Knowledge Update

​London, July 5 (IANS) Researchers have identified an RNA molecule that helps cancer cells in growing opportunistically, offering scientists a new target for drug development.

The study showed that NEAT1, a non-coding RNA, plays an important role in the survival of highly dividing cells -- and in particular of cancer cells. 

These findings can help develop new drugs that target NEAT1, in order to kill cancer cells more effectively.

As a non-coding RNA, NEAT1 is not translated into a protein. It does, however, contribute to the formation of so-called 'paraspeckles', subnuclear particles that can be found in the cell nuclei of cancer cells. 

The function of these particles has remained obscure. Although highly conserved through evolution, NEAT1 appears to be dispensable for normal embryonic development and adult life as mice lacking the non-coding RNA are viable and healthy.

"In our study, we have found that the expression of NEAT1 in the cell nucleus is regulated by p53. This protein plays an important role in protecting people against cancer and is known as 'the guardian of the genome',” Carmen Adriaens, PhD student at Flanders Institute for Biotechnology (VIB), KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium.

The researchers also found that NEAT1/paraspeckles are required for the survival of highly dividing cancer initiating cells and that mice lacking NEAT1 are protected from developing skin cancer. 

This means that cancer cells can 'hijack' the survival principle of NEAT1 for their own good.

"We expected NEAT1 to be a tumor suppressor, since it is regulated by p53. Instead, it turned out that NEAT1 helps cancer cells in growing opportunistically,” Professor Jean-Christophe Marine from VIB-KU Leuven said.

"They use the survival mechanisms put in place by NEAT1 to survive standard chemotherapeutics. Our research shows that cancer cells die more effectively after removing NEAT1/paraspeckles from the cell nucleus. In other words: the loss of NEAT1 leads to increased chemosensitivity and cell death,” Marine explained.

The findings appeared in the journal Nature Medicine.

"Therefore, our findings can help develop new drugs targetting NEAT1 in order to kill cancer cells more effectively," Marine said.​

New York, July 6 (IANS) Accuracy is the paramount principle of trust, followed by timeliness and clarity, when it comes to news, a new study has said.

The research, conducted by Media Insight Project -- an initiative of the American Press Institute and the Associated Press-NORC Centre for Public Affairs Research -- found that in the digital age, several new factors like intrusiveness of ads, navigability, load times and having the latest details also play critical role in making a publisher competent and worthy of trust.

The study reaffirmed that consumers do value broad concepts of trust like fairness, balance, accuracy and completeness. 

The team found that accuracy is the paramount principle of trust. Eighty-five per cent of US citizens rated it as extremely or very important that news organisations get the facts right -- higher than any other general principle. 

The second most valued factor was trust although it had more to do with timeliness. Three-quarters of adults (76 per cent) said it was critical to them that a news report be up to date with the latest news and information. 

The third most cited factor that determined why people rely on a news source was related to clarity, with 72 per cent respondents saying it was extremely or very important to them that a news report be concise and gets to the point.

When it comes to online news, people cited three specific factors as most important: That ads not interfere with the news (63 per cent); that the site or app loads fast (63 per cent); and that the content works well on mobile phones (60 per cent). 

The reasons people trust and rely on a news source vary by topic, according to the study. 

For example, people are significantly more likely to say that expert sources and data are an important reason they turn to a source for news about domestic issues than about lifestyle news (76 per cent vs 48 per cent). 

People are far more likely to want their source to be concise and get to the point for national politics (80 per cent) than sports (61 per cent). 

Similarly, people care more that their sources for sports and lifestyle present the news in a way that is entertaining (54 per cent and 53 per cent) than say the same about political news (30 per cent).

The research, featuring a combination of ethnographic activities and focus groups, was conducted from February 24 through March 2 this year.​

​New York, July 6 (IANS) Argentine Tango dance has the potential to significantly improve balance and reduce falls risk among cancer patients post treatment, finds a study that addresses the prevalent side effects of cancer treatment.

