Knowledge Update

​San Francisco, Feb 19 (IANS) Researchers studying the brains of infants who have older siblings with autism were able to identify 80 per cent of the babies who would be subsequently diagnosed with autism at two years of age.

The results, published this week in the journal Nature, stem from research led by the University of North Carolina to use magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to measure the brains of "low-risk" infants, with no family history of autism, and "high-risk" infants who had at least one autistic older sibling, Xinhua news agency reported.

A computer algorithm was then used to predict autism before clinically diagnosable behaviours set in, subsequently making it the first study to show that it is possible to use brain biomarkers to identify which infants in a high-risk pool, namely those having an older sibling with autism, will be diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder, or ASD, at 24 months of age.

"Typically, the earliest we can reliably diagnose autism in a child is age 2, when there are consistent behavioural symptoms, and due to health access disparities the average age of diagnosis in the US is actually age 4," said co-author and University of Washington (UW) professor of speech and hearing sciences Annette Estes. "But in our study, brain imaging biomarkers at 6 and 12 months were able to identify babies who would be later diagnosed with ASD."

While researchers at four clinical sites in the United States took part, the project included hundreds of children across the country.

The researchers obtained MRI scans of children while they were sleeping at 6, 12 and 24 months of age, and assessed the babies' behaviour and intellectual ability at each visit. 

They found that the babies who developed autism experienced a hyper-expansion of brain surface area from 6 to 12 months, as compared to babies who had an older sibling with autism but did not themselves show evidence of autism at 24 months of age. 

Increased surface area growth rate in the first year of life was linked to increased growth rate of brain volume in the second year of life. Brain overgrowth was tied to the emergence of autistic social deficits in the second year.

By inputting these data, including MRI calculations of brain volume, surface area, and cortical thickness at 6 and 12 months of age, into a computer program, the researchers sought to classify babies most likely to meet ASD criteria at 24 months of age. 

They found that, among infants with an older ASD sibling, the brain differences at 6 and 12 months of age successfully identified 80 per cent of those infants who would be clinically diagnosed with autism at 24 months of age.

The predictive power of the findings may lead to a diagnostic tool for ASD that could be used in the first year of life, before behavioural symptoms have emerged.

"We don't have such a tool yet," Estes was quoted as saying in a news release from UW. "But if we did, parents of high-risk infants wouldn't need to wait for a diagnosis of ASD at 2, 3 or even 4 years and researchers could start developing interventions to prevent these children from falling behind in social and communication skills ... By the time ASD is diagnosed at 2 to 4 years, often children have already fallen behind their peers in terms of social skills, communication and language."

​Los Angeles, Feb 19 (IANS) US space firm SpaceX on Sunday launched its 10th cargo mission to the International Space Station from US space agency NASA's historic moon pad for the first time.

NASA TV showed a Falcon 9 lifting off at 09.39 a.m. from US space agency NASA's historic Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida for the first time, Xinhua news agency reported.

The launch is the first from LC-39A since the final flight of the space shuttle fleet in July 2011. LC-39A was best known as the launch site for the Apollo 11 mission, which sent the first humans to the surface of the moon, as well as numerous space shuttle missions.

About 8 minutes after launch, the California-based company successfully landed the first stage of its Falcon 9 rocket on ground again after launching commercial cargo to the International Space Station.

"Falcon 9 first stage has landed at LZ-1," SpaceX then tweeted.

On Saturday morning, SpaceX aborted the lift-off in the last minute due to a technical problem.

The rocket is being launched the company's Dragon spacecraft into orbit carrying about 5,500 pounds of equipment and experiments to the International Space Station.

It's the first SpaceX launch from Florida since a Falcon 9 exploded on the launch pad at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on September 1, 2016.

Beijing, Feb 19 (IANS) A Chinese health alliance on Sunday agreed to promote the use of peak flow charts on both physical paper and smartphone apps to monitor the breath for children suffering from asthma.

The alliance is joined by the State Clinical Research Centre for Respiratory Diseases, Beijing Children's Hospital, Chinese Pediatric Society under Chinese Medical Association.

Professor Shen Kunling, head of the State Clinical Research Centre for Respiratory Diseases, said parents' knowledge, compliance with medicine instructions, and regular monitoring remain key to control childhood asthma.

