Knowledge Update

​New York, April 6 (IANS) If early Mars was as barren and cold as it is today then the bombardment of the Red Planet some four billion years ago by comets and asteroids may have made its climate more conducive to life, according to a study.

The impacts would have produced regional hydrothermal systems on Mars similar to those in Yellowstone National Park, which today harbour chemically powered microbes, some of which can survive boiling in hot springs or inhabiting water acidic enough to dissolve iron nails, said study co-author Stephen Mojzsis from the University of Colorado at Boulder. 

Scientists have long known there was once running water on Mars, as evidenced by ancient river valleys, deltas and parts of lake beds, Mojzsis added. 

In addition to producing hydrothermal regions in portions of Mars' fractured and melted crust, a massive impact could have temporarily increased the planet's atmospheric pressure, periodically heating Mars up enough to "re-start" a dormant water cycle.

Published recently in the journal Earth and Planetary Science Letters, the study took into consideration temperatures beneath millions of individual craters on Mars. 

The researchers used computer simulations to assess heating and cooling, as well as the effects of impacts on the planet from different angles and velocities.

They found the heating of ancient Mars caused by individual asteroid collisions would likely have lasted only a few million years before the Red Planet -- about one and one-half times the distance to the sun than Earth -- defaulted to today's cold and inhospitable conditions.

"None of the models we ran could keep Mars consistently warm over long periods," Mojzsis said.

While Mars is believed to have spent most of its history in a cold state, Earth was likely habitable over almost its entire existence. 

"What really saved the day for Earth was its oceans," Mojzsis said. "In order to wipe out life here, the oceans would have had to have been boiled away. Those extreme conditions in that time period are beyond the realm of scientific possibility," he added.

Mojzsis said the next step would be to model similar bombardment on Mercury as well as Venus to better understand the evolution of the inner solar system and apply that knowledge to studies of planets around other stars.​

​London, April 6 (IANS) The death of a spouse is linked to increased risk of developing an irregular heartbeat up to a year after the bereavement, says a study adding that the risk is prevalent among those below 60.

The condition known as atrial fibrillation -- itself a risk factor for stroke and heart failure -- can also flare up in cases when the loss was least expected.

According to Danish researchers, acute stress may directly disrupt normal heart rhythms and prompt the production of chemicals involved in inflammation.

"The elevated risk was especially high for those who were young and those who lost a relatively healthy partner," said Simon Graff of Aarhus University in Denmark.

The team collected information on 88,612 people newly diagnosed with atrial fibrillation and 886,120 healthy people.

They looked at several factors that might influence atrial fibrillation risk which included time since the bereavement, age and sex, heart disease and diabetes, the health of the partner a month before death, and whether they were single.

The results, published in the online journal Open Heart, indicated that the risk of developing an irregular heartbeat was 41 percent higher among those who had been bereaved than it was among those who had not experienced such a loss.

The risk seemed to be greater during eight to 14 days following a death, after which it gradually subsided until after a year the risk was similar to that of someone who had not been bereaved.

The highest risk was seen among people under the age of 60: they were more than twice as likely to develop atrial fibrillation if they had been bereaved and the risk also seemed to be greater where the partner's death had been unexpected.

Those whose partners were relatively healthy in the month before death were 57 percent more likely to develop atrial fibrillation. 

"In addition, patients with atrial fibrillation often claim that emotional stress is a common triggering factor and increasing levels of perceived stress are associated with prevalent atrial fibrillation," the researchers explained.

New York, April 4 (IANS) A single dose of oxytocin nasal spray, known to cut food intake, can lower impulsive behaviour in overweight and obese men, say researchers.

Oxytocin nasal spray is a synthetic version of the hormone oxytocin which is important for controlling food intake and weight.

"Our preliminary results in men are promising. Oxytocin nasal spray showed no strong side effects and is not as invasive as obesity surgery," said Franziska Plessow, an instructor in medicine at Harvard Medical School.

Results of their new pilot study in 10 overweight and obese men suggest that one way oxytocin lowers food intake might be by improving self-control.

"Knowing the mechanisms of action of intranasal oxytocin is important to investigating oxytocin as a novel treatment strategy for obesity," Plessow added.

Participants took a psychology research test on two occasions 15 minutes after they self-administered a dose of nasal spray in each nostril.

In a randomly assigned order, one day they received oxytocin and another they received a placebo or dummy drug.

