in Ebola virus infection. These TPCs needed to be turned on in order for the virus to function properly," said Robert Davey, from the Department of Immunology and Virology.

The team found Tetrandrine protected mice from disease without obvious side effects and was the best candidate for further animal testing, as it was the most potent compound tested and gave little proof of cytotoxicity.

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Water pools in US astronaut's helmet after spacewalk

Written By Unknown on Jumat, 27 Februari 2015 | 22.10

MIAMI: An American astronaut found water pooling inside his helmet after he finished a six-plus hour spacewalk on Wednesday, raising new concerns about the safety of Nasa's spacesuits.

Terry Virts was not harmed during the incident, which the US space agency described as "minor" compared to the near-drowning of an Italian astronaut when a similar problem occurred in 2013.

But mission managers will be poring over the data at a meeting on Friday to decide whether another spacewalk can go ahead as planned on Sunday, a Nasa spokesman said.

Even before this series of three spacewalks began on Saturday, Nasa voiced concern about a recurring problem with the American spacesuits in a part of the temperature control system known as the fan pump separator.

Virts did not notice any water during the spacewalk, as he toiled for hours to lubricate the latching mechanisms on a robotic arm and helped his colleague Barry Wilmore get the space station's exterior ready for the arrival of commercial spaceships carrying astronauts in the coming years.


In this image made from video provided by Nasa, Italian astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti checks on astronaut Terry Virts inside the International Space Station on February 25, 2015 during an inspection for water in his suit. (AP photo)

Their spacewalk lasted six hours and 43 minutes. It was only after Virts was done, and had re-entered the Quest airlock, that he began to feel dampness on the back of his head and saw water pooling near the front of his headpiece.

The water inside Virts' helmet was "kind of pooling on the front side of his helmet above the eye level," European Space Agency astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti told mission control in Houston.

The water was "about three inches in diameter," she said, noting that the amount of water had increased in the moments since he first noticed it.

Nasa television showed live images of Virts smiling inside his helmet and blowing on the water to make it ripple, before eventually removing the headpiece with Cristoforetti's help.

Virts then told mission control that the water had not come from his drink bag, which is rigged up inside the helmet in case astronauts get thirsty, and that it had a chemical taste.

A total of 11 milliliters of the fluid was collected with a syringe for analysis.

Nasa commentator Rob Navias said the problem was "not nearly as severe" as the near-drowning of Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano, who had to be rushed back inside the space station in 2013 after water began leaking in his helmet.

But the US space agency said last week engineers were concerned about water and condensation building up and causing a breakdown in a part of the suit's temperature control system.

Nasa discovered the problem in December when a fan pump separator did into speed up as expected on one suit. A similar issue was discovered in a second spacesuit in January.

Wilmore was shipped a new suit and Virts was wearing a suit with a replacement fan pump separator that had shown some signs of corrosion.

The US space agency discussed the issue with reporters before the spacewalks began, and delayed the outings by one day in order to complete an internal investigation.

Kenneth Todd, International Space Station Operations and Integration manager said on February 18 that engineers believe small amounts of water are building up in the bearings inside the fan pump separator each time the suit is powered up and powered down, leading to corrosion over time.


Nasa astronaut Terry Virts is seen during a spacewalk outside the International Space Station. (Reuters photo)

However, he said the astronauts were not in danger and that they were wearing suits that "have operated every time we turned them on."

The final spacewalk of this series is set to begin Sunday morning at 7.10am (1210 GMT), but mission managers will not give the go or no-go until after their meeting on Friday.

The goal is to set up additional docking ports — which are essentially parking spots for space taxis — at the ISS for the arrival of more crew-carrying spacecraft.

Boeing plans to send its first astronaut to space aboard the CST-100 spaceship in late 2017, followed by SpaceX soon after.

The retirement of the 30-year space shuttle program in 2011 left the United States without a spaceship that could send astronauts to low-Earth orbit.

In the meantime, the world's astronauts are riding aboard Russian Soyuz capsules at a price of $70 million per seat.

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Social media wrongly highlighting about cancer medicine- Dr Rao

BELAGAVI: Dr Vishal Rao, Consultant, Head and Neck surgery, HCG Cancer Care clarified that there is no single medicine available anywhere in the world, which can be prescribe for all types of cancers.

Addressing the press conference here on Friday, Dr Rao said the wide promotion is being given through the social media about Imitinef Mercilet medicine claiming that it can clear all types of cancers. It is also being highlighted on social media that said medicine is distributed at Pune based Yashoda Hematology Cancer Institute in free of cost.

Dr Roa said there is no magical medicine in the world that cures all types of cancers. Besides, any institution can't randomly distribute one medicine which can make adverse effect on health. "We don't know who are spreading such rumours or it's just a trick. People are coming to us and inquiring about it. In allopathic medical system, we only prescribe evidence based medicine which cures the disease", he said.

Meanwhile, Dr Rao said the thyroid cancer is increasing across the India and it can be diagnosed by ultrasound technology. Government has made iodine content compulsory in salt following the increasing number of thyroid related diseases long back. However, salt manufacturing and processing companies adding chemicals in the salt, which is making adverse effect on human health. However, he said thyroid cancers unlike tobacco related cancers are indolent and not life threatening in majority, he said. According to him, 30% cancer patients are the victims of tobacco and government required to take more steps to sensitize the public about it, he said.

Dr Krithika M, Consultant, Surgical Oncology, HCG Cancer Care said most common cancer in these days is breast cancer among women. Besides, number of smokers amongst women apparently has increased by 8% between the age group of 30-40 years leading to oral cancer. Dr Krithika said early detection of cancer is equal to cure and called upon people to don't neglect the symptoms.

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Thinking of God makes people bigger risk-takers

WASHINGTON: Reminders of God can make people more likely to seek out and take risks, according to a new research.

The findings suggest that people are willing to take these risks because they view God as providing security against potential negative outcomes.

"References to God pervade daily life - on any given day you might see the word 'God' printed on US currency, drive behind a car with a bumper sticker that references God, or use one of the many colloquial expressions that use the word 'God'," said lead researcher Daniella Kupor of Stanford University Graduate School of Business.

"In fact, the word 'God' is one of the most common nouns in the English language," Kupor said.

Many previous studies had indicated that religiosity and participation in religious activities are associated with decreases in people's engagement in risky behaviours like substance abuse and gambling, but Kupor and her colleagues noticed that the risks examined in these studies tended to share a negative moral component.

The researchers hypothesised that thinking about God may have a different effect in relation to risks that have no moral connotation, since people tend to view God as a source of protection and security.

In a group of online survey studies with nearly 900 participants, the researchers found that people who were reminded of God - either by working on word scrambles that included God-related words or by reading a paragraph about God - were more willing to engage in various risky behaviours than those participants who were not prompted to think about God.

In one study, the researchers posted variations of three ads online and recorded the click-through rates for each.

There were ads that promoted an immoral risk ("Learn how to bribe"), ads that promoted a non-moral risk ("Find skydiving near you"), and ads that promoted no risk ("Find amazing video games").

In some cases, the ads included a mention of God (eg, "God knows what you're missing! Find skydiving near you.")

The findings were clear: When the ad included a reference to God, people clicked on the skydiving (non-moral risk) ad more often, but they clicked on the bribing (moral risk) less often. People clicked about the same number of times on the computer games ad, with or without a mention of God.

"We were surprised to find that even a simple colloquial expression - 'God knows what you're missing' - influences whether people click on a real online ad that is promoting a risky behaviour," said Kupor.

Additional findings indicated that people who were reminded of God perceived less danger in various risky behaviours than participants who were not reminded of God.

They reported more negative feelings toward God when they lost their potential winnings in a risk-related game, suggesting that they had expected God to protect them from losing the money and were disappointed in the outcome.

The study is published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.

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Cosmic mystery unfolds as protoplanet Ceres shows two bright spots

Written By Unknown on Kamis, 26 Februari 2015 | 22.10

NEW DELHI: A cosmic mystery is unfolding millions of kilometers away as NASA's spacecraft Dawn approaches the protoplanet Ceres. The most recent pictures taken by Dawn when it was 46,000 kilometers away from Ceres show two bright glowing spots next to each other. Earlier images with less resolution had shown only one bright spot.

"Ceres' bright spot can now be seen to have a companion of lesser brightness, but apparently in the same basin. This may be pointing to a volcano-like origin of the spots, but we will have to wait for better resolution before we can make such geologic interpretations," said Chris Russell, principal investigator for the Dawn mission, based at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Using its ion propulsion system, Dawn will enter orbit around Ceres on March 6. As scientists receive better and better views of the dwarf planet over the next 16 months, they hope to gain a deeper understanding of its origin and evolution by studying its surface. The intriguing bright spots and other interesting features of this captivating world will come into sharper focus.

