Knowledge Update

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.​

​Toronto, May 3 (IANS) A healthy intake of vitamin D in the first year of life can build up more muscle mass and reduce body fat in toddlers, finds a new study.

"We were very intrigued by the higher lean mass, the possibility that vitamin D can help infants to not only grow healthy skeletons but also healthy amounts of muscle and less fat," said one of the researcher Hope Weiler, director of the Mary Emily Clinical Nutrition Research Unit at McGill University in Canada.

The team analysed 132 infants in Quebec who were given a vitamin D3 supplement at one of four different dosages between the ages of one month and 12 months.

Using body scans they assessed bone density to measure the children's muscle and fat mass. 

Vitamin D supplementation is routinely recommended for babies until they can get an adequate amount through their diet. 

Children who had higher stores of vitamin D in their body averaged around 450 grams less body fat at three years of age, the study found.

The findings confirmed the importance of a vitamin D supplement of 400 international units per day during a baby's first year for the development of strong bones.

However, higher doses did not show any additional benefit -- at least not in terms of bone development.

The study, published in the journal Pediatric Obesity, indicated a correlation between lean muscle mass and the average level of vitamin D in the body over the first three years of a child's life.

The only other factor found to make a significant difference to the children's amount of body fat was their level of physical activity, the researchers stated.​

​Washington, May 3 (IANS) Indian-origin researchers have developed a new health sensing tool that can accurately measure lung function over a simple phone call made with any phone -- not just smartphone -- from anywhere in the world.

The findings could be of special help for people in the developing world -- who have asthma, cystic fibrosis or other chronic lung diseases -- know how well their lungs are functioning without visiting a doctor or a clinic, which in some places can take days of travel.

"We wanted to be able to measure lung function on any type of phone you might encounter around the world -- smartphones, dumb phones, landlines, pay phones," said Shwetak Patel, professor at the University of Washington. 

The new tool is called SpiroCall.

"With SpiroCall, you can call a 1-800 number, blow into the phone and use the telephone network to test your lung function," Patel said.

The patients take a deep breath in and exhale as hard and fast as they can until they can't exhale any more. The phone's microphone senses sound and pressure from that exhalation and sends the data to a central server, which uses machine learning algorithms to convert the data into standard measurements of lung function.

"People have to manage chronic lung diseases for their entire lives," lead author Mayank Goel, computer science and engineering doctoral student at University of Washington, said.

"So there's a real need to have a device that allows patients to accurately monitor their condition at home without having to constantly visit a medical clinic, which in some places requires hours or days of travel," Goel noted.

SpiroCall is an advancement over SpiroSmart which the researchers introduced in 2012 to let people monitor their lung function by blowing into their smartphones.

Over the last four years, the team has collected data from more than 4,000 patients who have visited clinics in Seattle and Tacoma as well as in India and Bangladesh, where clinicians have measured lung function using both SpiroSmart and a commercial spirometer. 

In surveying patients from India and Bangladesh, though, the team realised that a significant percentage did not own smartphones and would be unable to use SpiroSmart in their own homes -- which was a key goal of the project.

The team realised that the only sensor they were using was a microphone, which all phones have. 

So the researchers decided to develop a system that would work with any phone anywhere in the world by having the patient use a call-in service.

How the tool meets the medical community’s standards for accuracy will be described in a paper to be presented in May at the Association for Computing Machinery's CHI 2016 conference in San Jose, California.​

​New York, May 3 (IANS) Newly discovered genetic switches that increase lifespan and boost fitness in worms are also linked to increased lifespan in mammals, says a study that offers hope that drugs to flip these switches could improve human metabolic function and increase longevity.

These so-called epigenetic switches are enzymes that are ramped up after mild stress during early development and continue to affect the expression of genes throughout the animal's life.

When the researchers looked at strains of inbred mice that have radically different lifespans, those with the longest lifespans had significantly higher expression of these enzymes than did the short-lived mice.

"Two of the enzymes we discovered are highly, highly correlated with lifespan; it is the biggest genetic correlation that has ever been found for lifespan in mice, and they're both naturally occurring variants," said one of the researchers Andrew Dillin, professor at University of California, Berkeley in the US.

