New spy entrant: A one-way sound machine is here

NEW YORK: What about a device that can help people hear someone talking but they themselves cannot be heard. Here comes one.

A team of researchers at University of Texas (UT) has built the first-ever circulator for sound - a one-way road for sound.

Called an acoustic circulator, the device creates one-way communication and can be a game changer for the spying industry.

The fundamental symmetry with which acoustic waves travel through air between two points in space can be broken by a compact and simple device.

"Using the proposed concept, we were able to create one-way communication for sound traveling through air," said an associate professor at the Cockrell School of Engineering at University of Texas in Austin.

An electronic circulator, used in communication devices and radars, is a non-reciprocal three-port device in which microwaves or radio signals are transmitted from one port to the next in a sequential way.

When one of the ports is not used, the circulator acts as an isolator, allowing signals to flow from one port to the other, but not back.

The researchers found the same functionality is true for sound waves travelling in air.

"The circulator can transmit acoustic waves in one direction but block them in the other, in a linear and distortion-free way," explained Romain Fleury, the paper's first author.

Using the same concept, it may actually be possible to construct simpler, smaller and cheaper electronic circulators and other electronic components for wireless devices, as well as to create one-way communication channels for light, said research.

It also opens up avenues for very efficient sound isolation and interesting new concepts for active control of sound isolators, added the study published in the journal Science.

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Indian scientists help create market-oriented agriculture for eastern and southern Africa

HYDERABAD: A sustainable and market-oriented agriculture is the way forward in making smallholder farming in Eastern and Southern Africa more profitable and resilient, and in feeding the region's growing population using the limited resources available now and in the future.

Enabling farmers to adapt to changing environment and new opportunities, and making markets work for them are some of the key concerns raised at the three-day regional planning meeting of the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT). ICRISAT scientists from Hyderabad are coordinating with their counterparts in Kenya, Malawi, Ethiopia, Zimbabwe, as well as from West and Central Africa to achieve the targets.

"Inclusive market-oriented agriculture is the key to making farming more profitable for the poor and emerging farmers in Eastern and Southern Africa," stressed Dr William Dar, ICRISAT Director General.

"Partnerships and collaboration are critical to developing tailor-made solutions that suit the context of the region and providing farmers with access to science-based innovations that will build their resilience," he added.

The regional planning meeting consisted of a review of on-going research activities in Eastern and Southern Africa as well as brainstorming and interactive sessions to help identify new areas of research and opportunities for scaling out improved technologies and tools.

In-coming Chair of the ICRISAT Board, Prof Chandra Madramotoo, reiterated that science alone was not enough; it must be translated into impacts that make a difference to the lives of smallholder farmers in the drylands. He emphasized that efficient management of the natural resource base was critical to continued productivity in the smallholder cropping system and must be addressed, preferably at the watershed level.

"This planning exercise helps us to ensure that ICRISAT's research is aligned with the CGIAR Research Programs on Dryland Cereals and Grain Legumes that we are leading. But more importantly, it serves as a check for us to make sure that we are still focused on the right questions, that we are relevant to the smallholder farmers we work for and that we have strategies and tools in place for maximum impact," said Dr CLL Gowda, ICRISAT's Deputy Director General for Research.

Dr Dar committed to provide technical contribution to the soil mapping and land suitability analyses for the new scheme, to draw from ICRISAT's experience on sustainable natural resource management in the state of Karnataka in south India.

Prof Madramotoo also shared with the KARI Director ICRISAT's Inclusive Market-Oriented Development (IMOD) approach in making technologies profitable for smallholder farmers, and called for a stronger and more dynamic partnership as the way forward in creating a market-oriented agriculture,

As a result of the visit, a team will be identified to work out a time line for a joint planning meeting between KARI and ICRISAT.

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Rough Mars terrain taking toll on Nasa rover Curiosity

WASHINGTON: All is not well with Nasa's Mars rover Curiosity. The wear and tear in its wheels owing to rough Martian landscape has been a cause of concern for mission managers.

They are now seeking out a smoother path for the one-tonne robot to its ultimate goal.

Mission managers revealed their growing concern for the 'accelerated' wheel damage Curiosity was sustaining.

The rough terrain is taking its toll on the rover's six wheels, causing scratches and punctures.

In high-resolution photographs captured by the rover's robotic arm-mounted camera, the full extent of Curiosity's wheel damage was revealed.

Mission managers now want to preserve the wheels' condition for as long as possible, so searching for smoother landscape to traverse would be prudent, Jim Erickson of Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Pasadena, California, was quoted as saying.

"We'll take a peek over the dune into the valley immediately to the west to see whether the terrain looks as good as the analysis of orbital images implies," Erickson said in a Nasa release.

The dune, which stands approximately one metre high, has been dubbed 'Dingo Gap'.

"This area is appealing. The big draw is exploration and seeing new things," the release added.

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Nasa to launch robotic missions to make water on Moon and oxygen on Mars

WASHINGTON: Nasa is planning to launch robotic missions to make water on the Moon in 2018 and oxygen on Mars in 2020.

The Moon mission will be the US space agency's first attempt to demonstrate in-situ resource utilisation (ISRU) beyond Earth.

The purpose of ISRU, or "living off the land" is to harness and utilize space resources to create products and services which enable and significantly reduce the mass, cost, and risk of near-term and long-term space exploration.

"Every pound that you don't have to launch from the Earth of dumb mass — things like water and air and propellant — means that you can add a pound of intelligent mass — an experiment, a computer, something designed to accomplish some job or give us some capability," said lunar geologist Paul Spudis, with the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston.

"Doing ISRU gives you incredible leverage because you're changing the fraction of intelligent-to-dumb mass on your spacecraft in favour of the intelligent part," he said.

The first in-space ISRU test is targeted for 2018, 'Discovery News' reported.

Nasa plans to launch a mission called Resource Prospector that includes a rover with instruments to scout for telltale hydrogen, drill out samples, heat them and scan for water vapour and other volatiles on the moon.

Vapour also could be re-condensed to form a drop of water.

"A lot of the technologies have broader use than just lunar ... it's just a convenient location to be testing the ISRU technology," said Jason Crusan, director of Advanced Exploration Systems at NASA headquarters in Washington DC.

A second ISRU experiment is due to be aboard NASA's next Mars rover, which is slated for launch in 2020.

The device, which is yet to be selected, would pull carbon dioxide from the planet's atmosphere, filter out dust and other particles and prepare the gas for chemical processing into oxygen.

The demonstration also could include actual oxygen production, the report said.

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New dinosaur fossil discovered in China

BEIJING: Scientists have discovered the fossil of a 60-feet long plant-eating dinosaur in China that lived about 100 million years ago.

A team led by University of Pennsylvania paleontologists has characterised the new dinosaur based on fossil remains found in northwestern China.

The species, a plant-eating sauropod named Yongjinglong datangi, roamed during the Early Cretaceous period, more than 100 million years ago.

This sauropod belonged to a group known as Titanosauria, members of which were among the largest living creatures to ever walk the Earth.

At roughly 50-60 feet long, the Yongjinglong individual discovered was a medium-sized Titanosaur. Anatomical evidence, however, points to it being a juvenile; adults may have been larger.

The finding, reported in the journal PLOS ONE, helps clarify relationships among several sauropod species that have been found in the last few decades in China and elsewhere.

Its features suggest that Yongjinglong is among the most derived, or evolutionarily advanced, of the Titanosaurs yet discovered from Asia.

Until very recently, the US was the epicentre for dinosaur diversity, but China surpassed the US in 2007 in terms of species found, researchers said.

This latest discovery was made in the southeastern Lanzhou-Minhe Basin of China's Gansu Province.

The remains consisted of three teeth, eight vertebrae, the left shoulder blade, and the right radius and ulna.

The anatomical features of the bones bear some resemblance to another Titanosaur that had been discovered in China in 1929, named Euhelopus zdanskyi.

"The shoulder blade was very long, nearly 2 meters, with sides that were nearly parallel, unlike many other Titanosaurs whose scapulae bow outward," Doctoral student Liguo Li said.

The scapula was so long that it did not appear to fit in the animal's body cavity if placed in a horizontal or vertical orientation, as is the case with other dinosaurs.

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Rs 225 crore brain research centre to come up in Bangalore

BANGALORE: A brain research centre at a cost of Rs 225 crore will come up here in a joint effort between Indian Institute of Science and a trust formed by Infosys executive vice-chairman Kris Gopalakrishnan and his wife.

IISc, the country's premier university for scientific research and higher education, and the Pratiksha Trust today announced the collaboration to establish the Centre for Brain Research.

The Trust will grant Rs. 225 crore over 10 years towards the establishment and functioning of the Centre, which will receive support from the Centre for Neuroscience and other research facilities at IISc and collaborate with various research hospitals across the city.

The Centre, a Trust statement said, would be dedicated to study the numerous aspects of the functioning of the brain with specific goals to find cures for neurodegenerative conditions and diseases that are accelerated by old age.

It will also work for a better understanding of relative functions of the brain as well as leveraging the existing understanding of its functioning to create better models of computing, the statement said.

To guide the Centre, an international Scientific Advisory Board has been set up with Nobel Laureate, Prof Torsten Wiesel as Chairman.

Professors Stanley Fahn, Columbia University; Sangram Sisodia, University of Chicago; John Morris, Washington University, St. Louis; and Giovanni Frisoni, University of Geneva among the members of the Scientific Advisory Board. The Board will help in initiating the operations of the Centre, set research goals, and guide the Centre in its initial years.

To ensure an alliance between medical research and computing, the Trust will also fund the setting up of three chair professorships each in the Departments of Computer Science at IISc and at Indian Institute of Technology, Madras (IIT Madras), it said.

Gopalakrishnan, Trustee of the Pratiksha Trust, said, "The human brain is one of the world's biggest mysteries, which is yet to be fully understood by man. By funding and creating this Centre with IISc, we are working towards creating a globally recognized, world-class research facility that will be at the cutting-edge of research on the human brain."

Professor P Balaram, Director of IISc, said the creation of the Centre for Brain Research in Bangalore provides a wonderful opportunity to bridge the gap between science and engineering on the one hand and biomedical research, including translational research on the other.

