Knowledge Update

​New York, Dec 19 (IANS) Researchers have developed a simple brain test that can potentially be used on a three-year-old to determine whether he or she is likely to grow up to become a criminal.

In the study, neuro-scientists at Duke University followed more than 1,000 children of pre-school age until they were 38, to find out if it was possible to predict who would go on to lead troubled lives.

The study showed that those with the lowest scores (20 per cent) went on to commit more than 80 per cent of crimes as adults.

The test found that these children began their lives with mild problems with brain function and brain health.

Growing up in a socio-economically deprived family, exposure to maltreatment, low intelligence quotient (IQ) and poor self-control were identified as the risk factors that can cause poor outcomes in adults, the researchers said.

In the study, the researchers tested the 'Pareto principle' -- also known as the '80-20 rule' -- which states that in the majority of systems, around 80 per cent of the effects come from about 20 per cent of the causes.

This principle, which worked in the field of computer science, biology, physics, economics, was also found to be true for societal burden.

By assessing a child's history -- beginning at age three -- of disadvantage, and particularly their brain health, one can predict where he or she might end up.

"Being able to predict which children will struggle is an opportunity to intervene in their lives very early to attempt to change their trajectories, for everyone's benefit and could bring big returns on investment for government," Terrie Moffitt, Professor at Duke University in North Carolina, was quoted as saying to the Telegraph.co.uk.

If problematic children could be targeted early, society could benefit hugely in the long term, the researchers noted in the study published in the journal Nature Human Behaviour.

​New York, Dec 19 (IANS) Bad bosses who play a significant role in increasing stress for employees, may be of two types -- 'dark' who have destructive behaviours or 'dysfunctional' who are not very good at their job, researchers have found.

"Dysfunctional bosses don't want to hurt you. Through lack of skill, or other personality defects, they're just not very good at their job. Largely, that's what we would call 'dysfunctional'," said Seth M. Spain from Binghamton University in New York, US.

Dark bosses, on the other hand, have destructive behaviours and hurt others to elevate themselves, Spain said.

These bosses are looked at through the three characteristics called the "Dark Triad", which includes Machiavellianism, narcissism and psychopathy.

"Dark bosses are people who enjoy the pain and suffering of others -- they're going to be mean, abusive and harassing in daily life," Spain added.

Team leaders can act as a lens through which people tend to view their work experience. Thus such bosses -- dysfunctional or dark -- can cause a great deal of stress to employees, the study observed.

The study, which looks to establish a taxonomy for identifying bad bosses and their distinct behaviours, can help fixing them and ultimately reduce stress in the workplace.

"We believe that these characteristics are extremely important for understanding employee development and career advancement," Spain noted.

The study was published in the journal Research in Occupational Stress and Well-Being.

​London, Dec 19 (IANS) Bullying affects men and women differently. Whereas it often causes women to go on prolonged sick leave or use antidepressants, men often choose to leave the labour market altogether for a period of time, a new research has found.

The researchers said it was a surprise to learn that bullying does not seem to increase men's sickness absence.

"In fact, it seems that men who are bullied are more likely than women to go to work even though they are actually sick," said Tine Mundbjerg Eriksen, Assistant Professor at School of Business and Social Sciences, Aarhus University in Denmark.

"At the same time, it appears that bullying affects men's salary level negatively, which indicates that the bullying hampers their opportunities for pay increases and promotions," she said.

One way of bullying is that your colleagues or your boss impede your ability to do your job properly, make changes to your work or hand the fun and important tasks to others, she explained.

In the study involving over 3,000 people in both public and private organisations, seven per cent of the respondents reported that they were being subjected to bullying. Of these, 43 per cent were men.

When it comes to the type and frequency of bullying, the research, published in the journal of Labour Economics, showed that men are just as exposed to work or personal-related bullying as women, but are actually slightly more exposed to physical intimidation than women.

"The million-dollar question is why men primarily react by leaving the workplace, while women react to bullying by taking prolonged sick leaves. If anything, this illustrates that men and women handle bullying differently," Eriksen said.

