Knowledge Update

​Washington, May 5 (IANS) Pluto behaves less like a comet than expected and somewhat more like a planet like Mars or Venus in the way it interacts with the solar wind -- a continuous stream of charged particles from the Sun, a first ever analysis has revealed.

Using data from the New Horizons flyby of Pluto last year, scientists have observed the material coming off of Pluto's atmosphere and studied how it interacts with the solar wind, leading to yet another "Pluto surprise".

"This is a type of interaction we've never seen before anywhere in our solar system," said David J. McComas, professor of astrophysical sciences at the Princeton University.

According to space physicists, they now have a treasure trove of information about how Pluto's atmosphere interacts with the solar wind.

Solar wind is the plasma that spews from the Sun into the solar system at a supersonic 160 million km per hour, bathing planets, asteroids, comets and interplanetary space in a soup of mostly protons and electrons.

Previously, most researchers thought that Pluto was characterised more like a comet which has a large region of gentle slowing of the solar wind as opposed to the abrupt diversion solar wind encounters at a planet like Mars or Venus.

Instead, like a car that is part gas-and part battery-powered, Pluto is a hybrid, researchers said.

"These results speak to the power of exploration. Once again we've gone to a new kind of place and found ourselves discovering entirely new kinds of expressions in nature," added Alan Stern, New Horizons' principal investigator.

Since it is so far from the Sun, scientists thought Pluto's gravity would not be strong enough to hold heavy ions in its extended atmosphere.

But, "Pluto's gravity clearly is enough to keep material relatively confined", McComas noted.

Like the Earth, Pluto has a long ion tail that extends downwind at least a distance of about 118,700 km, almost three times the circumference of the Earth, loaded with heavy ions from the atmosphere and with "considerable structure".

The findings, published in the Journal of Geophysical Research-Space Physics offer clues to the magnetised plasmas that one may find around other stars.​

​London, May 5 (IANS) Large meteorite and comet impacts in the sea created structures that provided conditions favourable for life on Earth, reveal geochemists from Trinity College Dublin in Ireland.

Water then interacted with impact-heated rock to enable synthesis of complex organic molecules and the enclosed crater itself was a microhabitat within which life could flourish, said the team.

It has long been suggested that the meteoritic and cometary material that bombarded early Earth delivered the raw materials - complex organic molecules and water - and the energy that was required for synthesis. 

According to the researchers, impact craters were ideal environments to facilitate the reactions that saw the first “seeds of life” take root.

“The findings suggest that extensive hydrothermal systems operated in an enclosed impact crater at Sudbury, Ontario, Canada,” said first study author Edel O'Sullivan in a paper published in the journal Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta.

The Sudbury basin provides a unique opportunity to study the sediment that filled the basin as a guide to what the earlier impact craters would have looked like. 

The Sudbury structure has an unusually thick basin fill and much of this is almost black in colour (due to carbon), also containing hydrothermal metal deposits.

To reach these findings, representative samples across the basin fill were analysed for their chemistry and for carbon isotopes.​

​New York, May 5 (IANS) Researchers have discovered how an immune system molecule hijacks a brain circuit and reduces appetite when you are inflicted with an illness.

While loss of appetite during illness is common, it contributes to reducing a patient's strength and in cancer patients, it can even shorten lifespan.

The new research points to potential targets for treating loss of appetite and restoring a patient's strength.

"Treating loss of appetite won't cure an underlying disease, but it could help a patient cope," said senior author of the study Bruno Conti, professor at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) in California, US.

"Many times, loss of appetite can compromise clinical outcome. A weak individual is less likely to be able to cope with chemotherapy, for instance," Conti said.

Many people recover their appetite after illness. But in patients with diseases such as cancer or AIDS, loss of appetite can turn into a wasting disease called cachexia, also known as "the last illness" because it can accelerate a patient's decline.

The findings were published in The Journal of Neuroscience.

The researchers believe the circuit affected by an immune molecule called interleukin 18 (IL-18) may be a potential drug target for treating loss of appetite, and possibly support weight loss for those with metabolic disorders.

"IL-18 regulates feeding by locking directly into the neuronal circuitry," Conti said.​

New York, May 4 (IANS) Medical error is the third leading cause of death in the US after heart disease and cancer, experts have said.

While accurate data on deaths associated with medical error is lacking, recent estimates suggest a range of 210,000 to 400,000 deaths a year among hospital patients in the US.

Using studies from 1999 onwards - and extrapolating to the total number of US hospital admissions in 2013 - the researchers calculated a mean rate of death from medical error of 251,454 a year.

Comparing their estimate to the annual list of the most common causes of death in the US, compiled by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), suggests that medical error is the third most common cause of death in the US.

"Although we cannot eliminate human error, we can better measure the problem to design safer systems mitigating its frequency, visibility, and consequences," the researchers said in the article published in the journal The BMJ.