"The brightest spot continues to be too small to resolve with our camera, but despite its size it is brighter than anything else on Ceres. This is truly unexpected and still a mystery to us," said Andreas Nathues, lead investigator for the framing camera team at the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, Gottingen, Germany.

Ceres is the largest of the asteroids in the asteroid belt which lies between Mars and Jupiter. It is about 950kms wide and is thought to be composed of rocks and ice. Scientists believe that it was born about 4.57 billion years ago when the Solar System was itself in the process of forming.

Dawn visited the giant asteroid Vesta from 2011 to 2012, delivering more than 30,000 images of the body along with many other measurements, and providing insights about its composition and geological history. Vesta has an average diameter of 525 kilometers. Vesta and Ceres are the two most massive bodies in the asteroid belt, located between Mars and Jupiter.

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Nasa spacecraft to study Earth's magnetic fields

WASHINGTON: Nasa is launching the first-ever spacecraft to study magnetic reconnection — one of the most important drivers of space weather events such as eruptive solar flares, coronal mass ejections and geomagnetic storms.

Final preparations are underway for the launch of Nasa's quartet of magnetospheric multiscale (MMS) spacecraft that will study magnetic reconnection.

This fundamental process occurs throughout the universe where magnetic fields connect and disconnect with an explosive release of energy.

"Magnetic reconnection is one of the most important drivers of space weather events," said Jeff Newmark, interim director of the Heliophysics Division at Nasa headquarters in Washington.

"Eruptive solar flares, coronal mass ejections, and geomagnetic storms all involve the release, through reconnection, of energy stored in magnetic fields. Space weather events can affect modern technological systems such as communications networks, GPS navigation, and electrical power grids," said Newmark.

The launch of MMS, on a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket, will be managed by the Launch Services Programme at Nasa's Kennedy Space Centre in Florida.

Liftoff is targeted for March 12 from Space Launch Complex 41 on Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida.

The spacecraft will begin science operations in September. Unlike previous missions to observe the evidence of magnetic reconnection events, MMS will have sufficient resolution to measure the characteristics of ongoing reconnection events as they occur.

The mission consists of four identical space observatories that will provide the first three—dimensional view of magnetic reconnection.

Because the observatories will fly through reconnection regions in a tight formation, in less than a second, key sensors on each spacecraft are designed to measure the space environment at rates faster than any previous mission.

The mission observes reconnection directly in Earth's protective magnetic space environment known as the magnetosphere.

By studying reconnection in this local, natural laboratory, MMS helps us understand reconnection elsewhere, such as the atmosphere of the Sun, the vicinity of black holes and neutron stars, and the boundary between our solar system and interstellar space.

"This is the perfect time for this mission," said Jim Burch, principal investigator of the MMS instrument suite science team at Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) in San Antonio, Texas.

"MMS is a crucial next step in advancing the science of magnetic reconnection. Studying magnetic reconnection near Earth will unlock the ability to understand how this process works throughout the entire universe," said Burch.

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Dr Mats Brännström to attend fertility symposium Feb 28

MANIPAL: Dr Mats Brannstrom, who pioneered the world's first conception and delivery following womb transplantation will attend the two day international Symposium on "Fertility Preservation" organised by division of Clinical Embryology of Kasturba Medical College, Manipal University from February 28.

Fertility preservation is a sub-specialty within the field of Human Reproductive Biology and Infertility. Specifically, it is focused on helping persons of reproductive age who are about to undergo cancer treatment or other toxic therapies which may affect sperm and egg quality, eventually resulting in infertility.

Eminent clinicians and scientists from top universities and research institutes of Germany, Italy, Spain, Sweden and Scotland will participate in the meeting along several Indian experts who are working on various issues related to fertility preservation. "This focused symposium will offer a great opportunity to learn and discuss how fertility preservation can benefit cancer affected children and young adults," said Dr Ramnarayan K, Vice Chancellor of Manipal University.

The conference will be inaugurated by the Pro Vice Chancellor of Manipal University Dr H Vinod Bhat at 10.40 am at Dr TMA Pai Hall, KMC Manipal. Well-known fertility expert and a Padmashree awardee Dr Kamini Rao will be the guest of Honour.

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Cigarettes kill two in every three smokers: Study

Written By Unknown on Rabu, 25 Februari 2015 | 22.10

MELBOURNE: Up to two in every three smokers would die from their habit if they continue to smoke, warns a large Australian study of more than 2,00,000 people. Compared with non-smokers, smoking 10 cigarettes a day doubles the risk of dying and smoking one pack a day increases the risk four to five-fold, the findings showed.

"We knew smoking was bad, but we now have direct independent evidence that confirms the disturbing findings that have been emerging internationally," said lead author professor Emily Banks from the Australian National University.

"We also found smokers will die an estimated 10 years earlier than the non-smokers," said Banks.

Until relatively recently it was thought that about half of the smokers would die of a smoking-related illness, but newer studies in British women, British doctors and American Cancer Society volunteers have put the figure much higher, at up to 67 per cent.

"We have been able to show exactly the same result in a very large population-wide sample," said Banks.

The research is the result of a four-year analysis of health outcomes from more than 2,00,000 men and women.

"Higher tobacco prices have been shown to be the most effective intervention available to governments to reduce demand for tobacco," remarked Kerry Doyle, CEO, The NSW Heart Foundation, Australia.

"With smoking being a major cause of cardiovascular disease, including heart attack, stroke and peripheral vascular disease the more deterrents people have between them and smoking, the better," said Doyle.

The study appeared in the journal BMC Medicine.

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Conference on India's path to global leadership at Harvard

HOUSTON: A two-day global leadership conference to discuss India's aspirations and challenges and the way forward will be organised at the prestigious Harvard Business School in March. The theme of this year's conference being organised by the Indian graduate students on March 7-8 would be 'India's path to global leadership'.

Graduate students of Harvard will come together to organise this conference at Harvard Kennedy School and the Harvard Business School respectively.

Kiran bedi and many prominent speakers like JSW Steel chairman Sajjan Jindal, Blackstone India chairman Akhil Gupta besides more than 80 other dignitaries across the fields of politics, business, social and the arts.

Bedi, a social activist, former police officer and politician will be one of the panelists for the women focused keynote titled - 'Women's Empowerment in Emerging India'.

Now in its 12th year, the conference is regarded as one of the biggest India-focused, student-led conferences held in the US.

It brought together more than 100 speakers and 600 students from across the world last year.

Taking a leaf out of the recent success of India's national election, the conference is themed 'India's Path to Global Leadership'.

The conference aims to bring together India's thought leaders for a weekend of discussions and brainstorming sessions on India's aspirations, plans and challenges.

Some of the topics include, Can India overtake China to become the global manufacturing hub by 2020?, India's Urban Urgency - is 100 smart cities the solution?, New politics meets the age of media media, Unveiling sensitivities of India-China relationship.

The conference will give students a chance to network with the dignitaries and peers during networking lunches, cocktail receptions, panel discussions and one on one Q&A opportunities.

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Now, a daily pill cuts the risk of HIV infection among gay men by 86%

LONDON: In what is being called a game changer, British scientists have confirmed that a daily pill cuts the risk of HIV infection among gay men by 86%.

Results of a major UK trial of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) have been described as "extremely exciting".

The study shows that pre-exposure prophylaxis among gay men at high risk of contracting the disease is highly protective.

READ ALSO: Vaccine important in fight against AIDS

Researchers from the medical research council and public health England presented results of the PROUD study conducted in partnership with 12 NHS trusts in England.

The study looked at whether offering daily HIV Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP) to men who have sex with men (MSM) was a reliable way to prevent them from becoming infected if exposed to the virus.

The researchers concluded that PrEP offers a major new opportunity to curb newly acquired HIV infections in MSM in the UK, of which there were an estimated 2,800 in 2013.

The sexual health research clinics that took part in the PROUD study were able to integrate PrEP into their routine HIV risk reduction package with ease.

READ ALSO: New drug raises hope for an HIV vaccine

The drug used in the trial - the anti-retroviral Truvada (usually used to treat HIV) - was already known to reduce the incidence of HIV infection in placebo controlled trials.

The study was launched in 2012, enrolling 545 participants at 13 sexual health clinics in England. The study randomized participants to receive PrEP immediately or to receive PrEP after a period of 12 months, allowing researchers to compare those on PrEP versus those not yet on PrEP.