Asthma is one of the most common chronic respiratory diseases for children. China has more than 6 million children with asthma. Nearly 30 per cent of them do not seek treatment in time and more than two thirds have reported asthma attacks.

​London, Feb 18 (IANS) For patients in the advanced stages of cancer, walking for at least 30 minutes thrice a week may boost a positive attitude towards their illness and improve their quality of life, new research claims.

Despite growing evidence of significant health benefits of exercise to cancer patients, physical activity commonly declines considerably during treatment and remains low afterwards.

"Walking is a free and accessible form of physical activity, and patients reported that it made a real difference to their quality of life," said lead researcher Jo Armes, a senior lecturer at London's King's College. 

The study is a first step towards exploring how walking can help people living with advanced stages of cancer. 

The findings in the programme of group walk for cancer patients showed marked improvement both physically, emotionally and psychologically.

"The study shows that exercise is valued by, suitable for, and beneficial to people with advanced cancer," said Emma Ream Professor at the University of Surrey in Britain.

Many participants noted that walking provided an improved positive attitude towards their illness and spoke of the social benefits of participating in group walks.

It also increased their motivation to reduce weight by altering diet, the researchers said, in the paper published in the journal BMJ Open.

For the study, the team included 42 cancer patients with advanced breast, prostate, gynaecological or haematological cancers.

They measured patient outcome after assessing quality of life, activity, fatigue, mood and self-efficacy that were completed at baseline of six, 12 and 24 weeks.

​New York, Feb 18 (IANS) Researchers have uncovered the mechanisms that the Zika virus uses to cause foetus microcephaly, a brain development disorder.

Babies with microcephaly can have a wide array of problems including a small brain and head, developmental delays, seizures, vision and hearing loss and feeding difficulty. 

While a Zika infection typically results in mild or symptom-free infections in healthy adults and children, the risk of microcephaly in the developing foetus is an alarming consequence that has created a worldwide health threat.

Since a normal brain develops from simple cells called stem cells that are able to develop into any one of various kinds of cells, the research team deduced that microcephaly is most likely linked with abnormal function of these cells.

Two weeks after the cells had developed into a certain type, the Zika infection was mainly found in glial cells, which provide support and insulation for the brain, according to the study published in the journal Stem Cell Reports.

There are currently 70 countries and territories reporting active Zika transmission, according to the World Health Organisation. 

There are two main lineages of the virus, African and Asian. 

Recently, the team found that only the Asian lineage has been linked with microcephaly. So, what is it about this particular form of the virus that inflicts such damage?

The researchers established a method of investigating how Zika alters the production, survival and maturation of brain stem cells using cells donated from three human foetal brains.

They focused on the impact of the Asian lineage Zika virus that was involved in the first outbreak in North America in late 2015.

"We discovered that the Asian lineage Zika virus halted the proliferation of brain stem cells and hindered their ability to develop into brain nerve cells," said study senior author Ping Wu, Professor at The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston in the US.

"However, the effect that the Zika virus had on the ability of stem cells to develop into specialized cells differed between donors. This difference seems to be linked with a Zika-induced change in global gene expression pattern, it remains to be seen which genes are responsible," Wu said.

"The unique system containing stem cells from three donors will allow us to dissect molecular mechanisms underlying Zika virus-induced brain malformation," Wu said.

Toronto, Feb 18 (IANS) Are you making the environment and water a bit too clean for your kids? Beware! You may be depriving them of the good microbes that may protect them against various illness, researchers warn.

In a shocking revelation, Canadian researchers have found that children with access to clean drinking water may be at an increased risk of developing asthma in childhood than those who do not.

They also suggested a link between the risk of asthma and a super clean environment (air).

"Those that had access to good, clean water had much higher asthma rates and we think it is because they were deprived of the beneficial microbes," said Brett Finlay, a microbiologist at University of British Columbia (UBC) in Canada. 

"That was a surprise because we tend to think that clean is good but we realise that we actually need some dirt in the world to help protect you," Finlay added. 

The study also showed that while gut bacteria plays a role in preventing asthma, it was the presence of a microscopic fungus or yeast known as Pichia that was more strongly linked to the respiratory condition.

"Children with Pichia were much more at risk of asthma," Finlay noted, adding "instead of helping to prevent asthma, its presence in those early days puts children at risk."