The Pratiksha Trust is a charitable trust established by Kris Gopalakrishnan and Sudha Gopalakrishnan that supports education, research, innovation, and entrepreneurship initiatives targeted towards the poor and focuses on creating systemic changes in society, the statement said.

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Asthma risk to premature babies higher than previously thought: Study

NEW DELHI: Babies born early are more likely to develop childhood asthma than those born at full term, new research shows.

A worldwide study of more than 1.5 million children found that the risk of developing asthma, or asthma-like symptoms, after a pre-term birth is higher than previously thought.

In addition, the risks of developing asthmatic symptoms are the same for preschool and school age children, indicating that children born prematurely do not outgrow the risk.

With asthma the most common chronic disease in childhood, and an increasing number of babies now surviving premature birth, this is likely to become a significant health problem.

According to a press statement from the University of Edinburgh's Centre for Population Health Sciences, Asthma affects some 8% of children born at full term, while this rises to 14% in babies born prematurely - defined as at least three weeks early - the study shows.

The findings are published in PLOS Medicine. Babies born more than three weeks before the usual 40-week term early were almost 50% more likely to develop asthma. Those born more than two months early were three times as likely to be affected as babies born at full term.

Data was taken from 30 studies of patients from six continents who were born since the 1990s. Most were from Western countries, including 14 from Europe and four from the UK.

Dr Jasper Been, of the University of Edinburgh's Centre for Population Health Sciences, who led the study in collaboration with Maastricht and Harvard Universities, said: "Doctors and parents need to be aware of the increased risks of asthma in premature babies, in order to make early diagnosis and intervention possible."

"By changing the way we monitor and treat children born pre-term, we hope to decrease the future risks of serious breathing problems, including asthma. Our findings should help find better ways to prevent and treat asthma and asthma-like symptoms in those born pre-term," added Been.

Many pre-term babies experience breathing problems, because their lungs are immature. Previous research among pre-term children born in the 1960s to 1980s showed that many went on to develop asthma. Although care for pre-term babies has improved, it was unclear whether this affected the babies' long-term risk of asthma.

Researchers say it is important to better understand why pre-term birth leads to asthma, so that early interventions can be developed to prevent childhood asthma among children born pre-term.

Dr Samantha Walker, executive director of research and policy at Asthma UK, said: "This is a robust study providing further evidence that babies born before their due date are at increased risk of childhood asthma. We know that uncontrolled asthma in pregnant women, amongst other things, can increase the risk of premature birth, which reinforces the need for good asthma management during pregnancy. Standard asthma medicine is very safe to use in pregnancy, and by far the most important way to reduce this risk is for pregnant women to take their medication as prescribed. Other things to bear in mind are maintaining a healthy weight, staying active and avoiding stress, smoking and infections."

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Asthma risk in premature babies higher than previously thought: Study

NEW DELHI: Babies born early are more likely to develop childhood asthma than those born at full term, new research shows.

A worldwide study of more than 1.5 million children found that the risk of developing asthma, or asthma-like symptoms, after a pre-term birth is higher than previously thought.

In addition, the risks of developing asthmatic symptoms are the same for preschool and school age children, indicating that children born prematurely do not outgrow the risk.

With asthma the most common chronic disease in childhood, and an increasing number of babies now surviving premature birth, this is likely to become a significant health problem.

According to a press statement from the University of Edinburgh's Centre for Population Health Sciences, Asthma affects some 8% of children born at full term, while this rises to 14% in babies born prematurely - defined as at least three weeks early - the study shows.

The findings are published in PLOS Medicine. Babies born more than three weeks before the usual 40-week term early were almost 50% more likely to develop asthma. Those born more than two months early were three times as likely to be affected as babies born at full term.

Data was taken from 30 studies of patients from six continents who were born since the 1990s. Most were from Western countries, including 14 from Europe and four from the UK.

Dr Jasper Been, of the University of Edinburgh's Centre for Population Health Sciences, who led the study in collaboration with Maastricht and Harvard Universities, said: "Doctors and parents need to be aware of the increased risks of asthma in premature babies, in order to make early diagnosis and intervention possible."

"By changing the way we monitor and treat children born pre-term, we hope to decrease the future risks of serious breathing problems, including asthma. Our findings should help find better ways to prevent and treat asthma and asthma-like symptoms in those born pre-term," added Been.

Many pre-term babies experience breathing problems, because their lungs are immature. Previous research among pre-term children born in the 1960s to 1980s showed that many went on to develop asthma. Although care for pre-term babies has improved, it was unclear whether this affected the babies' long-term risk of asthma.

Researchers say it is important to better understand why pre-term birth leads to asthma, so that early interventions can be developed to prevent childhood asthma among children born pre-term.

Dr Samantha Walker, executive director of research and policy at Asthma UK, said: "This is a robust study providing further evidence that babies born before their due date are at increased risk of childhood asthma. We know that uncontrolled asthma in pregnant women, amongst other things, can increase the risk of premature birth, which reinforces the need for good asthma management during pregnancy. Standard asthma medicine is very safe to use in pregnancy, and by far the most important way to reduce this risk is for pregnant women to take their medication as prescribed. Other things to bear in mind are maintaining a healthy weight, staying active and avoiding stress, smoking and infections."

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Groundbreaking discovery could pave way for routine use of stem cells in medicine

Scientists have created embryonic-like stem cells by simply bathing ordinary skin or blood cells in a weak acid solution for half an hour in an astonishing breakthrough that could allow doctors in the future to repair diseased tissue with a patient's own cells.

Researchers at the Riken Centre for Developmental Biology in Japan have announced the breakthrough in the journal Nature and it has been welcomed in Britain as an important step towards using stem cells routinely in medicine without the ethical or practical problems of creating human embryos or genetically modified cells.

Although the research was carried out on laboratory mice, scientists believe that the same approach should also work on human cells. It radically changes the way "pluripotent" stem cells - which can develop into any of the specialised tissues of the body - can be created from a patient's own cells as part of a "self-repair" kit.

"Once again Japanese scientists have unexpectedly rewritten the rules on making pluripotent cells from adult cells....that requires only transient exposure of adult cells to an acidic solution. How much easier can it possibly get?" said Professor Chris Mason, chair of regenerative medicine at University College London.

Two studies in Nature have shown that there is now a third way of producing pluripotent stem cells, other than creating embryos or inducing the changes by introducing new genes into a cell. The third way is by far the simplest of the three approaches, scientists said.

The scientists believe that the acidity of the solution created a "shock" that caused the blood cells of adult mice to revert to their original, embryonic-like state. From this pluripotent state, the newly created stem cells were cultured in specially prepared solutions of growth factors to develop into fully mature cells, including an entire foetus.

Professor Robin Lovell-Badge of the Medical Research Council's National Institute for Medical Research, said: "It is going to be a while before the nature of these cells are understood, and whether they might prove to be useful for developing therapies, but the really intriguing thing to discover will be the mechanism underlying how a low pH shock triggers reprogramming. And why it does not happen when we eat lemon or vinegar or drink cola?"

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Indian scientists turn plastic bags into car fuel

WASHINGTON: In a breakthrough, Indian researchers have developed an innovative method to re-use discarded plastic bags by transforming them into fuel to power car engines.

Researchers developed a relatively low-temperature process to convert certain kinds of plastic waste into liquid fuel as a way to re-use plastic bags and other products.

Among the plastic waste is the common polymer, low-density polyethylene (LDPE), which is used to make many types of container, medical and laboratory equipment, computer components and, of course, plastic bags.

Recycling initiatives are in place in many parts of the world, but much of the polyethylene waste ends up in landfill, dispersed in the environment or in the sea.

Chemist Achyut Kumar Panda of Centurion University of Technology and Management Odisha is working with chemical engineer Raghubansh Kumar Singh of the National Institute of Technology, Odisha, to develop a commercially viable technology for efficiently rendering LDPE into a liquid fuel.

Given that most plastics are made from petrochemicals, this solution to plastic recycling brings the life-cycle full circle allowing a second use as an oil substitute.

The process reported in the International Journal of Environment and Waste Management, could, if implemented on a large enough scale, reduce pressures on landfill as well as ameliorating the effects of dwindling oil supplies in a world with increasing demands on petrochemicals for fuel.

In their approach, the team heats the plastic waste to between 400 and 500 degrees Celsius over a kaolin catalyst. This causes the plastic's long chain polymer chains to break apart in a process known as thermo-catalytic degradation.

This releases large quantities of much smaller, carbon-rich molecules.

The team used the analytical technique of gas chromatography coupled mass spectrometry to characterise these product molecules and found the components of their liquid fuel to be mainly paraffins and olefins 10 to 16 carbon atoms long.

This, they explain, makes the liquid fuel very similar chemically to conventional petrochemical fuels.

In terms of the catalyst, Kaolin is a clay mineral - containing aluminium and silicon. It acts as a catalyst by providing a large reactive surface on which the polymer molecules can sit and so be exposed to high temperature inside the batch reactor, which breaks them apart.

The team optimized the reaction at 450 degrees Celsius a temperature with the lowest amount of kaolin at which more than 70 per cent of the liquid fuel is produced.

In other words, for every kilogramme of waste plastic they could produce 700 grammes of liquid fuel. The byproducts were combustible gases and wax.

They could boost the yield to almost 80 per cent and minimize reaction times, but this required a lot more catalyst one kg of kaolin for every 2 kg of plastic.

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The Black Death: Plague that killed millions can rise from the dead

Two of the most devastating outbreaks of plague in history, each of which killed more than half the population of Europe, were caused by different strains of the same infectious agent, a study has revealed.

The Justinian Plague of the 6th Century AD, which is credited with leading to the final demise of the Roman Empire, and the Black Death of the 14th Century, were both caused by the independent emergence of the plague bacterium from its natural host species, the black rat, scientists said.

An analysis of bacterial DNA extracted from the teeth of two plague victims who died in the early 6th Century in present-day Bavaria, Germany, has shown that they were infected with the bacterium Yersinia pestis, the same plague agent known to have caused the Black Death 800 years later.

However, a detailed comparison of the bacteria's DNA sequences has revealed that the two outbreaks were quite independent of one another. Each pandemic was the result of different Yersinia strains, indicating the independent emergence from the black rat on two separate occasions, the researchers said.