Of the 545 participants who joined the study, 276 were randomized to the group who received PrEP immediately and 269 to the group who received PrEP after a deferred period of 12 months.

There were 22 HIV infections among participants in their first year in the study, with 3 in the immediate group giving an HIV incidence of 1.3 per 100 person-years, and 19 in the deferred group giving an incidence of 8.9 per 100 person-years.

The 86% protection from daily (Truvada) PrEP reported by the study, is the highest reported from a randomized controlled trial of PrEP to date.

Adherence to the daily drug regimen appears high in the study.

Sheena McCormack from the MRC Clinical Trials Unit at UCL said, "These results are extremely exciting and show PrEP is highly effective at preventing HIV infection in the real world. Concerns that PrEP would not work so well in the real world were unfounded. These results show there is a need for PrEP, and offer hope of reversing the epidemic among men who have sex with men in this country. The findings we've presented today are going to be invaluable in informing discussions about making PrEP available through the NHS".

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Day dreaming helps the mind in doing complex tasks later

Written By Unknown on Selasa, 24 Februari 2015 | 22.10

NEW DELHI: Daydreaming - spontaneous thoughts and associations - is often thought to take away the focus of the mind struggling with a boring monotonous task. But a new study of the human brain has thrown up a surprising result - daydreaming can prepare the mind to better address many tasks by switching on bigger networks of brain cells.

Scientists at Bar-Ilan University first demonstrated how an external stimulus of low-level electricity can literally change the way we think, producing a measurable up-tick in the rate at which daydreams occur. It is for the first time that a region of the brain was identified as the source for triggering day dreams.

Along the way, they made another surprising discovery: that while daydreams offer a welcome "mental escape" from boring tasks, they also have a positive, simultaneous effect on task performance.

The new study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, was carried out in Bar-Ilan's Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory supervised by Prof. Moshe Bar.

In the experiment, designed and executed by Prof. Bar's post-doctoral researcher Dr. Vadim Axelrod, participants were treated with tDCS, a painless procedure that uses low-level electricity to stimulate specific brain regions. They found that when the frontal lobes were stimulated, subjects reported their brain to start wandering.

"We focused tDCS stimulation on the frontal lobes because this brain region has been previously implicated in mind wandering, and also because is a central locus of the executive control network that allows us to organize and plan for the future," Bar explained, adding that he suspected that there might be a connection between the two.

"Our results go beyond what was achieved in earlier, fMRI-based studies," Bar states. "They demonstrate that the frontal lobes play a causal role in the production of mind wandering behavior."

In an unanticipated finding, the present study demonstrated how the increased mind wandering behavior produced by external stimulation not only does not harm subjects' ability to succeed at an appointed task, it actually helps. Bar believes that this surprising result might stem from the convergence, within a single brain region, of both the "thought controlling" mechanisms of executive function and the "thought freeing" activity of spontaneous, self-directed daydreams.

"Over the last 15 or 20 years, scientists have shown that - unlike the localized neural activity associated with specific tasks - mind wandering involves the activation of a gigantic default network involving many parts of the brain," Bar says. "This cross-brain involvement may be involved in behavioral outcomes such as creativity and mood, and may also contribute to the ability to stay successfully on-task while the mind goes off on its merry mental way."

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Wisdom teeth may help treat eye disease

NEW YORK: Your wisdom teeth could hold the clue to treating diseases affecting the cornea, a major cause of blindness worldwide, says a new research.

"Stem cells from the dental pulp of wisdom teeth can be coaxed to turn into cells of the eye's cornea and could one day be used to treat corneal blindness," said the researchers.

"The findings indicate the wisdom teeth could become a new source of corneal transplant tissue made from the patient's own cells. Corneal blindness, which affects millions of people worldwide, is typically treated with transplants of donor corneas," explained senior investigator James Funderburgh, professor of ophthalmology at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.

"Shortages of donor's cornea and rejection of donor's tissue do occur, which might result in permanent blindness. Our work is promising because using the patient's own cells for treatment could help us avoid these problems," said Funderburgh.

The researchers proved that stem cells of the dental pulp, obtained from routine human third molar, or wisdom tooth, could be turned into corneal stromal cells called keratocytes.

The team injected the engineered keratocytes into the corneas of healthy mice, where they integrated without any signs of rejection. They also used the cells to develop constructs of corneal stroma akin to natural tissue.

The study appeared in the journal Stem Cells Translational Medicine.

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Formula milk puts newborns at higher arsenic risk

Written By Unknown on Senin, 23 Februari 2015 | 22.10

WASHINGTON: In the first study of urinary arsenic in babies, Dartmouth College researchers have found that formula-fed infants had higher arsenic levels than breast-fed infants.

The researchers measured arsenic in home tap water, urine from 72 six-week-old infants and breast milk from nine women in New Hampshire.

Urinary arsenic was 7.5 times lower for breast-fed than formula-fed infants.

The highest tap water arsenic concentrations far exceeded the arsenic concentrations in powdered formulas, but for the majority of the study's participants, both the powder and water contributed to exposure.

"The results highlight that breastfeeding can reduce arsenic exposure even at the relatively low levels of arsenic typically experienced in the United States," said lead author professor Kathryn Cottingham.

This is an important public health benefit of breastfeeding, Cottingham added.

Arsenic occurs naturally in bedrock and is a common global contaminant of well water.

It causes cancers and other diseases and early-life exposure has been associated with increased foetal mortality, decreased birth weight and diminished cognitive function.

"We advise families with private wells to have their tap water tested for arsenic," added senior author professor Margaret Karagas.

The findings appeared in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives.

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Eating late at night bad for your brain

WASHINGTON: Be warned if you have a strong urge to eat late at night for a new study shows that this could be bad for your brain.

Eating late at night, especially during the hours when our bodies think they should be sleeping, could disrupt learning and memory.

The results of the study may pose a possible health concern not only for those eating late at night but for the millions who are engaged in shift work.

"We have this illusion that with the flip of a switch, we can work at any time and part of that is eating at any time," Christopher Colwell, professor, psychiatry and bio-behavioural sciences, University of California, Los Angeles was quoted as saying in Today.

Although the new research was done on mice, the general principles also apply to humans, the Inquisitr reported.

The modern lifestyle of working long hours does not allow the body's need to stick with a specific schedule to remain healthy.

The circadian rhythm follows a 24-hour cycle and regulates almost everything in our body, including hormones and behaviour.

Any disruption of this cycle may not only be harmful for the immune system but even lead to type 2 diabetes, Colwell suggested.

Referring to jet-lag, the author demonstrates how such a disruption may affect the brain function.

In the experiment, the researchers allowed one group of mice to eat at normal times, while a second group could only eat during their normal sleep time.

The mice eating during their normal sleeping times were "severely compromised" in remembering what they had learned.

They also had trouble recognising new objects and showed changes in the part of the brain that involved learning and memory.

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Armband to sound an alarm if you have fever

LONDON: Scientists have developed a fever alarm armband - a flexible, self-powered wearable device that sounds an alarm in case of high body temperature.

The flexible organic components developed for this device by the University of Tokyo researchers are well-suited to wearable devices that continuously monitor vital signs including temperature and heart rate for applications in healthcare settings.

The armband incorporates several first-ever achievements.

It is the first organic circuit able to produce a sound output, and the first to incorporate an organic power supply circuit. The former enables the device to provide audible information when the flexible thermal sensor detects a pre-set value within the ranges of 36.5 oC to 38.5 oC, while the latter increases the range of operational illumination by 7.3 times in indoor lighting conditions.

Constant monitoring of health indicators such as heart rate and body temperature is the focus of intense interest in the fields of infant, elderly and patient care.

Sensors for such applications need to be flexible and wireless for patient comfort, maintenance-free and not requiring external energy supply, and cheap enough to permit disposable use to ensure hygiene. Conventional sensors based on rigid components are unable to meet these requirements, so the researchers have developed a flexible solution that incorporates organic components that can be printed by an inkjet printer on a polymeric film.

The new device developed by research groups lead by Professor Takayasu Sakurai at the Institute of Industrial Science and Professor Takao Someya at the Graduate School of Engineering combines a flexible amorphous silicon solar panel, piezoelectric speaker, temperature sensor and power supply circuit created with organic components in a single flexible, wearable package.

"Our fever alarm armband demonstrates that it is possible to produce flexible, disposable devices that can greatly enhance the amount of information available to carers in healthcare settings," says Professor Someya. "We have demonstrated the technology with a temperature sensor and fever alarm, but the system could also be adapted to provide audible feedback on body temperature, or combined with other sensors to register wetness, pressure or heart rate."

