Knowledge Update

Toronto, Jan 31 (IANS) If you thought bursting balloons at a birthday party is plain fun, think again! Researchers have found that popping balloons can be louder than shotgun blasts -- and can lead to permanent hearing loss.

"We are not saying don't play with balloons and don't have fun, just try to guard against popping them. Hearing loss is insidious -- every loud noise that occurs has a potential lifelong impact," said one of the researchers Bill Hodgetts from University of Alberta in Canada.

The researchers measured the noise generated by bursting balloons and were startled to find that the impact, at its highest level, was comparable to a high-powered shotgun going off next to someone's ear.

Wearing ear protection and using a high-pressure microphone and a preamplifier, the researchers measured the noise effects by busting balloons three different ways: popping them with a pin, blowing them up until they ruptured and crushing them until they burst.

The loudest bang was made by the ruptured balloon at almost 168 decibels, four decibels louder than a 12-gauge shotgun, according to the study published in the journal Canadian Audiologist.

The Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety recommends that the maximum impulse level any Canadian should experience should not exceed 140 decibels. Even one exposure could be considered potentially unsafe to hearing for both children and adults.

"It's amazing how loud the balloons are," Dylan Scott, also of University of Alberta, noted.

"Nobody would let their child shoot something that loud without hearing protection, but balloons don't cross people's minds," Scott pointed out.

The results for the other two methods were slightly lower, but still a concern, he said.

​London, Jan 31 (IANS) A major risk factor for development of heart diseases, strokes and diabetes is lower in people who live at higher altitudes, says a new study that suggests that something as simple as the geographic area in which you live contribute to your risk of developing these diseases.

"We found that those people living between 457 to 2,297 metres, had a lower risk of developing Metabolic Syndrome than those living at sea level (zero to 121 metres)," said Amaya Lopez-Pascual, who conducted this research as part of her PhD thesis at University of Navarra, Spain.

Metabolic syndrome is the medical term for the combination of high blood pressure, sugar and cholesterol levels, as well as excess body fat around the waist, and contributes to serious health problems.

While the reported increase in the metabolic syndrome is principally blamed on higher obesity rates, smoking and increasingly inactive lifestyles, less is known about the effect our environment may have on us. 

"Living or training at high altitudes or under a simulated hypoxic (oxygen deficient) environment seems to help with heart and lung function, losing weight, and improves insulin sensitivity," co-senior author of this study Pedro Gonzalez-Muniesa, Associate Professor at University of Navarra, noted.

The researchers used data from a Spanish project, where participants have been voluntarily submitting information about their health twice-yearly since 1999. 

Information from thousands of initially healthy participants were used to investigate the development of metabolic syndrome in relation to the altitude of where they lived.

The results, published in the journal Frontiers in Physiology, were quite clear - the higher the altitude, the less likely you were of developing metabolic syndrome. 

Interestingly, using information about the participants' family history, the researchers could also assess if those more prone to this health problem also saw these benefits.

"We found our results were independent of the genetic background of the individuals," Gonzalez-Muniesa noted.

Washington, Jan 31 (IANS) NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray space telescope has identified the farthest gamma-ray blazars, a type of galaxy whose intense emissions are powered by super-sized black holes.

"Despite their youth, these far-flung blazars host some of the most massive black holes known," said Roopesh Ojha, an astronomer at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. 

Light from the most distant object began its journey to us when the universe was 1.4 billion years old, or nearly 10 per cent of its present age.

Previously, the most distant blazars detected by Fermi emitted their light when the universe was about 2.1 billion years old. 

"That they developed so early in cosmic history challenges current ideas of how supermassive black holes form and grow, and we want to find more of these objects to help us better understand the process," Ojha said while presenting the findings at the American Physical Society meeting in Washington on Monday.

Blazars constitute roughly half of the gamma-ray sources detected by Fermi's Large Area Telescope (LAT). 

Astronomers think their high-energy emissions are powered by matter heated and torn apart as it falls from a storage, or accretion, disk toward a supermassive black hole with a million or more times the sun's mass. 

"The main question now is how these huge black holes could have formed in such a young universe," one of the researchers Dario Gasparrini from Italian Space Agency's Science Data Centre in Rome said.

"We don't know what mechanisms triggered their rapid development," Gasparrini noted.

Two of the blazars that the team detected boast black holes of a billion solar masses or more. In the meantime, the team plans to continue a deep search for additional examples.

"We think Fermi has detected just the tip of the iceberg, the first examples of a galaxy population that previously has not been detected in gamma rays," said Marco Ajello from Clemson University in South Carolina, US.

Beijing, Jan 30 (IANS) China's plans for deep space exploration include two Mars missions and one Jupiter probe.

China plans its first Mars probe by 2020, Wu Yanhua, Vice Director of the China National Space Administration, was quoted as saying by Xinhua news agency. 

