Peanut consumption with meal benefits vascular health

WASHINGTON: A new study has shed light on consumption of peanuts observing that including them as a part of a high fat meal improves the post-meal triglyceride response and preserved endothelial function.

Lead researcher Xiaoran Liu, a graduate student in the department of nutritional sciences at The Pennsylvania State University, said that peanuts were a healthy snack when eaten as part of a healthy diet.

The purpose of this research was to evaluate vascular function after a high fat meal challenge. Overweight males (n = 15) were randomized to either a peanut meal containing 3 oz. of ground peanuts (as a shake) or a control meal (a shake without peanuts) that were matched for energy and macronutrients.

The lipid profile, glucose and insulin were measured five times after each meal. Flow-mediated dilatation (FMD) was measured to assess vascular function. This non-invasive method required a cuff at the forearm to restrain blood flow, which was then released to assess dilation of the brachial artery. The control meal decreased FMD by 1.2 per cent compared to baseline. In contrast, there was no decrease in FMD after the peanut meal. These results demonstrate that the peanut meal maintained normal vascular function whereas the high fat-matched control meal impaired vascular function acutely.

Liu continued that previous studies have shown that individuals who consume peanuts more than 2 times a week have a lower risk of coronary heart disease and this study indicates that the protective effect of peanut consumption could be due, in part, to its beneficial effect on artery health.

Peanuts are nutrient dense and energy dense, so Liu noted the importance of being aware of their calorie content when incorporating them in the diet. Thus, peanuts must replace other food sources of calories when included in the diet. For example, peanuts can be substituted for high fat, nutrient-poor foods in the diet that contain solid fats.

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Female foetuses more likely to die than males: study

WASHINGTON: Boys and girls are equal in number at conception, but female embryos are less likely to survive, leading to a higher number of males being born, according to a new study that contradicts the previous belief.

Overturning a long-held belief that male embryos are more vulnerable in the first months of life, the study found that human sex ratio is equal at conception and net female mortality exceeds that of males during pregnancy.

Steven Orzack, a senior research scientist with the Fresh Pond Research Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts and colleagues examined a broad data set to investigate the trajectory of the human sex ratio between conception and birth, a trajectory that remains poorly characterised.

Researchers analysed the sex ratios of foetuses at different gestational ages, including three-to-six-day-old embryos produced by assisted reproductive technologies, induced abortions, chorionic villus sampling, amniocentesis, and US census records of foetal deaths and live births.

Analysis of the data revealed that the human sex ratio is equal at conception.

Further, abnormal male embryos outnumber abnormal female embryos at conception, and male mortality is expected to exceed female mortality during the first week after conception.

Female mortality exceeds male mortality during the following 10 to 15 weeks, after which male mortality exceeds female mortality between weeks 28 and 35.

Previous reports suggest that the sex ratio at conception is biased toward males and that male mortality exceeds that of females during pregnancy.

However, rigorous analysis of the large data set suggests that the sex ratio is equal at conception and net female mortality exceeds that of males during pregnancy, according to the authors.

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

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Lunar eclipse on April 4 to be visible all over India

HYDERABAD: There will be a lunar eclipse on April 4 which would be visible from all over India, depending on weather conditions, an expert said here on Tuesday.

A lunar eclipse occurs when the earth comes in between the sun and the moon, casting a shadow on the moon.

"It is total if the earth completely blocks the moon, as will happen on April 4," B M Birla Science Centre director B G Sidharth said here.

"The first contact with the 'umbra' or the beginning of the eclipse is at 15.47 hours. The full lunar eclipse would begin at about 17.30 hours. The total eclipse would begin to end at 17.32 hours," he said in a statement.

However, this celestial spectacle would not be visible in Hyderabad because the moon would not yet have risen, Sidharth said.

The moon would rise in the East at 18.32 hours, just as the sun would set in the West.

When it rises, it would be seen as a partially eclipsed moon.

The partial phase would continue till 19.15 hours, when the eclipse would have ended, he said.

"In actual fact, the moon will not be completely blocked out during the eclipse, but it will appear wherever visible with a brownish reddish glow. This is the so called blood moon. This is because sunlight manages to reach the moon after bending through the earth's atmosphere," he said.

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It takes 38 minutes to fall through Earth!

TORONTO:It would only take a person 38 minutes to fall all the way through the centre of the Earth, instead of the commonly accepted 42 minutes.

The traditional calculation to measure a fall through Earth assumes that our planet has a constant density throughout its many layers.

The new approach assumes that when the different densities of Earth's layers are taken into account, the trip is four minutes shorter than predicted.

To get a realistic mass distribution for Earth, Alexander Klotz, a graduate student in physics at McGill University in Canada, relied on the Preliminary Reference Earth Model, which is based on seismic data.

It traces Earth's density from about less than 1,000 kilogrammes per cubic meter at the surface to roughly 13,000 kilogrammes per cubic meter at the centre of the core 6,371 kilometres below, including a dramatic jump at the edge of the outer core, 3,500 kilometres from the centre.

Solving the problem numerically, Klotz found that an object should fall through Earth in 38 minutes and 11 seconds, instead of the 42 minutes and 12 seconds predicted assuming a uniform planet, 'Science magazine' reported.

Klotz found that he got almost exactly the same answer - 38 minutes flat - if he simply assumed that the force of gravity remained constant and equal to the value at the surface as an object plummeted towards the centre.

Such a constant force would require a different density distribution, one that increases steadily as the distance to Earth's centre falls - so that when the distance to the centre is halved, the density doubles - and peaks to infinity at the centre.

The research was published in the American Journal of Physics.

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It takes 38 minutes to fall through Earth!

TORONTO:It would only take a person 38 minutes to fall all the way through the centre of the Earth, instead of the commonly accepted 42 minutes.

The traditional calculation to measure a fall through Earth assumes that our planet has a constant density throughout its many layers.

The new approach assumes that when the different densities of Earth's layers are taken into account, the trip is four minutes shorter than predicted.

To get a realistic mass distribution for Earth, Alexander Klotz, a graduate student in physics at McGill University in Canada, relied on the Preliminary Reference Earth Model, which is based on seismic data.

It traces Earth's density from about less than 1,000 kilogrammes per cubic meter at the surface to roughly 13,000 kilogrammes per cubic meter at the centre of the core 6,371 kilometres below, including a dramatic jump at the edge of the outer core, 3,500 kilometres from the centre.

Solving the problem numerically, Klotz found that an object should fall through Earth in 38 minutes and 11 seconds, instead of the 42 minutes and 12 seconds predicted assuming a uniform planet, 'Science magazine' reported.

Klotz found that he got almost exactly the same answer - 38 minutes flat - if he simply assumed that the force of gravity remained constant and equal to the value at the surface as an object plummeted towards the centre.

Such a constant force would require a different density distribution, one that increases steadily as the distance to Earth's centre falls - so that when the distance to the centre is halved, the density doubles - and peaks to infinity at the centre.

The research was published in the American Journal of Physics.

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Combat exposure ups heart attack risk

NEW YORK: Combat service, whether or not it leads to a full post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) diagnosis, is itself a strong predictor of heart failure, reveals a new study of 8,000 war veterans in the US.

The veterans with combat experience were about five times more likely to develop heart failure during the study period, compared with those who had not seen combat, the study of veterans living in Hawaii and the Pacific Islands found.

The study, published in the American Journal of Public Health, found that those with post-traumatic stress disorder had a nearly 50 percent greater risk of developing heart failure over about a seven-year follow-up period, compared with their non-PTSD peers.

The findings add to a growing body of evidence linking PTSD and heart disease.

"There are many theories as to how exactly PTSD contributes to heart disease. Overall, the evidence to date seems to point in the direction of a causal relationship," said senior study author Alyssa Mansfield.

The researchers followed the subjects for just over seven years. Those with a PTSD diagnosis were 47 percent more likely to develop heart failure during the follow-up period. Out of the total study group, about 21 percent were diagnosed with PTSD.

Of the total 371 cases of heart failure during the study, 287 occurred among those with PTSD, whereas only 84 cases occurred among the group without PTSD.

The new results, said Mansfield, provide further potent evidence of the nexus between mental and physical health. The practical upshot of the findings is that veterans with PTSD should realise that by treating their PTSD, they may also be helping to prevent heart disease down the road, she said.

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Scientists create night vision eye drops

WASHINGTON: Researchers in the US have used special kind of eye drops to give a man temporary night vision, allowing him to see over 50 metres in the dark.

Science for the Masses, a group of biohackers based in Tehachapi, California, successfully induced night vision in a human test subject by injecting a liquid solution directly into the eyes.

The team used a kind of chlorophyll analog called Chlorin e6 (or Ce6), which is found in some deep-sea fish and is used as an occasional method to treat night blindness.

"There are a fair amount of papers talking about having it injected in models like rats, and it's been used intravenously since the '60s as a treatment for different cancers. After doing the research, you have to take the next step," the lab's medical officer, Jeffrey Tibbetts, told 'Science.Mic'.