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World's first hands-free smartphone for the disabled

Written By Unknown on Minggu, 22 Februari 2015 | 22.10

LONDON: An Israeli company has built the world's first completely hands-free smartphone for the disabled.

The smartphone, developed by start-up Sesame Enable, is designed for people with spinal cord injuries, Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), cerebral palsy or other disabilities that affects the use of hands and arms, The Times of Israel reported.

The Sesame is an Android smartphone that is equipped with proprietary head-tracking technology.

An advanced computer vision algorithm and the phone's front-facing camera track user's head movements and allow them to control a cursor on screen.

The cursor is essentially a virtual finger that let users do what others can with a regular smartphone.

The $1,000-phone recently won a "Verizon Powerful Answers' Award" with $1 million in prize money.

Its developer Giora Livne, who himself is disabled, now plans to give away about 30 Sesame smartphones to people with disabilities nominated by their peers.

"My life quality jumped from the Stone Age to the smartphone age," Livne was quoted as saying.

Livne came up with the idea after seeing a TV demonstration for a game controlled with head movements.

With a background in electrical engineering, he recognised the technology's potential to help him, and others.

He now regularly texts and sends WhatsApp messages to his friends and three children.

The five Sesame recipients so far include a former Israeli soldier who was injured in 1976 and a little boy in Britain with muscular dystrophy.

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Brain goes silent when we talk loud

NEW YORK: The part of the brain identified as the command centre for human speech does not actually work when we speak loudly, a study reveals.

The Broca's area — named after 19th century French physician Pierre Paul Broca — has been recognised for more than 150 years as the command centre for human speech, including vocalisation.

Now, scientists at the University of California Berkeley and Johns Hopkins University in Maryland are challenging this long-held assumption with new evidence that Broca's area actually switches off when we talk out loud.

"Broca's area shuts down during the actual delivery of speech, but it may remain active during conversation as part of planning future words and full sentences," said study lead author Adeen Flinker.

Neuroscientists have traditionally organised the brain's language centre into two main regions: one for perceiving speech and one for producing speech.

"This finding helps us move towards a view that Broca's area is not a centre for speech production but rather a critical area for integrating and coordinating information across other brain regions," Flinker said.

The discovery has major implications for the diagnoses and treatments of stroke, epilepsy and brain injuries that result in language impairments.

"The results could help us advance language mapping during neurosurgery as well as the assessment of language impairments," Flinker concluded.

The findings were reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

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Nasa Europa mission to search for alien life

WASHINGTON: Nasa is planning a mission to Jupiter's moon Europa to search for signs of alien life on the icy, ocean-harbouring world.

Nasa has asked scientists to consider ways that a Europa mission could search for evidence of alien life in the plumes of water vapour that apparently blast into space from Europa's south polar region.

These plumes, which Nasa's Hubble Space Telescope spotted in December 2012, provide a possible way to sample Europa's ocean of liquid water, which is buried beneath the moon's icy shell, researchers said.

Nasa is zeroing in on a flyby mission design, something along the lines of a long-studied concept called the Europa Clipper.

As currently envisioned, Clipper would travel to Jupiter orbit, then make 45 flybys of Europa over 3.5 years, at altitudes ranging from 25km to 2,700km.

The $2.1 billion mission would study Europa's subsurface ocean, giving researchers a better understanding of the water's depth, salinity and other characteristics.

Nasa also wants to add plume sampling to the Europa mission's task list, if possible.

During a Europa plume workshop at the Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley earlier this week, Nasa science chief John Grunsfeld urged attendees to "think outside the box" and come up with feasible ways to study the moon's plumes.

Researchers would want to analyse bits of Europa material in well-equipped labs here on Earth, but bringing samples back is likely beyond the scope of the flyby mission currently under consideration.

However, it may be possible to detect biomolecules onsite, using gear aboard a Clipper-like probe, researchers said.


Jupiter's moon Europa. (Getty Images photo)

Spotting a set of amino acids that all display the same chirality, or handedness, in plume material would be strong evidence of Europan life, astrobiologist Chris McKay, of Nasa Ames, said at the workshop.

Collecting enough plume material to perform such analyses will likely prove extremely challenging, 'SPACE.com' reported.

It may require flying so low and so slowly that it makes more sense to send a lander down to the Europa surface through the plume, said astrobiologist Kevin Hand of Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

However, first the spacecraft should be able to find the water vapour when it gets to Europa.

At the moment, the plume remains unconfirmed; scientists have pointed Hubble at Europa repeatedly since the initial 2012 detection, but have come up empty in attempts to spot it again.

So, if the plume exists, it is apparently sporadic or episodic, not continuous like the powerhouse geysers that erupt from the south pole of Saturn's icy moon Enceladus, researchers said.

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'January was second hottest on record'

Written By Unknown on Sabtu, 21 Februari 2015 | 22.10

WASHINGTON: The globally average temperature over land and ocean surfaces for January was the second highest among all years since record keeping began in 1880, US authorities said.

According to the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) the January global land surface temperature was also second highest on record, while the global ocean surface temperature was third highest.

During January, the average temperature across global land and ocean surfaces was 0.77 degrees Celsius above the 20th century average.

"This was the second highest for January in the 1880-2015 record. The warmest January occurred in 2007, at 0.86 degrees Celsius above average," NOAA said.

During January, the globally-averaged land surface temperature was 1.43 degrees Celsius above the 20th century average.

This was also the second highest for January in the 1880-2015 record. The warmest January occurred in 2007, at 1.84 degrees Celsius above average.

During January, the globally-averaged sea surface temperature was 0.53 degrees Celsius above the 20th century average. This was the third highest for January in the 1880-2015 record, NOAA said.

The average Arctic sea ice extent for January was 350,000 square miles (6.3 per cent) below the 1981-2010 average. This was the third smallest January extent since records began in 1979, according to analysis by the National Snow and Ice Data Centre based on data from NOAA and NASA.

Antarctic sea ice during January was 890,000 square miles (44.6 per cent) above the 1981-2010 average. This was the largest January Antarctic sea ice extent on record, surpassing the previous record set in 2008 by 220,000 square miles.

According to data from NOAA analysed by the Rutgers Global Snow Lab, the Northern Hemisphere snow cover extent during January was 170,000 square miles below the 1981-2010.

This was the 22nd largest January Northern Hemisphere snow cover extent in the 49-year period of record.

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Gene may help reduce GM contamination

TORONTO: Researchers, including those of Indian-origin, have identified a gene that may help reduce contamination of conventional crops by genetically modified (GM) crops.

The plant gene discovered by University of Guelph scientists might help farmers reduce the risk of GM contamination and quell arguments against the use of transgenic food crops, said Sherif Sherif, lead author of a new research paper describing the findings.

This is believed to be the first-ever study to identify a gene involved in altering fruit trees that normally cross-pollinate - needing one plant to fertilise another — into self-pollinators, said Sherif.

Sherif said researchers might one day insert this gene into GM crops to prevent their pollen from reaching other plants.

"There are a lot of transgenic crops worldwide," said plant agriculture professor Jay Subramanian, Sherif's PhD supervisor and a co-author on the paper.

"There is concern about pollen from them being able to fertilise something in the wild population, thus creating 'super weeds'." Subramanian said.

The researchers found a gene making a protein that naturally allows a small handful of plants to self-pollinate and make fruit before the flower opens.

Peaches, for example, have closed flowers, unlike their showy-flowered plum and cherry cousins that need pollen from another tree to fertilise and set fruit.

Other co-authors on the paper are Guelph professors Jaideep Mathur, Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology and Gopi Paliyath, from Department of Plant Agriculture, along with Islam El-Sharkawy, a former research associate with Subramanian; and colleagues at the National University of Singapore.

Besides aiding crop farmers and food producers, their discovery might be a boon to perfume-makers, said Subramanian.

Used in fragrant perennials such as jasmine, the gene might keep flowers closed and allow growers to collect more of the aromatic compounds prized by perfume-makers.

"That's when volatile compounds are peaking. When the flower opens, you lose almost 80 per cent of those volatiles," said Subramanian.

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Nasa announces winners of first Mars challenge

WASHINGTON: Nasa has announced the winners of its first Mars balance mass challenge that asked for design ideas for small science and technology payloads that could provide dual purpose as ejectable balance masses on spacecraft entering the Martian atmosphere.

