Knowledge Update

​Bogota, Jan 31 (IANS) Colombia will host the 16th World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates here on Thursday where 31 laureates will speak on peace, reconciliation and development, the media reported.

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos will inaugurate the event, his office said.

The summit, organised by the Permanent Secretariat of the World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates and the Bogota Chamber of Commerce, will end on February 5.

It is the first time the summit will be held in Latin America.

Earlier venues have been Barcelona (2015), Rome (2014), Warsaw (2013), Chicago (2012), Hiroshima (2010), Berlin (2009), Paris (2008) and Rome (1999 to 2007).

London, Jan 31 (IANS) A novel gene-editing method has been found to partially restore sight in rats bred with a hereditary condition called retinitis pigmentosa -- a condition that causes blindness in humans.

The researchers believe that the method could lead to new therapies for diseases of the eye, brain and heart.

Despite recent advances in editing targeted genes within cultured cells, editing genes within living organisms has remained elusive because current tools are inefficient. 

This is especially the case for non-dividing cells, which make up most adult tissues, including those of the brain, the pancreas, the eyes and the ears.

"For the first time, we have a method to edit the genome of non-dividing cells in the body. This could mean revolutionary new therapies for diseases of the eye, brain and heart," said study co-author Mo Li, Assistant Professor of Bioscience at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) in Saudi Arabia.

Current gene-editing techniques typically use a natural DNA repair pathway, called homology-directed repair (HDR), to insert genetic material. 

However, this pathway is inefficient and not readily accessible in non-dividing cells. Another natural DNA repair pathway, called non-homologous end-joining (NHEJ), is more efficient in higher organisms and is active in non-dividing cells.

Studies have shown that NHEJ is error prone when used to turn off targeted genes but highly precise when used to insert DNA sequences into a gene. 

Until now, NHEJ had not been used for gene insertion in non-dividing cells, especially in tissues inside living adult animals.

So the research team developed a new technique called homology-independent targeted integration (HITI), which uses the gene-editing tool CRISPR-Cas9 to cut DNA at a specific location. The new genetic material is then inserted into the cut DNA using the NHEJ repair pathway.

The team found their method compared favourably to other gene-editing techniques, according to the study published in the journal Nature. 

"The new technology is considerably more efficient than existing methods," said Pierre Magistretti, Dean of the Biological and Environmental Science and Engineering Division at KAUST.

The researchers used the method for gene-replacement therapy in rats bred with a hereditary condition called retinitis pigmentosa. 

This condition causes blindness in humans and is caused by a mutation in the Mertk gene. 

The team aimed to restore Mertk function by inserting a copy of the missing DNA segment into the gene. 

Tests revealed partial restoration of sight, the study said.

London, Jan 31 (IANS) Repeated antibiotic treatment not only can increase bacteria's resistance to drugs but also help them reproduce faster than before, warns a new study.

The finding that growth of bacteria can be stimulated by antibiotics underlines the importance of using the right antibiotic on patients as soon as possible.

For the study, the researchers exposed E.coli bacteria to eight rounds of antibiotic treatment over four days and found the bug -- which can cause severe stomach pain, diarrhoea and kidney failure in humans -- had increased antibiotic resistance with each treatment.

This had been expected, but researchers were surprised to find mutated E.coli reproduced faster than before encountering the drugs and formed populations that were three times larger because of the mutations.

This was only seen in bacteria exposed to antibiotics -- and when researchers took the drug away, the evolutionary changes were not undone and the new-found abilities remained, said the study published in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution.

"Our research suggests there could be added benefits for E.coli bacteria when they evolve resistance to clinical levels of antibiotics," said lead author Robert Beardmore, Professor at University of Exeter in Britain.

"It's often said that Darwinian evolution is slow, but nothing could be further from the truth, particularly when bacteria are exposed to antibiotics," Beardmore said.

"Bacteria have a remarkable ability to rearrange their DNA and this can stop drugs working, sometimes in a matter of days," Beardmore explained. 

The researchers tested the effects of the antibiotic doxycycline on E.coli as part of a study of DNA changes brought about by antibiotics.

"It is said by some that drug resistance evolution doesn't take place at high dosages but our paper shows that it can and that bacteria can change in ways that would not be beneficial for the treatment of certain types of infection," Mark Hewlett, also of the University of Exeter, pointed out.

"This shows it's important to use the right antibiotic on patients as soon as possible so we don't see adaptations like these in the clinic," Hewlett noted.

​London, Jan 31 (IANS) There has been no improvement since 1998 in survival rates for heart failure patients, a new study has found.

