Knowledge Update

London, Oct 25 (IANS) Human-made noise can have a detrimental impact on an animal's use of information from scent, thereby putting them at greater risk of being attacked by predators, new research has found.

One obvious way in which human-made noise can cause animals problems is through the masking of valuable acoustic information.

"What our study shows for the first time is that there could also be disruption to the use of olfactory information; human-made noise could affect decision-making based on information gathered using a different sense," said lead author of the study Amy Morris-Drake from the University of Bristol in England.

Using field-based experimental trials on dwarf mongooses in South Africa, the researchers combined sound recordings and fecal samples to demonstrate that road-noise playback negatively affected the mongooses' ability to detect predator feces. 

Even after detection, the additional noise led to less information gathering and less vigilance, making the mongooses more vulnerable to danger, according to the study published in the journal Current Biology.

"We've known for a long time that noise from urbanisation, traffic and airports can detrimentally affect humans by causing stress, sleep deprivation, cardiac problems and slower learning. What's becoming increasingly clear is that a lot of other species -- mammals, birds, fish, insects and amphibians -- are also impacted in all sorts of ways by anthropogenic, or human-made, noise," Andy Radford from the University of Bristol noted.

Closely monitoring the mongooses, the team found that their adaptive responses to predatory cues, such as increased inspection of the cue, vigilance scanning for danger and more time spent near the safety of the burrow, were all disrupted by road traffic noise.

New York, Oct 25 (IANS) A drug, which is already used in high doses in medical detoxification emergencies, may help prevent many age-related health problems when used at much lower levels, suggests new research conducted on rats.

The drug N-acetyl-cysteine, or NAC might help maintain levels of a known antioxidant glutathione and prevent the routine metabolic declines associated with ageing, said the study published in the journal Redox Biology.

"Using NAC as a prophylactic, instead of an intervention, may allow glutathione levels to be maintained for detoxification in older adults," the researchers said.

The detoxification compound glutathione, helps resist the toxic stresses of everyday life -- but its levels decline with age and this sets the stage for a wide range of age-related health problems.

"We've known for some time of the importance of glutathione as a strong antioxidant," said lead author Tory Hagen, Professor at Oregon State University in the US.

"What this study pointed out was the way that cells from younger animals are far more resistant to stress than those from older animals," Hagen noted.

Decline of the detoxification mechanisms are linked to cardiovascular disease, diabetes and cancer, according to scientists.

"In young animal cells, stress doesn't cause such a rapid loss of glutathione. The cells from older animals, on the other hand, were quickly depleted of glutathione and died twice as fast when subjected to stress," Hagen said.

"But pre-treatment with NAC increased glutathione levels in the older cells and largely helped offset that level of cell death," Hagen pointed out.

New York, Oct 25 (IANS) In a first, Harvard University researchers have made an entirely 3D-printed organ-on-a-chip with integrated sensing that can offer a viable alternative to traditional animal testing.

"We are pushing the boundaries of three-dimensional printing by developing and integrating multiple functional materials within printed devices," said coauthor of the study Jennifer Lewis.

"This study is a powerful demonstration of how our platform can be used to create fully functional, instrumented chips for drug screening and disease modeling," Lewis noted.

Organs-on-chips mimic the structure and function of native tissue and have emerged as a promising alternative to traditional animal testing. 

However, the fabrication and data collection process for organs-on-chips is expensive and laborious. Currently, these devices are built in clean rooms using a complex, multi-step lithographic process and collecting data requires microscopy or high-speed cameras.

"Our approach was to address these two challenges simultaneously via digital manufacturing," Travis Busbee, coauthor of the paper and graduate student in the Lewis Lab, pointed out. 

"By developing new printable inks for multi-material 3D printing, we were able to automate the fabrication process while increasing the complexity of the devices," Busbee said.

Built by a fully automated, digital manufacturing procedure, the 3D-printed heart-on-a-chip can be quickly fabricated in customised form factors allowing researchers to easily collect reliable data for short-term and long-term studies.

The researchers believe that the new approach to manufacturing, described in the journal in Nature Materials, may one day allow researchers to rapidly design organs-on-chips, also known as microphysiological systems, that match the properties of a specific disease or even an individual patient's cells.

"This new programmable approach to building organs-on-chips not only allows us to easily change and customise the design of the system by integrating sensing but also drastically simplifies data acquisition," study first author Johan Ulrik Lind said.

​Toronto, Oct 25 (IANS) Dismissing a common perception that dinosaurs were solitary, vicious monsters, researchers have found evidence that just like most modern animals, these gigantic creatures too loved company and they lived and died together in groups.

"The common mythology of dinosaurs depicts solitary, vicious monsters running around eating everything," said one of the researchers Gregory Funston from University of Alberta in Canada. 

"Our discovery demonstrates that dinosaurs are more similar to modern animals than people appreciate," Funston noted.

"This evidence shows that dinosaurs were social beings with gregarious behaviour who lived and died together in groups," he added.