Although the strain behind the Justinian Plague died out completely, the strain that caused the Black Death probably re-emerged a few centuries later to cause the so-called Third Plague pandemic which began in the mid-19th Century in China and went on to kill about 12 million people in China and India alone, although it did not travel to Europe.

The scientists behind the study, published in the journal The Lancet Infectious Diseases, warned that the findings suggest there is a possibility of another pandemic strain of plague to emerge from the existing reservoir of Yersinia bacteria living in the current rodent population.

"The key point here is that this bug can re-emerge in new forms in humans and can have a tremendous impact on human mortality. It's done it three times in the past and we should be monitoring it for the future," said Hendrik Poinar, director of the Ancient DNA Centre at Canada's McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario.

The Justinian Plague, named after the Roman emperor who died of it, probably began in Asia but first came to prominence when it swept through the eastern Roman capital of Constantinople. It killed at least 50 million people, almost half the global population at the time, and is generally regarded as the first documented outbreak of bubonic plague.

The DNA analysis of the full Yersinia genome extracted from the two Bavarian plague skeletons, however, has shown that the pandemic died out completely within a couple of centuries without leaving any bacterial descendants, Dr Poinar said.

"The research is both fascinating and perplexing. It generates new questions which need to be explored, for example why did this pandemic, which killed somewhere between 50 and 100 million people die out?" Dr Poinar said.

The scientists extracted overlapping fragments of Yersinia DNA from the teeth of the two plague victims and were able to build the entire genome of 4.6 million "base pairs" - the individual letters of the genetic alphabet that comprise the bacterium's genetic code.

"We know the bacterium Y. pestis has jumped from rodents into humans throughout history and rodent reservoirs of plague still exist today in many parts of the world," said Dave Wagner of Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, Arizona, the lead author of the study.

"If the Justinian plague could erupt in the human population, cause a massive pandemic, and then die out, it suggests it could happen again. Fortunately, we now have antibiotics that could be used to effectively treat plague, which lessens the chances of another large scale human pandemic," Dr Wagner said.

Long periods of warm, wet weather preceded both the Justinian Plague and the Black Death, which was thought to have resulted in an explosion in the rat population. Scientists suspect that plague outbreaks eventually die out as people develop a natural immunity to the bacteria.

"Another possibility is that changes in the climate became less suitable for the plague bacterium to survive in the wild," Dr Wagner said.

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Second supermoon of 2014 will be visible on Friday

NEW DELHI: The second of the five supermoons of 2014 would be visible on Friday, an organization working for popularizing astronomy said here Tuesday.

Space Foundation said the first supermoon of 2014 appeared Jan 1 - making January the single calendar month with two supermoons until January 2018.

Friday's supermoon would be visible around 3.30 p.m.

The remaining three supermoons will be visible July 12, Aug 10 and Sep 9. The one in August would be closest to Earth.

"A supermoon is when the moon makes its closest approach to Earth in its orbit than usual. It appears as much as 14 percent bigger and 30 percent brighter," said Space Foundation president C.B. Devgun.

According to the organization, the term supermoon came from astrologer Richard Nolle over 30 years ago in 1979. During the phenomenon, the Earth, moon and sun are all in a line, with the moon in its nearest approach to earth.

Prior to 1979, supermoons were called perigee full moon or perigee new moon.

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How scorpion got its venom decoded

BEIJING: The lethal scorpion venom originated from a common protein used as part of the creature's immune system, scientists have found.

Researchers led by Shunyi Zhu at the Chinese Academy of Sciences found that that a similar process may have involved in the evolution of most of the venom in the animal world.

While most scorpions, which have a tail that delivers venom, only give a human victim a few bad days, 25 of the 1,700 known species can kill a person.

Researchers looked at proteins in the scorpions called defensins, compounds found in many plants and animals that fight bacteria, 'Inside Science News Service' reported.

They sequenced the genetics of the amino acids in defensin and found that all it took was a change in a single gene to turn the defensin into a poison.

Scientists believe scorpions originated on land and were eventually swept into the ocean, evolved during the time they spent there and then reemerged, perhaps 400 million years ago.

"I guess the emergence of toxins from defensins is a consequence of adaptation of scorpions to their decreased size that increases difficulty in capturing prey when they emerged from the seas," Zhu said.

Scorpions were larger in the water but had to shrink physically over the course of their evolution on dry land, and it became harder to kill and catch some prey. So they developed venom, the report said.

The study was published in the journal Molecular Biology and Evolution.

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Eating disorders soar among teens and social media is to blame

The number of children and teenagers seeking help for an eating disorder has risen by 110 per cent in the past three years, according to figures given exclusively to The Independent on Sunday.

ChildLine says it received more than 10,500 calls and online inquiries from young people struggling with food and weight-related anxiety in the last financial year. The charity believes this dramatic increase could be attributed to several factors, including the increased pressure caused by social media, the growth of celebrity culture, and the rise of anorexia websites.

The problem is most prevalent among girls of secondary school age. During 2012-13, counselling with girls about concerns of eating problems outnumbered counselling with boys by 32:1.

Many girls talked about the concerns they had about their body image and how they disliked the way they looked. They also mentioned how they compared themselves negatively with peers and celebrities. In more than 20 per cent of counselling sessions about eating problems with girls, they talked about their body image or self-esteem.

Sue Minto, head of ChildLine, said: "We are seeing increasing numbers of contacts about eating disorders such as anorexia and bulimia. These are complex issues, and the rise in contacts is unlikely to be down to any one thing.

"But we do know that in some cases the trigger can be abuse in childhood. We also know that the 24/7 nature of social media places huge pressures on our children and young people which in turn can lead to significant emotional issues. And society is increasingly bombarded with celebrities and airbrushed images which give an impossible view of what 'beautiful' is."

The case of Tallulah Wilson has reignited the issue of the impact of the internet on vulnerable young people. The 15-year-old Londoner had visited pro-anorexia sites and wrote in her diary that she was "fat" and "ugly" before killing herself.

Tallulah's mother, Sarah Wilson, said at her inquest, which concluded last week: "Her sisters and I did everything we could to keep her safe, but she had fallen into a world of nightmares. She was in the clutches of a toxic digital world where in the final few weeks we could no longer reach her."

The proportion of children and young people who have used online channels to talk to ChildLine about eating problems was higher last year than for any other concern, giving an indication of how this issue is being played out on the internet. More than eight out of 10 of ChildLine's counselling sessions about eating problems took place online, compared with only 19 per cent via the phone.

The surge in counselling sessions might also be down to a greater awareness of eating disorders - and the support available. Ms Minto said: "Many of these issues will always have existed, but with better understanding of the problems and ChildLine now offering online chats, which can be easier than picking up the phone, more young people are seeking help."

Medical research completed last year showed there had been a 15 per cent increase in diagnoses of eating disorders in the decade since 2000. Dr Nadia Micali, senior lecturer at UCL, was lead author of the research. She said it was not yet clear whether the growth was down to increased awareness leading to more diagnoses or an actual rise in cases caused by factors such as social pressures. But she acknowledged: "One of the issues seems to be around a growing peer pressure to be thin."

Speaking on the potential dangers of the internet, she said: "Social media is very new and we haven't been able, as scientists, to fully examine the impact of social media and the internet. It's one of those things where if it's not controlled it could be harmful, but it potentially could be used by healthcare professionals in a good way."

Eating problems become more significant once children and young people have reached secondary school age, ChildLine said. During 2012-13, 96 per cent of counselling about eating problems was with those between the ages of 12 and 18 where age was disclosed to ChildLine.

The most common ages to seek help for an eating disorder were 14 and 15, according to the charity. During 2012-13, they made up 38 per cent of counselling where age was known.

The most common eating disorder reported was anorexia, which made up more than 3,000 of the counselling sessions. ChildLine research on the issue reported: "Young people suffering from anorexia often emphasised how they felt they would be much happier and more accepted if they were slimmer. In other cases, young people under-ate because it was something they could be in control of when other things in their life were going wrong."

Case studies

"I have eaten too much and am feeling very guilty. I feel fat, ugly and worthless and want to make myself sick and self-harm. I always compare myself with other girls - especially models. I would like to go to the doctors but I am scared my parents are going to find out and force me to eat more. I know they are already worried that I'm not eating enough. I feel ashamed at school sometimes as people would judge me if they knew what I was doing."

***

"I feel so fat and worthless and think that I will never be loved - I am just a waste of space. I feel like curling up in a ball and crying all the time. I starve myself as it's the only way I feel happy with my life and in control. I see skinny girls at school and on TV and they are tiny compared with me. I binge sometimes until I physically can't eat, and other times I will eat nothing for days. I feel depressed and suicidal and can't tell anyone else how I feel."

***

"My dad abused me when I was younger, so when I was little I had to grow up having to protect him even though he was supposed to be the one who looked after me. I feel as if I have had to grow up so quickly and I never got to experience being a child. I have had an eating disorder for a long time now, and I think it is because I wanted to be in control of something. I never thought I would have the courage to speak to anyone about this."

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Cern scientists create antihydrogen atoms

LONDON: Cern physicists have succeeded for the first time in producing a beam of antihydrogen atoms, an advance that brings scientists closer to solving the antimatter mystery.

Physicists from Cern's Atomic Spectroscopy and Collisions Using Slow Antiprotons (ASACUSA) experiment said they have produced at least 80 atoms of antihydrogen.

Primordial antimatter has so far never been observed in the universe, and its absence remains a scientific enigma.

Nevertheless, it is possible to produce significant amounts of antihydrogen in experiments at the Geneva-based European Organisation for Nuclear Research (Cern) by mixing antielectrons (positrons) and low energy antiprotons produced by the Antiproton Decelerator.

The spectra of hydrogen and antihydrogen are predicted to be identical, so any tiny difference between them would immediately open a window to new physics, and could help in solving the antimatter mystery.

It has been a puzzle to scientists why humans, stars and the universe are made of matter, rather than of antimatter.

With its single proton accompanied by just one electron, hydrogen is the simplest existing atom, and one of the most precisely investigated and best understood systems in physics.