Tibbetts dripped 50 microlitres of Ce6, an extremely low dose, into team researcher Gabriel Licina's speculum-stretched eyes, aiming for the conjunctival sac, which carried the chemical to the retina.

"To me, it was a quick, greenish-black blur across my vision, and then it dissolved into my eyes," Licina said.

To test Licina's vision, researchers went into a dark field. First, Licina could identify shapes about 10 metres away. Soon he could see longer distances and recognise symbols and identify moving subjects against different backgrounds.

"The other test, we had people go stand in the woods," Licina said.

"At 50 metres, we could figure out where they were, even if they were standing up against a tree," he said.

Each time, Licina had a 100 per cent success rate. The control group, without being dosed with Ce6, only got them right a third of the time.

The team will follow up the night vision experiment with more rigorous tests.

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Fresh evidence for groundwater on Mars

LONDON: Researchers have found fresh evidence of the presence of groundwater on Mars.

Investigators note that such conditions in a similar Earth environment would have been conducive for microbial colonisation.

Researchers investigated the Equatorial Layered Deposits (ELDs) of Arabia Terra in Firsoff crater area on Mars to understand their formation and potential habitability.

On the plateau, ELDs consist of rare mounds, flat-lying deposits, and cross-bedded dune fields.

Monica Pondrelli from the International Research School of Planetary Sciences, Italy and colleagues interpret the mounds as smaller spring deposits, the flat-lying deposits as playa, and the cross-bedded dune fields as aeolian.

They note that groundwater fluctuations appear to be the major factor controlling ELD deposition.

Pondrelli and colleagues also note that the ELDs inside the craters would likely have originated by fluid upwelling through the fissure ridges and the mounds, and that lead to evaporite precipitation.

The presence of spring and playa deposits points to the possible presence of a hydrological cycle, driving groundwater upwelling on Mars at surface temperatures above freezing.

As a basis for their research, Pondrelli and colleagues produced a detailed geological map of the Firsoff crater area.

The new map includes crater count dating, a survey of the stratigraphic relations, and analysis of the depositional geometries and compositional constraints.

They note that this ELD unit consists of sulfates and shows other characteristics typical of evaporites such as polygonal pattern and indications of dissolution.

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New instrument to hunt for aliens using infrared light

WASHINGTON: Could aliens be transmitting infrared beacons? If so a new instrument can detect them!

Astronomers have developed a new instrument that will scan the sky for pulses of infrared light to speed up the search for extraterrestrial intelligence.

"Infrared light would be an excellent means of interstellar communication," said Shelley Wright, an assistant professor of Physics at the University of California, San Diego.

Pulses from a powerful infrared laser could outshine a star, if only for a billionth of a second. Interstellar gas and dust is almost transparent to near infrared, so these signals can be seen from greater distances.

It also takes less energy to send the same amount of information using infrared signals than it would with visible light, researchers said.

Three years ago while at the University of Toronto's Dunlap Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics, Wright purchased newly available detectors and found they worked well enough to deploy to a telescope.

Jerome Maire, a fellow at the Dunlap played a key role in the hands-on effort to develop the new instrument, called NIROSETI for near-infrared optical SETI.

NIROSETI will also gather more information than previous optical detectors by recording levels of light over time so that patterns can be analysed for potential signs of other civilisations, a record that could be revisited as new ideas about what signals extraterrestrials might send emerge.

Because infrared light penetrates farther through gas and dust than visible light, this new search will extend to stars thousands rather than merely hundreds of light years away.

NIROSETI has been installed at the University of California's Lick Observatory on Mt Hamilton east of San Jose and saw first light on March 15.

The instrument could uncover new information about the physical universe as well, researchers said.

"This is the first time Earthlings have looked at the universe at infrared wavelengths with nanosecond time scales," said Dan Werthimer of UC Berkeley.

"The instrument could discover new astrophysical phenomena, or perhaps answer the question of whether we are alone," said Werthimer.

Frank Drake of the SETI Institute pointed out several additional advantages to a search in this new realm.

"The signals are so strong that we only need a small telescope to receive them. Smaller telescopes can offer more observational time, and that is good because we need to search many stars for a chance of success," he said.

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Micropacemaker to treat foetus with heart block (IANS)

NEW YORK: In a first, researchers have designed a fully implantable micropacemaker for use in a foetus with complete heart block.

Reported in the journal Heart Rhythm, the micropacemaker has been designated a Humanitarian Use Device by the US Food & Drug Administration (FDA).

The team of researchers from the Children's Hospital Los Angeles (CHLA) and the University of Southern California (USC) has already done pre-clinical testing and optimization and they anticipate the first human use of the device in the near future, the study noted.

This device could help prevent miscarriage and premature birth in babies affected with congenital complete heart block.

"Building on our experience of using microfabrication techniques to create biomedical devices, we have developed a micropacemaker small enough to reside entirely within the fetus," said Gerald Loeb, professor at the Viterbi School of Engineering at USC.

"Up until now, the pacemaker devices that have been used in an attempt to treat this condition in a foetus were designed for adults," said study lead author Yaniv Bar-Cohen, pediatric cardiologist at the CHLA.

"We have lacked an effective treatment option for fetuses," Bar-Cohen pointed out.

With each beat of a healthy heart, an electrical signal moves from the upper to the lower chambers of the heart.

As this signal moves, it results in the heart contracting and pumping blood. Congenital heart block is a defect of the heart's electrical system that originates in the developing foetus, greatly slowing the rate of the heart and impacting its ability to pump blood.

Although the condition can be diagnosed in utero, all attempts to treat the condition with a standard pacemaker have failed.

"We now have a pacemaker that can be implanted in utero, potentially without harm to the fetus or the mom," Ramen Chmait, director of the CHLA-USC Institute for Maternal-Fetal Health noted.

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Micropacemaker to treat foetus with heart block

NEW YORK: In a first, researchers have designed a fully implantable micropacemaker for use in a foetus with complete heart block.

Reported in the journal Heart Rhythm, the micropacemaker has been designated a Humanitarian Use Device by the US Food & Drug Administration (FDA).

The team of researchers from the Children's Hospital Los Angeles (CHLA) and the University of Southern California (USC) has already done pre-clinical testing and optimization and they anticipate the first human use of the device in the near future, the study noted.

This device could help prevent miscarriage and premature birth in babies affected with congenital complete heart block.

"Building on our experience of using microfabrication techniques to create biomedical devices, we have developed a micropacemaker small enough to reside entirely within the fetus," said Gerald Loeb, professor at the Viterbi School of Engineering at USC.

"Up until now, the pacemaker devices that have been used in an attempt to treat this condition in a foetus were designed for adults," said study lead author Yaniv Bar-Cohen, pediatric cardiologist at the CHLA.

"We have lacked an effective treatment option for fetuses," Bar-Cohen pointed out.

With each beat of a healthy heart, an electrical signal moves from the upper to the lower chambers of the heart.

As this signal moves, it results in the heart contracting and pumping blood. Congenital heart block is a defect of the heart's electrical system that originates in the developing foetus, greatly slowing the rate of the heart and impacting its ability to pump blood.

Although the condition can be diagnosed in utero, all attempts to treat the condition with a standard pacemaker have failed.

"We now have a pacemaker that can be implanted in utero, potentially without harm to the fetus or the mom," Ramen Chmait, director of the CHLA-USC Institute for Maternal-Fetal Health noted.

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MRI may one day replace biopsy: Study

NEW YORK: A new imaging technique that shows the difference between normal and cancerous cells may one day make biopsies a thing of the past.

Developed by researchers at the Johns Hopkins University in the US, the magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) technique, so far tested only in test tube-grown cells and mice was described in a report published in the online journal Nature Communications.

While imaging tests like mammograms or CT scans are used to detect tumours, figuring out whether a growth is or is not cancer usually requires a biopsy to study cells directly.

The new imaging method non-invasively detected telltale sugar molecules shed by the outer membranes of cancerous cells.

"We think this is the first time scientists have found a use in imaging cellular slime," said Jeff Bulte, professor at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

As cells become cancerous, some proteins on their outer membranes shed sugar molecules and become less slimy, perhaps because they are crowded closer together.

"If we tune the MRI to detect sugars attached to a particular protein, we can see the difference between normal and cancerous cells," Bulte added.

Bulte's research builds on recent findings by others that indicate glucose can be detected by a fine-tuned MRI technique based on the unique way it interacts with surrounding water molecules without administering dyes.

However, Bulte cautioned that much more testing is needed to show that the technique has value in human cancer diagnosis.

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SAC opens micro-satellite project to young minds

AHMEDABAD: For the first time, space is not longer the exclusive preserve of advanced technology institutes and scientists. Isro's Space Application Center (SAC) has invited engineering institutes across the country to share their research ideas at a workshop on April 28 at Ahmedabad on the best possible ways of using its NEMO-AM satellite observations and for developing critical technologies for such missions in the future.

