Knowledge Update

​Tokyo, July 6 (IANS) In a first, Japanese researchers have rehabilitated a paralysed chimpanzee through interaction with computers and touch screens.

The case of Reo, a male chimpanzee that learned to walk again after being paralysed due to illness, shows how much can be done to rehabilitate animals injured in captivity, said lead author Yoko Sakuraba of Kyoto University.

Reo's example suggests that euthanasia does not have to be the only option for injured animals

The case was described in an article in Primates, the official journal of the Japan Monkey Centre published by Springer.

In their normal work, researchers of the Primate Research Institute at Kyoto University use chimpanzees' interaction with computers and touch screens to study the cognition and perception of these primates. 

When Reo was paralysed from the neck down, dedicated staff put this technology to further use by encouraging the animal to walk again. 

When Reo was 24 years old in 2006, he suddenly became paralysed when a portion of his spinal cord became inflamed. 

For the first ten months thereafter, the chimpanzee was severely disabled, lying on his back. He gradually recovered enough to sit up, and could later pull himself upright by using suspended ropes. 

Intensive physiotherapy over a period of 41 months followed, after which he was able to climb about again using only his arms.

To aid Reo's ultimate integration back among the other twelve animals held at the institute, his carers decided to try to get him walking again. 

They incorporated a computerised task in this process. This was considered an option because in his youth Reo had learnt how to perform cognitive tasks on a touch panel, and in so doing had become used to receiving food rewards whenever he succeeded at tasks presented to him.

A computer-controlled monitor was, therefore, placed on one wall, and cognitive tasks were again put to him. 

The rehabilitation sessions encouraged him to increase his movements considerably, and he started walking up to five hundred metres in a two-hour session.

"Cognitive tasks may be a useful way to rehabilitate physically disabled chimpanzees, and thus improve their welfare in captivity," Sakuraba said.​

London, July 4 (IANS) Surviving all kinds of environmental changes, hedgehogs -- the 15 million years old species -- have adapted to city life more than the rural areas, says a new study.

The findings showed that cities have higher hedgehog numbers than rural areas.

Hedgehogs were also found to have adjusted their activity to levels of human disturbance with much smaller nightly ranging areas of five hectares than their rural counterparts with 50 hectares.

While the city hedgehogs mainly stayed in private gardens during the day but around midnight, when the number of humans and pets in local parks decreased, they came out to forage and look for mates.

This shows the importance of gardens or parks for them to remain undisturbed for the entire hibernation season as well as for their future survival, the researchers said.

"Gardens and public parks are very important for city hedgehogs. They need gardens with natural vegetation and public parks less immaculately pruned, with plenty of natural, bushy areas," said lead researcher Lisa Warnecke from University of Hamburg in Germany. 

Further, urban hedgehogs seemed to have similar pattern of hibernation to rural populations. 

During winter season, hedgehogs enter a physiological state called torpor, where their metabolic rate and body temperature decrease significantly in order to save energy. 

"This was despite city hedgehogs often nesting next to busy roads and having potential food sources available throughout winter - such as food scraps or cat food on private terraces," Warnecke added.

City dwellers should take care to avoid disturbing nesting hedgehogs and to keep their gardens free of anything that could do them harm, the researchers suggested. 

"Our work with the hedgehog care station showed that the main problems were injuries caused by fences, plant netting or gardening tools and sickness from ingesting rat poison," Warnecke noted.

For the study, the team fitted free-ranging hedgehogs with temperature-sensitive transmitters to investigate what physiological factors allow them to thrive in urban areas. 

The results were presented at the Society for Experimental Biology's Annual Meeting held at London, recently. ​

​Toronto, July 4 (IANS) Parents, especially fathers, play a vital role in developing healthy behaviours as well as help prevent obesity in young adults, say researchers.

The findings showed that among males, the quality of relationship with the father had a greater impact on their odds of being overweight or obese.

When it came to predicting whether a young male will become overweight or obese, the mother-son relationship mattered far less than the relationship between father and son, the researchers said.

"Our results highlight the importance of examining the influence fathers have on their children and to develop strategies to help fathers support the development of healthy behaviours among their children," said lead author Jess Haines, Professor at the University of Guelph in Canada. 