Thus comparisons of hydrogen and antihydrogen atoms constitute one of the best ways to perform highly precise tests of matter/antimatter symmetry, researchers said.

Matter and antimatter annihilate immediately when they meet, so aside from creating antihydrogen, one of the key challenges for physicists is to keep antiatoms away from ordinary matter.

To do so, experiments take advantage of antihydrogen's magnetic properties (which are similar to hydrogen's) and use very strong non-uniform magnetic fields to trap antiatoms long enough to study them.

However, the strong magnetic field gradients degrade the spectroscopic properties of the (anti)atoms.

To allow for clean high-resolution spectroscopy, the ASACUSA collaboration developed an innovative set-up to transfer antihydrogen atoms to a region where they can be studied in flight, far from the strong magnetic field.

"Antihydrogen atoms having no charge, it was a big challenge to transport them from their trap," said Yasunori Yamazaki of RIKEN, Japan, a team leader of the ASACUSA collaboration.

"Our results are very promising for high-precision studies of antihydrogen atoms, particularly the hyperfine structure, one of the two best known spectroscopic properties of hydrogen.

"Its measurement in antihydrogen will allow the most sensitive test of matter/antimatter symmetry. We are looking forward to restarting this summer with an even more improved set-up," Yamazaki said in a statement.

The study was published in journal Nature Communications.

22.11 | 0 komentar | Read More

Britain's TV channel to air 1st live show from space

LONDON: Britain's Channel 4 said it will air the first-ever live television show from space, tracking the International Space Station though a complete orbit around the Earth.

"Live from Space" will be broadcast on National Geographic Channel in 170 other countries.

Besides glimpses of daily life aboard the ISS, the programme will offer high-definition images of the Earth from orbit.

22.10 | 0 komentar | Read More

Indian-origin researcher develops tiny windmills to charge cell phones

(An Indian origin researcher…)

NEW DELHI: An Indian origin researcher Smitha Rao, working with her Taiwanese professor at the University of Arlington, Texas, may have found a solution to batteries dying out in cell phones. The duo has designed a tiny windmill hundreds of which can be embedded in a sleeve for a cell phone. By waving the cell phone in air or holding it up to an open window on a windy day, the array would generate enough electricity to recharge a cell phone's battery.

22.10 | 0 komentar | Read More

Microparticles may reduce heart attack damage

(Microparticles — small…)

CHICAGO: Microparticles — small vesicles circulating in the blood — if injected into the blood stream within 24 hours of the heart attack, may reduce the muscle damage to a great extent.

After a heart attack, much of the damage to the heart muscle is caused by inflammatory cells that rush to the scene of the oxygen-starved tissue.

22.10 | 0 komentar | Read More

Indian-origin researcher develops tiny windmills to charge cell phones

(An Indian origin researcher…)

NEW DELHI: An Indian origin researcher Smitha Rao, working with her Taiwanese professor at the University of Arlington, Texas, may have found a solution to batteries dying out in cell phones. The duo has designed a tiny windmill hundreds of which can be embedded in a sleeve for a cell phone. By waving the cell phone in air or holding it up to an open window on a windy day, the array would generate enough electricity to recharge a cell phone's battery.

22.10 | 0 komentar | Read More

Britain's TV channel to air 1st live show from space

LONDON: Britain's Channel 4 said it will air the first-ever live television show from space, tracking the International Space Station though a complete orbit around the Earth.

"Live from Space" will be broadcast on National Geographic Channel in 170 other countries.

Besides glimpses of daily life aboard the ISS, the programme will offer high-definition images of the Earth from orbit.

22.10 | 0 komentar | Read More

Microparticles may reduce heart attack damage

(Microparticles — small…)

CHICAGO: Microparticles — small vesicles circulating in the blood — if injected into the blood stream within 24 hours of the heart attack, may reduce the muscle damage to a great extent.

After a heart attack, much of the damage to the heart muscle is caused by inflammatory cells that rush to the scene of the oxygen-starved tissue.

22.10 | 0 komentar | Read More

Indian-origin researcher develops tiny windmills to charge cell phones

(An Indian origin researcher…)

NEW DELHI: An Indian origin researcher Smitha Rao, working with her Taiwanese professor at the University of Arlington, Texas, may have found a solution to batteries dying out in cell phones. The duo has designed a tiny windmill hundreds of which can be embedded in a sleeve for a cell phone. By waving the cell phone in air or holding it up to an open window on a windy day, the array would generate enough electricity to recharge a cell phone's battery.

22.11 | 0 komentar | Read More

Britain's TV channel to air 1st live show from space

LONDON: Britain's Channel 4 said it will air the first-ever live television show from space, tracking the International Space Station though a complete orbit around the Earth.

"Live from Space" will be broadcast on National Geographic Channel in 170 other countries.

Besides glimpses of daily life aboard the ISS, the programme will offer high-definition images of the Earth from orbit.

22.11 | 0 komentar | Read More

Microparticles may reduce heart attack damage

(Microparticles — small…)

CHICAGO: Microparticles — small vesicles circulating in the blood — if injected into the blood stream within 24 hours of the heart attack, may reduce the muscle damage to a great extent.

After a heart attack, much of the damage to the heart muscle is caused by inflammatory cells that rush to the scene of the oxygen-starved tissue.

22.11 | 0 komentar | Read More

Britain's TV channel to air 1st live show from space

LONDON: Britain's Channel 4 said it will air the first-ever live television show from space, tracking the International Space Station though a complete orbit around the Earth.

"Live from Space" will be broadcast on National Geographic Channel in 170 other countries.

Besides glimpses of daily life aboard the ISS, the programme will offer high-definition images of the Earth from orbit.

22.10 | 0 komentar | Read More

Indian-origin researcher develops tiny windmills to charge cell phones

(An Indian origin researcher…)

NEW DELHI: An Indian origin researcher Smitha Rao, working with her Taiwanese professor at the University of Arlington, Texas, may have found a solution to batteries dying out in cell phones. The duo has designed a tiny windmill hundreds of which can be embedded in a sleeve for a cell phone. By waving the cell phone in air or holding it up to an open window on a windy day, the array would generate enough electricity to recharge a cell phone's battery.

22.10 | 0 komentar | Read More

Microparticles may reduce heart attack damage

(Microparticles — small…)

CHICAGO: Microparticles — small vesicles circulating in the blood — if injected into the blood stream within 24 hours of the heart attack, may reduce the muscle damage to a great extent.

After a heart attack, much of the damage to the heart muscle is caused by inflammatory cells that rush to the scene of the oxygen-starved tissue.

22.10 | 0 komentar | Read More

Britain's TV channel to air 1st live show from space

LONDON: Britain's Channel 4 said it will air the first-ever live television show from space, tracking the International Space Station though a complete orbit around the Earth.

"Live from Space" will be broadcast on National Geographic Channel in 170 other countries.

Besides glimpses of daily life aboard the ISS, the programme will offer high-definition images of the Earth from orbit.

22.10 | 0 komentar | Read More

Indian-origin researcher develops tiny windmills to charge cell phones

(An Indian origin researcher…)

NEW DELHI: An Indian origin researcher Smitha Rao, working with her Taiwanese professor at the University of Arlington, Texas, may have found a solution to batteries dying out in cell phones. The duo has designed a tiny windmill hundreds of which can be embedded in a sleeve for a cell phone. By waving the cell phone in air or holding it up to an open window on a windy day, the array would generate enough electricity to recharge a cell phone's battery.

22.10 | 0 komentar | Read More

Microparticles may reduce heart attack damage

CHICAGO: Microparticles — small vesicles circulating in the blood — if injected into the blood stream within 24 hours of the heart attack, may reduce the muscle damage to a great extent.

After a heart attack, much of the damage to the heart muscle is caused by inflammatory cells that rush to the scene of the oxygen-starved tissue.

When biodegradable microparticles were injected after a heart attack, the size of the heart lesion was reduced by 50 per cent and the heart could pump significantly more blood, said a path-breaking research.

"The inflammatory damage is reduced to a great extent when microparticles are injected into the blood stream immediately," according to researchers from Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University and University of Sydney in Australia.

"This is the first therapy that specifically targets a key driver of the damage that occurs after a heart attack," said Daniel Getts, a visiting scholar in microbiology-immunology at Northwestern University.

"There is no other therapy on the horizon that can do this. It has the potential to transform the way heart attacks and cardiovascular disease are treated," said the study published in the journal Science Translational Medicine.

The microparticles work by binding to the damaging cells — inflammatory monocytes — and diverting them to a fatal detour. Instead of racing to the heart, the cells head to the spleen and die, said the study.

"This discovery opens new pathways to treat several different diseases," said Getts.

22.10 | 0 komentar | Read More

Britain's TV channel to air 1st live show from space

LONDON: Britain's Channel 4 said it will air the first-ever live television show from space, tracking the International Space Station though a complete orbit around the Earth.

"Live from Space" will be broadcast on National Geographic Channel in 170 other countries.

Besides glimpses of daily life aboard the ISS, the programme will offer high-definition images of the Earth from orbit.

01.34 | 0 komentar | Read More

Chinese scholars announce breakthrough in HIV virus study

(Chinese researchers have…)

BEIJING: Chinese researchers have claimed to have made a significant breakthrough in the study of HIV virus, offering hope of developing new medications to treat or even cure the disease.

The researchers said they have made the breakthrough in the structural analysis of the viral infectivity factor (Vif) of the HIV virus, which will help in the development of new medications to treat or even cure the disease, Xinhua news agency reported.

01.34 | 0 komentar | Read More

Indian-origin researcher develops tiny windmills to charge cell phones

(An Indian origin researcher…)

NEW DELHI: An Indian origin researcher Smitha Rao, working with her Taiwanese professor at the University of Arlington, Texas, may have found a solution to batteries dying out in cell phones. The duo has designed a tiny windmill hundreds of which can be embedded in a sleeve for a cell phone. By waving the cell phone in air or holding it up to an open window on a windy day, the array would generate enough electricity to recharge a cell phone's battery.

01.34 | 0 komentar | Read More

Chinese scholars announce breakthrough in HIV virus study

(Chinese researchers have…)

BEIJING: Chinese researchers have claimed to have made a significant breakthrough in the study of HIV virus, offering hope of developing new medications to treat or even cure the disease.