Texas-based Ted Ground was awarded $20,000 for his idea to study the Martian atmosphere by releasing material that could be seen and studied by other Martian spacecraft in orbit and on the ground.

A team of engineers from Grand Rapids, Michigan, received an honourable mention and $5,000 for their idea to study Martian weather by looking at wind patterns near the planet's surface.

"The 219 submissions from 43 countries to the Mars balance mass challenge show the interest the public has in directly engaging with NASA," said Nasa chief technologist David Miller.

"The two winning ideas highlight how effective these activities can be at helping NASA bring innovative ideas into our missions," he added.

The Mars Balance Mass Challenge was announced in September 2014.

The payloads would serve two roles: perform scientific or technology functions that help us learn more about the Red Planet and provide the necessary weight to balance planetary landers.

"We want citizens to join us on the journey to Mars," said George Tahu, programme executive for Mars Exploration at NASA headquarters in Washington, DC.

Submissions to the challenge ranged from analysing Martian weather or the Martian surface, to demonstrating new technologies such as 3D printing or parachutes, to pre-positioning supplies for future human missions on the planet's surface.

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Lack of sleep can up risk of type 2 diabetes

Written By Unknown on Jumat, 20 Februari 2015 | 22.10

LONDON: Those who sleep less are at a higher risk of diabetes. Lack of sleep has been found to elevate levels of free fatty acids in the blood accompanied by temporary pre-diabetic conditions in healthy young men.

"We have found connections between restricted sleep, weight gain and type 2 diabetes," said Esra Tasali, assistant professor of medicine at the University of Chicago and senior author of the study. "Experimental laboratory studies, like ours help us unravel the mechanisms that may be responsible."

The study is the first to examine the impact of sleep loss on 24-hour fatty acid levels in the blood.

It adds to emerging evidence that insufficient sleep -- a highly prevalent condition in modern society -- may disrupt fat metabolism and reduce the ability of insulin to regulate blood sugars. It suggests that something as simple as getting enough sleep could help counteract the current epidemics of diabetes and obesity.

The researchers found that after three nights of getting only four hours of sleep, blood levels of fatty acids, which usually peak and then recede overnight, remained elevated from about 4 am to 9 am. As long as fatty acid levels remained high, the ability of insulin to regulate blood sugars was reduced.

The researchers recruited 19 healthy male subjects between the ages of 18 and 30. These volunteers were monitored through two scenarios in randomized order. In one they got a full night's rest -- 8.5 hours in bed (averaging 7.8 hours asleep) during four consecutive nights. In the other they spent just 4.5 hours in bed (averaging 4.3 hours asleep) for four consecutive nights. The two studies were spaced at least four weeks apart.

Each subject's sleep was carefully monitored, diet was strictly controlled and blood samples were collected at 15 or 30 minute intervals for 24 hours, starting on the evening of the third night of each study. They found that sleep restriction resulted in a 15 to 30% increase in late night and early morning fatty acid levels.

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SkyCruiser: A car, a plane & a copter

WASHINGTON: A US-based start-up is developing a five-passenger "flying car" type vehicle that requires no runway to take off.

Arizona-based Krossblade has created the concept of the SkyCruiser — an electric hybrid aircraft that not only switches between being an airplane and a quadcopter, but can be driven on the road as well.

While SkyCruiser is still in development, the company is bringing the technology in a functioning miniature prototype dubbed the "SkyProwler".

Like a quadcopter, the SkyProwler has four horizontal propellers that allow it to perform vertical take-offs and landings, and to hover in mid-air.

"Vertical Take-Off and Landing (VTOL) enables aircraft to operate from virtually any environment. No runway is required. This opens up flying to a much larger range of possible terrains, from backyards and rough fields, over snow-covered mountains and sandy beaches, to a boat on the sea," Krossblade said on Kickstarter.

While a copter has to tilt its nose down in order to move forward, the SkyProwler uses an additional two vertical props in the rear to push itself forward. This allows it to minimize its frontal area while moving through the air, Gizmag reported.

To make it really fast, users can instruct the aircraft to retract its landing gear and pull its four copter props into the sides of its body.

It is then powered solely by the two rear props, maintaining lift using its wings.

This allows it to cover greater distances using less battery power, and to keep up with fast-moving subjects — its top speed in this configuration is 134 kmph.

For slow-speed flight and hovering, users can lighten it up by temporarily pulling off the wings and tail. Flight time ranges from 24 minutes in quadcopter configuration to 40 minutes when flying fixed-wing. The SkyProwler is controlled using a radio remote control unit. Users can relay simple commands such as "take off" and "land" via voice prompts.

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Drug-resistant malaria parasite from Myanmar threatens India

LONDON: India faces the imminent threat of malaria parasites that are resistant to the drug artemisinin, the frontline treatment against malaria, spreading from Myanmar into its territory, putting thousands of lives at risk, researchers have warned.

The research team confirmed resistant parasites in Homalin, Sagaing Region located only 25 kms from the Indian border.

If drug resistance spreads from Asia to the African sub-continent, or emerges in Africa independently, millions of lives will be at risk, the researchers added.

"We are facing the imminent threat of resistance spreading into India, with thousands of lives at risk," explained professor Mike Turner, head of infection & immunobiology at Britain-based Wellcome Trust.

The researchers examined whether parasite samples collected at 55 malaria treatment centres across Myanmar carried mutations in specific regions of the parasite's kelch gene (K13) - a known genetic marker of artemisinin drug resistance.

The team obtained the DNA sequences of 940 samples of malaria infections (known as Plasmodium falciparum malaria parasites) from across Myanmar and neighbouring border regions in Thailand and Bangladesh between 2013 and 2014. Of those 940 samples, 371 (39 percent) carried a resistance-conferring K13 mutation.

Using this information, the researchers developed maps to display the predicted extent of artemisinin resistance determined by the prevalence of K13 mutations.

The maps suggest that the overall prevalence of K13 mutations was greater than ten percent in large areas of the East and North of Myanmar, including areas close to the border with India.

The collection of samples from across Myanmar and its border regions was led by Kyaw Myo Tun of Defence Services Medical Research Centre, Napyitaw, Myanmar and coordinated by the Mahidol-Oxford Tropical Medicine Research Unit (MORU) in Bangkok, Thailand.

"Drug resistant malaria parasites in the 1960s originated in Southeast Asia and from there spread through Myanmar to India, and then to the rest of the world where it killed millions of people," Turner noted.

"The new research shows that history is repeating itself with parasites resistant to artemisinin drugs, the mainstay of modern malaria treatment, now widespread in Myanmar," Turner explained.

The study appeared online in the journal Lancet Infectious Diseases.

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Scientists produce malaria vaccine from algae

Written By Unknown on Kamis, 19 Februari 2015 | 22.10

NEW YORK: Researchers have developed a new candidate for malaria vaccine with the help of algae-produced malaria parasite protein.

Paired with an immune-boosting cocktail suitable for use in humans, the algae-produced protein generated antibodies in mice that nearly eliminated mosquito infection by the malaria parasite.

Besides its effectiveness as a protein producer, algae is an advantageous tool for developing vaccines because it is cheap, easy and environmentally friendly.

"Most malaria vaccine approaches are aimed at preventing humans from becoming infected when bitten by mosquitoes that carry the parasite," said senior author of the study Joseph Vinetz, professor of medicine at the University of California (UC), San Diego School of Medicine.

"Our approach is to prevent transmission of the malaria parasite from infected humans to mosquitoes," Vinetz explained.

The researchers turned to an algae to produce Pfs25, a protein found on the surface of the malaria parasite's reproductive cells. They believed that Pfs25 might block transmission of the parasite to the next host.

They introduced the Pfs25 gene into the algae by shooting the DNA into the plant cell's nucleus.

Then, after they let the algae do the work of replicating, building and folding the protein, the team was able to purify enough functional Pfs25 for laboratory testing.

In experiments, the researchers found that only one of 24 mosquitoes (4.2 percent) that consumed the Pfs25/adjuvant-treated mouse serum was positive for the malaria parasite.

That is compared to the 28 infected mosquitoes out of the 40 in the control group (70 percent).

Adjuvants are molecules that help stimulate the immune system's response to Pfs25.

"We are really excited to see that Pfs25 produced by algae can effectively prevent malaria parasites from developing within the mosquito," study co-author Stephen Mayfield from UC San Diego.

The study was published in the journal Infection and Immunity.

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Ants have toilet areas in their nests: Study

NEW DELHI: Where do ants go when get a call of nature? Outside their nest would be the most common answer. Or perhaps at any random place. But new research has revealed a tantalizing aspect of ants etiquette: they use corners of their nest as 'toilets'.