According to researchers nearly 70 per cent of cancer patients treated with chemotherapy will experience peripheral neuropathy as a side effect post treatment. 

Peripheral neuropathy is weakness, numbness or loss of sensation in the hands, fingers, feet and toes and pain from nerve damage. 

The findings revealed that after just five weeks of Argentine tango, medial and lateral sway decreased by 56 per cent indicating that this is a promising balance intervention for cancer survivors experiencing impaired balance post treatment.

“The study showed that Argentine Tango has measurable effects on balance -- but our patients report really enjoying dance as therapy. It is a fun, social way to do the necessary work and our initial data shows it has some positive impact for restoring balance," said Mimi Lamantia from The Ohio State University in the US.

In addition, the patients also found that the Argentine tango was more easier to adhere than the traditional physical therapy. 

"So many patients tell us that it is difficult to stay committed to physical therapy because it is hard and feels like work,” Lamantia added.

Long-term neuropathy in the feet and toes can be especially problematic because it affects a person's balance and gait. This puts them in an elevated fall risk when they are engaging in daily life activities.

"That's a big deal because many more people are surviving cancer. Dealing with the issues that impact a person's quality of life after cancer is extremely important," noted another researcher Lise Worthen-Chaudhari from The Ohio State University.

For the study, the team designed a dance intervention course that involved 20 sessions of adapted Argentine Tango. Patients participated in one-hour sessions twice a week for 10 weeks.

Researchers measured patients' standing postural sway (eyes closed) with a computer-aided force platform at the beginning of the dance intervention series and at completion of the 10-weeks of instruction. Patients were also asked to report satisfaction with the intervention.

Initial data from the first three patients who participated in the Argentine Tango study will be presented at the 2016 annual meeting of American Congress of Rehabilitation Medicine in Chicago.​

​New York, July 6 (IANS) Analysis of fossil remains dating 50 million years represent a new species that is a previously unknown relative of the modern-day ostrich, researchers say.

The bird fossils were found more than a decade ago, completely intact with bones, feathers, and soft tissues in a former lake bed in Wyoming in the US. 

"This is among one of the earliest well-represented bird species after the age of large dinosaurs," said study co-author Sterling Nesbitt, Assistant Professor at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech).

"You can definitely appreciate how complete these fossil are," Nesbitt added.

The new species is named Calciavis grandei -- with "calci" meaning "hard/stone," and "avis" from the Latin for bird, and "grandei" in honour of famed paleontologist Lance Grande.

The bird is believed to be roughly the size of a chicken, and similar to chickens, were mostly ground-dwelling, only flying in short bursts to escape predators.

Two fossils of Calciavis dating from the Eocene epoch -- roughly between 56 million and 30 million years ago -- were found by fossil diggers within the Green River Formation in Wyoming, a hot bed for extinct fish. 

"These are spectacularly preserved fossils, one is a nearly complete skeleton covered with feather remains, the others are nearly are nearly as complete and some show soft tissue remains," Nesbitt said.

The findings were published in the Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History.

"The new bird shows us that the bird group that includes the largest flightless birds of today had a much wider distribution and longer evolutionary history in North America," Nesbitt said.

"Back when Calciavis was alive, it lived in a tropical environment that was rich with tropical life and this is in stark contrast to the high-desert environment in Wyoming today," Nesbitt pointed out.

​London, July 6 (IANS) Infections with two types of malaria parasite lead to greater health risks because one species helps the other to thrive, new research has found.

The researchers sought to understand what happens when the two most common malaria parasites cause infection at the same time, as they are known to attack the body in different ways.

They found that one type of parasite leads to the second species being provided with more of the resources it needs to prosper.

In people, a parasite known as P. falciparum infects red blood cells of all ages, while another - P. vivax - attacks only young red blood cells.

"Our findings also challenge ideas that one species will outcompete the other, which explains why infections involving two parasite species can pose a greater health risk to patients," said one of the researchers Sarah Reece, Professor at University of Edinburgh in Scotland.