"Based on what we see in worms, boosting these enzymes could reprogramme your metabolism to create better health, with a possible side effect of altering lifespan," Dillin said.

The discoveries were reported online in the journal Cell. 

The findings suggest that the reversal of ageing by epigenetic enzymes could also take place in humans.

"It seems that, while extreme metabolic stress can lead to problems later in life, mild stress early in development says to the body, 'Whoa, things are a little bit off-kilter here, let's try to repair this and make it better.' These epigenetic switches keep this up for the rest of the animal's life," Dillin pointed out.​

New York, May 3 (IANS) Inspired by the sea urchin's intricate mouth and teeth, a team of engineers and marine biologists from the University of California-San Diego has developed a claw-like device to sample sediments on other planets such as Mars.

Bio-inspiration for the study came from pink sea urchins which live off the west coast of North America.

Researchers extracted the urchins' mouthpieces, scanned them and analysed the structures at school of medicine at UC San Diego.

This allowed engineers to build a highly accurate model of the mouthpiece's geometry.

Led by mechanical engineering professor Joanna McKittrick, the team also used finite element analysis to investigate the structure of the teeth.

"The urchin's extraordinary ability to rip through rock could translate to a good sediment sampler for space vehicles like the Mars rovers, which currently use shovels to collect ground samples,” said Michael Frank, PhD candidate at the Jacobs School of Engineering at UC San Diego.

"Our goal was a bio-inspired device that's more precise and efficient at grabbing ground samples from different areas and won't disturb the surrounding area like a shovel would," he added.

On the third iteration, they connected the teeth differently to the rest of the device, which allowed it to open much easier.

The students were able to quickly modify each prototype by using 3D printers. The device was then attached to a remote-controlled small rover.

The researchers first tested the claw on beach sand where it performed well.

They then used the claw on sand that simulates Martian soil in density and humidity. The device was able to scoop up sand efficiently.

Researchers envision a fleet of mini rovers equipped with the claw that could be deployed to collect samples and bring them back to a main rover.

Frank hopes that this design will be of interest to NASA and space exploration company SpaceX.

The researchers detailed their work in the Journal of Visualized Experiments.​

Beijing, May 3 (IANS) A team of Chinese and French speleologists have determined that China's longest cave is around 186 km long, 25 km longer than a measurement from 2014.

The cave researchers conducted a joint expedition from April 16 to 28 at Shuanghe Cave in China's Guizhou province, Xinhua news agency reported.

They also discovered fossils of vertebrates at 13 sites in the cave. Most of them belonged to giant pandas, while others include possible bear and elephant skeletons.

The karst cave was uncovered in the late 1980s, and more than 10 large surveys have been carried out since by Chinese and foreign researchers. The surveys have found 203 entrances to the cave.​

New York, May 3 (IANS) Scientists have discovered three new species of mouse lemurs - the smallest primates in the world - in Madagascar.

Twenty years ago, there were only two species of mouse lemurs. Today, including the newly-discovered species Microcebus ganzhorni, Microcebus manitatra and Microcebus boraha, mouse lemurs comprise 24 species, which are only found in the highly biodiverse island of Madagascar.

"We didn't go into this work looking for a new species, but there was no real way to get around the fact that there are three new species here to describe," said lead study author Scott Hotaling from University of Kentucky in the US.

The findings were published in the journal Molecular Ecology.

"From a conservation perspective, knowing what's there is important," Hotaling said. 

"These animals are facing diminishing habitats and tremendous pressures," Hotaling pointed out.

According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature's Red List, 94 percent of lemurs are threatened with extinction. 

Of the 101 surviving lemur species, 22 are critically endangered, 48 are endangered and 20 are vulnerable - making them one of the most threatened groups of vertebrates on Earth.

But almost as important as the species discovered is how they were discovered -- using recently developed methods that allowed researchers to statistically model the evolutionary process on University of Kentucky's supercomputer.

The researchers believed that this objective approach to assessing genetic differences between individuals could have significant potential for clarifying diversity in other species.​