The study, published on February 18, 2015 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE, was done by Tomer Czaczkes and colleagues from University of Regensburg, Germany.

The authors of this study conducted an experiment to determine whether distinct brown patches they observed forming in ants' nests were feces. They fed ants, living in white plaster nests, food dyed with either red or blue food coloring and observed the nests for the colorful feces.

They found that one or two corners of each nest started to fill with feces that was the same color as the food they were fed. The researchers found no other waste in these areas, suggesting that ants may use these areas as 'toilets.' They also discovered that the ants didn't just put their toilets anywhere—almost all the ants placed their toilets in the corners.

"For ants, which like us live in very dense communities, sanitation is a big problem," says Dr. Tomer Czaczkes, who led the study. "Ants normally keep a very clean nest, and usually throw out dangerous rubbish, like food remains and corpses."

The researchers are still not quite sure why the ants do this, but suggest that perhaps the piled-up waste might be useful. "Some insects use feces for defense, as building materials, as manure for their crops, and as markings. Perhaps these toilets are also gardens for crops, or even stores for valuable nutrients," added Dr. Czaczkes. Maybe, though, the ants just don't want to go outside to do their business.

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Mars hills may be hiding several hundred million-year-old glaciers

WASHINGTON: A new research has revealed that a complex network of isolated hills, ridges and small basins spanning 1400 km on Mars may be hiding large quantities of water-ice.

Phlegra Montes stretches from the Elysium volcanic region at about 30 degree N and deep into the northern lowlands at about 50 degree N, and is a product of ancient tectonic forces. Its age is estimated to be 3.65-3.91 billion years.

ESA's Mars Express imaged the portion of Phlegra Montes seen on 8 October 2014. It captures the southernmost tip of the range centred on 31degreeN / 160 degree E.

Based on radar data from Nasa's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter combined with studies of the region's geology from other orbiters, scientists believe that extensive glaciers covered this region several hundred million years ago.

It is thought that ice is still there today, perhaps only 20 m below the surface. The tilt of the planet's polar axis is believed to have varied considerably over time, leading to significantly changing climatic conditions. This allowed the development of glaciers at what are today the mid-latitudes of Mars.

Features visible in the Phlegra Montes mountain range providing strong evidence for glacial activity include aprons of rocky debris surrounding many of the hills. Similar features are seen in glacial regions on Earth, where material has gradually slumped downhill through the presence of subsurface ice.

Additional features in the region include small valleys cutting through the hills and appearing to flow into regions of lower elevation, in particular towards the centre of the image.

The hummocky terrain provides a distinct contrast to the smooth plains that dominate the upper portion of this image. The material here is thought to be volcanic in origin, perhaps originating from the Hecates Tholus volcano in Elysium some 450 km to the west, some time after the formation of Phlegra Montes.

Upon closer inspection, 'wrinkle ridges' can be seen in the lava plain. These features arise from the cooling and contraction of lava owing to compressive tectonic forces following its eruption onto the surface.

This region of Phlegra Montes and its local surrounds illustrate some of the key geological processes that have worked to shape the Red Planet over time, from ancient tectonic forces, to glaciation and volcanic activity.

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Indian space mission not a medium of one-upmanship: K Radhakrishnan

Written By Unknown on Rabu, 18 Februari 2015 | 22.10

MANGALURU: Indian space mission is not a medium of one-upmanship (over Western countries), but a mode to use it for the Indians, noted K Radhakrishnan, former chairman, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). The organization while fully internalizing the vision of its founder Vikram Sarabhai over the years has only strived to ensure that the tangible benefits are felt by the common man along indulging in 'exciting missions' like Mangalyaan, he noted.

Delivering the Founders' Day lecture of Karnataka Bank Ltd on Wednesday, Radhakrishnan said this can be gauged by the fact that only 9% of ISROs total outlay is utilized for events such as Mars Orbiter Mission and rest goes towards making the organization useful to the common man in one form or the other. The 25 Indian satellites orbiting the Earth and launched by ISRO influence Indian lives in one manner or the other influencing many sectors, he said.

Noting that global positioning system (GPS) is the buzz word off late, Radhakrishnan said India has already three such GPS satellites in space and the fourth one will be launched in March this year. The presence of GPS satellites helps one to find their location down to the nearest 10 metres accuracy, he said, adding launch of fourth GPS satellite will put in place an assured system that is there for all to see and derive advantage from in any manner they choose.

The 80,000-odd ATMs dotting length and breadth of the country work on Indian communication satellite systems, he said adding the 16,000-odd ISRO workforce is constantly worried about the health of these 25 satellites just as doctors would be about their patients. "If any of these satellite fails, the ripple effect will be felt on the ground," he said adding ISRO has put in place a system to ensure that all systems dependent on these satellites working without any hitch.

Dwelling on the success of MoM, which drew criticism and skepticism - both globally and within the country, Radhakrishnan said the biggest success of this mission is that ISRO has succeeded in bringing Gen Y to discuss pure sciences on its Facebook page. "The FB page launched on October 22, 2013 which has received more than 9 lakh likes and majority of them are in the age group of 18-25 years. They are discussing science there and this is a major success," he said.

About criticism that MoM generated especially 'roti', 'toilet' debate that Rs 450 crore spent on it generated, Radhakrishnan said ISRO fully understood the fine line between national fame and national shame if the mission had failed. "At ISRO, productive conflicts are encouraged," he said adding the organization follows the laws of physics and not hierarchy and even the junior most is encouraged to speak their mind. "MoM has primed us for bigger mission," he said.

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One in three Dutch doctors would consider assisting suicide for patients with dementia

LONDON: The first of its kind study across Europe to see what doctors feel about assisted suicide has revealed that around one in three Dutch doctors would be prepared to help someone with early dementia, mental illness, or who is 'tired of living' to die.

A survey published in the Journal of Medical Ethics reveals that in the Netherlands, euthanasia or assisted suicide for those whose suffering is psychiatric/psychological in nature is legally permissible, but it represents a fraction of the numbers of patients who are helped to die in this way.

And while there is no right to euthanasia, the freedom of a doctor to refuse the request on personal grounds has been widely debated, following some well publicised cases.

In a bid to find out what Dutch doctors think of euthanasia and assisted suicide, the researchers canvassed the views of 2500 randomly targeted general practitioners (family doctors) and specialists in the fields of elderly care, cardiology, respiratory medicine, intensive care, neurology and internal medicine between October 2011 and June 2012.

The doctors were asked whether they had ever helped a patient with cancer, other physical disease, mental illness, early or advanced dementia, or someone without any severe physical ailments, but who was tired of living, to die. Those who had not done so were asked if they would even consider helping someone to die, and under what circumstances.

Among the 2269 eligible respondents, 1456 completed the survey?a response rate of 64%. Around three out of four (77%) had been asked at least once for help to die, rising to more than nine out of 10 among general practitioners.

Most (86%) respondents said they would consider helping a patient to die; just 14% said they would not. Among the 60% of respondents who had actually helped a patient to die, almost half (28%) had done so within the past 12 months.

Attitudes to euthanasia and assisted suicide varied by condition: most would consider it for a patient with cancer (85%) or other physical disease (82%). But only around a third (34%) would consider it for someone who was mentally ill.

Four out of 10 would be prepared to help someone with early stage dementia to die, but only one in three would do this for someone with late stage dementia, even if that person had written an advance directive for euthanasia.

Around one in four (27%) would be prepared to help someone tired of living to die if they had a severe medical condition. But fewer than one in five (18%) would do so in these circumstances if the person had no other medical grounds for suffering.

Only a few of the respondents (7%) had actually helped a patient who did not have cancer or another severe physical illness to die, whereas over half (56%) had helped a cancer patient to die, and around a third (31%) had assisted someone with another physical disease.

Lead author Dr Eva Bolt of the EMGO Institute for Health and Care Research, Amsterdam said "Each physician needs to form his or her own standpoint on euthanasia, based on legal boundaries and personal values. We would advise people with a future wish for euthanasia to discuss this wish with their physician in time, and we would advise physicians to be clear about their standpoint on the matter."

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Strongest material known to man? A limpet's tooth; British scientists confirm

LONDON: British scientists have confirmed that a Limpet teeth might be the strongest natural material known to man.

Researchers from the University of Portsmouth have discovered that limpets - small aquatic snail-like creatures with conical shells - have teeth with biological structures so strong they could be copied to make cars, boats and planes of the future.

The study examined the small-scale mechanical behaviour of teeth from limpets using atomic force microscopy, a method used to pull apart materials all the way down to the level of the atom.