Experiments in mice with equivalent malaria parasites showed that the body's response to the first infection produces more of the type of red blood cell that the second parasite needs.

In response to the first infection, millions of red blood cells are destroyed. The body responds by replenishing these cells. These fresh cells quickly become infected by the second type of parasite, making the infection worse, the researchers said.

The finding could explain why infections with both P. falciparum and P. vivax in people often have worse outcomes for patients than single infections, the team noted.

Until recently, it was unclear how two parasite species interacted during co-infections.

The study, published in the journal Ecology Letters, was carried out in collaboration with the University of Toronto. ​

​New York, July 6 (IANS) Ditching homemade food for that king size burger and French fries can add not only extra kilos around your belly but may also increase the risk of developing diabetes, a study has warned.

Individuals who often ate from outside, typically fast food were more prone to gain weight -- a major cause for developing Type 2 diabetes, the researchers said.

Concerns have been raised that such people have a diet that is rich in energy but relatively poor in nutrients -- this could lead to weight gain, which is, in turn, associated with an increased risk of Type 2 diabetes, said Qi Sun from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

The findings showed that the people who consumed five-seven evening meals prepared at home during a week had a 15 per cent lower risk of Type 2 diabetes than those who consumed two such meals or fewer in a week. 

A smaller, but still statistically significant, reduction was apparent for those who consumed more midday meals prepared at home. 

Well-established diabetes prevention strategies include behavioural interventions aimed at increasing exercise and improving dietary habits.

The nutritional and lifestyle benefits of consuming meals prepared at home could contribute to these diabetes prevention efforts, the researchers suggested.

For the study, appearing in the journal PLOS Medicine, the team employed large prospective datasets in which US health professionals -- both men and women--were followed-up for long periods, with rigorous collection of data on health indicators, including self-reported information on eating habits and occurrence of diabetes.

New York, July 6 (IANS) Researchers have discovered that a protein in urine samples correlates with the presence and severity of Parkinson's disease.

The biomarker may act as a possible guide for future clinical treatments and a monitor of the efficacy of potential new Parkinson's drugs in real time during treatment.

"Nobody thought we'd be able to measure the activity of this huge protein called LRRK2 (pronounced lark two) in biofluids since it is usually found inside neurons in the brain," said Andrew West, Professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham in the US.

For more than five years, urine and cerebral-spinal fluid samples from patients with Parkinson's disease have been locked in freezers in the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) National Repository.

They were stored with the expectation they might someday help unravel the still hidden course of this slow acting neurodegenerative disease.

"New biochemical markers like the one we've discovered together with new neuroimaging approaches are going to be the key to successfully stopping Parkinson's disease in its tracks,” West said. 

"I think the days of blindly testing new therapies for complex diseases like Parkinson's without having active feedback both for 'on-target' drug effects and for effectiveness in patients are thankfully coming to an end," West noted.

The findings appeared in the journal Movement Disorders.

A biomarker helps physicians predict, diagnose or monitor disease, because the biomarker corresponds to the presence or risk of disease, and its levels may change as the disease progresses. 

Validated biomarkers can aid both preclinical trial work in the laboratory and future clinical trials of drugs to treat Parkinson's. ​

​London, July 6 (IANS) The first-ever record of a tumourous facial swelling found in a fossil has been discovered in the jaw of an estimated 69 million-year-old dwarf dinosaur, say researchers.

The fossil was discovered in the 'Valley of the Dinosaurs' in the Dinosaurs Geopark in Transylvania, western Romania. 

The non-cancerous facial tumour found on Telmatosaurus -- a type of primitive duck-billed dinosaur and also known as a hadrosaur -- had been previously seen in humans, mammals and some modern reptiles, but never before encountered in fossil animals.

"This discovery is the first ever described in the fossil record and the first to be thoroughly documented in a dwarf dinosaur,” said Kate Acheson, doctoral student at the University of Southampton in Britain.