The researcher said this while presenting the details at the 2017 American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Annual Meeting in Boston. 

The study may help in understanding the role of microscopic organisms in our overall health.

​Toronto, Feb 18 (IANS) Researchers have found a novel way to print perovskite solar cells easily and at a cost similar to bringing out a newspaper!

A team, led by Hairen Tan from University of Toronto Engineering found that the solar cells manufactured with perovskite mineral could lead to low-cost, printable solar panels capable of turning nearly any surface into a power generator.

"Economies of scale have greatly reduced the cost of silicon manufacturing," Ted Sargent, an expert in emerging solar technologies, said in a university statement.

"Potentially, perovskites and silicon cells can be married to improve efficiency further, but only with advances in low-temperature processes," added Sargent, who is also the Canada Research Chair in Nanotechnology. 

Perovskite solar cells depend on a layer of tiny crystals -- each about 1,000 times smaller than the width of a human hair -- made of low-cost, light-sensitive materials. 

Because the perovskite raw materials can be mixed into a liquid to form a kind of 'solar ink', they could be printed onto glass, plastic or other materials using a simple inkjet printing process.

"The most effective materials for making electron selective layers (ESLs) start as a powder and have to be baked at high temperatures, above 500 degrees Celsius," said Tan. 

Tan noted that perovskite solar cells using the older, high-temperature method are only marginally better at 22.1 per cent and even the best silicon solar cells can only reach 26.3 per cent.

Tan's perovskite solar cells were also stable and retained more than 90 per cent of their efficiency even after 500 hours of use.

New York, Feb 18 (IANS) If you thought wireless charging in smartphones was a new thing, you are mistaken as researchers have found a new method to power devices without connecting them to cords.

The new method developed by Disney Research, published in the journal PLOS ONE, for wirelessly transmitting power throughout a room enables users to charge electronic devices as seamlessly as they now connect to WiFi hotspots.

The researchers demonstrated their method, called quasistatic cavity resonance (QSCR), inside a specially built 16-by-16-foot room at their lab. 

They safely generated near-field standing magnetic waves that filled the interior of the room, making it possible to power several cellphones, fans and lights simultaneously.

"This new innovative method will make it possible for electrical power to become as ubiquitous as WiFi," said Alanson Sample, associate lab director and principal research scientist at Disney Research. 

"This in turn could enable new applications for robots and other small mobile devices by eliminating the need to replace batteries and wires for charging," added Sample.

According to Sample, wireless power transmission is a long-standing technological dream. 

"In this work, we've demonstrated room-scale wireless power, but there's no reason we couldn't scale this down to the size of a toy chest or up to the size of a warehouse," Sample noted.

The QSCR method involves inducing electrical currents in the metalised walls, floor and ceiling of a room, which in turn generate uniform magnetic fields that permeate the room's interior. 

This enables power to be transmitted efficiently to receiving coils that operate at the same resonant frequency as the magnetic fields. 

The induced currents in the structure are channelled through discrete capacitors, which isolate potentially harmful electrical fields.

"Our simulations show we can transmit 1.9 kilowatts of power while meeting federal safety guidelines," Chabalko said, adding that this was equivalent to simultaneously charging 320 smart phones.

​London, Feb 18 (IANS) In a first, researchers have developed a novel DNA computer that is capable of detecting several antibodies in the blood, that may allow better control of the medication for diseases like rheumatism and Crohn's.

"What is special about this system is that it can think and that it can be connected to actuation such as drug delivery," said Maarten Merkx, professor at Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e) in The Netherlands.

To determine whether someone has a particular disease, it is essential to measure the concentration of specific antibodies -- the agents that our immune system produces when we are ill. 

The new method will translate the presence of each antibody into a unique piece of DNA whereby the DNA computer can decide on the basis of the presence of one or more antibodies whether drug delivery, for example, is necessary. 

"The presence of a particular DNA molecule sets in motion a series of reactions whereby we can get the DNA computer to run various programs," explained Wouter Engelen, doctoral student at the Eindhoven University of Technology.

"Our results show that we can use the DNA computer to control the activity of enzymes, but we think it should also be possible to control the activity of a therapeutic antibody," Engelen added.

In addition, the system can measure the quantity of therapeutic antibodies in the blood and decide whether it is necessary to administer any extra medication used in treating chronic diseases like rheumatism or Crohn's disease.