The researchers said they have made the breakthrough in the structural analysis of the viral infectivity factor (Vif) of the HIV virus, which will help in the development of new medications to treat or even cure the disease, Xinhua news agency reported.

22.10 | 0 komentar | Read More

Britain's TV channel to air 1st live show from space

LONDON: Britain's Channel 4 said it will air the first-ever live television show from space, tracking the International Space Station though a complete orbit around the Earth.

"Live from Space" will be broadcast on National Geographic Channel in 170 other countries.

Besides glimpses of daily life aboard the ISS, the programme will offer high-definition images of the Earth from orbit.

22.10 | 0 komentar | Read More

Indian-origin researcher develops tiny windmills to charge cell phones

(An Indian origin researcher…)

NEW DELHI: An Indian origin researcher Smitha Rao, working with her Taiwanese professor at the University of Arlington, Texas, may have found a solution to batteries dying out in cell phones. The duo has designed a tiny windmill hundreds of which can be embedded in a sleeve for a cell phone. By waving the cell phone in air or holding it up to an open window on a windy day, the array would generate enough electricity to recharge a cell phone's battery.

22.10 | 0 komentar | Read More

Britain's TV channel to air 1st live show from space

LONDON: Britain's Channel 4 said it will air the first-ever live television show from space, tracking the International Space Station though a complete orbit around the Earth.

"Live from Space" will be broadcast on National Geographic Channel in 170 other countries.

Besides glimpses of daily life aboard the ISS, the programme will offer high-definition images of the Earth from orbit.

The show is to be hosted by Dermot O'Leary, the long-time face of British talent search program "The X Factor," who will speak live with the astronauts aboard the ISS via NASA Mission Control in Houston.

"It's already been an education to research this project and so I can't wait to join the viewers in finding out both the spectacular workings of the ISS. I simply can't wait," O'Leary said.

Professor Stephen Hawking and British astronaut Tim Peake - set to serve on the ISS in 2015 - will also make appearances on the programme.

The ISS, a $100 billion project involving more than a dozen countries, has been continuously inhabited since 2000.

22.10 | 0 komentar | Read More

Chinese scholars announce breakthrough in HIV virus study

BEIJING: Chinese researchers have claimed to have made a significant breakthrough in the study of HIV virus, offering hope of developing new medications to treat or even cure the disease.

The researchers said they have made the breakthrough in the structural analysis of the viral infectivity factor (Vif) of the HIV virus, which will help in the development of new medications to treat or even cure the disease, Xinhua news agency reported.

The new research, published on the website of science journal "Nature", was carried out by a team of Chinese researchers led by Huang Zhiwei, professor of structural molecular biology with the School of Life Science and Technology at Harbin Institute of Technology, China.

The research reveals the structural analysis of HIV-1 protein Vif, whose role is to subvert antiviral activity.

The results lay a foundation for the design of novel anti-HIV drugs, the paper said. The Chinese team launched the research programme in March 2012.

Ever since the AIDS virus was discovered in 1981, people have had insufficient knowledge of the virus itself, including the structure of Vif, which is extremely important to virus infection and replication, the lead researcher said.

Analysing Vif structure is vital to the design of AIDS treatment medicines. The study of Vif structure has been the most important subject for scientists worldwide on AIDS in recent years.

China is the first to come out with research achievements on the subject, showing it is at the forefront of structural molecular biology study in AIDS, Huang said.

He said the research team has begun cooperation with drug producers to develop new types of medicines for treating AIDS.

"After medicine development succeeds, it will break a new path for treating AIDS worldwide, even hopefully curing it," Huang said, adding that it will also pave the way for Chinese-made drugs to fight HIV/AIDS.

China has about 434,000 people living with HIV/AIDS, according to government statistics. Worldwide, the number reached about 35 million at the end of 2012.

22.10 | 0 komentar | Read More

Indian-origin researcher develops tiny windmills to charge cell phones

(An Indian origin researcher…)

NEW DELHI: An Indian origin researcher Smitha Rao, working with her Taiwanese professor at the University of Arlington, Texas, may have found a solution to batteries dying out in cell phones. The duo has designed a tiny windmill hundreds of which can be embedded in a sleeve for a cell phone. By waving the cell phone in air or holding it up to an open window on a windy day, the array would generate enough electricity to recharge a cell phone's battery.

22.10 | 0 komentar | Read More

Britain's TV channel to air 1st live show from space

LONDON: Britain's Channel 4 said it will air the first-ever live television show from space, tracking the International Space Station though a complete orbit around the Earth.

"Live from Space" will be broadcast on National Geographic Channel in 170 other countries.

Besides glimpses of daily life aboard the ISS, the programme will offer high-definition images of the Earth from orbit.

The show is to be hosted by Dermot O'Leary, the long-time face of British talent search program "The X Factor," who will speak live with the astronauts aboard the ISS via NASA Mission Control in Houston.

"It's already been an education to research this project and so I can't wait to join the viewers in finding out both the spectacular workings of the ISS. I simply can't wait," O'Leary said.

Professor Stephen Hawking and British astronaut Tim Peake - set to serve on the ISS in 2015 - will also make appearances on the programme.

The ISS, a $100 billion project involving more than a dozen countries, has been continuously inhabited since 2000.

22.10 | 0 komentar | Read More

Chinese scholars announce breakthrough in HIV virus study

BEIJING: Chinese researchers have claimed to have made a significant breakthrough in the study of HIV virus, offering hope of developing new medications to treat or even cure the disease.

The researchers said they have made the breakthrough in the structural analysis of the viral infectivity factor (Vif) of the HIV virus, which will help in the development of new medications to treat or even cure the disease, Xinhua news agency reported.

The new research, published on the website of science journal "Nature", was carried out by a team of Chinese researchers led by Huang Zhiwei, professor of structural molecular biology with the School of Life Science and Technology at Harbin Institute of Technology, China.

The research reveals the structural analysis of HIV-1 protein Vif, whose role is to subvert antiviral activity.

The results lay a foundation for the design of novel anti-HIV drugs, the paper said. The Chinese team launched the research programme in March 2012.

Ever since the AIDS virus was discovered in 1981, people have had insufficient knowledge of the virus itself, including the structure of Vif, which is extremely important to virus infection and replication, the lead researcher said.

Analysing Vif structure is vital to the design of AIDS treatment medicines. The study of Vif structure has been the most important subject for scientists worldwide on AIDS in recent years.

China is the first to come out with research achievements on the subject, showing it is at the forefront of structural molecular biology study in AIDS, Huang said.

He said the research team has begun cooperation with drug producers to develop new types of medicines for treating AIDS.

"After medicine development succeeds, it will break a new path for treating AIDS worldwide, even hopefully curing it," Huang said, adding that it will also pave the way for Chinese-made drugs to fight HIV/AIDS.

China has about 434,000 people living with HIV/AIDS, according to government statistics. Worldwide, the number reached about 35 million at the end of 2012.

22.10 | 0 komentar | Read More

Indian-origin researcher develops tiny windmills to charge cell phones

NEW DELHI: An Indian origin researcher Smitha Rao, working with her Taiwanese professor at the University of Arlington, Texas, may have found a solution to batteries dying out in cell phones. The duo has designed a tiny windmill hundreds of which can be embedded in a sleeve for a cell phone. By waving the cell phone in air or holding it up to an open window on a windy day, the array would generate enough electricity to recharge a cell phone's battery.

Rao's designs blend origami concepts into conventional wafer-scale semiconductor device layouts, a university statement said. A special nickel alloy is used to make the windmills. A single grain of rice could hold about 10 of these tiny windmills. Hundreds of the windmills could be.

The micro-windmills can be made in an array using the batch processes. The fabrication cost of making one device is the same as making hundreds or thousands on a single wafer, which enables for mass production of very inexpensive systems. The windmills operate under strong artificial winds without any fracture in the material because of the durable nickel alloy and smart aerodynamic design. They were tested successfully in September 2013 in the lab of Rao's guide professor Jung-Chih Chiao.

A Taiwanese micro-electro mechanical system (MEMS) company has shown interest in this invention and is exploring commercialization possibilities. UT Arlington has applied for a provisional patent.

""The company was quite surprised with the micro-windmill idea when we showed the demo video of working devices,"" Rao said. ""It was something completely out of the blue for them and their investors.""

UT Arlington has developed various micro-mechanicl systems including micro-windmills, gears, inductors, pop-up switches and grippers, according to a statement. All of those parts are as tiny as a fraction of the diameter of a human hair. These inventions are essential to build micro-robots that can be used as surgical tools, sensing machines to explore disaster zones or manufacturing tools to assemble micro-machines.

""I think we've only scratched the surface on how these micro-windmills might be used,"" said Rao, who earned her Ph.D in 2009 at UT Arlington.

Chiao said because of the small sizes, flat panels with thousand of windmills could be made and mounted on the walls of houses or building to harvest energy for lighting, security or environmental sensing and wireless communication.

22.10 | 0 komentar | Read More

Chemical scientists resolve to vigorously research for anticancer drugs

MYSORE: "When cancer has remained a hard nut to crack and scientists have failed to provide succor to suffering people chemical biologists should strive hard to find drugs which can help people suffering from cancer to lead a normal life like those afflicted with diabetics," was one of the unwritten resolutions adopted by chemical biology scientists here on Friday. "At the same time we should make the drugs required to treat cancer affordable to the poor" they resolved.

All these scientists from various drug research institutes, hospitals and universities were part of the two day international symposium on "chemical biology - drug discovery" organized here by UOM in collaboration with DST.

Briefing reporters on the deliberations and papers presented at the conference, scientists in unison resolved to continue their endeavors and efforts to crack the disease with an intention to help the people, particularly from the developing countries.

Dr Gautham Sethi from Yong Loo Lin School of Medicince Singapore said one has to accept the fact that scientists have failed to find a cure for the disease, but this should not deter them from fining new drugs which can prevent the cancer cells from spreading (metastasis). "Any growth turns cancerous and into a disease when it metastasis" he said adding that but it would not be an impossible task to find a drug which can stop the cells from dividing. "We should find drugs which can make people to live like those having diabetic and other chronic diseases" he felt disclosing that work is in progress in full speed to find such drugs which provide relief to the people suffering from cancer. It is not good to say that scientists have failed to find a cure to cancer, but today cervical and breast cancers can be cured if they are traced in their early stages through markers, he claimed and said adding that many cancer patients are now living for more than 12 years after diagnosing the disease.