The discovery comes from a site in Mongolia, first encountered by paleontologists a decade ago. The site contained thousands of shards of destroyed bone, belying the telltale evidence of a previous discovery by fossil poachers. 

After conducting additional field work, scientists discovered a bonebed with an assemblage of bird-like Avimimus dinosaurs, who were extremely rare prior to this discovery.

Though it is common knowledge that modern birds form flocks, this is the first evidence of flocking behavior in bird-like dinosaurs, Funston explained.

"With an assemblage like this, you can't really understand why the dinosaurs died together unless you see the field site," Funston said. 

"We can tell that they were living together around the time of death, but the mystery still remains as to why," he added.

The findings on the bird-like dinosaur Avimimus from the late-Cretaceous period were published in the journal Scientific Reports.

​London, Oct 23 (IANS) There is no link between how hungry we feel and the amount of calories we consume, reveals a study.

It suggests that food marketed as having appetite-modifying properties does not alter our calorie intake. 

The findings, published in the journal Food and Science Nutrition, highlighted the health claims made by the food industry and the way in which many products are advertised -- especially those aimed at people trying to lose weight.

"The food industry is littered with products which are marketed on the basis of their appetite-modifying properties. Whilst these claims may be true, they shouldn't be extended to imply that energy intake will be reduced as a result," said Bernard Corfe, Researcher at the University of Sheffield. 

Researchers analysed 462 scientific studies and arrived at the conclusion that appetite ratings failed to correspond with energy intake -- the number of calories consumed -- in the majority of studies.

Corfe said, "For example, you could eat a meal which claims to satisfy your appetite and keep you feeling full-up for a long period of time but nonetheless go on to consume a large amount of calories later on." 

The research team suggested that more research is needed to examine other factors governing actual food intake, including sensorial environment, social factors, entrained behaviour relating to food timing, along with our innate physical regulation of intake.

​New York, Oct 22 (IANS) Household dysfunction or any adverse event in childhood may have a short-term affect on a child's health and weight in early days as well, finds a study.

The study suggested that children exposed to early adversity also have increased risk for asthma, infection, somatic complaints, and sleep disruption. 

Maternal mental health issues are associated with elevated cortisol levels, and maltreatment is associated with a lower cortisol profile.

For the study, the researchers examined 39 cohort studies to determine the effect that adverse childhood experiences have on health and biological outcomes in children.

"The majority of research on early adversity has looked at long-term adult outcomes. While this research has helped identify the problem, we must also deepen our understanding of what is happening in the brains and bodies of our children as they experience adversity," said Debby Oh, Researcher at the Center for Youth Wellness, US in a statement.

The researchers suggested that with appropriate intervention, children are able to recover from some of these negative health effects, making early detection a powerful tool to protect the health and well-being of children before long-term adult outcomes occur.

​Ottawa, Oct 22 (IANS) Choosing smaller portions of food does not hamper the enjoyment of eating, finds a study.

"In fact, focusing on the pleasure of eating, rather than value for money, health, or hunger, makes people happier to pay more for less food," said Pierre Chandon, the L'Oréal Chaired Professor of Marketing, Innovation and Creativity at INSEAD Business School for the World, in France.

In their article, published in the Journal of Marketing Research, the researchers said the findings showed that people will choose smaller portions of chocolate cake when they are asked to vividly imagine the multisensory pleasure (taste, smell, texture) of similar desserts.

The researchers showed that unlike health warnings, this multisensory imagery does not reduce expected eating enjoyment or willingness to pay for the food. 

They conducted five different experiments where 42 schoolchildren were asked to imagine -- incorporating their five senses -- the pleasure of eating, familiar desserts and were then asked to choose portions of brownies.

They naturally chose portions of brownies that were two sizes smaller than the portions chosen by children in a control condition.

In another experiment, they imitated high-end restaurants by describing a regular chocolate cake as smelling of roasted coffee with aromas of honey and vanilla with an aftertaste of blackberry. 

This vivid description made 190 participants choose a smaller portion compared to a control condition where the cake was simply described as "chocolate cake". 

The study also had a third condition, in which people were told about the calorie and fat content of each cake portion. This nutrition information also led people to choose a smaller portion. 

However, it reduced the amount that people were willing to pay for the cake compared to the multisensory condition.

A third study showed that people underestimated how much they will enjoy eating small portions of chocolate brownies. They expected to enjoy small portions less than larger ones, when actually both were enjoyed equally. 

This mistake was eliminated by multisensory imagery, which made people better forecasters of their own future eating enjoyment.

"Having more descriptive menus or product labels that encourage customers to use their senses can lead to positive outcomes for consumer satisfaction and health, but also for profits. This could make for a more sustainable food industry, which struggles to grow in the face of today's obesity epidemic," said Yann Cornil, Assistant Professor at the University of British Columbia, Canada.

​New York, Oct 22 (IANS) What if clothes and other wearable items can sense your illness and transmit data to a doctor in a distant clinic for monitoring your health and prescribing drugs? This could be possible, thanks to new research by an Indian-origin scientist at University of Rhode Island.