After receiving oxytocin, participants were acting less impulsively and exerting more control over their behaviour after receiving oxytocin.

More study is necessary to determine how oxytocin alters self-control and how important this mechanism is in regulating food intake since not all overeating relates to poor self-control.

The information may allow scientists to move forward to large clinical trials, identify who can benefit from the drug, and help optimise the treatment. They also will need to test the drug in women.

The preliminary study was presented at the Endocrine Society's 98th annual meeting in Boston last weekend.​

​New York, April 4 (IANS) A person's age and gender can affect the prevalence of certain types of peripheral vascular diseases (PVD), which can lead to heart attack, stroke and even amputation of the limbs.

PVD is a circulation disorder that affects blood vessels outside of the heart and brain, particularly the veins and arteries that supply blood to the arms and legs. 

The results revealed that women, especially younger women, have a significantly higher prevalence of peripheral artery disease than men.

"These findings point to very important differences between women and men, and older and younger individuals, when it comes to PVD," said one of the researchers, Jeffrey S. Berger, associate professor at NYU Langone Medical Centre in New York, US. 

"Sex-specific guidelines for PVD are important, and we are starting to realise that women and men need to be approached differently," Berger added.

In addition, diabetes was found to be a major risk factor for developing PVD, even in patients without heart disease.

The team used data collected from more than 3.6 million individuals and found that people with both diabetes and coronary heart disease the risk of developing PVD increases.

However, the researchers cautioned that the findings might not represent PVD prevalence in all men and women, or disease risk in people with diabetes. 

The findings were presented at the American College of Cardiology's 65th Annual Scientific Session in Chicago, US.​

​New York, April 5 (IANS) El Nino - the climate cycle that develops along the tropical west coast of South America every three to seven years - can have huge impact on the marine food chain with rippling effect on fisheries and the livelihoods of fishermen, says a new NASA study.

El Nino's mass of warm water puts a lid on the normal currents of cold, deep water that typically rise to the surface along the Equator and off the coast of Chile and Peru, said Stephanie Uz, from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Centre in Greenbelt, Maryland.

In a process called upwelling, those cold waters normally bring up the nutrients that feed the tiny organisms, which form the base of the food chain.

These tiny plants, called phytoplankton, are fish food -- without them, fish populations drop, and the fishing industries that many coastal regions depend on can collapse.

"An El Nino basically stops the normal upwelling," Uz said, adding that "there's a lot of starvation that happens to the marine food web". 

Uz's team used NASA satellite data and ocean colour software called SeaDAS to find out El Nino's impact on phytoplankton. 

From shades of blue and green, scientists calculated the amount of green chlorophyll -- and therefore the amount of phytoplankton present.

They found that in December 2015, at the peak of the current El Nino event, there was more blue -- and less green chlorophyll -- in the Pacific Ocean off of Peru and Chile, compared to the previous year. 

After analysing data from the large 1997-1998 El Nino event, the researchers said the green chlorophyll virtually disappeared from the coast of Chile. 

In 1997-1998, the biggest ocean temperature abnormalities were in the eastern Pacific Ocean. But this year's event caused a drop in chlorophyll primarily along the equator, the study said. 

"We know how important phytoplankton are for the marine food web, and we're trying to understand their role as a carbon pump," Uz said. 

Other scientists at Goddard are investigating ways to forecast the ebbs and flows of nutrients using the centre's supercomputers, incorporating data like winds, sea surface temperatures, air pressures and more.​

Taipei, April 3 (IANS) People with type 1 diabetes are three times more prone to the risk of developing epilepsy later in life, finds a new research.

The findings revealed that in patients with type 1 diabetes, the risk of developing epilepsy -- a neurological disorder -- was significantly higher than that in patients without the disease.

Also, an excess of glucose in the bloodstream known as hyperglycaemia and deficiency of glucose in the bloodstream, known as hypoglycaemia, can alter the balance between the inhibition and excitation of neuronal networks and cause focal motor seizures.

Immune abnormalities, brain lesions, genetic factors and metabolic abnormalities have been identified as the potential causes for the link between type 1 diabetes and epilepsy.

In addition, younger age has been linked with an increased risk of developing epilepsy, the researchers said.

"This result is consistent with those of previous studies in that epilepsy or seizures are observed in many autoimmune or inflammatory disorders and are linked to the primary disease, or secondary to pro-inflammatory processes," said I-Ching Chou from China Medical University in Taiwan.