Further, young adults who grew up in stable families with quality parental relationships were more likely to have healthy diet, activity and sleep behaviours and were less likely to be obese.

Girls who were raised in stable families were also found to consume less fast food and thus less likely to be overweight or obese. 

"It appears the father-son parent relationship has a stronger influence on sons than the mother-daughter relationship has on young women," Haines added.

For the study, the team analysed more than 3,700 females and more than 2,600 males, all aged 14-24. 

Among both males and females, 80 per cent said they had high family function, defined by how well the family managed daily routines, and how family members fulfilled their roles and connected emotionally.

In all, six out of 10 females and half of males reported high quality relationships with their parents.

"In general, the findings show the importance of family behaviours and relationships on the health of young adults from an early age, which can be powerful determinants of weight and related behaviours," Haines noted.

On the other hand, a high level of family dysfunction may interfere with the development of health behaviours in young adults, said the paper published in the Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity.​

​London, July 4 (IANS) Researchers from the University of Leuven (KU Leuven) in Belgium have built a very sensitive electronic nose with metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) that can detect pesticides and nerve gas in very low concentrations.

"MOFs are like microscopic sponges. They can absorb quite a lot of gas into their minuscule pores,” said post-doctoral researcher Ivo Stassen.

The chemical sensor can easily be integrated into existing electronic devices.

“You can apply the MOF as a thin film over the surface of, for instance, an electric circuit. Therefore, it's fairly easy to equip a smartphone with a gas sensor for pesticides and nerve gas,” added professor Rob Ameloot.

The best known electronic nose is the breathalyser. As drivers breathe into the device, a chemical sensor measures the amount of alcohol in their breath. 

This chemical reaction is then converted into an electronic signal, allowing the police officer to read off the result. 

"We created a MOF that absorbs the phosphonates found in pesticides and nerve gases. This means you can use it to find traces of chemical weapons such as sarin or to identify the residue of pesticides on food,” added Stassen. 

This MOF is the most sensitive gas sensor to date for these dangerous substances. 

“Further research will allow us to examine other applications as well," Professor Ameloot noted in a university statement. 

“MOFs can measure very low concentrations, so we could use them to screen someone's breath for diseases such as lung cancer and multiple sclerosis (MS) in an early stage,” he added. ​

Sydney, July 4 (IANS) Researchers, including one of Indian origin, are developing a new flying technique for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) or drones that will help the machines visually coordinate their flight and navigation just like birds and flying insects do.

The drones will be able to do their work without human input, radar or even GPS satellite navigation, said the team from University of Queensland.

“We study how small airborne creatures such as bees and birds use their vision to avoid collisions with obstacles, fly safely through narrow passages, control their height above the ground and more,” said lead researcher and Professor Mandyam Srinivasan.

“We then use biologically-inspired principles to design novel vision systems and algorithms for the guidance of UAVs,” he added in a university statement.

At first glance, insects and birds have very different brains in terms of size and architecture, yet the visual processing in both animals is very effective at guiding their flight. 

"Bees' brains weigh a 10th of a milligram and carry far fewer neurones than our own brains; yet the insects are capable of navigating accurately to food sources over 10 km away from their hive," said Srinivasan.

The team compares the flight of bees and budgies in particular because they are easy animals to study.

“The study of their behaviour could also reveal some of the basic principles of visual guidance in a number of organisms including humans,” he noted.

Comparing the flight behaviours of these animals using high-speed cameras will lead to drastically improved UAV guidance systems. 

“These UAVs could be incredibly useful for applications like surveillance, rescue operations, defence, and planetary exploration,” Srinivasan explained.​

​New York, July 5 (IANS) Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have developed a new type of easily customisable vaccine that can be manufactured in one week, allowing it to be rapidly deployed in response to disease outbreaks.

So far, they have designed vaccines against Ebola, H1N1 influenza, and Toxoplasma gondii (a relative of the parasite that causes malaria), which were 100 per cent effective in tests in mice, said a paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The vaccine consists of strands of genetic material known as messenger RNA, which can be designed to code for any viral, bacterial, or parasitic protein. 

These molecules are then packaged into a molecule that delivers the RNA into cells, where it is translated into proteins that provoke an immune response from the host.