Death certificates in the US have no facility for acknowledging medical error, lamented the researchers Martin Makary and Michael Daniel from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore.

Currently, death certification in the US relies on assigning an International Classification of Disease (ICD) code to the cause of death - so causes of death not associated with an ICD code, such as human and system factors, are not captured.

The researchers suggested three strategies to reduce death from medical care - making errors more visible when they occur so their effects can be intercepted, having remedies at hand to rescue patients, and making errors less frequent by following principles that take human limitations into account.

For instance, instead of simply requiring cause of death, they suggest that death certificates could contain an extra field asking whether a preventable complication stemming from the patient's medical care contributed to the death.

Another strategy would be for hospitals to carry out a rapid and efficient independent investigation into deaths to determine the potential contribution of error.

Measuring the consequences of medical care on patient outcomes "is an important prerequisite to creating a culture of learning from our mistakes, thereby advancing the science of safety and moving us closer towards creating learning health systems," the researchers noted.​

Tokyo, May 4 (IANS) The number of children in Japan under the age of 15 reached a historic low again, according to figures released by the government on Wednesday.

On April 1, the number of children of up to 14 years of age was 16.05 million, a year-on-year drop of 150,000 or almost one percent, and the worst figure since 1950 when the data began to be compiled, EFE news reported.

The number has dipped for the 35th consecutive year.

In terms of gender, the number of girls and boys stood at 7.82 million and 8.22 million respectively.

This age group now represents only 12.6 percent of the total population, and the 42nd consecutive year of decrease, according to the ministry of interior and communications data.

The data shows a serious fall in birth rate in the world's third largest economy, which has seen a downward trend since 1982.

Meanwhile, the number of children rose in only one of the 47 prefectures -- Tokyo -- this year, while only two -- Fukuoka and Okinawa -- maintained their figures from last year.​

Moscow, May 5 (IANS) A team of international scientists has developed a device that will help doctors to perform heart bypass surgery without stopping the heart.

Scientists from MISiS National University of Science and Technology, Moscow and their colleagues from Australia's Endogene-Globetek medical company have developed a unique device to enhance cardiovascular surgery. 

The stapler like device for mending blood vessels using strong staples makes it possible to quickly and safely restore blood vessels and to considerably reduce the post-operative period. 

"The world has no other device like it. The main advantage is that it reliably patches up the blood vessels in no time," said Sergei Prokoshkin, a professor at pressure metal treatment department of MISiS National University of Science and Technology.

"In addition, it is very easy to quickly learn to use the stapler. It can be used during abdominal surgery to patch up blood vessels and other hollow body organs, including aortic aneurisms or during intestinal surgery," Prokoshkin added.

A standard heart bypass surgery lasts four to five hours, with doctors having to stop the heart, and entails lengthy post-operative rehabilitation. 

This new stitching instrument allows doctors to operate on the heart while it beats. Instead of sawing the breast-bone apart, surgeons can now simply bore two holes through it and put the bypass in place. 

The entire operation lasts about 60 minutes, and the patient can be discharged on the following day.

This innovative stapler uses special resilient nickel titanium (nitinol) reversible shape memory staples. These staples are inserted inside a cartridge which is then placed inside the polymer-body stapler's distal end.

Pre-clinical tests have already been completed and this technology has also been patented in Russia and Australia. 

This Russian-Australian invention received an award at the 44th International Exhibition of Inventions of Geneva held last month.​

London, May 4 (IANS) A larger placenta during pregnancy could lead to larger bones in children, new research has found.

Larger bones in early life are likely to lead to larger, stronger bones in older adulthood, which reduces the risk of osteoporosis and broken bones in later life. 

The researchers believe that this latest research offers new insights into earlier observations linking maternal factors in pregnancy with offspring bone health.

"These findings really help us to understand the possible mechanisms whereby factors such as maternal diet, smoking, physical activity and vitamin D status may influence offspring bone development," said lead researcher Nicholas Harvey, professor at University of Southampton in Britain.

The researchers studied 518 children in the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC) who underwent bone scans at nine, 15 and 17 years of age. Measurements such as thickness, volume and weight, were also taken from the mothers' placenta.

The team found that greater placental size at birth was associated with larger bones at each age in childhood.

The study, published in the Journal of Bone and Mineral Research, found that the relationship between the placenta and offspring bone remained robust even after adjusting for factors such as the child's height and weight and pubertal status.

"This work builds on our previous findings from the Southampton Women's Survey, and demonstrates that positive associations between placental size and offspring bone size are maintained even through puberty," Harvey noted.​

London, May 4 (IANS) Older adults suffering with dementia who indulged in a high-intensity functional exercise programme and group activity showed reduced levels of depressive symptoms, a new study has found.

"Unfortunately, depression is common among older people, especially in people with dementia," said led author Gustaf Bostrom, doctoral student at the Umea University's Department of Community Medicine and Rehabilitation in Sweden.