New York, Dec 19 (IANS) Rapid population decline among vertebrates began at the end of the 19th century when industrialisation was at its peak, leading to profound change in global living ecosystems, says a study.

"Industrialisation is the most natural explanation as to why we have rapid population decline in that period of time. It has to be somehow caused by human impact," said Yun-Xin Fu, Professor at University of Texas School of Public Health at Houston, US.

The current rate of species extinction is approximately 1,000 times the background rate of extinction and is attributable to human impact, ecological and demographic fluctuations, and inbreeding due to small population sizes. 

The researchers believe that the rate and the initiation date of rapid population decline can provide important clues about the driving forces of population decline in threatened species, but they are generally unknown

So the team reviewed thousands of scientific articles about the genetic diversity of vertebrate species. 

Their efforts yielded genetic data from 2,764 vertebrate species, 600 of which are endangered.

The researchers used a population genetics approach to model when each threatened species began to rapidly decline in population size. 

On average, the population size of endangered species declined by about 25 per cent every 10 years starting 123 years ago, said the study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

​Washington, Dec 18 (IANS) Scientists have claimed to figured out how the world's biggest and most-valuable diamonds formed, media reported on Sunday.

In a study published this week in the US journal Science, the scientists said large gem-quality diamonds, like the world-famous Cullinan or Lesotho Promise, may be born in metallic liquid deep inside the Earth's mantle, Xinhua news agency reported.

The research team, led by Evan Smith of the Gemological Institute of America, reached the conclusion after examining so-called "offcuts" of massive diamonds, which are the pieces left over after the gem's facets are cut for maximum sparkle.

They found tiny metallic grains trapped inside in more than 30 exceptionally large stones, which are made up of a mixture of metallic iron and nickel, along with carbon, sulfur, methane, and hydrogen.

These inclusions led the researchers to conclude that these diamonds formed, like all diamonds, in the Earth's mantle, but they did so under conditions in which they were saturated by liquid metal.

Most diamonds formed at depths of 150 to 200 km under the continents and shoot to the surface in volcanic eruptions.

"Pure carbon crystallised in this mix of molten metallic liquid in Earth's deep mantle to form diamonds," the team explained in a statement.

"Small droplets of this metallic liquid were occasionally trapped within the diamonds as they grew," offering useful clues that may help "advance our understanding of Earth's deep mantle, hidden beneath tectonic plates and largely inaccessible for scientific observation," the statement added.

The findings may tell scientists about oxygen availability in different parts of the mantle.

Near the surface, the mantle chemistry is more oxidized, which scientists can tell from the presence of carbon in the form of carbon dioxide in magmas erupted in volcanoes.

"Previous experiments and theory predicted for many years that parts of the deep mantle below about 250 km depth contain small amounts of metallic iron and have limited available oxygen," Smith said.

Sydney, Dec 18 (IANS) People who leave school without a school certificate are more than twice as likely to have a heart attack as those with a university degree, researchers said.

New York, Dec 18 (IANS) Recreation activities in protected areas such as hiking impact wildlife mostly in negative ways, a study said.

Nature-based outdoor recreation is the most widespread human land use in protected areas and is permitted in more than 94 per cent of parks and reserves globally, the researchers said.

Hiking, a common form of outdoor recreation in protected areas, can create a negative impact by causing animals to flee, taking time away from feeding and expending valuable energy, the study said.

"People generally assume that recreation activities are compatible with conservation goals for protected areas," said lead author Courtney Larson from Colorado State University in the US.

"However, our review of the evidence across wildlife species and habitat types worldwide suggests otherwise," Larson noted.

Protected areas include national parks, wilderness areas, community conserved areas, nature reserves and privately-owned reserves.

The researchers reviewed 274 scientific articles published between 1981 and 2015 on the effects of recreation on a variety of animal species across all geographic areas and recreational activities.

More than 93 per cent of the articles reviewed, indicated at least one impact of recreation on animals, the majority of which or 59 per cent were negative.

Decreased species diversity, survival, and behavioural or physiological disturbance such as decreased foraging or increased stress are among the negative effects of outdoor recreation in protect areas, according to the study published in the journal PLOS ONE.