“Telmatosaurus is known to be close to the root of the duck-billed dinosaur family tree, and the presence of such a deformity early in their evolution provides us with further evidence that the duck-billed dinosaurs were more prone to tumours than other dinosaurs," Acheson added.

The study was published in the journal Scientific Reports.

Scans taken of the Telmatosaurus fossil suggested that the dinosaur suffered from a condition known as 'ameloblastoma' -- a tumourous, non-cancerous growth known to afflict the jaws of humans and other mammals and some modern reptiles, too.

It is unlikely that the tumour caused the dinosaur any serious pain during its early stages of development, just as in humans with the same condition, but this particular dinosaur died before it reached adulthood, the researchers said, though they could not ascertain the cause of its death. 

"The tumour in this dinosaur had not developed to its full extent at the moment it died, but it could have indirectly contributed to its early demise," Zoltan Csiki-Sava from the University of Bucharest in Romania noted. ​

London, July 3 (IANS) Does your boss always punish you? If so, he or she may be afraid of losing the power and position, reveals a study.

The findings showed that distrust is the main reason why leaders impose punishments on the people over whom they have power.

Afraid of losing their power, the leaders use punishments as deterrents and to ensure that similar rule-breaking behaviour never happens again.

“Leaders expect other people not to obey the rules and punish them on the basis of this distrust,” said Marlon Mooijman, psychologist at Leiden University in the Netherlands.

Further, leaders are afraid that if they are too trusting of others, this trust can be abused. This would then, of course, threaten their position.

Unfortunately, punishments of this kind do not have the desired effect. "We see that some power systems can actually exacerbate the problems. This particularly relates to issues such as unethical behaviour, plagiarism and fraud," the researchers explained.

"When people feel distrusted, they are less likely to obey the rules. They see this assumption on the part of the leaders as a sign of disrespect. It also violates an implicit social contract: If you treat me well, I will act accordingly," Mooijman added.

For the study, the team conducted experiments with groups of students, who were temporarily assigned to a manager position. They were asked to write about an incident in which they felt very powerful, or conversely very powerless.

They then had to decide how someone who had committed plagiarism should be punished.

Students who had been made to feel powerful were found to favour punishments designed to make an example of the offenders.

The deterrent aspect was important, and some were even prepared to publicly name the people who had committed plagiarism.

New York, July 3 (IANS) The brain activity generated while relaxing is likely to indicate individuals who can learn new languages faster, says a research.

The findings showed that a five-minute measurement of resting-state brain activity predicted how quickly adults picked up a second language.

“The way someone's brain functions while at rest can predict 60 per cent of their capacity for learning a second language,” said lead author Chantel Prat, Associate Professor at the University of Washington.

The patterns of resting-state brain waves reflect synchronised firing of large networks of neurons and can determine subsequent language learning rate.

The findings showed that the larger the networks in "beta" frequencies -- brain frequencies associated with language and memory, the faster was the learning.

"This is vital brain function research that could enable the military to develop a more effective selection process of those who can learn languages quickly," said Ray, a program officer in Office of Naval Research's (ONR) Warfighter Performance Department, who oversees the research.

"This is especially critical to the intelligence community, which needs linguists fluent in a variety of languages, and must find such individuals rapidly," Perez added.

For the study, 19 participants -- adults between the ages of 18 and 31, with no previous experience learnt French over eight weeks for 30-minute French lessons delivered through an immersive, virtual-reality computer program.

For five minutes before and after the eight-week curriculum, the team had participants sit still, close their eyes, breathe deeply and wear an EEG (electroencephalogram) headset measuring resting-state brain activity from the cerebral cortex--an area of the brain crucial to memory, attention and perception.

The results showed that those with the larger "beta" networks learned French twice as quickly.

"By studying individual differences in the brain, we're figuring out key constraints on learning and information processing, to develop ways to improve language mastery," said Prat.​