Next Generation Earth Monitoring and Observation Aerosol Monitoring (NEMO-AM) is one of Isro's most crucial next generation high-performance 'micro-satellite' (small satellite) missions.

The satellite weighs just 15 kg with dimensions of 2.2 ft length, 2 ft breadth and 1 ft in height. It will be launched at an altitude of 500 km above the earth. The project is a joint venture of Isro with the Space Flight Laboratory (SFL) of the University of Toronto Institute for Aerospace Studies.

Once launched, the satellite will monitor air quality and pollution caused by suspended airborne solid or liquid particles — called aerosols— which are a big concern. These particles, with a typical size anywhere between a few nanometres and 10 micrometres remain in the atmosphere for at least several hours. The NEMO mission is designed to cover an area of up to 80,000 square kilometers each day.

A senior Isro official said the space agency wants young engineers to explore the potential of multi-angle viewing of the satellite for study of land features and suggest ideas and research proposals. "We also want them to study properties of aerosols in our atmosphere using satellite observations. Most of all we want to utilize the aerosols properties in various scientific investigations," the official said.

For the mission, the Isro team is providing its Canadian partners the scientific expertise for developing the satellite and the crucial algorithm for NEMO-AM. It is for this purpose that the April workshop is being held at SAC Ahmedabad. NEMO-AM spacecraft will be controlled from both SFL in Toronto and Isro's Telemetry Tracking and Command Network (ISTRAC) facility in Bangalore. The satellite's special camera is capable of taking images from seven different viewing angles.

Last year, in June, Isro's PSLV had launched five small satellites — Canada's CanX-4 and CanX-5; Germany's AISSat-1; and Singapore's two-satellite experiment VELOX-1.

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PAU develops kit to test purity of drinking water

LUDHIANA: The Punjab Agricultural University (PAU) has developed a cheap way to test whether the water you are drinking is contaminated or not. They have put forward a 'water testing kit' — a handy way to test your so-called 'filtered water' — in the front at the Kisan Mela as well.

Since water is essential to sustain life, its satisfactory supply must be made available to consumers. Despite the fact that the 'right to drinking water' is now a part of human rights, one-sixth of the world population still does not have access to safe drinking water. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimated that up to 80% of all sicknesses and diseases in the world are caused by inadequate sanitation, polluted water, or unavailability of water. In India, about 21% of all communicable diseases are water-borne, and among them, diarrhoea is responsible for 25-30% of deaths among children below the age of five years.

Keeping these points in view, the PAU's Department of Microbiology has developed a simple, portable, and inexpensive bacteriological water testing kit to determine the easy potability of drinking water. This kit is available in the Department of Microbiology for Rs40 only.

How to use kit:

Cut open the aluminum foil and keep the rubber stopper intact.

Open the kit near a water source and the water sample to be tested or screened for bacteriological potability should be aseptically dispensed in kit bottles up to the calibrated mark (approximately 15ml).

Allow the kit to stand at a warm place for 24 hours.

Bacterial contamination is indicated when the content of the kit bottle shows a change in colour, turbidity, sediments, pellicle, and popping of lid within 12 hours.

For disposal of the kit, add four drops of dettol/disinfectant in the kit before disposal.

Antibiotic susceptibility of consortia can be directly done.

Advantage of PAU kit:

It is the cheapest method known so far.

It is very handy to use.

To perform the test, one needs to add water to the kit and leave it aside.

No equipment is required.

Colour change denotes the presence of microbes.

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Two astronauts set for longest Nasa human mission to space

WASHINGTON: Two astronauts were on Friday ready for a 12-month stay at the International Space Station (ISS) in a longest human expedition to space so far and testing the limits of human research, space exploration and the human spirit.

Nasa's Scott Kelly and Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko will be part of research to help the US space agency and the international partners reduce risks and better understand how to ensure that astronauts will thrive on longer missions.

The launch was set for 3.42pm EDT on Friday (1.12am IST on Saturday).

Most expeditions to the space station last four to six months.

By doubling the length of this mission, researchers hope to better understand how the human body reacts and adapts to long-duration spaceflight, the US space agency said in a statement.

This knowledge is critical as Nasa looks toward human journeys deeper into the solar system, including to and from Mars, which could last 500 days or longer.

It also carries potential benefits for humans here on the Earth, from helping patients recover from long periods of bed rest to improving monitoring for people whose bodies are unable to fight infections.

Long exposure to a zero-gravity environment can affect the human body in multiple ways.

Some physical symptoms can include changes to the eyes, muscle atrophy and bone loss.

Human psychology is also an important area of study, as the effects of living in isolated and small spaces will be important to understand ahead of future human missions to Mars.

There are seven key elements of research on the one-year mission.

Functional studies will examine crew member performance during and after the 12-month span.

"Behavioural studies will monitor sleep patterns and exercise routines. Visual impairment will be studied by measuring changes in pressure inside the human skull," the statement read.

Metabolic investigations will examine the immune system and effects of stress.

Physical performance will be monitored through exercise examinations.

Researchers will also monitor microbial changes in the crew, as well as the human factors associated with how the crew interacts aboard the station.

A number of spaceflight endurance records will be broken during the one-year mission, including the most cumulative time in space for any US astronaut.

Kelly will spend 342 days off the planet resulting in a total of 522 days in space, allowing him to surpass current US record holder Mike Fincke's mark of 382 days.

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'Good' bacteria may help prevent meningitis

LONDON: Researchers have found that nasal drops of a "good" bacterial strain can help prevent the deadly disease meningitis. The findings could lead to a new approach that could help suppress meningitis outbreaks.

"It is the first time that anyone has taken a bug -- a friendly bacterium -- and has shown that it changes the way that you can become colonised by the meningitis bacterium, Neisseria meningitidis," said study author Robert Read from University of Southampton.

Meningitis can be life threatening and the first symptoms of the disease are usually fever, vomiting, headache and feeling unwell.

In the study, published online in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases, researchers placed drops containing low doses of Neisseria lactamica, a related but harmless bacterial strain, into the noses of 149 healthy university students in Britain.

A control group of 161 students received drops of saline instead. Nose swabs were taken at regular intervals over six months and tested for both types of bacteria.

Among students who received the N lactamica drops and became colonised, the harmless bacteria appeared to prevent N meningitidis from colonising the students' throats.

The "good" bacteria also displaced the worrisome pathogen in those who were already carrying it when the study began.

The effect was seen after just two weeks, when the number of students carrying N. meningitidis in their upper airway dropped by 9.5 percent among those who were also colonised by N lactamica using the drops. The effect lasted for at least four months, the researchers noted.

The findings suggest that N lactamica may one day be used as a bacterial medicine to help suppress meningococcal outbreaks.

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Why diabetes drug makes people fat

NEW YORK: Medication used to treat patients with Type II diabetes activates sensors on brain cells that increase hunger, causing people to gain more body fat, new research has found.

The study, published in The Journal of Neuroscience, describes a new way to affect hunger in the brain and helps to explain why people taking a class of drugs for Type II diabetes gain more body fat.

The team found that sensors in the brain that detect free circulating energy and help use sugars are located on brain cells that control eating behaviour.

"This is important because many people with Type II diabetes are taking antidiabetics, known as thiazolidinediones (TZDs), which specifically activate these sensors," said study author Johnny Garretson, doctoral student at the Georgia State University.

"People taking these TZDs are hungrier, and they do gain more weight," Garretson pointed out.

The study found peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor &Upsih (PPAR&Upsih); sensors on hunger-stimulating cells, known as agouti-related protein (AgRP) cells, at the base of the brain in the hypothalamus.

"When they are taking these drugs, it is activating these receptors, which we believe are controlling feeding through the mechanism that we found," Garretson noted.

"We discovered that activating these receptors makes our rodent animal model eat more and store more food for later, while blocking these receptors makes them eat less and store less food for later, even after they have been food deprived and they're at their hungriest," Garretson said.

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New Ebola vaccine found safe in early human trials

BEIJING: A new Ebola vaccine has been found to be safe in the first phase one trial based on the 2014 strain of the virus.

The experimental vaccine, developed by the Beijing Institute of Biotechnology and the Tianjin CanSino Biotechnology, also provokes an immune response in recipients, noted the study published in the journal The Lancet.

Until now, all tested Ebola virus vaccines have been based on the virus strain from the Zaire outbreak in 1976.

"On the basis of our findings, we believe that the Ebola vaccine we assessed has some potential," said lead lead researcher Fengcai Zhu from the Jiangsu Provincial Center for Disease Prevention and Control in China.

"A significant advantage of this type of vaccine is that stable and much easier to store or transport in tropical areas with inadequate cold-chain capacity, such as Africa," Zhu added.

The researchers tested the safety and immunogenicity of a novel Ebola vaccine, based on the 2014 Zaire Guinea Ebola strain, and delivered by a virus-like structure (known as a recombinant adenovirus type-5 vaccine).