The team investigated whether 45 minutes of high-intensity exercise, every other weekday for four months, had a better effect on depressive symptoms than a seated group activity, performed with the same duration and frequency, in older people with dementia.

The findings showed reduction in high levels of depressive symptoms in both groups. 

But, exercise showed no superior effect on depression.

Also, the study suggested a connection between impaired balance, general dependency in activities of daily living -- in transfer and dressing -- and depression in older age. 

"The link between impaired balance, dependency in transfer or dressing, and depression is an important finding and may be the subject of future studies focusing on prevention or treatment of depression among people in older age," Bostrom said, in his dissertation.

The elderly with dementia or people over the age of 85 had an increased risk of death with ongoing treatment with anti-depressants.

Further, the study involving 392 participants revealed that women had a higher mortality risk with anti-depressant use in comparison to men, the researchers concluded. ​

​Washington, May 4 (IANS) Babies are much less likely to get the flu during their first six months of life, if their moms get flu vaccinations while pregnant, a US study said.

Infants six months and younger, whose mothers were vaccinated when pregnant, had a 70 percent reduction in laboratory-confirmed flu cases and an 80 percent reduction in flu-related hospitalisations, compared with babies whose moms were not immunised, according to the study published online in the US journal Pediatrics on Tuesday.

"Babies cannot be immunised during their first six months, so they must rely on others for protection from the flu during that time," Xinhua news agency quoted lead author Julie Shakib, assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of Utah School of Medicine, as saying.

"When pregnant women get the flu vaccine there are clear benefits for their infants."

Shakib and colleagues examined more than 245,000 de-identified health records of pregnant women and more than 249,000 infant records for nine flu seasons from December 2005 through March 2014.

About 10 percent of the women -- 23,383 -- reported being vaccinated while pregnant compared with 222,003 who said they were not vaccinated, they found.

Over the study's course, laboratory-confirmed flu cases were reported among 658 infants. Of these cases, 638, or 97 percent, occurred in babies whose moms were not immunised.

A total of 151 of the 658 infants were hospitalised, with 148 being born to non-immunised pregnant women.

In order to confirm that the benefits observed in infants born to mothers who received flu vaccinations were not related to chance, the researchers also examined health records for the incidence of respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), a respiratory infection that also occurs in infants and young children during the winter months.

The analysis found that the vaccine had no effect on the incidence of RSV among infants, strengthening the findings that the benefits seen in the infants were actually due to the flu vaccine their mothers received.

The results led the researchers to declare that the need for getting more pregnant women immunised is a public health priority.

"We just really hope more pregnant women get the vaccine," Shakib said. "That's the take-home message of the study."​

New York, May 3 (IANS) To identify precisely where severe winds, hail or tornadoes are more likely to occur within storm clouds, NASA scientists have developed a new hazardous thunderstorm forecast method by combining satellite images with novel algorithms.

"We are able to analyse the locations where severe storms most frequently occur and when they occur with unprecedented detail using commonly available satellite imagery,” Kristopher Bedka, physical scientist at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, said in an official statement on Tuesday. 

Forecasts play key roles in many people’s lives, from planning picnics at the park, to cancelling flights and avoiding weather-related tragedies. Because weather can be a life-or-death matter, researchers work hard to develop new technology and ways to provide earlier and more accurate forecasts.

Thunderstorms form when warm, moist air rises rapidly into the atmosphere. These air currents produce cloud formations known as cumulonimbus incus, or anvil clouds, which look similar to an atomic bomb explosion with a flat and wide top. 

Forecasters have known for years that anvil clouds indicate thunderstorms. But anvil tops can be miles wide, and it is sometimes difficult to distinguish where within those clouds hazardous weather may be occurring. 

Bedka said it is crucial to figure out what is a hazardous storm and what isn’t within anvil clouds, especially because strong updrafts pose serious risks for things like flying aircraft.

To really target the action, Bedka focuses on updrafts that are strong enough to punch into the stratosphere. That penetration creates lumpy clouds, which look almost like the top of a cauliflower sticking out from an anvil top. 

Known as overshooting tops, these lumps indicate areas where strong thunderstorms ? sometimes hail and tornadoes ? usually occur.

Although researchers know that overshooting tops indicate thunderstorms, Bedka said it is sometimes difficult to spot them quickly enough to provide warnings for severe weather. 

To deliver almost instant forecasts, the researchers combine their satellite observations with powerful software engineering.

"We can process an image that covers the entire United States in less than two minutes,” Bedka said.

Overshooting tops research could make a difference for thousands of people worldwide under various situations, Bedka said.

"In the US we are fortunate in that we can track hazardous storms using weather radar data,” he said.

"But many regions in the world do not have these radars, so satellite imagery and hazardous storm detection products like mine are often the only data that forecasters can use to warn the public," Bedka noted.​