In the study, published in the journal Diabetologia, computer modelling was used to estimate the effects of type 1 diabetes on epilepsy risk.

The study cohort contained 2,568 patients with type 1 diabetes, each of whose frequency was matched by sex, urbanisation of residence area and index year with 10 control patients without type 1 diabetes.

The results showed that the type 1 diabetes the cohort was 2.84 times more likely to develop epilepsy than the control cohort.​

​New York, April 3 (IANS) A team of US researchers has found that monetary rewards for healthy behaviour can pay off both in the pocketbook and in positive psychological factors like internal motivation to eat fruits and vegetables.

The study, which encouraged daily consumption of fruits and vegetables in exchange for payment, not only showed monetary incentives worked, but that participants increased their internal motivation to eat fruits and vegetables over time.

Increased fruit and vegetable consumption by participants is linked to more positive attitudes and self efficacy - the confidence in one's own ability to succeed

"While programs involving monetary incentives to encourage healthy behaviour have become more popular in recent years, the evidence has been mixed as to how they can be most effective and how participants fare once the incentives stop," said lead author Casey Gardiner from University of Colorado Boulder in US.

"Some psychological research and theories suggest that if individuals have external motivations like payment to perform tasks, their internal, or intrinsic motivation can be undermined," said Gardiner of the psychology and neuroscience department.

The findings showed that participants who were assigned to receive payment for eating fruits and vegetables were still consuming more than usual two weeks after the study ended.

In the study, 60 adults were randomly assigned to three different groups.

Individuals in one group received $1 for every serving of fruits and vegetables they reported consuming daily over a three-week period.

People in the second group accrued $1 for every serving of fruits and vegetables eaten, with the lump sum money delivered at the end of the study.

Participants in the third group reported their fruit and vegetable consumption daily for three weeks with no incentives.

The participants who received daily monetary incentives had the greatest increase in their fruit and vegetable consumption.

"This finding highlights the importance of incentive design in health programs and differences in the timing or type of incentive can alter their effectiveness," Gardiner stated.

We essentially showed that incentives may be able to help people to 'jumpstart' behaviour changes, but that changes in key psychological factors help people maintain the behaviour when the incentives end, Gardiner noted.​

A new explanation of how gypsum forms may change the way we process this important building material, as well as allowing us to interpret past water availability on other planets such as Mars.

FUTURE EDUCATION

Dr. ROBINSON JOSEPH

SKYLINE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE,SHARJAH,UAE

Education is one of the basic human rights. Parents strive to ensure good education that would help their children better equipped in this competitive world and gain a decent livelihood. However, good intentions alone do not make it suffice, as children will have to take moral decisions at every turn in their lives. In the long run, only that which is morally right will prevail. During the years of their development, young people need to think of values of life, which should enable them to take appropriate moral decisions.   

Our society can boast of many intellectuals with technical expertise. Many successful doctors, engineers, bureaucrats, and educationists make us proud and fill us with joy. Nevertheless, how many of them deserve the attribute of a "good person"? This is some veritable subject for thought. World is benefited only through such individuals who can be rightly called good human beings. In many areas of our society we are facing the evil fall out of an education which do not integrate the program of learning with the process of evolving good individuals. A value based educational system is of paramount importance installing the negative possibility as we see that knowledge in itself runs the risk of being misused if it is not backed by value based standards.

As English writer G.K. Chesterton once said, "Every education teaches a philosophy of life, if not explicitly, then by suggestion, by implication, by atmosphere. If the different parts of the education do not cohere or connect with each other; if, in the end, it does not empower and transform, then, it is not education at all" A transformative education is one in which the student is incrementally invited to engage life, to reflect upon it and, then, to be of service to our world.

Education is one that helps students name their gifts, formulate their conviction, and ultimately take full ownership of their own lives. An education, then, is one that transforms students in order that they transform the world. A transformative pedagogy trains students for dialogue and conversation, providing a way to tackle the root of so many crises that face humanity today. It is also a way of bridging the divide of gender, race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic class.