Professor Asa Barber from the University's school of engineering led the study. He said: "Until now we thought that spider silk was the strongest biological material because of its super-strength and potential applications in everything from bullet-proof vests to computer electronics but now we have discovered that limpet teeth exhibit a strength that is potentially higher".

Professor Barber found that the teeth contain a hard mineral known as goethite, which forms in the limpet as it grows.

He said "Limpets need high strength teeth to rasp over rock surfaces and remove algae for feeding when the tide is in. We discovered that the fibres of goethite are just the right size to make up a resilient composite structure.

This discovery means that the fibrous structures found in limpet teeth could be mimicked and used in high-performance engineering applications such as Formula 1 racing cars, the hulls of boats and aircraft structures".

The research also discovered that limpet teeth are the same strength no matter what the size.

"Generally a big structure has lots of flaws and can break more easily than a smaller structure, which has fewer flaws and is stronger. The problem is that most structures have to be fairly big so they're weaker than we would like. Limpet teeth break this rule as their strength is the same no matter what the size."

The material Professor Barber tested was almost 100 times thinner than the diameter of a human hair so the techniques used to break such a sample have only just been developed.

He said "The testing methods were important as we needed to break the limpet tooth. The whole tooth is slightly less than a millimetre long but is curved, so the strength is dependent on both the shape of the tooth and the material. We wanted to understand the material strength only so we had to cut out a smaller volume of material out of the curved tooth structure."

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Life began on earth 3.2 billion years ago

Written By Unknown on Selasa, 17 Februari 2015 | 22.10

Life may have begun on Earth 3.2 billion years ago and not 2 billion years ago as currently thought. This is the startling conclusion emerging from analysis of some of the planet's oldest rocks by researchers from the University of Washington.

Life can exist without oxygen, but without plentiful nitrogen to build genes — essential to viruses, bacteria and all other organisms — life on the early Earth would have been scarce. The ability to use atmospheric nitrogen to support more widespread life was thought to have appeared roughly 2 billion years ago.

But analysis of ancient rock samples from Australia and South Africa, published on February 16 in Nature, showed chemical evidence of life pulling nitrogen out of the atmosphere and converting it into a form that could support larger communities.

"People always had the idea that the really ancient biosphere was just tenuously clinging on to this inhospitable planet, and it wasn't until the emergence of nitrogen fixation that suddenly the biosphere become large and robust and diverse," said co-author Roger Buick, a professor at UW, according to a university press release. "Our work shows that there was no nitrogen crisis on the early Earth, and therefore it could have supported a fairly large and diverse biosphere."

The authors analyzed 52 samples ranging in age from 2.75 to 3.2 billion years old, collected in South Africa and northwestern Australia. These are some of the oldest and best-preserved rocks on the planet. Even the oldest samples, 3.2 billion years old - three-quarters of the way back to the birth of the planet - showed chemical evidence that life was pulling nitrogen out of the air. The ratio of heavier to lighter nitrogen atoms fits the pattern of nitrogen-fixing enzymes contained in single-celled organisms, and does not match any chemical reactions that occur in the absence of life.

"This is hard evidence that pushes it back a further billion years," Buick said. Fixing nitrogen means breaking a tenacious triple bond that holds nitrogen atoms in pairs in the atmosphere and joining a single nitrogen to a molecule that is easier for living things to use. The chemical signature of the rocks suggests that nitrogen was being broken by an enzyme based on molybdenum, the most common of the three types of nitrogen-fixing enzymes that exist now. Molybdenum is now abundant because oxygen reacts with rocks to wash it into the ocean, but its source on the ancient Earth - before the atmosphere contained oxygen to weather rocks - is more mysterious.

The authors hypothesize that this may be further evidence that some early life may have existed in single-celled layers on land, exhaling small amounts of oxygen that reacted with the rock to release molybdenum to the water.

"We'll never find any direct evidence of land scum one cell thick, but this might be giving us indirect evidence that the land was inhabited," Buick said. "Microbes could have crawled out of the ocean and lived in a slime layer on the rocks on land, even before 3.2 billion years ago."

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Mysterious giant clouds spotted on Mars

LONDON: Mysterious cloud-like plumes seen reaching high above the surface of Mars have puzzled scientists studying the atmosphere of the Red Planet.

On two separate occasions in March and April 2012, amateur astronomers reported definite plume-like features developing on the planet.

The plumes were seen rising to altitudes of over 250km above the same region of Mars on both occasions. By comparison, similar features seen in the past have not exceeded 100km.

"At about 250km, the division between the atmosphere and outer space is very thin, so the reported plumes are extremely unexpected," said Agustin Sanchez-Lavega of the Universidad del Pais Vasco in Spain, lead author of the paper published in the journal Nature.

The features developed in less than 10 hours, covering an area of up to 1000 x 500 km, and remained visible for around 10 days, changing their structure from day to day.

None of the spacecraft orbiting Mars saw the features because of their viewing geometries and illumination conditions at the time, researchers said.

However, checking archived Hubble Space Telescope images taken between 1995 and 1999 and of databases of amateur images spanning 2001 to 2014 revealed occasional clouds at the limb of Mars, albeit usually only up to 100km in altitude.

READ ALSO: Kerala girl a step away from ticket to Mars

3 Indians in 100 shortlisted for one way trip to Mars

But one set of Hubble images from May 17, 1997 revealed an abnormally high plume, similar to that spotted by the amateur astronomers in 2012.

Scientists are now working on determining the nature and cause of the plumes by using the Hubble data in combination with the images taken by amateurs.

"One idea we've discussed is that the features are caused by a reflective cloud of water-ice, carbon dioxide-ice or dust particles, but this would require exceptional deviations from standard atmospheric circulation models to explain cloud formations at such high altitudes," said Agustin.

"Another idea is that they are related to an auroral emission, and indeed auroras have been previously observed at these locations, linked to a known region on the surface where there is a large anomaly in the crustal magnetic field," added Antonio Garcia Munoz, a research fellow at ESA's ESTEC and co-author of the study.

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Gold nanotubes can destroy cancer cells

LONDON: Gold nanotubes can act as internal nanoprobes for high-resolution imaging, drug delivery vehicles and agents for destroying cancer cells, scientists say.

The study details the first successful demonstration of the biomedical use of gold nanotubes in a mouse model of human cancer.

"High recurrence rates of tumours after surgical removal remain a formidable challenge in cancer therapy. Chemo- or radiotherapy is often given following surgery to prevent this, but these treatments cause serious side effects," said study lead author Dr Sunjie Ye, from the University of Leeds.

"Gold nanotubes - that is, gold nanoparticles with tubular structures that resemble tiny drinking straws - have the potential to enhance the efficacy of these conventional treatments by integrating diagnosis and therapy in one single system," said Ye.

By controlling the length, the researchers were able to produce gold nanotubes with the right dimensions to absorb a type of light called 'near infrared'.

"When the gold nanotubes travel through the body, if light of the right frequency is shone on them they absorb the light. This light energy is converted to heat, rather like the warmth generated by the Sun on skin," said the study's corresponding author Professor Steve Evans, also from Leeds.

"Using a pulsed laser beam, we were able to rapidly raise the temperature in the vicinity of the nanotubes so that it was high enough to destroy cancer cells," said Evans.

In cell-based studies, by adjusting the brightness of the laser pulse, the researchers say they were able to control whether the gold nanotubes were in cancer-destruction mode, or ready to image tumours.

In order to see the gold nanotubes in the body, the researchers used a new type of imaging technique called multispectral optoacoustic tomography (MSOT) to detect the gold nanotubes in mice, in which gold nanotubes had been injected intravenously.

It was also shown that gold nanotubes were excreted from the body and therefore are unlikely to cause problems in terms of toxicity, an important consideration when developing nanoparticles for clinical use.

The study was published in the journal Advanced Functional Materials.