For the trial, 120 healthy Chinese adults were randomly assigned in equal numbers to receive placebo, a low dose, or high dose of the vaccine.

The randomised trial took place at one site in Taizhou County, Jiangsu Province, China.

The researchers found that 28 days after vaccination, 38 out of 40 participants in the low-dose group and all 40 of those in the high-dose group had a positive immune response to the vaccine, with participants in the high-dose group producing higher quantities of antibodies than those in the low-dose group.

No specific immune response was recorded in the placebo group.

However, the researchers noted that the study does not show whether the level of immune response observed might ultimately be able to offer protection against Ebola virus.

"Whether this candidate vaccine could become a final vaccine for widespread use against Ebola outbreaks is still uncertain, because of the issues of HIV-1 acquisition rates and the pre-existing immunity, especially in west Africa," Zhu noted.

More evidence from clinical trials is needed about these concerns, Zhu added.

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Mars has nitrogen, key to life: Nasa

WASHINGTON: Nasa's Curiosity rover has found nitrogen on the surface of Mars, a significant discovery that adds to evidence the Red Planet could once have sustained life, the space agency said Tuesday.
By drilling into Martian rocks, Curiosity found evidence of nitrates, compounds containing nitrogen that can be used by living organisms.

The Curiosity team has already found evidence that other ingredients needed for life, such as liquid water and organic matter, once existed at the site known as Gale Crater.

"Finding a biochemically accessible form of nitrogen is more support for the ancient Martian environment at Gale Crater being habitable," Jennifer Stern of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland said in a statement.

Nitrogen is essential for all known forms of life, because it's a building block of DNA and RNA.

However, "there is no evidence to suggest that the fixed nitrogen molecules found by the team were created by life," NASA cautioned.

"The surface of Mars is inhospitable for known forms of life."

The research team suggested that instead, the nitrates are ancient and likely came from meteorite impacts, lightning and other non-biological processes.

On Earth and Mars, nitrogen is found in the form of nitrogen dioxide gas -- two atoms locked together so tightly that they do not react easily with other molecules.

The nitrogen atoms must be separated or "fixed" so they can participate in the chemical reactions needed for life.

"On Earth, certain organisms are capable of fixing atmospheric nitrogen and this process is critical for metabolic activity," NASA said.

"However, smaller amounts of nitrogen are also fixed by energetic events like lightning strikes."

Curiosity is currently at the foot of Mount Sharp, an 18,000-foot (5,500-meter) mountain formed by sedimentary layers.

In December, the robot detected regular methane emissions near the Martian surface, but its source is unknown.

Scientists do not expect Curiosity to find aliens or living creatures on Mars, but they hope to use it to analyze soil and rocks for signs the key elements to life are present and may have supported life in the past.

The $2.5 billion Curiosity rover also aims to study the Martian environment to prepare for a possible human mission there in the coming years.

US President Barack Obama has vowed to send humans to the planet by 2030.

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Scientists develop first 3D mini lung

NEW YORK: Scientists have grown the first 3D mini lungs from stem cells. The 3D structures bear greater similarity to the human lung than previously made 2D structures, researchers said.

The scientists succeeded in growing structures resembling both the large proximal airways and the small distal airways, according to the study published in eLife.

"We expected different cells types to form, but their organization into structures resembling human airways surprised us and is a very exciting result," said lead author Jason Spence from the University of Michigan.

The scientists used embryonic stem cells, proteins involved in lung development, growth factors and protein mixture in a Petri dish.

"First, we added protein ActivinA to stem cells and left for four days. A type of tissue called endoderm formed. Endoderm is found in early embryos and gives rise to the lung, liver and several other internal organs.

"Then we added Noggin, another protein, and a transforming growth factor. It was left for another four days.

"The endoderm is induced to form 3D spherical structures called the foregut spheroids," the researchers detailed the method of growing the mini lungs.

The next challenge was to make these structures expand and develop into lung tissue by exposing the cells to proteins involved in lung development.

"The lung organoids are self-organizing, and do not require further manipulation to generate 3-dimensional tissues," Spence explained.

However, since these structures were developed in a dish, they are lacking several components of the native lung, including the blood vessels.

"We hope to build on our initial findings to build increasingly complex mini-lungs by adding these components, eventually forming tiny organs able to perform functions related to breathing," Spence said.

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Quality of science in India "lousy", improve quality: CNR Rao

NEW DELHI: Eminent scientist CNR Rao today said the quality of science in India was "lousy", adding if the country wants to have a future it should improve on quality.

Critical of lack of infrastructure in the scientific field, Rao, a recipient of Bharat Ratna, also rued the lack of investment in this sector.

Underlining the need for better scientific infrastructure in the country, Rao said India does not have "a single institution" that can match the best abroad even as he cited the example of China to call for more investment in science.

It was difficult to bring development in the country with the "lousy" quality of science, Rao said while delivering a lecture 'Celebration of Science' at Jamia Milia Islamia here.

"If India has to have a future, it has to improve in quality. The main thing in India is that everything from the corporate (sector) and education to science needs to have quality. Our Prime Minister (Narendra Modi) says development with quality improvement because with the lousy quality we have, it is difficult to have development," he said.

Ruing the lack of investment in the scientific sphere, he said it "is so bad that it is less than one per cent of the GDP. Everyone is promising 2 per cent of the GDP (as investment), but that is not happening".

Highlighting the example of neighbouring China, he said that for every Indian scientist, there are 100 scientists in the neighbouring country.

"This is unbelievable. They (China) invest a huge amount of money. They are producing 30,000 Ph.d students and, next year, will produce 50,000 Ph.d students," Rao said.

"There is not a single institution in India which has facilities equal to the best institutions abroad. At least one, at least two... We don't have even that. So, we got to have that. I think we need to have overall better infrastructure to do well in science," he said.

Rao also emphasised the need for freedom and a better academic environment for students to excel in the country.

"Our young boys and girls go to America. They suddenly start doing good. Not because their brain is tuned in a different way after going there. What do they have? Freedom and the environment. India's future depends on that," he said.

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'Multiple pregnancies put mother at heart disease risk'

NEW YORK: Women who give birth to four or more children are at higher risk of developing cardiovascular diseases than women who have fewer children, says Indian-American researcher Monika Sanghavi from University of Texas's Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas.

"This study adds to a body of evidence that pregnancy, which generally occurs early in a woman's life, can provide insight into a woman's future cardiovascular risk," informed Sanghavi, assistant professor of internal medicine and lead author of the study.

One possibility might be that women who have many pregnancies may have more visceral fat (fat around abdominal organs). This has been linked to increased heart disease risk.

Another possibility could be that increased cholesterol and higher blood sugar associated with pregnancy may lead to increased risk.

"During pregnancy, a woman's abdominal size increases, she has higher levels of lipids in her blood, and higher blood sugar levels. Each pregnancy increases this exposure," Sanghavi noted.

Using data gathered for the Dallas Heart Study, Sanghavi and her team compared the number of live births reported by women in the study with their coronary artery calcium (CAC) levels and aortic wall thickness (AWT).

High levels of coronary artery calcification and thicker aortic walls are markers of heart disease that show up before symptoms develop. Women were divided into three groups: One or no live births, two to three live births, and four or more live births.

Women who reported four or more live births had a 27 percent prevalence of a high calcium score compared with 11 percent among those with two to three live births.

The trend was similar when looking at AWT measurements.

"The associations were not affected by adjusting for socio-economic status or traditional cardiovascular risk factors, suggesting that physiological changes associated with pregnancy may account for the change," Sanghavi explained.

"We are learning that there are numerous physiologic changes during pregnancy that have consequences for future heart health," said senior author Amit Khera, associate professor of internal medicine.

This study reminds us of the importance of taking a pregnancy history as part of cardiovascular disease screening, he concluded.

After receiving her undergraduate degree in bioengineering from Oregon State University, Sanghavi attended medical school at Oregon Health and Science University.

She completed her residency in internal medicine at Northwestern Memorial Hospital and received advanced training in cardiology through a fellowship at UT Southwestern, where she was chief cardiology fellow.

Sanghavi is a member of the American Society of Preventive Cardiology, the Texas Medical Association, the American Heart Association, and the American College of Cardiology. In 2013, she was presented the American Heart Association Women in Cardiology Trainee Award for Excellence.

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Isro releases 6 fresh pics from Mars, as MOM completes 6 months

BENGALURU: With the mars orbiter mission's (MOM) expected life of 6 months around Mars concluding on Tuesday, Isro released fresh pictures of the Red Planet and a senior scientist also confirmed to TOI that its life will be extended by another six months.

TOI had reported on February 9 that MOM is likely to have an extended life and that Isro was likely to make an official announcement on the same.

On Tuesday, the official confirmation was made, but the scientist however said the spacecraft living out its new lease of life will depend on how it handles the solar eclipse expected to occur in the Martian Orbit sometime in April-May 2015.