Researchers from the University of Oxford looked at routinely collected medical records from 54,313 patients with heart failure and found 81.3 per cent survived for one year, 51.5 per cent survived for two years, and 29.5 per cent survived for 10 years, following diagnosis with the condition.

"Getting an accurate estimate of heart failure prognosis is vital for those who commission healthcare services, so resources can be allocated appropriately," said Clare Taylor, a primary care researcher at the University of Oxford.

Survival rates, between 1998 and 2012, for people aged over 45 with heart failure showed no improvement though, in contrast to cancer survival rates in the Britain which have doubled in the last 40 years.

"Perhaps more importantly, this allows patients to make more informed choices about treatments and possible end-of-life care. While the survival rates were better than other studies, we disappointingly did not see any improvement over time," added Taylor.

According to the study published in the journal Family Practice, heart failure is a common long-term condition affecting around nine lakh in the Britain and represents the second highest cost to the National Health Service for any disease after stroke.

"An estimated one to two in every 100 adults in the west currently live with the condition," the study noted.

The paper found that survival rate estimates vary depending on a person's age, gender, other health conditions and blood pressure.

Toronto, Jan 31 (IANS) If you thought bursting balloons at a birthday party is plain fun, think again! Researchers have found that popping balloons can be louder than shotgun blasts -- and can lead to permanent hearing loss.

"We are not saying don't play with balloons and don't have fun, just try to guard against popping them. Hearing loss is insidious -- every loud noise that occurs has a potential lifelong impact," said one of the researchers Bill Hodgetts from University of Alberta in Canada.

The researchers measured the noise generated by bursting balloons and were startled to find that the impact, at its highest level, was comparable to a high-powered shotgun going off next to someone's ear.

Wearing ear protection and using a high-pressure microphone and a preamplifier, the researchers measured the noise effects by busting balloons three different ways: popping them with a pin, blowing them up until they ruptured and crushing them until they burst.

The loudest bang was made by the ruptured balloon at almost 168 decibels, four decibels louder than a 12-gauge shotgun, according to the study published in the journal Canadian Audiologist.

The Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety recommends that the maximum impulse level any Canadian should experience should not exceed 140 decibels. Even one exposure could be considered potentially unsafe to hearing for both children and adults.

"It's amazing how loud the balloons are," Dylan Scott, also of University of Alberta, noted.

"Nobody would let their child shoot something that loud without hearing protection, but balloons don't cross people's minds," Scott pointed out.

The results for the other two methods were slightly lower, but still a concern, he said.

​London, Jan 31 (IANS) A major risk factor for development of heart diseases, strokes and diabetes is lower in people who live at higher altitudes, says a new study that suggests that something as simple as the geographic area in which you live contribute to your risk of developing these diseases.

"We found that those people living between 457 to 2,297 metres, had a lower risk of developing Metabolic Syndrome than those living at sea level (zero to 121 metres)," said Amaya Lopez-Pascual, who conducted this research as part of her PhD thesis at University of Navarra, Spain.

Metabolic syndrome is the medical term for the combination of high blood pressure, sugar and cholesterol levels, as well as excess body fat around the waist, and contributes to serious health problems.

While the reported increase in the metabolic syndrome is principally blamed on higher obesity rates, smoking and increasingly inactive lifestyles, less is known about the effect our environment may have on us. 

"Living or training at high altitudes or under a simulated hypoxic (oxygen deficient) environment seems to help with heart and lung function, losing weight, and improves insulin sensitivity," co-senior author of this study Pedro Gonzalez-Muniesa, Associate Professor at University of Navarra, noted.

The researchers used data from a Spanish project, where participants have been voluntarily submitting information about their health twice-yearly since 1999. 

Information from thousands of initially healthy participants were used to investigate the development of metabolic syndrome in relation to the altitude of where they lived.

The results, published in the journal Frontiers in Physiology, were quite clear - the higher the altitude, the less likely you were of developing metabolic syndrome. 

Interestingly, using information about the participants' family history, the researchers could also assess if those more prone to this health problem also saw these benefits.

"We found our results were independent of the genetic background of the individuals," Gonzalez-Muniesa noted.

Washington, Jan 31 (IANS) NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray space telescope has identified the farthest gamma-ray blazars, a type of galaxy whose intense emissions are powered by super-sized black holes.

"Despite their youth, these far-flung blazars host some of the most massive black holes known," said Roopesh Ojha, an astronomer at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. 

Light from the most distant object began its journey to us when the universe was 1.4 billion years old, or nearly 10 per cent of its present age.

Previously, the most distant blazars detected by Fermi emitted their light when the universe was about 2.1 billion years old. 