"We are optimistic of striking at the root of cancer, but it s needs a coordinated effort between clinical scientists and chemical biologists" he added.

Renowned biochemist from Cambridge university Tom Blundell said study of genomics of people are important and play a key role in finding the new medicines for cancer and still there is a long way to go for the chemical biologists to find a complete cure for cancer based on genomics. "As genomics of individuals vary scientists should work out medicines based on generalized gen mappings" he said, adding that soon generalized gene mappings will be available for the scientists to study and tackle cancer." But we should remain optimistic on the issue and there is no reason to lose heart" he added.

Dr Peter J Houghton from Nationwide children hospital Columbus, H Hinou gene scientists from Hokkaido University, Alexy Yu Sukhorukov from Russian academy of scientists Moscow also addressed the press meet.

22.10 | 0 komentar | Read More

New 'Hand of God' image captured by Nasa

A new image of the pulsar wind nebula known as the 'hand of God' has been captured by US space agency Nasa's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR).

The photograph captured by the telescope shows the nebula 17,000 light-years away, which is powered by a dead, spinning star called PSR B1509-58. The pulsar itself is just 19 kilometres long, but spins around nearly seven times every second.

As it spins, it throws out particles upheaved during the star's death, which interact with magnetic fields around the ejected material, causing it to glow with X-rays.

For Nasa, one of the biggest remaining mysteries surrounding the object is whether the pulsar particles are interacting with the material in a specific way to make it look like a hand, or if the material is in fact shaped like a hand.

"We don't know if the hand shape is an optical illusion," Hongjun An of McGill University, Montreal, Canada told Nasa. "With NuSTAR, the hand looks more like a fist, which is giving us some clues."

NuSTAR has imaged the structure in high-energy X-rays for the first time, shown in blue. In the image, lower-energy X-ray light previously detected by NASA's Chandra X-ray observatory is shown in green and red.

Fiona Harrison, the mission's principal investigator at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, California said the telescopes unique viewpoint is allowing them to see "the highest-energy X-rays" and is "showing us well-studied objects and regions in a whole new light."

The telescope also produced another image of a range of supermassive black holes lit up. Nasa said all of the dots in this image are active black holes tucked inside the hearts of galaxies, with colours representing different energies of X-ray light.

22.10 | 0 komentar | Read More

New 'hand of God' image captured by Nasa

A new image of the pulsar wind nebula known as the 'hand of God' has been captured by US space agency Nasa's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR).

The photograph captured by the telescope shows the nebula 17,000 light-years away, which is powered by a dead, spinning star called PSR B1509-58. The pulsar itself is just 19 kilometres long, but spins around nearly seven times every second.

As it spins, it throws out particles upheaved during the star's death, which interact with magnetic fields around the ejected material, causing it to glow with X-rays.

For Nasa, one of the biggest remaining mysteries surrounding the object is whether the pulsar particles are interacting with the material in a specific way to make it look like a hand, or if the material is in fact shaped like a hand.

"We don't know if the hand shape is an optical illusion," Hongjun An of McGill University, Montreal, Canada told Nasa. "With NuSTAR, the hand looks more like a fist, which is giving us some clues."

NuSTAR has imaged the structure in high-energy X-rays for the first time, shown in blue. In the image, lower-energy X-ray light previously detected by NASA's Chandra X-ray observatory is shown in green and red.

Fiona Harrison, the mission's principal investigator at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, California said the telescopes unique viewpoint is allowing them to see "the highest-energy X-rays" and is "showing us well-studied objects and regions in a whole new light."

The telescope also produced another image of a range of supermassive black holes lit up. Nasa said all of the dots in this image are active black holes tucked inside the hearts of galaxies, with colours representing different energies of X-ray light.

22.10 | 0 komentar | Read More

First-ever dino fossils unearthed in Saudi Arabia

LONDON: Dinosaur remains have been found in Saudi Arabia for the first time. The teeth of a theropod dinosaur and a sauropod vertebra have been unearthed in the Middle Eastern country. The teeth and bones are approximately 72 million years old.

The newly-identified specimen was excavated from along the coast of the Red Sea. An international team of scientists from Uppsala University, Museum Victoria, Monash University, and the Saudi Geological Survey made the discovery. This has made scientists believe that what is now dry desert was once a beach littered with the bones and teeth of ancient marine reptiles and dinosaurs.

When these dinosaurs were alive, the Arabian landmass was largely underwater and formed the north-eastern coastal margin of the African continent.

"The hardest fossil to find is the first one. Knowing that they occur in a particular area and the circumstances under which they do, makes finding more fossils significantly less difficult," says Tom Rich from Museum Victoria in Australia.

The dinosaur finds were recently published in the scientific journal PLOS ONE and jointly authored by participating researchers from Sweden, Australia and Saudi Arabia.

"Dinosaur fossils are exceptionally rare in the Arabian Peninsula, with only a handful of highly fragmented bones documented this far" said Benjamin Kear, based at Uppsala University in Sweden.

"This discovery is important not only because of where the remains were found, but also because of the fact that we can actually identify them. Indeed, these are the first taxonomically recognizable dinosaurs reported from the Arabian Peninsula," Kear added.

Two types of dinosaurs were described from the assemblage, a bipedal meat-eating abelisaurid distantly related to Tyrannosaurus but only about six metres long, and a plant-eating titanosaur perhaps up to 20 metres in length.

Similar dinosaurs have been found in North Africa, Madagascar and as far away as South America.

22.10 | 0 komentar | Read More

Yawn leads to man’s lung collapse in China

BEIJING: A 26-year-old man in China suffered an unusual injury - he yawned so hard that his lung collapsed.

Ou, from Wuhan in China's Hubei Province, likely ripped a hole in his lung when he stretched and yawned in the morning, doctors said.

Ou felt a sudden pain in his chest but ignored it. However, he had to go to the Central Hospital of Wuhan when the pain intensified and he couldn't breathe, 'Global Times' reported.

Doctors discovered Ou had suffered from spontaneous pneumothorax, or when a small air pocket in the lung breaks and leaks air into the cavity surrounding the lung.

Chen Baojun, director of cardiothoracic surgery at the hospital, said that while there are many causes for pneumothorax, tall and thin men between 18 and 30 years of age are known to be susceptible.

Ou is 1.8 meters tall and weighs 60 kilogrammes, doctors said.

22.10 | 0 komentar | Read More

Human ancestors in Africa survived on 'tiger-nuts'

NEW DELHI: Ancient human ancestors who lived in East Africa between 2.4 million-1.4 million years ago survived mainly on a diet of tiger nuts, an Oxford University study has found. Tiger nuts are not nuts but more like tiny potatoes, growing in the root system of certain types of grasses. They vary in size from 3 millimeters to 19 millimeters.

The study published in the journal, PLOS ONE, also suggests that these early hominins may have sought additional nourishment from fruits and invertebrates, like worms and grasshoppers.

The study calculates a hominin could extract sufficient nutrients from a tiger nut-based diet, i.e. around 2,000 calories a day - or 80% of their required daily calorie intake, in two and half to three hours. This fits comfortably within the foraging time of five to six hours per day typical for a large-bodied primate.

Gabriele Macho, lead author of the study, examined the diet of the ancient hominin Paranthropus boisei, nicknamed ""Nutcracker Man"" because of his big flat molar teeth and powerful jaws, through studying modern-day baboons in Kenya. Her findings help to explain a puzzle that has vexed archaeologists for 50 years.

Scholars have debated why this early human relative had such strong jaws, indicating a diet of hard foods like nuts, yet their teeth seemed to be made for consuming soft foods. Damage to the tooth enamel also indicated they had come into contact with an abrasive substance. Previous research using stable isotope analyses suggests the diet of these homimins was largely comprised of plants like grasses and sedges. However, a debate has raged over whether such high-fibre foods could ever be of sufficiently high quality for a large-brained, medium-sized hominin.

Dr Macho's study finds that baboons today eat large quantities of C4 tiger nuts, and this food would have contained sufficiently high amounts of minerals, vitamins, and the fatty acids that would have been particularly important for the hominin brain.

Tiger nuts, which are rich in starches, are highly abrasive in an unheated state. Dr Macho suggests that hominins' teeth suffered abrasion and wear and tear due to these starches. The study finds that baboons' teeth have similar marks giving clues about their pattern of consumption.

In order to digest the tiger nuts and allow the enzymes in the saliva to break down the starches, the hominins would need to chew the tiger nuts for a long time. All this chewing put considerable strain on the jaws and teeth, which explains why ""Nutcracker Man"" had such a distinctive cranial anatomy.

Dr Macho, from the School of Archaeology at Oxford University, said: 'I believe that the theory - that ""Nutcracker Man"" lived on large amounts of tiger nuts- helps settle the debate about what our early human ancestor ate. On the basis of recent isotope results, these hominins appear to have survived on a diet of C4 foods, which suggests grasses and sedges. Yet these are not high quality foods. What this research tells us is that hominins were selective about the part of the grass that they ate, choosing the grass bulbs at the base of the grass blade as the mainstay of their diet.

'Tiger nuts, still sold in health food shops as well as being widely used for grinding down and baking in many countries, would be relatively easy to find. They also provided a good source of nourishment for a medium-sized hominin with a large brain. This is why these hominins were able to survive for around one million years because they could successfully forage - even through periods of climatic change.'

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Nasa discovers new potentially hazardous asteroid

WASHINGTON: Nasa's latest sky-mapping spacecraft has discovered a new potentially hazardous asteroid, 43 million kilometres from Earth.

It is the Near-Earth Object Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (NEOWISE)'s first such discovery since coming out of hibernation last year.

The spacecraft discovered a near-Earth asteroid designated 2013 YP139 on December 29. The mission's sophisticated software picked out the moving object against a background of stationary stars.

As NEOWISE circled Earth scanning the sky, it observed the asteroid several times over half a day before the object moved beyond its view.