The control over MOM's fuel usage and use of the payloads is currently with the ground stations personnel where know how much fuel to expend and whether or not a manoeuvre is needed and so on. However, during the eclipse, MOM will get into an autonomous mode and scientists will have no control over it.

"...The solar panels on MOM currently power a lot of sub-systems and fuel is only being used for small auto-corrections.During the eclipse, MOM may expend fuel to turn the panels to position it towards the sun, or even use some up for re-positioning itself in the orbit and so on, we really cannot guess how much fuel it may use," the scientist said.

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Disinfectant chlorine may promote antibiotic resistance

NEW YORK: Interacting with pharmaceuticals in water, chlorine, a common disinfectant used in water treatment, may encourage the formation of unknown antibiotic compounds that could add to the growing problem of antibiotic resistance, a study warns.

The research was presented at the 249th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society (ACS) in Denver.

"Increased antibiotic exposure, even at low levels in the environment, can lead to development of antibiotic-resistant microbes and a general weakening of antibiotics' abilities to fight bacterial infections in humans," said Olya Keen from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.

Chlorine may be failing to completely eliminate pharmaceuticals from wastes. As a result, trace levels of these substances get discharged from the plants to the nation's waterways.

Chlorine treatment may thus encourage the formation of new, unknown antibiotics that could also enter the environment, potentially contributing to the growing problem of antibiotic resistance, the researchers explained.

"Treated wastewater is one of the major sources of pharmaceuticals and antibiotics in the environment," Keen noted.

For the study, the researchers ran several lab experiments and found that exposing doxycycline, a common antibiotic, to chlorine in wastewater increased the antibiotic properties of their samples.

This research has applications to drinking water treatment systems, most of which also use chlorine as a disinfectant, she added.

To purify drinking water, chlorine must remain in the distribution piping system for hours, which blocks microbes from growing.A

But this also provides ample time for chlorine to interact with pharmaceuticals that may be in the water, encouraging development of new antibiotic compounds, the researchers pointed out.

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Punishment pushes up pot use among teenagers: Study

WASHINGTON: Suspending kids from school for using marijuana is likely to lead to more — not less — pot use among their classmates, a study has found.

Students attending schools with suspension policies for illicit drug use were 1.6 times more likely than their peers at schools without such policies to use marijuana in the next year — and that was the case with the student body as a whole, not just those who were suspended, the findings showed.

The study published in the American Journal of Public Health showed that counselling was a much more effective means of combating marijuana use.

"That was surprising to us," said co-author Richard Catalano, professor at the University of Washington.

"It means that suspensions are certainly not having a deterrent effect. It is just the opposite," Catalano added.

The researchers found that students attending schools with policies of referring pot-using students to a school counsellor were almost 50 percent less likely to use marijuana.

Data for the research came from the International Youth Development Study, a long-term initiative started in 2002 to examine behaviour among young people in Washington and Victoria.

The two states were chosen since they are similar in size and demographics, but differ considerably in their approaches to drug use among students.

Washington schools are more likely to suspend students, call police or require offenders to attend education or cessation programmes, the researchers said, while Victoria schools emphasise a harm-reduction approach that favours counselling.

Researchers surveyed more than 3,200 seventh and ninth-graders and nearly 200 school administrators.

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Plant molecule to make our roads greener: Study

NEW YORK: Use of a plant molecule in asphalt and sealant mixtures could make roads environmentally friendly and help roofs hold up better under different weather conditions, contends a study.

The plant molecule called lignin could one day replace bitumen, a by-product of crude oil production which is currently used as the main sticky ingredient in asphalt and roof sealants, noted the study presented at the 249th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society (ACS) in Denver.

As oil is a non-renewable resource and fluctuations in the oil market have made it more difficult to get high-quality bitumen, manufacturers have been forced to look for alternatives, said Ted Slaghek, senior scientist at TNO, a non-profit organisation in the Netherlands.

"In the long term, we have to move to renewable products that we can harvest every year," pointed out Slaghek.

Lignin is a renewable resource that makes up as much as a third of the dry material in trees, where it keeps out water and binds together other components of plant biomatter, like cellulose, the researchers noted.

Lignin is also plentiful -- and therefore, inexpensive, the researchers noted.

To use it as an additive, the researchers said, lignin must be integrated into the bitumen on the molecular level, not just mixed into it. By integrating the lignin, it is possible to reduce the amount of bitumen needed by as much as half, Slaghek said.

As with other additives, lignin makes sealants perform even better -- but those polymer additives come from petroleum sources, making them just as problematic as bitumen.

Slaghek's team developed a number of lignin-bitumen mixtures that make the asphalt harder in warm weather, preventing rutting and adding several years to a road's lifespan.

"We have also developed lignin-bitumen mixtures that keep the bitumen more tacky, so at lower temperatures it is still a good road," Slaghek added.

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How genes shift from mother to baby

NEW YORK: Researchers from the New Jersey-based Princeton University have decoded the shift from maternal genes to the embryo's genes during development.

Learning how organisms manage this transition could help scientists understand larger questions about how embryos regulate cell division and differentiation.

"At the beginning, everything the embryo needs to survive is provided by mother but eventually, that stuff runs out and the embryo needs to start making its own proteins and cellular machinery," said postdoctoral researcher and first author Shelby Blythe.

The study, published in the journal Cell, provides new insight into the mechanism for this genetic hand-off which happens within hours of fertilisation when the newly fertilised egg is called a zygote.

To find out what controls this maternal to zygotic transition, Blythe conducted experiments in the fruit fly which has long served as a model for development in higher organisms including humans.

The experiments revealed that the slower cell division is a consequence of an upswing in DNA errors after the embryo's genes take over.

Cell division slows down because the cell's DNA-copying machinery has to stop and wait until the damage is repaired.

Blythe found that it was not the overall amount of embryonic DNA that caused this increase in errors.

Instead, his experiments indicated that the high error rate was due to molecules that bind to DNA to activate the reading, or transcription, of the genes.

These molecules stick to the DNA strands at thousands of sites and prevent the DNA copying machinery from working properly.

To discover this link between DNA errors and slower cell replication, Blythe used genetic techniques to create fruit fly embryos that were unable to repair DNA damage and typically died shortly after beginning to use their own genes.

"This provided evidence that the process of awakening the embryo's genome is deleterious for DNA replication," the authors wrote.

The work enables researchers to explore larger questions of how embryos regulate DNA replication and transcription.

Additionally, these early embryos allow them to study how the cell builds and installs features that are so essential to the fundamental processes of cell biology.

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Scientists closer to recreating woolly mammoth

LONDON : Scientists may be one step closer to recreating the woolly mammoth after they have successfully inserted 14 of the extinct animal's genes into the live DNA of an elephant.

Researchers analysed DNA from mammoths preserved in Arctic permafrost and then used the results to reproduce exact copies of 14 mammoth genes.

These were integrated into the elephant genome, where they functioned as normal DNA.

George Church, professor of genetics at Harvard University, used a new technique known as Crispr that allows scientists to make precision edits to DNA, replacing sections of elephant DNA with the mammoth genes.

"We prioritised genes associated with cold resistance including hairiness, ear size, subcutaneous fat and, especially, haemoglobin (the blood molecule that carries oxygen around the body)," said Church.

"We now have functioning elephant cells with mammoth DNA in them," Church said.

Mammoths are close relatives of Asian elephants, arising from a common ancestor that lived two and a half million to five million years ago.

Mammoths largely died out in the last Ice Age, possibly because of human hunting.

The last few survived on Wrangel Island in the Arctic Ocean until about 3,300 years ago, where their carcasses provided the DNA analysed by Church and his colleagues, 'The Sunday Times' reported.

Other researchers are trying to reconstruct the whole mammoth genome, with at least three teams in the race.

The genome could one day become a template to recreate real mammoths -- or something like them.

"If we identify part of the mammoth genome that looks distinct from elephant DNA and which might make a mammoth look and act like a mammoth, then we can synthesise it in the lab," said Beth Shapiro of the University of California, an expert on ancient DNA.

"Then we could use technologies like Crispr to cut an elephant gene out of an elephant genome and replace it with a synthetic mammoth version," she said

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Language may change how you see the world

LONDON: Different languages may cause their speakers to view an event differently, scientists say.

Researchers from Lancaster University and other institutions are studying how the language that a person is using may change the way that person sees what's around — thought processes included.

"We make sense of objects and events around us by classifying them into identifiable categories. The extent to which language affects this process has been the focus of a long-standing debate: Do different languages cause their speakers to behave differently?" researchers wrote in the journal Psychological Science.

"Here, we show that fluent German-English bilinguals categorize motion events according to the grammatical constraints of the language in which they operate," researchers wrote.

As predicted from cross-linguistic differences in motion encoding, participants functioning in a German testing context prefer to match events on the basis of motion completion to a greater extent than participants in an English context, the study found.

"These findings show that language effects on cognition are context-bound and transient, revealing unprecedented levels of malleability in human cognition," researchers wrote.