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ALMA peers inside star-burst galaxies for the first time

Written By Unknown on Senin, 16 Februari 2015 | 22.10

Using the powerful ALMA telescope, scientists have been able to unravel the "burst" in the star-burst galaxies, so called because they make new stars at a dizzying 1,000 times faster than typical spiral galaxies like the Milky Way. They peeled aay layers of gases that shroud the Sculptor Galaxy, some 11.5 million light years away, to find that its star-forming clouds are much more massive, ten times denser, and far more turbulent than similar clouds in normal spiral galaxies.
"All stars form in dense clouds of dust and gas," said Adam Leroy, an astronomer with Ohio State University in Columbus. "Until now, however, scientists struggled to see exactly what was going on inside starburst galaxies that distinguished them from other star-forming regions."
ALMA changes that by offering the power to resolve individual star-forming structures, even in distant systems. Leroy and his colleagues mapped the distributions and motions of multiple molecules in clouds at the core of the Sculptor Galaxy.
"There is a class of galaxies and parts of galaxies, we call them starbursts, where we know that gas is just plain better at forming stars," noted Leroy. "To understand why, we took one of the nearest such regions and pulled it apart - layer by layer - to see what makes the gas in these places so much more efficient at star formation."
ALMA's exceptional resolution and sensitivity allowed the researchers to first identify ten distinct stellar nurseries inside the heart of Sculptor, something that was remarkably hard to accomplish with earlier telescopes, which blurred the different regions together.
The team then mapped the distribution of "signatures" from different molecules inside the center of the galaxy. By comparing the concentration, distribution, and motion of these molecules, the researchers were able to peel apart the layers and peer into the very heart of these violent star nurseries.
They found that it's not just the number of stellar nurseries that sets the throttle for a galaxy to create new stars, but also what kind of stellar nurseries are present. Because the star-forming clouds in Sculptor pack so much material into such a small space, they are simply better at forming stars than the clouds in a galaxy like the Milky Way.

Starburst galaxies, therefore, show real physical changes in the star-formation process, not just a one-to-one scaling of star formation with the available reservoir of material.
These results are accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal and were presented February 15, 2015, at a news conference at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) meeting in San Jose, California.

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Nasa's incredible time-lapse video shows five years of the Sun condensed into three minutes

Nasa has released an incredible time-lapse video showing some of the Sun's most remarkable activity over the last five years.

The three minute video was released by Nasa on Wednesday to celebrate the fifth anniversary of their Solar Dynamics Observatory, and shows the changing surface of the Sun from June 2010 to February 2015.

Some of the highlights of the video include the dancing giant loops, hovering in the Sun's corona, as well as solar flares being hurled into space from the planet's surface in the form of light, energy and X-rays.

The Sun can be seen changing colour, which according to Nasa is caused by different wavelengths of extreme ultraviolet light, ultraviolet light and visible light.

The video also captures some of the biggest sunspots that have been seen on the planet's surface for almost 20 years.

To create the stunning video, the SDO team had to capture an image of the sun every eight hours during the five-year period, before putting them into the time-lapse.

Commenting on the video, a statement from the SDO said that they had created an "unprecedentedly clear picture" of how the Sun's surface changes over time.

The agency said: "The imagery is captivating, allowing one to watch the constant ballet of solar material through the Sun's atmosphere, the corona."

"By watching the sun in different wavelengths - and therefore different temperatures - scientists can watch how material courses through the corona."
The SDO was launched in February 2010, with the aim of helping scientists to understand the sun's variability over time.

Since then it has continued to provide incredible images of the sun at nearly one every second.

The information taken from the images has also broadened the knowledge of scientists, with more than 2000 scientific papers being published on the back of SDO data.

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Newton knew how water rise in plants defies gravity

LONDON: English physicist Isaac Newton very nearly uncovered the secret of how plants defy gravity by pulling water up from roots, almost 200 years before the process was described by botanists, new research has shown.

David Beerling from the University of Sheffield, UK, reviewed an old notebook filled with scrawlings by Newton.

Beerling described in the journal Nature Plants that Newton kept a notebook during his college years which he used for jotting down ideas and musings.

One of those was apparently an idea to help explain how it is that plants are able to pull water from the ground via roots and transport it up through stalks and stems to their leaves - defying gravity in the process, 'Phys.org' reported.

Newton suggested in his notebook that light pulled water particles from pores in plant leaves - as "juices" beneath flowed in naturally to refill the pore, juices from below were pulled upward.

This idea is not far from what is the commonly excepted explanation for plant transpiration today - where water is pulled up a plant from roots and evaporates out of leaves, causing tension due to unequal pressure.

The current theory came about by botanists working in 1885, approximately 200 years after Newton was writing in his notebook.

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Seven genes tied to intellectual disability found

Written By Unknown on Minggu, 15 Februari 2015 | 22.10

BERLIN: Scientists have identified seven new genes that can cause X-linked intellectual disability, a disorder that predominantly affects men and can have highly variable clinical manifestations.

X-linked intellectual disability is caused by defective genes on the X chromosome. As males only have one X chromosome and the disease is passed on in a recessive manner, the disorder mainly occurs in boys.

Women are affected only if both their X chromosomes carry the defective genes. Women with one healthy and one mutated X chromosome are usually healthy but have a 50 per cent chance of passing the mutated X chromosome on to their offspring.

Because of the high variability of the clinical picture, the search for the responsible genetic defect was, until a few years ago, very tedious.

An international research team headed by Vera Kalscheuer from the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics in Berlin has now analysed 405 families, in which cases of X-linked intellectual disability occur.

The researchers have discovered changes in a number of genes that were already known to be related to the disorder.

In addition, they discovered that X-linked intellectual disability can also be caused by mutations in seven other genes that, until now, were not associated with the disorder.

For some years now, scientists have been aided in their research of genetic diseases by high-throughput sequencing.

This technology allows to sequence a large number of DNA segments simultaneously and to more easily identify genetic defects.

Using this method, the scientists investigated all DNA regions of the X chromosome containing protein-relevant information.

"In addition to known disease-related genes, we have discovered seven novel genes as the cause of X-linked intellectual disability and analysed what signalling pathways in the cells each protein is involved in," said Kalscheuer.

According to the researchers, the clinical presentation and severity of the disorder depend on the responsible gene and the nature of the mutation.

For example, if the mutation is located in a region that is important for brain development and protein function, the result is likely to be a more severe disease progression.

With the help of systematic re-sequencing of all X-linked genes, the responsible genetic defect can be identified in around 60 per cent of families with X-linked intellectual disability.

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Scientists track parasites with satellites

MELBOURNE: Scientists are using satellite data to help predict patterns of deadly parasitic diseases such as malaria.

The research could help authorities in developing countries fight parasitic diseases, according to Project leader Professor Archie Clements from the Australian National University.

"Some diseases are highly sensitive to their environment, especially parasitic diseases. With remote sensing you can identify places where disease flourishes," said Clements, Director of the ANU Research School of Population Health.

"This information is useful for decision makers to help them ensure scarce resources are targeted to where they are most needed," Clements said.

The team uses satellite data such as temperature, rainfall, vegetation and land usage, and combines it with health data in a geographical information system (GIS).

"The result is maps that are accessible to countries with limited capacity for managing disease data, tailored to their local needs," Clements said.

The team has trialled systems for malaria in Bhutan, Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands and is now seeking support to scale up to larger countries.

Additionally, spatial predictions for other diseases such as worms and hydatids (a serious and potentially fatal disease caused by a type of tapeworm) are being developed for China, the Philippines and other countries in the Asia-Pacific region.

The research was presented at a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science Conference in San Jose, California.

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Doctors store 1,600 digital human hearts on computer

LONDON: UK doctors have stored 1,600 beating human hearts in digital form on a computer to better understand the relationship between people's genes and heart disease.

Scientists at the Medical Research Council's Clinical Sciences Centre at Hammersmith Hospital are scanning detailed 3D videos of the hearts of 1,600 patients and collecting genetic information from each volunteer.

"There is a really complicated relationship between people's genes and heart disease, and we are still trying to unravel what that is," said Dr Declan O'Regan, who is involved in the heart study.

"But by getting really clear 3D pictures of the heart we hope to be able to get a much better understanding of the cause and effect of heart disease and give the right patients the right treatment at the right time," O'Regan said.

The idea of storing so much information on so many hearts is to compare them and to see what the common factors are that lead to illnesses.

"There are often subtle signs of early disease that are really difficult to pick up even if you know what to look for. A computer is very sensitive to picking up subtle signs of a disease before they become a problem," O'Regan said.

The study is among a wave of new "big data" ventures that are transforming the way in which research is carried out, 'BBC News' reported.

Computers at the European Bioinfomatics Institute (EBI) in Cambridge store the entire genetic code of tens of thousands of different plants and animals. The information occupies the equivalent of more than 5,000 laptops.

To find out how the human mind works, researchers at the Institute for Neuroimaging and Informatics at the University of Southern California are storing 30,000 detailed 3D brain scans, requiring the space equivalent to 10,000 laptops.

The Square Kilometre Array, a radio telescope being built in Africa and Australia, will collect data in one year that is 150 times the current total annual global internet traffic.

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