Surprisingly, studies of hiking and other non-motorised activities found negative effects on wildlife more frequently than studies of motorised activities.

However, since motorised activities generally cover a larger area, their influence on animals can also be widespread.

"They can also result in other environmental impacts, such as soil loss and vegetation disturbance," Larson said.

Toronto, Dec 18 (IANS) An international team of scientists has discovered a planetary system with a host star similar to Earth's sun, which could tell the history and connections between stars and their planets.

The team, which included researchers from the University of Chicago, said that unlike the artificial planet-destroying Death Star in the movie "Star Wars", this natural version could provide clues about how planetary systems evolve over time.

"It does not mean that the sun will 'eat' the Earth any time soon," Jacob Bean, co-author of an Astronomy and Astrophysics article on the research, said in a university statement.

"But our discovery provides an indication that violent histories may be common for planetary systems, including our own," Bean added.

Astronomers discovered the first planet orbiting a star other than the sun in 1995 and since then, more than two thousand exoplanets have been identified.

Rare among them are planets that orbit a star similar to Earth's sun. Due to their extreme similarity to the sun, these so-called solar twins are ideal targets for investigating the connections between stars and their planets.

It's tricky to draw conclusions from a single system, cautioned Megan Bedell, co-author of the research and the lead planet finder for the collaboration.

She said the team plans "to study more stars like this to see whether this is a common outcome of the planet formation process".

​London, Dec 17 (IANS) Drugs used to lower blood pressure can potentially block breast and pancreatic cancer invasion by inhibiting their cellular structures, say researchers.

The study discovered that calcium channel blockers -- currently used to treat hypertension -- can efficiently stop cancer cells move and invade surrounding tissue.

Identification of anti-hypertension drugs as potential therapeutics against breast and pancreatic cancer metastasis was a big surprise, said reseachers. 

The targets of these drugs were not known to be present in cancer cells and therefore no one had considered the possibility that these drugs might be effective against aggressive cancer types, said Johanna Ivaska at the University of Turku in Finland. 

The findings showed that aggressively spreading cancer cells express a protein called Myosin-10 which drives cancer cell motility.

Myosin-10 expressing cancers have a large number of structures called filopodia, or sticky finger-like structures the cancer cells extend to sense their environment and to navigate - imagine a walking blind spider, explained Guillaume Jacquemet, postdoctoral researcher at University of Turku. 

The calcium channel blockers target specifically these sticky fingers rendering them inactive, thus efficiently blocking cancer cell movement. This suggest that they might be effective drugs against cancer metastasis, the researchers said.

The findings were published in the journal Nature Communications.

​London, Dec 17 (IANS) Dropping cholesterol to the lowest level possible -- to levels similar to those we were born with -- may help reduce the risk of heart attack, stroke or fatal heart disease by nearly one third, a study has found.

Reducing cholesterol as low as possible is safe and more beneficial than the current normal levels -- 100 mg/dL (deci-litres) or below -- achieved with existing drugs such as statins, the study said.

However, participants in the study used a additional novel drug called alirocumab -- for patients whose cholesterol levels are not sufficiently lowered by statins.

The combined effect of the new drug and the statin therapy in the trials meant that patients reached very low cholesterol - lower than 50 mg/dL -- comparable to the levels we are born with.

For every 39 mg/dL reduction in low density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol -- or 'bad' cholesterol -- responsible for clogging arteries, the risk of heart attack -- stroke, angina or death from heart disease -- decreased by 24 per cent, the researchers observed.

"Experts have been uncertain whether very low cholesterol levels are harmful, or beneficial. This study suggests not only are they safe, but they also reduced risk of heart disease, heart attack and stroke," said lead author Kausik Ray, Professor at Imperial College London in Britain.

This lowest cholesterol levels is only achievable in adulthood, through medication, as well as lifestyle changes like healthy food and exercise, the researchers suggested.

For the study, published in the journal Circulation, the team analysed data from 10 trials, involving around 5,000 patients, diagnosed with high cholesterol.