A second Mars probe will bring back samples and conduct research on the planet's structure, composition and environment, Wu said.

Also on the agenda are an asteroid exploration, and a fly-by of the Jupiter system.

China aims to become a space power around 2030, with an advanced and open aerospace industry and space infrastructure.

​London, Jan 30 (IANS) An international team of scientists has found the first observational and substantial evidence that our universe could be a vast and complex hologram.

A holographic universe, an idea first suggested in the 1990s, is one where all the information, which makes up our 3-D 'reality' (plus time) is contained in a 2-D surface on its boundaries.

"Imagine that everything you see, feel and hear in three dimensions (and your perception of time) in fact emanates from a flat two-dimensional field, said Kostas Skenderis, Professor at the University of Southampton in Britain. 

"The idea is similar to that of ordinary holograms where a three-dimensional image is encoded in a two-dimensional surface, such as in the hologram on a credit card. However, this time, the entire universe is encoded!" Skenderis added.

Although holographic properties could be thought of as rather like watching a 3-D film in a cinema -- for example we see the pictures as having height, width and crucially, depth -- when, in fact, it all originates from a flat 2-D screen.

However, the difference in our 3-D universe is that we can touch objects and the 'projection' is 'real' from our perspective, the researchers said, in the paper published in the journal Physical Review Letters.

"Holography is a huge leap forward in the way we think about the structure and creation of the universe. Scientists have been working for decades to combine Einstein's theory of gravity and quantum theory. Some believe the concept of a holographic universe has the potential to reconcile the two. I hope our research takes us another step towards this," Skenderis explained. 

The scientists now hope that their study will open the door to further our understanding of the early universe and explain how space and time emerged.

​New York, Jan 30 (IANS) NASA scientists have developed a simple method that could aid search for signs of life on other planets by analysing amino acids, the structural building blocks of all life on Earth.

The test uses a liquid-based technique known as capillary electrophoresis to separate a mixture of organic molecules into its components. 

The method is 10,000 times more sensitive than current methods employed by spacecraft like NASA's Mars Curiosity rover, according to a study published in the journal Analytical Chemistry. 

While capillary electrophoresis has been around since the early 1980s, this is the first time it has been tailored specifically to detect extraterrestrial life on an ocean world, said lead author Jessica Creamer, a postdoctoral scholar at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Pasadena, California.

"Our method improves on previous attempts by increasing the number of amino acids that can be detected in a single run," Creamer noted.

"Additionally, it allows us to detect these amino acids at very low concentrations, even in highly salty samples, with a very simple 'mix and analyse' process," Creamer said.

The researchers used the technique to analyse amino acids present in the salt-rich waters of Mono Lake in California. 

The lake's exceptionally high alkaline content makes it a challenging habitat for life, and an excellent stand-in for salty waters believed to be on Mars, or the ocean worlds of Saturn's moon Enceladus and Jupiter's moon Europa.

The researchers were able to simultaneously analyse 17 different amino acids. These amino acids were chosen for study because they are the most commonly found on Earth or elsewhere.

"Using our method, we are able to tell the difference between amino acids that come from non-living sources like meteorites versus amino acids that come from living organisms," said the project's principal investigator Peter Willis of JPL.

"One of NASA's highest-level objectives is the search for life in the universe," Willis said. 

"Our best chance of finding life is by using powerful liquid-based analyses like this one on ocean worlds," Willis noted.

Washington, Jan 30 (IANS) Researchers have developed a reconfigurable radio that could help air traffic controllers see in real-time the location of every plane in the air -- even those flying across oceans.

To design and develop the new reconfigurable, higher-bandwidth radio, NASA worked with Palm Bay, Florida-based Harris Corporation.

With real-time global tracking, planes could fly with less space between them and take more direct routes. 

"It tremendously improves public safety and potentially saves a lot of fuel costs, because you no longer have to remain in the particular airline traffic lanes," said Jeff Anderson from Harris Corporation. 

The biggest selling point of the new device, which Harris sells as the AppSTAR, turned out to be its flexibility. 

With hardware and software both fully reconfigurable, the company could quickly and cheaply redesign the radio to fit any customer's needs, Harris programme manager Kevin Moran explained.

The company has already entered into contracts with Virginia-based Aireon LLC that will use the radios to create the first space-based global air traffic control system.

With Aireon flight tracking, powered by a radio developed by Harris Corporation, researchers hope that air traffic control agencies will be able to see in real time the location and heading of every plane in the air.

For decades, airplanes have relied on radar surveillance via land-based radar stations. That has left huge gaps ? particularly over oceans ? where air traffic controllers have no real-time information. 

To compensate, pilots file detailed flight plans and are required to remain within prescribed lanes at different altitudes so air traffic controllers can estimate where they are and work to ensure there are no mid-air collisions.