There are clear moral dimensions to the economic, political, social, and environmental crises our world is currently facing. Many professional – lawyers, bankers, accountants, politicians, academics, and the entire chain of intermediaries, including religious leaders – have failed to detect the wrongdoing of our institutions; instead of exercising their moral duty, many chose the path of silence, convenience, and complicity. It is more important than ever that our students receive a strong foundation in moral discernment in order that they can act responsibly in all their relationships and pursue the common good

One of the main goals of an education is learning to live in right relationship: right relationship with oneself, right relationship with others, right relationship with God, and right relationship with our environment. Each of these fundamental relationships requires sensitivity, understanding, and care.

Education is the quest for truth. Truth is Omnipotent. The world supports itself in the strength of this Omnipresent. The denial of this truth leads to the destruction and corruption we see around the world. Value based education is the solution for this sad state of our life and world.

Education seeks to address the world in which we actually live as well as the hopes and challenges of that world. Indeed, one can view the current situation in the world against a backdrop of a whole range of key desires, really, "hungers" of the contemporary world for wholeness and peace.

 Students today appreciate having so much information at their fingertips, and yet, they long for a more robust formation that integrates their intellectual, affective and volition capacities and helps them to appreciate how the varied subjects and disciplines fit together.

Students today experience the limitation of a moral discourse that focuses almost exclusively on individual rights while almost ignoring the responsibilities we have to each other; not looking for recipes, our students display desire to acquire an ethical foundation and a method for moral discernment

The educational mission lies precisely in the study; debate, conversation, and discovery that help students identify these hungers, form their own assessment of them, and decide how they might address them for themselves and the world they seek to shape. 

We should know that the crisis our society faces in all walks of life can be related to the disorientation our educators feel in the field of Value based education. The educational system is primarily concerned with "How to make a living". It ignores the more fundamental question "How to live". Most of the innovations in educational field are concerned with acquiring knowledge and skills. But knowledge and skills, in the absence of an integrated system of values can be dangerous and suicidal. It is obvious that a sound awareness of the need for healthy components of value education in our schools and universities curriculum is an imperative if we want to bring up a generation of young people with character.  

Education, if it doesn't happen to be values based, will serve no purpose because the primary objective of education itself is and has to be nothing but value based education. Values are, indeed, certain orientations which will help one to distinguish between the right and the wrong and a capacity to accept and follow the right, while rejecting and dismissing the wrong from one's life. In this process, it is the teachers who can and who should play the key role, capturing the minds of the learners while they are young. "Catch them young" is an accepted motto.     

The four pillars of education are 1.Learning to know, 2.Learning to do, 3.Learning to live together and 4.Learning to be. Value based approach to education is embedded in all these aspects. In this context, it becomes crucial to implement values rich education in schools and colleges to guide the young's behavior and to assign meaning to their existence. The future educational system requires revamping to bring out the best in terms of superior character in the young generation.

A Chinese proverb says: "If there is nobility in heart, there will be beauty in character; if there is beauty in character, there will be harmony at home; if there is harmony at home, there will be order in the nation; if there is order in the nation, there will be peace in the world."

​New York, April 3 (IANS) Researchers have developed a portable and affordable balance machine that is about twice as effective as the most widely used balance test for concussion.

When athletes gets their bell rung on the field or court, there is often tension between their desire to keep playing and a trainer's responsibility to prevent them from further harming themselves.

The problem with standard on-field concussion protocols is that several of their components are subjective and prone to human error.

The new inexpensive, ultraportable balance board called BtrackS, developed by researchers at San Diego State University, provides fast, objective feedback on an athlete's balance disruption following a suspected concussion, according to a study published in the International Journal of Sports Physical Therapy.

Impaired balance is one of the major symptoms of a recent concussion. Most governing bodies in sports recommend three testing components in a concussion protocol: physical symptoms, cognitive function and balance.

For the balance portion, most sports organisations use what is known as the BESS (Balance Error Scoring System) test.

"The problem with the BESS is that it's really unreliable," said Dann Goble, inventor of BTrackS and author on the study.

You can measure balance objectively using force plates that track precisely how much a person sways, but most of these devices are either very large, very expensive, or both, making them unlikely to gain traction in sports.

Goble has adapted this technology into a balance board about the size of a suitcase that plugs into a computer or laptop, all for under $1,000.

To test whether the technology could accurately detect concussions in a real-world environment, Goble and colleagues took baseline balance measurements from more than 500 student athletes.

Then they followed those athletes over the course of their season.

Of 25 athletes determined by a team physician to have received concussions, BTrackS detected 16 of them, giving Goble's technology a success rate of 64 percent -- more than twice that of the BESS test, the study said.​