Researchers at the University of Arizona used the Spacewatch telescope at the Kitt Peak National Observatory southwest of Tucson to confirm the discovery.

Nasa expects 2013 YP139 will be the first of hundreds of asteroid discoveries for NEOWISE.

"We are delighted to get back to finding and characterising asteroids and comets, especially those that come into Earth's neighbourhood," said Amy Mainzer, the mission's principal investigator from Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

"With our infrared sensors that detect heat, we can learn about their sizes and reflectiveness," said Mainzer.

2013 YP139 is about 43 million kilometres from Earth. Based on its infrared brightness, scientists estimate it to be roughly 650 meters in diameter and extremely dark, like a piece of coal.

The asteroid circles the Sun in an elliptical orbit tilted to the plane of our solar system and is classified as potentially hazardous.

It is possible for its orbit to bring it as close as 482803 km from Earth, a little more than the distance to the Moon. However, it will not come that close within the next century.

NEOWISE was originally called the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE), which had made the most comprehensive survey to date of asteroids and comets.

WISE discovered more than 34,000 asteroids and characterised 158,000 throughout the solar system during its prime mission in 2010 and early 2011. Its reactivation in September followed 31 months in hibernation.

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Hubble telescope finds a slew 10 billion years old galaxies

NEW DELHI: The smallest, faintest and most numerous galaxies ever seen in the remote universe have finally been captured by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. In its deepest ever probe using ultraviolet light these galaxies bubbling with star formation give a snapshot of the universe's early years.

"There's always been a concern that we've only found the brightest of the distant galaxies," said study leader Brian Siana of the University of California, Riverside. "The bright galaxies, however, represent the tip of the iceberg. We believe most of the stars forming in the early universe are occurring in galaxies we normally can't see at all. Now we have found those 'unseen' galaxies, and we're really confident that we're seeing the rest of the iceberg."

The 58 young, diminutive galaxies spied by Hubble were photographed as they appeared more than 10 billion years ago. The newly discovered galaxies are 100 times more numerous than their more massive cousins. But they are 100 times fainter than galaxies typically detected in previous deep-field surveys of the early universe.

The research team used Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3 to search for faint, star-forming galaxies in ultraviolet light, a reliable tracer of star birth. The galaxies existed when the universe was undergoing a "baby boom" of star formation, estimated to have peaked between 9 billion and 12 billion years ago.

The results are being presented at the 223rd meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Washington, DC.

These galaxies would normally be too faint for Hubble to see. To detect them, astronomers teamed Hubble with a natural zoom lens in space, produced by the gravity of a giant foreground galaxy cluster, Abell 1689. The cluster is so massive that it magnifies the light from faraway galaxies behind it due to a phenomenon called gravitational lensing, where the curvature of space acts like a giant funhouse mirror to stretch and brighten distant objects.

Siana's team believes it has completed the census of galaxies at an epoch when the universe was roughly 3.4 billion years old. If this sample of galaxies is representative of the entire population at this early time, then 80 percent of new stars formed in these small galaxies. "Though these galaxies are very faint, their increased numbers mean that they account for the majority of star formation during this epoch," said team member Anahita Alavi, also of the University of California, Riverside, and first author on the science paper describing the results.

The Hubble analysis shows they are small, irregularly shaped objects measuring just a few thousand light-years across. Even when fully mature, these galaxies will be about one-tenth to one one-hundredth the mass the Milky Way. Because they are undergoing a firestorm of star birth, their light is dominated by the ultraviolet glow of fledgling stars.

This strategy of surveying large numbers of background galaxies with deep observations of lensing clusters is being used in a new three-year Hubble survey, called the Frontier Fields. Astronomers are using Hubble to exploit the magnification powers of six massive galaxy clusters in a hunt for small galaxies that existed more than 12 billion to 13 billion years ago.

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What is a polar vortex?

PARIS: The bitter chill gripping North America is a result of Arctic air that has spilled southwards, and global warming may be a cause, an expert has said.
Arctic air is normally penned in at the roof of the world by a powerful circular wind called the polar vortex, said Dim Coumou, a senior scientist at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) near Berlin.

When the vortex weakens, the air starts heading southwards, bringing exceptional snow and chill to middle latitudes.

The weather shift is also helped by changes in a high altitude wind called the jet stream.

This convection, which usually encircles the northern hemisphere in a robust and predictable fashion, starts to zigzag, creating loops of extremely cold weather or unseasonably mild weather, depending on the location.

"We've seen a strong meandering of the jetstream, and the cold air associated with the polar vortex has been moving southwards, and in this case over the eastern parts of Canada and the United States, bringing this extreme cold weather," said Coumou.

The phenomenon has occurred repeatedly in recent winters, he noted.

What drives the polar vortex is the difference in temperature between the Arctic and mid latitudes, said Coumou.

Once sharp, this differential has blurred in recent years as the Arctic -- where temperatures are rising at about twice the global average -- warms up, he said.

"We've seen this type of cold spell more often lately in recent winters, in Europe but also in the US," Coumou said in a phone interview.

"The reason why we see these strong meanderings is still not fully settled, but it's clear that the Arctic has been warming very rapidly. We have good data on this. Arctic temperatures have risen much more than other parts of the globe."

Last month, European scientists reported that the volume of sea ice in November was around 50 percent greater compared with a year earlier, following a recovery in the Arctic summer.

Despite this bounce-back, sea ice remains at near-record documented lows and its overall trend is one of retreat, they said.

Coumou cautioned that Arctic sea ice "is just one of the important factors" behind disruption of the polar vortex".

"Other factors include snow cover, stratospheric warming events or other short-lived phenomena," he said.

Other specialists said the link between warming and the spillover of Arctic air was still debated.

"There is no consensus," said Francois Gourand, a forecaster at Meteo France, the French national meteorological agency.

"The melting of sea ice can have an impact on atmospheric circulation but these effects are complex and hard to pin down," he said.

"The overall trend of the sea ice is downwards, yet in Europe we can have mild winters sometimes, or cold winters -- there doesn't seem to be a clear link."

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First Monday after New Year is the most miserable day

First there was bargainfriendly Black Friday, and now there's Blue Monday — the most miserable day of the year. According to researchers who have analysed more than 2 million tweets over the past three years, the first Monday back from work in the New Year is the day when people post the most negative tweets.

There was almost five times the average number of tweets mentioning guilt, as people abandon their new year's resolutions as they return to the daily grind. Tweets complaining about the gloomy January weather were six times higher than usual, according to a drinks company who commissioned the research.

As if the mood wasn't low enough, the first day back to work will see solicitors start more divorce proceedings than any other day of the year. According to Divorce Depot.co.uk, 1.8 million couples will have argued at some point over the festive period. Topics that couples disagree over most include finances, drinking too much, disagreements with the in-laws and chores. Meanwhile , as people re-think their relationships in the New Year, extra-marital dating site IllicitEncounters .com sees a 25% rise in activity after the festive break.

Those longing for happiness will have to wait, as researchers in another study say the happiest days of the year are Christmas Eve and Day, followed by New Year's Day, Valentine's Day, and the first sunny weekend of the year.

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Hot, gassy Earth-like planet found circling red giant

NEW DELHI: A planet which has the same mass as Earth but is hotter and fluffier has been discovered orbiting a red giant star 200 light years away from Earth. An international team of astronomers found that although the planet weighs same as Earth, it is 60 per cent larger in diameter, meaning that it must have a very thick, gaseous atmosphere.

"This planet might have the same mass as Earth, but it is certainly not Earth-like," says David Kipping of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, lead author of the discovery. "It proves that there is no clear dividing line between rocky worlds like Earth and fluffier planets like water worlds or gas giants."

Kipping presented this discovery today in a press conference at the 223rd meeting of the American Astronomical Society.

The team gleaned the planet's characteristics using data from Nasa's Kepler spacecraft. Dubbed KOI-314c, the planet orbits a dim, red dwarf star every 23 days. The team estimates its temperature to be 220 degrees Fahrenheit (104 degrees Celsius), too hot for life as we know it.

KOI-314c is only 30 per cent denser than water. This suggests that the planet is enveloped by a significant atmosphere of hydrogen and helium hundreds of miles thick. It might have begun life as a mini-Neptune and lost some of its atmospheric gases over time, boiled off by the intense radiation of its star.

The second planet in the system, KOI-314b, is about the same size as KOI-314c but significantly denser, weighing about 4 times as much as Earth. It orbits the star every 13 days, meaning it is in a 5-to-3 resonance with the outer planet.

The planet was discovered by chance by the team as they scoured the Kepler data not for exoplanets, but for exomoons. The Hunt for Exomoons with Kepler (HEK) project, led by Kipping, scans through Kepler's planet haul looking for TTV, which can also be a signature of an exomoon.

"When we noticed this planet showed transit timing variations, the signature was clearly due to the other planet in the system and not a moon. At first we were disappointed it wasn't a moon but then we soon realized it was an extraordinary measurement," says Kipping.

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Isro completes second orbit raising manoeuvre of GSAT-14

BANGALORE: The second orbit raising operation of an advanced Indian communications satellite launched by a rocket using an indigenous powerful booster technology from the space port of Sriharikota was on Tuesday successfully completed by Isro scientists.

The Indian Space Research Organisation said the Apogee Motor of GSAT-14 was fired for 2,629 seconds with a realised orbit of 32,160 km Perigee, nearest point to earth, by 35,745 km Apogee, farthest point to earth.

The third orbit raising operation is planned on January 9 to place the two-tonne satellite in geostationary orbit, Isro said in a statement here.

The successful flight test of the indigenous cryogenic upper stage on the satellite has propelled India into the exclusive club of the US, Russia, France, Japan and China, which have mastered the complex cryogenic engine technology.

The satellite was put into orbit by GSLV-D5 after a textbook launch on Sunday from the spaceport in Andhra Pradesh.

India has for years been trying to develop its own cryogenic rocket engines that are designed to put heavier satellites into high geostationary orbits, about 36,000 km from Earth.

The powerful booster technology uses super-cooled liquid fuel--a mix of oxygen and hydrogen in liquid form and kept at a very low temperature.