"That they developed so early in cosmic history challenges current ideas of how supermassive black holes form and grow, and we want to find more of these objects to help us better understand the process," Ojha said while presenting the findings at the American Physical Society meeting in Washington on Monday.

Blazars constitute roughly half of the gamma-ray sources detected by Fermi's Large Area Telescope (LAT). 

Astronomers think their high-energy emissions are powered by matter heated and torn apart as it falls from a storage, or accretion, disk toward a supermassive black hole with a million or more times the sun's mass. 

"The main question now is how these huge black holes could have formed in such a young universe," one of the researchers Dario Gasparrini from Italian Space Agency's Science Data Centre in Rome said.

"We don't know what mechanisms triggered their rapid development," Gasparrini noted.

Two of the blazars that the team detected boast black holes of a billion solar masses or more. In the meantime, the team plans to continue a deep search for additional examples.

"We think Fermi has detected just the tip of the iceberg, the first examples of a galaxy population that previously has not been detected in gamma rays," said Marco Ajello from Clemson University in South Carolina, US.

Beijing, Jan 30 (IANS) China's plans for deep space exploration include two Mars missions and one Jupiter probe.

China plans its first Mars probe by 2020, Wu Yanhua, Vice Director of the China National Space Administration, was quoted as saying by Xinhua news agency. 

A second Mars probe will bring back samples and conduct research on the planet's structure, composition and environment, Wu said.

Also on the agenda are an asteroid exploration, and a fly-by of the Jupiter system.

China aims to become a space power around 2030, with an advanced and open aerospace industry and space infrastructure.

​London, Jan 30 (IANS) An international team of scientists has found the first observational and substantial evidence that our universe could be a vast and complex hologram.

A holographic universe, an idea first suggested in the 1990s, is one where all the information, which makes up our 3-D 'reality' (plus time) is contained in a 2-D surface on its boundaries.

"Imagine that everything you see, feel and hear in three dimensions (and your perception of time) in fact emanates from a flat two-dimensional field, said Kostas Skenderis, Professor at the University of Southampton in Britain. 

"The idea is similar to that of ordinary holograms where a three-dimensional image is encoded in a two-dimensional surface, such as in the hologram on a credit card. However, this time, the entire universe is encoded!" Skenderis added.

Although holographic properties could be thought of as rather like watching a 3-D film in a cinema -- for example we see the pictures as having height, width and crucially, depth -- when, in fact, it all originates from a flat 2-D screen.

However, the difference in our 3-D universe is that we can touch objects and the 'projection' is 'real' from our perspective, the researchers said, in the paper published in the journal Physical Review Letters.

"Holography is a huge leap forward in the way we think about the structure and creation of the universe. Scientists have been working for decades to combine Einstein's theory of gravity and quantum theory. Some believe the concept of a holographic universe has the potential to reconcile the two. I hope our research takes us another step towards this," Skenderis explained. 

The scientists now hope that their study will open the door to further our understanding of the early universe and explain how space and time emerged.

​New York, Jan 30 (IANS) NASA scientists have developed a simple method that could aid search for signs of life on other planets by analysing amino acids, the structural building blocks of all life on Earth.

The test uses a liquid-based technique known as capillary electrophoresis to separate a mixture of organic molecules into its components. 

The method is 10,000 times more sensitive than current methods employed by spacecraft like NASA's Mars Curiosity rover, according to a study published in the journal Analytical Chemistry. 

While capillary electrophoresis has been around since the early 1980s, this is the first time it has been tailored specifically to detect extraterrestrial life on an ocean world, said lead author Jessica Creamer, a postdoctoral scholar at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Pasadena, California.

"Our method improves on previous attempts by increasing the number of amino acids that can be detected in a single run," Creamer noted.

"Additionally, it allows us to detect these amino acids at very low concentrations, even in highly salty samples, with a very simple 'mix and analyse' process," Creamer said.

The researchers used the technique to analyse amino acids present in the salt-rich waters of Mono Lake in California. 

The lake's exceptionally high alkaline content makes it a challenging habitat for life, and an excellent stand-in for salty waters believed to be on Mars, or the ocean worlds of Saturn's moon Enceladus and Jupiter's moon Europa.

The researchers were able to simultaneously analyse 17 different amino acids. These amino acids were chosen for study because they are the most commonly found on Earth or elsewhere.

"Using our method, we are able to tell the difference between amino acids that come from non-living sources like meteorites versus amino acids that come from living organisms," said the project's principal investigator Peter Willis of JPL.

"One of NASA's highest-level objectives is the search for life in the universe," Willis said. 

"Our best chance of finding life is by using powerful liquid-based analyses like this one on ocean worlds," Willis noted.