The researchers also asked German-English bilinguals to provide similarity judgments on video-clip triads depicting goal-oriented motion events (eg, a woman walking towards a car), Medical Xpress reported.

Speakers of German, Afrikaans, and Swedish, tend to mention endpoints, look at endpoints, and favour endpoints in similarity judgments, whereas speakers of English, Spanish, Arabic, and Russian, do so to a lesser extent, the study found.

Endpoints mean that German speakers tend to specify the beginnings, middles, and ends of events, but English speakers often leave out the endpoints and focus in on the action, according to 'news.sciencemag'.

Looking at the same scene, for example, German speakers might say, "A man leaves the house and walks to the store," whereas an English speaker would say, "A man is walking."

Bilingual speakers, meanwhile, seemed to switch between these perspectives based on the language most active in their minds.

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Chemical to trap malaria mosquitoes identified

LONDON: In a world first, researchers have found that a naturally occurring chemical attracts pregnant malaria-transmitting mosquitoes - a discovery which could boost malaria control efforts.

The chemical, cedrol, found in mosquito breeding sites near Africa's Lake Victoria, could be used in traps that would 'attract and kill' the female mosquito, preventing reproduction before she lays hundreds of eggs.

This is the first chemical confirmed to attract female mosquitoes after they have fed, while they search for a place to lay their eggs, and offers a new way to control mosquitoes.

The researchers followed the Anopheles gambiae mosquito's journey: after a blood meal from a human, the female mosquito heads off to lays her eggs in a pool of still water.

The team noticed that some pools would be full of larvae, while others remained empty.

The team set up a number of pools of water with different infusions, such as grasses, different soils, even rabbit food pellets, and judged which pools the mosquitoes preferred to lay in by counting the number of mosquito larvae in each.

They quickly honed in on one particular soil, which they dubbed their 'magical mud'.

"We found the mosquitoes were more than twice as likely to lay eggs in water infused with this particular soil than in water fresh from Lake Victoria," said Mike Okal, a PhD student at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, and corresponding author on the study.

After various studies to confirm that it was an odour released from the soil infusion, rather than the look of the turbid water, that was attracting mosquitoes, the challenge was to isolate the precise chemical that drew them in.

Researchers identified a number of chemicals released from the soil-infused water and compared these with over 100 samples taken from natural mosquito breeding sites around Lake Victoria.

They quickly honed in on one - the sesquiterpene alcohol cedrol - which was present in their soil infusion and was also found in more than 50 per cent of their natural habitat samples.

The team confirmed that the mosquitoes were two times more likely to lay eggs in water with cedrol in the laboratory and a controlled field environment.

During their field test, the team showed that wild mosquitoes were three times more likely to be caught in traps baited with cedrol than in traps with lake water alone.

"Our study for the first time has carefully demonstrated that egg-bearing Anopheles gambiae mosquitoes can detect the chemical cedrol and are drawn to it in real-world circumstances," said project leader Dr Ulrike Fillinger, from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

The research was published in the Malaria Journal.

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Key to better sex life: Sleep longer

A new study could have a simple answer to enhancing your sex life — just get a good night's sleep (if you are a woman at least).

A study conducted by a team at the University of Michigan Sleep and Circadian Research Laboratory found women who get an extra hour of sleep at night reported higher levels of sexual desire and were more likely to have sex with their partners.

Researchers evaluated 171 female participants selected from a university setting who filled in online surveys for two weeks. They were asked to answer questions about how much sleep they had, sleep quality, levels of arousal and whether they had engaged in sexual activity in the last 24 hours. The team found women in relationships who slept for an hour longer reported higher levels of sexual desire and were 14% more likely to have sex with their partner the next day.

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An app to help blind type quickly on iPad

NEW YORK: This new app can help blind people type quickly and efficiently on an iPad.

Created by Stanford engineer Sohan Dharmaraja, the app — named IBrailler Notes — uses eight keys. What's different about it is that the keys form around the fingertips when they're placed on the screen.

Which means that if a user loses his way, he simply lifts his fingers from the screen and places them down again.

"It's a great feeling to think our work has the potential to connect and empower people, something their sighted counterparts may take for granted," Dharmaraja was quoted as saying by NotImpossibleNow.

The iBrailler also has an easy undo/redo function that requires a simple clockwise or counter-clockwise twist of a single fingertip across that glass. Google is one click.

A blind user can cut, copy and paste on the device. Traditional Braille writers come in a variety of models but are very costly. But for an iBrailler all that is required is an iPad and an app.

Since January, a free test version of the iBrailler app has been available on the app store.

However, the free version doesn't allow for sharing what's written and limits the numbers of notes and characters in each note.

But for something around $40, users are allowed unlimited writing and sharing through Dropbox, email, clipboard or opening the note in another app.

"We want to continuously improve the typing experience on touchscreen devices for the blind so we want to develop relationships with our users and testers," Dharmaraja was quoted as saying.

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Solar eclipse sweeps across Atlantic; total eclipse visible only from remote islands

TORSHAVN: A solar eclipse swept across the Atlantic Ocean on Friday with the moon set to block out the sun for a few thousand sky gazers on remote islands with millions more in Europe, Africa and Asia getting a partial celestial show.

The moon's shadow fell south of Greenland at 0741 GMT and sped eastwards towards the Faroe Islands and the Norwegian Arctic islands of Svalbard, where hotels have been sold out for years to fans of the rare total eclipse.

"I've seen aurora, I've seen some volcano eruptions, but the total eclipse is still the most spectacular thing I've ever seen. And each one is unique," said Fred Espenak, a retired NASA astrophysicist in Torshavn, capital of the Faroe Islands.

READ ALSO: Magical views from top of the world for solar eclipse

But skies over Torshavn were mostly cloudy early on Friday. They were clearer over Svalbard, where visitors have been urged to stay in the main village to make it easier to protect against polar bears and frostbite.

A polar bear mauled a Czech tourist on Thursday, breaking into his tent as he slept. Jakub Moravev, flown by helicopter to hospital, hopes to be well enough to see the eclipse after escaping with slight injuries to his face, chest and an arm.

The Faroe Islands expect about 8,000 visitors on top of the island's 50,000 population for the first eclipse in the region in 60 years while about 2,000 people have made the trek to Svalbard, doubling the population.

That contrasts with tens of millions of people who saw the last major eclipse in Europe in 1999. A partial eclipse will be visible on Friday mainly in Europe and Russia, and skim parts of north Africa, the Middle East and Asia.

People watch as a solar eclipse begins over the Eden Project near St Austell in Cornwall, England. (AP Photo)

The eclipse will also slightly curb solar power production in Europe. With clouds around, some tourists braced for disappointment.

"This is hopefully our fourth total solar eclipse," said German tourist Helge Lubenow on the Faroes. "The first one in Germany was not good, but since then we have been travelling the world hoping for better circumstances. But here probably not."

With clear skies, stars and planets are suddenly visible in daytime and a ring of fire - the corona - appears around the sun.

In one famous experiment, a 1919 eclipse gave evidence for Einstein's theory of relativity by showing that the sun's mass bent light from distant stars.

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Melatonin helps get better sleep even in noisy conditions

NEW DELHI: Chinese researchers have found that small doses of sleep regulating hormone melatonin ensure better quality sleep even if the surroundings are noisy and lit up. They compared the effect of melatonin with use of an eye mask and earplugs and found that the hormone is much better. The study is published in the open access journal Critical Care.

The purpose of the study was to find out how patients in intensive care units (ICU) can get a good sleep despite lights being on and constant sounds from machines, attendants and patients.

In ICUs, disturbances throughout the night have been linked to slower recovery. This has led clinicians to investigate ways of reducing sleep disturbances. But the results may have applications under normal circumstances too for people sleeping in noisy environments. Melatonin is secreted by the body to regulate sleep, usually in periods of darkness.

Synthetic melatonin is used to boost the body's own melatonin levels to treat some sleep disorders, and sometimes as a means of overcoming jet lag. Researchers from Capital Medical University in Beijing recruited 40 healthy participants to study the effects simulated ICU conditions had on sleep patterns.

The research was conducted in the sleep lab of Fuzhou Children's Hospital of Fujian Province in collaboration with Professor Ling Shen. Lead researcher, Professor Xiu-Ming Xi from Fuxing Hospital, Capital Medical University, says: "Both use of oral melatonin and use of earplugs and eye masks improve sleep quality at different levels, especially melatonin. Discomfort from use of earplugs and eye masks might affect sleep quality, which wasn't reported with melatonin.

Therefore, compared to earplugs and eye masks, melatonin showed up the better performance in effectiveness and the tolerance of participants." For the first four nights all participants underwent an adjustment period in which a recording from a typical night shift at an ICU was played and light levels were the same as in the hospital while they slept. Then, the participants were randomly divided into four equal groups but continued to sleep in the simulated ICU. The first group did not receive any sleep aid. The second were provided with eye masks and earplugs. The third group took 1mg of fast-release oral melatonin when going to bed. The final group of participants was given a placebo. The participants did not know if they were receiving melatonin or placebo.