But that could change when a constellation of 66 satellites, owned by Iridium Communications Inc., goes into orbit equipped with AppSTAR radios. 

The radios are programmed to receive signals from new airplane transceivers called ADS-B, which automatically send out a flight's number, location, heading and other details.

"Within seconds you can keep track of all the aircraft in the world," Anderson noted. 

Aireon has already signed contracts with a number of air traffic control agencies to integrate the space-based system into their flight tracking when the system goes live in 2018. 

A reconfigurable is also useful for NASA engineers.

"A reconfigurable radio lets engineers change how the radio works throughout the life of (any space mission)," Thomas Kacpura, Advanced Communications Programme Manager at NASA's Glenn Research Center, explained in an official statement.

"It can also be upgraded to work better with future missions or to enhance performance, just by adding new software," Kacpura added.

New York, Jan 30 (IANS) Using a mechanism similar to the one used by the organ that allows pit vipers to sense their prey, researchers have developed an artificial skin capable of detecting temperature changes.

The material could be grafted onto prosthetic limbs to restore temperature sensing in amputees. 

It could also be applied to first-aid bandages to alert health professionals of a temperature increase -- a sign of infection -- in wounds.

While fabricating synthetic woods in a petri dish, a team led by California Institute of Technology's Chiara Daraio created a material that exhibited an electrical response to temperature changes in the laboratory. 

It turned out that the component responsible for the temperature sensitivity was pectin, a long-chain molecule present in plant cell walls.

"Pectin is widely used in the food industry as a jellifying agent; it's what you use to make jam. So it's easy to obtain and also very cheap," said Daraio.

Intrigued, the team shifted its attention to pectin and ultimately created a thin, transparent flexible film of pectin and water, which can be as little as 20 micrometres thick (equivalent to the diameter of a human hair). 

Pectin molecules in the film have a weakly bonded double-strand structure that contains calcium ions. 

According to a paper published in the journal Science Robotics, the film senses temperature using a mechanism similar -- but not identical -- to the pit organs in vipers, which allow the snakes to sense warm prey in the dark by detecting radiated heat. 

In those organs, ion channels in the cell membrane of sensory nerve fibres expand as temperature increases. 

This dilation allows calcium ions to flow, triggering electrical impulses, the researchers explained.

​London, Jan 30 (IANS) Kids get more satisfaction from relationships with their household pets than with their brothers or sisters, new research suggests.

"Anyone who has loved a childhood pet knows that we turn to them for companionship and disclosure, just like relationships between people," said lead researcher Matt Cassells from University of Cambridge.

"We wanted to know how strong these relationships are with pets relative to other close family ties. Ultimately this may enable us to understand how animals contribute to healthy child development," Cassells said.

Researchers surveyed children of 12 years of age from 77 families with one or more pets of any type and more than one child at home. 

The children reported strong relationships with their pets relative to their siblings, with lower levels of conflict and greater satisfaction in owners of dogs than other kinds of pets.

"Even though pets may not fully understand or respond verbally, the level of disclosure to pets was no less than to siblings," Cassels said. 

"The fact that pets cannot understand or talk back may even be a benefit as it means they are completely non-judgmental," Cassels noted.

While previous research had often found that boys report stronger relationships with their pets than girls do, the new research actually found the opposite. 

"While boys and girls were equally satisfied with their pets, girls reported more disclosure, companionship, and conflict with their pet than did boys, perhaps indicating that girls may interact with their pets in more nuanced ways," Cassels noted.

The research, published in the Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, adds to increasing evidence that household pets may have a major influence on child development, and could have a positive impact on children's social skills and emotional well-being.

New York, Jan 29 (IANS) A group of researchers has invented new ways to interact with smartwatches that not only eases the user-device communication but also gives users better control over the gadget.

Georgia Institute of Technology researchers developed enhancements using LG and Sony smartwatches that allow a user to scroll through apps by running fingers along the watch band, and let him/her launch eight smartwatch apps by tapping key points on the watch case (or bezel) and reject phone calls by blowing on the screen or tapping the side of the watch.

The new enhancements, recently presented at the 2016 ACM International Conference on Interactive Surfaces and Spaces, also let a user to edit dictated text message errors by breathing on the screen, transfer on-screen information from the watch to a phone with breaths and select numbers by tapping the back of the hand.

Ph.D. student Cheng Zhang oversaw WatchOut -- an interaction technique that uses taps and scrolling gestures on the case and watchband. The tapping and scrolling on the smartwatch band was possible because of the watch's gyroscope and accelerometer sensors.

"We wanted to create a technique that allows the user to tap the watch to accept or deny phone calls. Hitting the right side answers the call; the left side ignores it," Zhang said in a statement.

"Other techniques that improve control of smartwatches have included 3D gestures above the screen, bigger screens or adding an extra armband. We wanted to show it could be done with existing technology already common on today's devices," Zhang added.