Kunal Mankodiya, Director of the university's Wearable Biosensing Laboratory is researching how to transform gloves, socks, clothing and even shoes into high-tech items that will make people healthier -- and improve their lives.

"We are in the era of game-changing technology, especially in health care," Mankodiya said.

Mankodiya's research focuses on smart textiles -- wearable items embedded with sensors, electronics and software that can collect data from patients, even though they are at home, and deliver it to doctors. 

Mankodiya's team is working on smart gloves that are embedded with sensors on the fingers and thumb that measure tremors and rigidity -- common symptoms of Parkinson's.

The gloves, in turn, are connected to cell phones, which process the data and deliver it to neurologists in their offices. 

This way, doctors can manage the treatment plan of the patient on a day-to-day basis, ensuring that medication is working properly and eliminating the need for patients to make stressful clinical visits.

"Patients with Parkinson's face many mobility issues -- driving and even walking long distances," Mankodiya, an alumnus of Saurashtra University in Rajkot, Gujarat, said. 

"The glove will give patients the option of receiving health care while remaining at home, and it also reduces the risk of falls and other accidents," he added.

Mankodiya is also working on high-tech socks for people who have suffered strokes. Again, sensors and software woven into the fabric relay information about a patient's gait to doctors and physical therapists so they can tailor rehabilitation therapy to each patient.

"The socks examine the walking stride," Mankodiya said in University of Rhode Island statement. 

"They can quantify movements of the knee and ankle joints to find subtle irregularities that require therapy. The socks also monitor a patient's progress," he added.

Other projects of his team focus on developing tools to image, sense and record brain function to treat Parkinson's, as well as other neurological diseases, like epilepsy. 

​Washington, Oct 22 (IANS) Astronomers believe they have found the oldest known planet-forming disk -- a 45-million-year-old ring of gas and dust that orbits around a young star.

Circumstellar disks around red dwarfs like this one are rare to begin with, but this star, called AWI0005x3s, appears to have sustained its disk for an exceptionally long time, according to the study published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

"Most disks of this kind fade away in less than 30 million years," said lead researcher Steven Silverberg from University of Oklahoma in the US.

"This particular red dwarf is a candidate member of the Carina stellar association, which would make it around 45 million years old (like the rest of the stars in that group). It's the oldest red dwarf system with a disk we've seen in one of these associations," Silverberg noted.

The discovery relied on citizen scientists from Disk Detective, a project led by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center's Marc Kuchner that is designed to find new circumstellar disks. 

"Without the help of the citizen scientists examining these objects and finding the good ones, we might never have spotted this object," Kuchner said. 

"It is surprising to see a circumstellar disk around a star that may be 45 million years old, because we normally expect these disks to dissipate within a few million years," one of the researchers Jonathan Gagne from Carnegie Institution for Science said.

"More observations will be needed to determine whether the star is really as old as we suspect, and if it turns out to be, it will certainly become a benchmark system to understand the lifetime of disks," Gagne noted.

This star and its disk are also interesting because of the possibility that it could host extrasolar planets, the study said.

Sydney, Oct 21 (IANS) Researchers have discovered a new species of long-necked dinosaurs in northeastern Australia that could have arrived from South America 105 million years ago, officials said on Friday.

The Savannasaurus elliottorum were between 12-15 metres long with a long neck, a relatively short tail and hips around 1.5 metres wide, EFE news reported.

The Savannasaurus belong to a branch of the sauropods known as titanosaurs, the largest land animals to have inhabited the Earth, Stephen Poropat, of the Australian Age of Dinosaurs Museum of Natural History (AAOD), said.

The paleontologist, whose study was published in the journal Scientific Reports, said they could recover only 20-25 per cent of the Savannasaurus, mostly parts belonging to its torso, limbs and the pelvis.

"Because they are very large animals it would take a fair bit of sediment to bury it before predators come along," Poropat said.

He added that teeth of carnivorous dinosaurs were also found at the site, which suggests there might have been scavenging of the remains of the Savannasaurus.

The first fossils of these titanosaurs were found in 2005 by grazier David Elliot, the chairman of AAOD in Winston in Queensland state.

Shortly after the AAOD and the Queensland Museum began excavating the fossil site, but it was nearly a decade till they could remove the bones from the rocks in which they were encrusted.

Besides the Savannasaurus, Poropat also described another dinosaur in his study that was discovered in Australia in 2009, Diamantinasaurus matildae, whose excavation enabled the discovery of the first skull of a sauropod in the country.

The discovery of the Savannasaurus and the Diamantinasaurus have sparked a controversy over the origin of the titanosaurs in Australia.

Earlier studies on megafauna suggested they were similar to dinosaurs from Laurasia, the ancient supercontinental landmass in the Northern Hemisphere.

However, Poropat argued against that theory explaining that Laurasia and Gondwana - which gave rise to the continental masses of the Southern Hemisphere: South America, Africa, Australia and Antarctica - were separated.

According to the expert, the discovery shows the Savannasaurus and the Diamantinasaurus arrived from South America 105 million years ago through the Antarctica during an era of warmer temperatures and when the three continents were connected.