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Hindustan Aeronautics Limited contributes to GSLV mission

BANGALORE: Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) on Monday congratulated Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) for the successful launch of Geo-stationary Satellite Launch Vehicle, GSLV-D5 from Sriharikota on Sunday. "HAL's Aerospace Division contributed in a significant way for the launch by supplying 13 types of riveted structural assemblies, seven types of welded propellant tankages which include the cryogenic liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen tanks and cryogenic stage structures of GSLV-D5", said Dr RK Tyagi, Chairman, HAL.

HAL integrated and delivered all the four L40 booster rockets and provided the bare structure of the communication satellite (GSAT-14), an assembly of composite and metallic honeycomb sandwich panels with a composite cylinder.

The HAL-ISRO partnership has been growing over the years and is poised for more. HAL has been associated with India's prestigious space programmes since the establishment of ISRO. This includes the recent successful launch of the Mars Orbiter Mission spacecraft for which HAL delivered seven types of riveted structural assemblies and four types of welded propellant tankages.

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Risk of supervolcano eruption big enough to wipe out civilization far greater than thought: Scientists

The eruption of a "supervolcano" hundreds of times more powerful than conventional volcanoes - with the potential to wipe out civilisation as we know it - is more likely than previously thought, a study has found.

An analysis of the molten rock within the dormant supervolcano beneath Yellowstone National Park in the United States has revealed that an eruption is possible without any external trigger, scientists said.

Scientists previously believed many supervolcanic eruptions needed earthquakes to break open the Earth's crust so magma could escape. But new research suggests that this can happen as a result of the build-up of pressure.

Supervolcanoes represent the second most globally cataclysmic event - next to an asteroid strike - and they have been responsible in the past for mass extinctions, long-term changes to the climate and shorter-term "volcanic winters" caused by volcanic ash cutting out the sunlight.

The last known supervolcanic eruption was believed to have occurred about 70,000 years ago at the site today of Lake Toba in Sumatra, Indonesia. It caused a volcanic winter that blocked out the sun for between six to eight years, and resulted in a period of global cooling lasting a thousand years.

A supervolcano under Yellowstone Park in Wyoming last erupted about 600,000 years ago, sending more than 1,000 cubic kilometres of ash and lava into the atmosphere - about 100 times more than the Mount Pinatubo eruption in the Philippines in 1982, which caused a noticeable period of global cooling.

Following Pinatubo's eruption, the global average temperature fell by about 0.4C for several months. Scientists predict that a supervolcanic eruption would cause average global temperatures to fall by about 10C for a decade - changing life on earth.

Scientists have analysed magma from the Yellowstone caldera, a 55-mile-wide underground cavern containing between 200 and 600 cubic kilometres of molten rock, to see how it responds to changes in pressure and temperature.

Using a powerful X-ray source at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility in Grenoble, France, the researchers found that the density of the magma decreased significantly at the high temperatures and pressures experienced underground.

Density variations between magma and the rock surrounding it means that the lava within the supervolcano's caldera can produce big enough forces to break through the earth's crust, allowing the molten rock and ash to erupt from the surface, the scientists said.

"The difference in density between the molten magma in the caldera and the surrounding rock is big enough to drive the magma from the chamber to the surface," said Jean-Philippe Perrillat of the National Centre for Scientific Research in Grenoble.

"The effect is like the extra buoyancy of a football when it is filled with air underwater, which forces it to the surface because of the denser water around it," Dr Perrillat said.

"If the volume of magma is big enough, it should come to the surface and explode like a champagne bottle being uncorked."

The study, published in the journal Nature Geoscience, was possible because the X-ray machine at Grenoble was able to take accurate density measurements at temperatures of up to 1,700C and pressures 36,000 times greater than normal atmospheric pressure.

"The results reveal that if the magma chamber is big enough, the overpressure caused by differences in density alone are sufficient to penetrate the crust above and initiate an eruption," said Professor Carmen Sanchez-Valle of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich, who led the study.

Preventing a supervolcanic eruption is not possible, but scientists are currently trying to devise methods of monitoring the pressure of underground magma in order to predict whether one is imminent.

Dr Perrillat said there are no known supervolcanoes that are in danger of erupting in the foreseeable future, and it would take at least a decade or so for the magma pressure within a caldera to build up to a point where an eruption is likely.

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New device allows you to workout anywhere

WASHINGTON: A tiny new handheld device, which looks like a computer mouse, may allow you to work out from anywhere- a desk, plane seat or while watching TV.

The device called the Tao, unveiled at the 2014 International CES trade show in Las Vegas, looks similar to a computer mouse.

The Tao in combination with an app coaches users through 50 exercises related to isometrics - the science of applying pressure - and adds a gaming element, 'Mashable' reported.

By holding the device portion called Tao WellShell in the hands and pushing hard, its internal pressure sensor works users' muscles. It can also be used between the knees.

While pressing hard on each side, the bluetooth-connected app walks you through the exercise, audibly telling you to push more or less and how long to hold the pressure - typically each rep is 20 seconds with six-second rest periods.

In order to work out their abdominals, users push the Tao WellShell with both hands against the top of your thigh. The Tao app will then log the exercise and calories burned.

Philo Northrup, president and co-founder of Tao Wellness said the gadget will likely cost between USD 200-300, with a planned launch later this year.

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Rare tree-hole breeding odonate found in Western Ghats

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: A rare odonate species, which is known to use tree holes as a larval habitat, has been found in the southern parts of Western Ghats, a biodiversity hotspot.

Experts claim that it is for the first time that such an odonate variety has been found in the Indian subcontinent.

A team of scientists, including K S Anoop Das, K A Subramanian, K G Emiliyamma, Muhamed Jafer Palot and K A Nishadh, chanced upon 'Lyriothemis tricolor' in the region during a recent field study.

Many species of odonates are known to use 'phytotelmata',plant-held waters, as a breeding habitat worldwide. But no species are known to breed in phytotelmata in India, researchers said.

The species were found to be bred in the tree holes of evergreen and semi-evergreen forests in the southern Western Ghats, they said.

Its presence was mainly reported in New Amarambalam, Silent Valley and Thattekkad areas of Western Ghats, they said.

A detailed report about its finding and habitat was published in the 'Journal of Threatened Taxa', an international publication, last month.

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Nasa to send another rover to Mars in 2020: Chief scientist

CHENNAI: After the success of Mars orbiter rover 'Curiosity', Nasa would send another rover to the red planet by 2020 to explore "biosignatures" on Mars, a top scientist of the American space agency said here on Sunday.

"Yes. By 2020, we will send another rover which has similar architecture (of Curiosity) with new instruments that are geared more towards looking for biosignatures (on Mars)," lead scientist of Nasa's MARS Exploration Programme Michael Meyer told PTI here.

Asked what would happen to Curiosity, he said, "Curiosity will keep going. In fact, this month, the rover is celebrating its 10th anniversary. It is still going. It is still doing good science. By 2020, Curiosity will also be there".

On India's maiden Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) launched by Indian space agency Isro, Meyer said it would be "fantastic" for science and for India.

"It is a fantastic mission for India. It is working so well and I am very hopeful that the mission will be great for science. I also think it will be great for India," he said.

Launched from Satish Dhawan Space Centre of Sriharikota on December 4, MOM has escaped the Earth's sphere of influence and is now on course to reach Mars after a journey of about 300 days.

The Rs 450-crore project would provide the scientific community better opportunities in planetary research. It is expected to enter the orbit of Mars by September 24, 2014.

Earlier, answering questions from students of the Indian Institute of Technology at its annual conference 'Shaastra' here, the American scientist said finance was one of the reasons for National Aeronautics Space Agency (Nasa) not exploring much on the Moon.

"The reason we stopped (sending rockets to Moon) was because it was expensive. Of course, there is a lot more to be done on the Moon," he said.

Asked if there was a possibility of sending more rovers in one mission, he said it comes with a risk. "The problem is that you do not have that much money to do it right now."

On the issue of space debris falling to Earth, Meyer said, "Space debris is an issue. We (Nasa) spend some amount of time on tracking them."

Meanwhile, India today successfully launched a Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV D5) with an indigenous cryogenic engine from the spaceport of Satish Dhawan Space Centre here, entering a select club of nations.

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GSLV-D5 marks India’s mastery over indigenous cryogenic technology

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Indian Space Research Organisation's (Isro's) successful launch of Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle, GSLV-D5, on Sunday at 4.18pm from Sriharikota marks a significant achievement of India's prowess over indigenous cryogenic technology.

"It is a tough job to understand and master cryogenic technology. It is ultimate and we have put in a lot of efforts and made it possible. Today, we can say and prepare with more confidence for the next mission of C-25 stage with 25 tonnes of propellant and 20 tonnes of cryogenic engine thrust for the GSLV MK-3 D-1 mission in early 2017. The high-end cryogenic engine is slated for completion and testing by 2015," Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre director S Ramakrishnan told TOI minutes after the lift-off of GSLV-D5.

It's indeed a memorable day for launch vehicle community, to realize this cryogenic technology and master it as it is the first successful attempt, he said. Last year, on August 19, an anomaly in the second stage of liquid propellant of GSLV-D5 prompted Isro to call off the launch and it could not go beyond ignition. It's the knowledge of the entire team that could analyze the errors and rectify it at the shortest time possible, he said.

Isro chairman Dr K Radhakrishnan hailed the efforts of scientists of Isro establishments including Liquid Propulsion Systems Centre (LPSC) for its mastery over liquid propellant systems and the VSSC for its reliable launch vehicle. "From understanding cryogenic technology, the Isro scientists have mastered it and it was made possible through the strong leadership of UR Rao who had envisioned of India having its own cryogenic technology," he said.

The GSLV-D5 has precisely injected the GSAT-14 satellite into the orbit to synergize the benefits of satellite technology in telecommunication and telemedicine and it is an important day for science and technology, especially space technology, he said. "It is a realization of the efforts of scientists for the last 20 years and the excruciating efforts of the last three years have fructified," he said.

GSLV mission project director K Sivan said its memorable that the cryogenic technology has given wings to GSLV. "After 1000 days of hard work by the VSSC, LPSC and the entire Isro team, the naughty boy GSLV has become obedient for a precise launch that the satellite was put just 40 metres within the 179km perigee and only 49km of the 36,000km apogee," he said.

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