During the study period all participants' melatonin levels were tested hourly by taking blood samples. The quality of sleep was assessed using specialist equipment that measured brain activity, eye movement and muscle tension. Anxiety levels and sleep quality were also evaluated by getting participants to self-evaluate the following morning.

It was found that all sleep patterns were disturbed by exposure to the simulated ICU environment. This resulted in feelings of anxiety and reduced quality of sleep. Those participants that used either eye masks and earplugs or oral melatonin had improved sleep. Those who took melatonin were found to have decreased awakenings during the night even compared to the eye mask and earplugs group.

The quality of the sleep was also found to be much improved for those taking melatonin, with reported lower anxiety levels and increased REM sleep - thought to be linked to improved cognitive restoration.

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Scientists find why some mushrooms glow in dark

WASHINGTON: Some mushrooms glow in the dark to attract the attention of insects that spread the fungal spores around, according to scientists who have finally answered a question posed by Aristotle over 2,000 years ago.

Greek philosopher Aristotle was aware of the intriguing fact that some mushrooms glow in the dark but the reason for this remained unknown.

Scientists have now found that the light emitted from those fungi attracts the attention of insects, including beetles, flies, wasps, and ants.

Those insect visitors are apparently good for the fungi because they spread the fungal spores around.

The new study also showed that the mushrooms' bioluminescence is under the control of the circadian clock.

"It appears that fungi make light so they are noticed by insects who can help the fungus colonise new habitats," said Cassius Stevani of Brazil's Instituto de Quimica-Universidade de Sao Paulo.

The circadian control of bioluminescence makes the process more efficient.

Among bioluminescent organisms, fungi are the most rare and least well understood. Only 71 of more than 100,000 described fungal species produce green light in a biochemical process that requires oxygen and energy.

Researchers had believed in most cases that fungi produce light around the clock, suggesting that perhaps it was a simple, if expensive, metabolic byproduct.

Stevani and colleagues studied Neonothopanus gardneri, one of the biggest and brightest of bioluminescent mushrooms.

N gardneri is also called "flor de coco," meaning coconut flower, by locals in Brazil, where the mushroom can be found attached to leaves at the base of young palm trees in coconut forests.

The researchers found that the mushrooms' glow is under the control of a temperature-compensated circadian clock.

To find out what that green glow might do for the mushrooms, the researchers made sticky, fake mushrooms out of acrylic resin and lit some from the inside with green LED lights.

When those pretend fungi were placed in the forest where the real bioluminescent mushrooms are found, the ones that were lit led many more staphilinid rove beetles, as well as flies, wasps, ants, and "true bugs," to get stuck than did sticky dark mushrooms.

Researchers said they are now interested in identifying the genes responsible for the mushrooms' bioluminescence and exploring their interaction with the circadian clock that controls them.

The study is published in the Cell Press journal Current Biology.

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Aspirin may not reduce colorectal cancer risk: Study

WASHINGTON: Regular use of aspirin or other non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAID) can reduce most people's colorectal cancer risk but a few individuals with rare genetic variants do not share this benefit, a study has suggested.

"Previous studies, including randomised trials, demonstrated that NSAIDs, particularly aspirin, protect against the development of colorectal cancer, but it remains unclear whether an individual's genetic makeup might influence that benefit," co-senior author Andrew Chan of the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) Gastroenterology Division said in a statement on Tuesday.

"Since these drugs are known to have serious side effects — especially gastrointestinal bleeding — determining whether certain subsets of the population might not benefit is important for our ability to tailor recommendations for individual patients," Xinhua quoted Chan as stating.

Chan and colleagues analysed data from 10 large population-based studies in North America, Australia and Germany. They compared genetic and lifestyle data from 8,624 people who developed colorectal cancer with that of 8,553 people who did not. Both groups were matched by age and gender.

The researchers found that regular use of aspirin or NSAID was associated with a 30 percent reduction in colorectal cancer risk for most people.

However, they found no such protective effect among about nine percent of the study participants who had genetic variations on chromosome 15.

What is more, about four percent of the participants who carried two even rarer genotypes on chromosome 12 had an increased risk of colorectal cancer.

The researchers cautioned that the ability to translate genetic profiling into tailored preventive care plans for individuals is still years away.

"It is premature to recommend genetic screening to guide clinical care, since our findings need to be validated in other populations," Chan said.

The findings were published in the US journal JAMA.

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Terminator-inspired 3D printer grows objects from liquid

VANCOUVER: A terrifying killer liquid metal robot portrayed in the movie 'Terminator', has inspired what was heralded here as a revolution in 3D printing. At the TED conference on Tuesday, chemist Joseph DeSimone displayed a 3D printer that let creations rise from pools of molten liquid in much the way the dreaded T-1000 robot from the second 'Terminator' film rose from a silvery puddle. "We were inspired by the 'Terminator 2' scene for the T-1000," DeSimone said.

DeSimone and co-inventors developed a technology they call Continuous Liquid Interface Production (CLIP) that harnesses powers of light and oxygen in a printer that brings designed objects quickly into existence from small reservoirs of elastic material with sophisticated properties. "We have a reservoir that holds the puddle like the T-1000," DeSimone said. Printing finished parts at speeds competitive with current manufacturing processes is "a game changer," he said. Current 3D printers rely on spraying layer upon layer of material, slowly building objects which takes hours.

The time taken by such printers means it is not feasible to use resins that change chemically before the printing is finished. CLIP is 25 to 100 times faster than traditional 3D printers, and uses synthetic resins with mechanical properties strong enough to make them finished parts, said DeSimone. He saw the technology transforming manufacturing from cars, planes, and turbines to dental or surgical implants.

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Nasa mission detects mysterious dust cloud on Mars

WASHINGTON: Nasa's Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) spacecraft has observed mysterious high-altitude dust cloud and aurora that reaches deep into the Martian atmosphere.

The presence of the dust at orbital altitudes from 150 km to 300 km above the surface was not predicted earlier.

Although the source and composition of the dust are unknown, there is no hazard to MAVEN and other spacecraft orbiting Mars.

"If the dust originates from the atmosphere, this suggests we are missing some fundamental process in the Martian atmosphere," said Laila Andersson from the University of Colorado's Laboratory for Atmospherics and Space Physics (CU LASP), Boulder, Colorado.

It is unknown if the cloud is a temporary phenomenon or something long lasting.

The cloud density is greatest at lower altitudes.

However, even in the densest areas, it is still very thin.

So far, no indication of its presence has been seen in observations from any of the other MAVEN instruments.

Possible sources for the observed dust include dust wafted up from the atmosphere; dust coming from Phobos and Deimos, the two moons of Mars; dust moving in the solar wind away from the sun; or debris orbiting the sun from comets.

However, no known process on Mars can explain the appearance of dust in the observed locations from any of these sources.

Earlier, MAVEN's Imaging Ultraviolet Spectrograph (IUVS) observed what scientists have named "Christmas lights".

"What is especially surprising about the aurora we saw is how deep in the atmosphere it occurs - much deeper than at Earth or elsewhere on Mars," added Arnaud Stiepen from the University of Colorado.

The source of the energetic particles appears to be the sun.

Billions of years ago, Mars lost a global protective magnetic field like Earth has, so solar particles can directly strike the atmosphere.

The electrons producing the aurora have about 100 times more energy than you get from a spark of house current, so they can penetrate deeply in the atmosphere.

The findings were presented at the 46th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in the Woodlands, Texas recently.

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Four universities to study genetics of two mental health disorders

MUMBAI: Researchers at the University of Michigan School of Public Health and Medical School and collaborators at two other institutions will undertake the largest whole genome sequencing study funded to date, as they seek to better understand bipolar disorder and schizophrenia.

U-M, the University of Southern California and the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT will work together to deeply sequence the genomes of 10,000 people of European, Hispanic and African-American origin. They received three separate four-year awards totaling $16 million from the National Institute of Mental Health.

The U-M led team includes four researchers from SPH, one from the Medical School and two from the HudsonAlpha Institute of Biotechnology.

"We hope to gain a better understanding of these diseases that directly affect 1 per cent of the population but impact countless friends and relatives," said Principal Investigator Michael Boehnke, the Richard G Cornell Distinguished University Professor of Biostatistics and director of the Center for Statistical Genetics in the Department of Biostatistics at SPH.

"From what we learn, we hope we can identify better targets for drug development or better targets for the drugs we now have. We also could imagine improving our ability to predict who might get these diseases."

In whole genome sequencing, researchers read essentially all 3 billion base pairs of a person's DNA.

Boehnke said the collaboration builds on previous research by these same investigators. They worked together on a smaller genome sequencing project, and each has a specific role to play in the current work that begins this month.