"This nanoformulation approach allows us to make vaccines against new diseases in only seven days, allowing the potential to deal with sudden outbreaks or make rapid modifications and improvements," said Daniel Anderson, Associate Professor at MIT's Department of Chemical Engineering and senior author of the study.

The ability to rapidly design and manufacture these vaccines could be especially beneficial for fighting influenza, because the most common flu vaccine manufacturing method, which requires the viruses to be grown inside chicken eggs, takes months. 

This means that when an unexpected flu strain appears, such as the 2009 pandemic-causing H1N1 virus, there is no way to rapidly produce a vaccine against it.

"Typically a vaccine becomes available long after the outbreak is over," one of the lead researchers Jasdave Chahal explained.

"We think we can become interventional over the course of a real outbreak," Chahal noted.

The vaccine is designed to be delivered by intramuscular injection, making it easy to administer. 

Once the particles get into cells, the RNA is translated into proteins that are released and stimulate the immune system. 

Significantly, the vaccines were able to stimulate both arms of the immune system -- a T cell response and an antibody response.

In tests in mice, animals that received a single dose of one of the vaccines showed no symptoms following exposure to the real pathogen -- Ebola, H1N1 influenza, or Toxoplasma gondii.

"No matter what antigen we picked, we were able to drive the full antibody and T cell responses," one of the first authors Omar Khan said.

In addition to targeting infectious diseases, the researchers are using this approach to create cancer vaccines that would teach the immune system to recognise and destroy tumours.​

​Washington, July 5 (IANS) Cheers erupted at NASA's California-based Jet Propulsion Laboratory on Tuesday as its solar-powered Juno spacecraft entered the orbit around Jupiter -- ending its nearly five-year journey to study the gas giant like never before.

According to Scott Bolton, principal investigator of Juno from the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, the spacecraft is now in orbit around Jupiter.

“You’re the best team ever! We just did the hardest thing NASA has ever done,” shouted Bolton as scientists hugged each other after the successful completion of a seemingly tough mission.

“Success! Engine burn complete. #Juno is now orbiting #Jupiter, poised to unlock the planet's secrets,” NASA tweeted.

At 8.48 am on Tuesday (India time), Juno fired its main engine to begin a 35-minute burn to get into orbit around Jupiter. The burn time was within one second of the predicted time, placing it in the orbit it needed.

Juno’s main engine has now been switched off and will be turned on in couple of days.

Once in Jupiter's orbit, the 1,600 kg spacecraft will circle the Jovian world 37 times during 20 months, skimming to within 5,000 km above the cloud tops.

This is the first time a spacecraft will orbit the poles of Jupiter, providing new answers to ongoing mysteries about the planet's core, composition and magnetic fields.

"As Juno barrels down on Jupiter, the scientists are busy looking at the amazing approach science the spacecraft has already returned to Earth. Jupiter is spectacular from afar and will be absolutely breathtaking from close up," Bolton earlier said in a NASA statement.

During the flybys, Juno will probe beneath the obscuring cloud cover of Jupiter and study its auroras to learn more about the planet's origins, structure, atmosphere and magnetosphere.

Juno's name comes from Greek and Roman mythology. The mythical god Jupiter drew a veil of clouds around himself to hide his mischief, and his wife -- the goddess Juno -- was able to peer through the clouds and reveal Jupiter's true nature.

The four largest moons of Jupiter are named the Galilean moons because they were discovered by Galileo Galilei in 1609.​

​London, July 5 (IANS) A team of Swedish astronomers has discovered a growing supermassive black hole in the centre of a galaxy located 70 million light years from Earth.

The team, led by astronomers from Sweden's Chalmers University of Technology, discovered the black hole in the centre of galaxy named "NGC 1377" with the help of Atacama Large Millimetre/submillimetre Array (ALMA) telescope in Chile. 

"We were curious about this galaxy because of its bright, dust-enshrouded centre. What we weren't expecting was this: a long, narrow jet streaming out from the galaxy nucleus," said researcher Susanne Aalto from Chalmers.

The observations revealed a jet which is 500 light years long and less than 60 light years across, travelling at a speed of nearly 800,000 km per hour. 

Most galaxies have a supermassive black hole in their centres. 