The USC team has gathered information and DNA on a large number of people with bipolar disorder and schizophrenia and corresponding individuals without disease, which allowed for the large study, he said. Their Genomic Psychiatry Cohort collected DNA samples from 37,000 people with and without diseases who agreed to be a part of genomic, epidemiological and clinical studies.

For the project titled Whole Genome Sequencing of Schizophrenia and Bipolar Disorder in the Genomic Psychiatry Cohort, investigators at the Broad Institute will carry out genome sequencing, and U-M and Broad investigators will lead the analysis of the resulting data.

U-M SPH researchers have been in the forefront of genomic research. They have developed sophisticated computational and statistical tools for human gene mapping that have led to a greater understanding of bipolar disorder, diabetes, asthma, cardiovascular disease and macular degeneration. They also have been major contributors to a number of national projects, including 1000 Genomes, the first effort to sequence the DNA of a large group of people.

In addition to Boehnke, U-M researchers include: Laura Scott, SPH research associate professor; Goncalo Abecasis, chair, SPH Department of Biostatistics and Felix E Moore Collegiate Professor of Biostatistics; Hyun Min Kang, assistant professor in SPH; and Melvin McInnis, Thomas B and Nancy Upjohn Woodworth Professor of Bipolar Disorder and Depression and director of the HC Prechter Bipolar Research Fund, U-M Medical School.

Bipolar disorder, also known as manic-depressive illness, is a brain disorder that causes mood shifts, and dramatic ups and downs in energy and activity level. Those with it often struggle with daily activities.

Schizophrenia also is a brain disorder that may cause those afflicted to hear voices and have irrational fears that people are reading their minds, controlling their thoughts or plotting against them.

These disorders are among the leading causes of disability worldwide due to their early onset and chronic course. There is clinical and genetic evidence of overlap of these illnesses, the researchers say, emphasizing the importance of a combined genetic analysis.

Symptoms of these disorders impact personal, social and vocational capabilities due to ongoing and fluctuating symptoms. Suicide occurs in 10-20 per cent of cases. While many treatments are available they are not effective in a significant number of individuals.

Detailed knowledge of genetic structure will provide the basis for novel interventions, the researchers say.

Both conditions run in families and are thought to result from interactions between biological and environmental factors. Previous research has established the importance of genetics, and researchers say this approach will examine details of genetic sequences in an unprecedented number of individuals.

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Longer breastfeeding duration tied to higher IQ

WASHINGTON: Longer duration of breastfeeding is linked to higher IQ and greater earnings in adulthood, a new study has found.

"Our study provides the first evidence that prolonged breastfeeding not only increases intelligence until at least the age of 30 years but also has an impact both at an individual and societal level by improving educational attainment and earning ability," said lead author Dr Bernardo Lessa Horta from the Federal University of Pelotas in Brazil.

The study followed a group of almost 3,500 newborns born in Pelotas, Brazil for 30 years.

Information on breastfeeding was collected in early childhood. Participants were given an IQ test at the average age of 30 years old and information on educational achievement and income was also collected.

The researchers divided the subjects into five groups based on the length of time they were breastfed as infants, controlling for 10 social and biological variables that might contribute to the IQ increase including family income at birth, parental schooling, genomic ancestry, maternal smoking during pregnancy, maternal age, birthweight, and delivery type.

While the study showed increased adult intelligence, longer schooling, and higher adult earnings at all duration levels of breastfeeding, the longer a child was breastfed for (up to 12 months), the greater the magnitude of the benefits.

For example, an infant who had been breastfed for at least a year gained a full four IQ points (about a third of a standard deviation above the average), had 0.9 years more schooling (about a quarter of a standard deviation above the average), and a higher income of 341 reais (USD 104) per month (equivalent to about one third of the average income level) at the age of 30 years, compared to those breastfed for less than one month.

"The likely mechanism underlying the beneficial effects of breast milk on intelligence is the presence of long-chain saturated fatty acids (DHAs) found in breast milk, which are essential for brain development," Horta said.

"Our finding that predominant breastfeeding is positively related to IQ in adulthood also suggests that the amount of milk consumed plays a role," Horta said.

The study is published in The Lancet Global Health journal.

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Australian research brings malaria vaccine closer

MELBOURNE: A team of Australian researchers are a step closer to finding a vaccine to prevent malaria, after discovering patterns in the human immune system that help fight the disease in its early stages.

The team from the Burnet Institute in Melbourne collaborated with universities from Australia, Britain and Africa to develop the research over a 10-year period, Xinhua news agency reported.

The study, published in the medical journal Immunity, concluded that the human immune system can trigger a response that calls upon proteins in red blood cells, and the head of the Burnet Institute's biomedical research centre, James Beeson, said that this development could be used in creating a vaccine for the disease.

"The immune system needs to produce specific antibodies and they are proteins that the immune system produces that combat infections," he told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) on Wednesday.

"Those antibodies recognize the malaria infection or parasites as we call them. Then they need to recruit these other proteins that are in the bloodstream, known as complement proteins.

"And then the two together — the antibodies and the complement — perform a double hit on the malaria infection and stop it from getting inside red blood cells, and therefore stopping the infection and the subsequent disease.

"We're hoping that this new knowledge opens up a new strategy to generate or develop highly effective vaccines."

Researchers have been seeking a vaccine for the disease for decades, but this natural development in the human immune system brings the chances of a vaccine that much closer.

Malaria is one of the world's biggest killers. In Africa alone, more than 600,000 people die of this each year, and Beeson said the research was a huge step towards eliminating the disease worldwide.

"Despite recent advances in malaria control and prevention globally, it remains a huge burden and a vaccine is desperately needed," he said in a statement.

Beeson said that a "double blow" knockout punch was required to kill the disease, as malaria can adapt to fight off drugs used to treat it.

He said the results were encouraging, but there was much work still to be done.

"There are still a number of questions to address before we can develop a highly effective vaccine," he said.

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Citizen scientists help Nasa pinpoint more asteroids

WASHINGTON: Nasa challenged the public and amateur scientists delivered, coming up with a software application that can help identify more asteroids, some of which endanger our planet.

The US space agency issued a call to citizen scientists last year called "The Asteroid Data Hunter challenge" and offering a $55,000 prize.

The winning software formula can help identify significantly more new asteroids than at present, Nasa said.

"Analysis of images taken of our solar system's main belt asteroids between Mars and Jupiter using the algorithm showed a 15 percent increase in positive identification of new asteroids," a Nasa statement explained.

The contest offered budding scientists the chance to improve the algorithms used to pinpoint asteroids in images captured by telescopes.

The new algorithm lets astronomers use computers to autonomously check images and quickly see which are suitable for followup, which leads to identifying greater numbers than previously possible.

"The Asteroid Data Hunter challenge has been successful beyond our hopes, creating something that makes a tangible difference to asteroid hunting astronomers and highlights the possibility for more people to play a role in protecting our planet," said Jason Kessler, program executive for Nasa's Asteroid Grand Challenge.

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Anna Atkins: This is why British scientist who produced first photographic book has been given a Google Doodle

LONDON: Today marks the birthday of Anna Atkins, a British botanist whose use of cyanotypes - or 'sunprints' - of plants and algae in botanical studies paved the way for the use of photography in scientific publishing.

Now versions of her beautiful photographic images are being used as a Google doodle to celebrate the 216th anniversary of her birth, in 1799. The delicate leaves used to spell out the name of the search engine are slate blue against a darker blue background. This is due to the cyanotype process, which involves the exposure of a mix of ammonium iron citrate and potassium ferricyanide to ultraviolet light, leaving the paper so-called Prussian blue.

In fact, the word 'blueprint' comes from the same process, which had previously been used to reproduce architectural drawings and designs. Atkins' claim to fame rests on her realisation that the photographic process could be used to give accurate and detailed botanical images, thus advancing the possibility of scientific illustration. She did this by placing leaves directly on the paper for the length of the exposure, which makes these, strictly speaking, photograms, rather than photographs.

Google doodle in honour of Anna Atkins.
However, Atkins' first book using the technique didn't show leaves such as those we see in today's Google Doodle. Instead this was Photographs of British Algae, in 1843, a privately published collection with handwritten captions to the individually produced cyanotypes.

It was her mentor - and the inventor of the cyanotype process - English astronomer Sir John Herschel, who produced the first commercially published book illustrated with photographs, The Pencil of Nature, in 1844.

Taken from an album of ferns published in 1853 for presentation to CSA by Anna Atkins and her friend, Anne Dixon (1799-1864). (Photo by SSPL/Getty Images)
Atkins was born in Tonbridge in Kent and received an unusually scientific education for a woman of her time, following in the footsteps of her father, John George Children. Long before her experiments with cyanotypes, her engravings of shells were used to illustrate her father's translation of a book on the subject.

After her book on algae, she collaborated with Anne Dixon on at least two more botanical books, Cyanotypes of British and Foreign Ferns and Cyanotypes of British and Foreign Flowering Plants and Ferns.

Because they were produced in such small numbers, her books are very rare, and have fetched up to £229,000 at auction.

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