These black holes can have masses of between a few million to a billion solar masses. 

How they grew to be so massive is a long-standing mystery for scientists.

"The jets we usually see emerging from galaxy nuclei are very narrow tubes of hot plasma. This jet is very different. Instead, it's extremely cool and its light comes from dense gas composed of molecules," said study co-author Francesco Costagliola.

According to the researchers, the jet has ejected molecular gas equivalent to two million times the mass of the Sun over a period of only around half a million years -- a very short time in the life of a galaxy. 

The motion of the gas in the jet also surprised the astronomers. 

"The jet's unusual swirling could be due to an uneven flow of gas towards the central black hole. Another possibility is that the galaxy's centre contains two supermassive black holes in orbit around each other," said Sebastien Muller from Chalmers.​

London, July 5 (IANS) Have you ever wondered why some healthy people cannot defend themselves well against bacteria or fungi while others may get away with mild symptoms? Researchers, including one of Indian-origin, believe that genetic factors that control the immune cell response to pathogens could partly explain this varied response.

The team investigated the response of immune cells from 200 healthy volunteers when stimulated with a comprehensive list of pathogens outside the human body, and has correlated these responses with four million genetic variants (SNPs). 

The study was performed by scientists from University Medical Centre Groningen, Radboud University Medical Centre (both in the Netherlands) and Harvard Medical School (Boston, US). 

"We all encounter pathogens on a daily basis, but we don't all defend ourselves against bacteria or fungi, for example, in the same way. Some people experience mild symptoms, others may become violently ill or even die,” said Vinod Kumar, Assistant Professor of functional genomics and infectious diseases at University Medical Centre Groningen (UMCG).

"We wanted to discover how much individual genetic differences determine this variable response,” Kumar, who is one of the senior authors of the study, said.

The study, published in the journal Nature Medicine, focused on the role of cytokines, small peptides used by immune cells as signals to guide their response to an infectious agent. 

"We observed large differences in cytokine production between individuals,” explained Kumar.

"Their responses were also specific to the different pathogens,” Kumar noted.

This suggests that cytokines contribute to the varied responses to pathogens, and that each infection triggers a specific cytokine response pathway. Previous studies on unstimulated immune cells had shown little variation between individuals.

The next step was to investigate if the responses were under genetic control.

They identified six genomic regions that influence cytokine responses, suggesting that cytokine production is at least partly genetically determined

​London, July 5 (IANS) Two complimentary studies have for the first time revealed how two natural satellites of Mars -- Phobos and Deimos -- originated millions of years ago, rejecting the long-held hypothesis that the two Martian moons were asteroids captured by the Red Planet.

The first study was conducted by researchers from the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) and Aix-Marseille University. It ruled out the capture of asteroids and showed that the only scenario compatible with the surface properties of Phobos and Deimos was that of a giant collision.

In the second study, published in the journal Nature Geoscience, a team of international researchers used cutting-edge digital simulations to show how these satellites were able to form from the debris of a gigantic collision between Mars and a protoplanet one-third its size.

Due to their small size and irregular shape, Phobos and Deimos strongly resembled asteroids but no one understood how Mars could have "captured" them and made them into satellites with almost circular and equatorial orbits. 

In the first study, to be published in the Astrophysical Journal, CNRS researchers ruled out the possibility of a capture on the grounds of statistical arguments based on the compositional diversity of the asteroid belt. 

They showed that the light signature emitted by Phobos and Deimos is incompatible with that of the primordial matter that formed Mars.

According to the second study, the Martian moons would have been created following a collision between the Red Planet and a primordial body one-third its size, 100 to 800 million years after the beginning of the planet's formation. 

The debris from this collision formed a very wide disk around Mars, made up of a dense inner part composed of matter in fusion, and a very thin outer part primarily of gas. 

In the inner part of this disk formed a moon one thousand times the size of Phobos which has since disappeared. 

After a few thousand years, Mars was surrounded by a group of approximately 10 small moons and one enormous moon. 

A few million years later, once the debris disk had dissipated, the tidal effects of Mars brought most of these satellites back down onto the planet, including the very large moon. 

Only the two most distant small moons, Phobos and Deimos, remained, the authors noted.​