Knowledge Update

​New York, Oct 21 (IANS) Social hierarchy affects our health and uncertainty of staying at top in this hierarchy may increase the risk of chronic diseases, suggests new research.

According to the study, the findings apply to those uncertain at the top of the social hierarchy as also to those uncertain of their status in lower ranking, though the latter may have opportunities for upward mobility and this may be associated with better health. 

"Low social status is generally thought to lead to poorer health, yet so many exceptions undermine this apparent association that it is difficult to draw a direct relationship between status and health," said one of the researchers, Jessica Vandeleest from University of California Davis School of Veterinary Medicine in the US.

Although the experiment was carried out in monkeys, the researchers believe that the findings could one day help doctors learn more about the way that social hierarchy affects the health of humans.

For the study, the researchers measured the level of certainty or uncertainty of social status in captive rhesus monkey groups. 

They did this by observing how the monkeys interacted with each other -- in cases where the monkeys were not interacting directly with other monkeys, their relationships were inferred through mutual social connections. 

The team used these indirect connections to decipher the social rank of the animals and how well they fit in the hierarchy.

The researchers discovered that high ranking monkeys with low certainty of their social status showed higher markers of inflammation, which can be a sign of a chronic disease state such as diabetes, than those with very certain status.

So high-ranking monkeys may experience some health risks, but only when their position is questionable and they are consequently at risk of losing their status.

The opposite pattern was found for low ranking monkeys - high dominance certainty was associated with higher markers of inflammation, whereas low certainty was associated with lower levels of inflammatory proteins. 

The study, published in the journal PeerJ suggests that uncertainty alone may be a risk factor for acute diseases, and that uncertainty in status over longer periods in relationship to rank are related to chronic disease states as well.

New York, Oct 21 (IANS) Researchers at University of Wisconsin-Madison have developed an inexpensive, simple method that allows them to convert footsteps into usable electricity.

The method puts to good use a common waste material -- wood pulp. 

The pulp, which is already a common component of flooring, is partly made of cellulose nanofibers. 

They are tiny fibers that, when chemically treated, produce an electrical charge when they come in contact with untreated nanofibers.

When the nanofibers are embedded within flooring, they are able to produce electricity that can be harnessed to power lights or charge batteries. 

And because wood pulp is a cheap, abundant and renewable waste product of several industries, flooring that incorporates the new technology could be as affordable as conventional materials.

While there are existing similar materials for harnessing footstep energy, they are costly, nonrecyclable, and impractical at a large scale.

"We've been working a lot on harvesting energy from human activities. One way is to build something to put on people, and another way is to build something that has constant access to people. The ground is the most-used place," said Xudong Wang, Associate Professor at University of Wisconsin-Madison.

The team's method published in the journal Nano Energy is the latest in a green energy research field called "roadside energy harvesting" that could, in some settings, rival solar power -- and it does not depend on fair weather. 

Researchers like Wang who study roadside energy harvesting methods see the ground as holding great renewable energy potential well beyond its limited fossil fuel reserves.

​New York, Oct 21 (IANS) An Indian-American researcher and his team have created life-size 3D hand models, complete with all five fingerprints using a high-resolution 3D printer that can produce the same ridges and valleys as a real finger.

Like any optical device, fingerprint and hand scanners need to be calibrated, but currently there is no standard method for doing so.

"This is the first time a whole hand 3D target has been created to calibrate fingerprint scanners," said Distinguished Professor Anil Jain from Michigan State University (MSU). 

"As a byproduct of this research, we realised a fake 3D hand, essentially a spoof, with someone's fingerprints, could potentially allow a crook to steal the person's identity to break into a vault, contaminate a crime scene or enter the country illegally," Jain cautioned.

Jain and his biometrics team were studying how to test and calibrate fingerprint scanners commonly used across the globe at police departments, airport immigration counters, banks and even amusement parks. 

To test the scanners, they created life-size 3D hand models complete with all five fingerprints.

"Another application of this technology will be to evaluate the spoof-resistance of commercial fingerprint scanners. We have highlighted a security loophole and the limitations of existing fingerprint scanning technology, now it's up to the scanner manufacturers to design a scanner that is spoof-resistant," Jain noted in a university statement. 

The study aims to design and develop standard models and procedures for consistent and reliable evaluation of fingerprint readers and is funded by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).

"We are very pleased with this research and how it is showing the uncertainties in the process and what it can mean for the accuracy of the readers," said Nicholas Paulter, Group Leader for the Security Technologies Group at NIST and a co-author of the study. 

The FBI, CIA, military and manufacturers will all be interested in this project, he added.

Along with Jain and Paulter, the study was co-authored by Sunpreet Arora, MSU doctoral student. 

​Clayton Christensen, a professor at the Harvard Business School, wrote in the Harvard Business Review in 1995 about the concept of 'disruptive innovation'. He described it as "a process that takes root initially in simple applications at the bottom of a market and then relentlessly moves up market, eventually displacing established practices".

The term has since then gone beyond just business and the markets and engulfed the whole gamut of the societal and environmental transformation. It is now termed the process that disrupts the well-established practices by game-changing operations that move from bottom to the top of society for sustainable and better living. 

Last week delegates from 197 countries in an international negotiating conference on the Montreal Protocol -- a multilateral environmental agreement (MEA) -- sparked such disruptive innovation at an unlikely place -- Kigali, the Rwandan capital -- and under the auspices of an environmental off-shoot of the UN more known for its glacial speed of responses to the global crises.

The disruptive innovation stems from the fact that the treaty under which the commitment was agreed was not originally sculpted to reduce emissions of green house gases (GHGs). Thus, 'The Montreal Protocol on Substances that deplete the Ozone Layer' was virtually enshrined with a new tag: 'The Montreal Protocol on substances that do not deplete the ozone layer'.

This signals not only a name change but also a game-changing operation for the betterment of the planet. It has heralded disruptive innovation in the well-established UN practice of never-crossing-the-mandate. Never ever before in the history of a MEA and even in the history of the UN has such social and environmental innovation taken place that stemmed from bottom up from countries.

MEAs are global treaties negotiated to address global environmental issues. Scientific postulations, observations, degrees of environmental and economic impacts as well as threat to the habitat are the drivers of such global negotiations. Differing abilities to perceive the environmental crisis and the unequal capability to deal with its impact as well as transformation to alternative policies and technologies are the major stumbling blocks in the negotiations. The suspicion or the real existence of hidden agendas, mistrust and politics complicate the negotiations, which become notoriously and excruciatingly slow. Each agreement is confined to its mandate and countries zealously guard this.

Even worse, a final agreement is arrived at after long serpentine multilateral negotiations and compromises are no assurance for its effective implementation as amply exemplified by the Kyoto Protocol of 1997.

The Montreal Protocol radiates exceptional success that stands out as one of the rare examples of what the UN is capable of achieving. Copy-book style negotiations under the Montreal Protocol, closely supported by global scientific assessments by top-notch irrefutable scientists, were strengthened with principles of common but differentiated responsibility, precautionary approach and polluter-to-pay issues.

Convened under the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the Protocol, signed in 1987 which entered into force in 1989, has succeeded in wiping out nearly two million tons of man-made ozone depleting substances (ODS) that were being produced and consumed annually in the 1990s.

Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) used in refrigeration, air-conditioning, hair sprays, insulating foams and fire protection, along with more than 90 other ozone depleting chemicals, have been wiped out from planet Earth within a space of one generation. Mildly ozone depleting chemicals -- HCFCs (hydrochlorofluorocarbons) -- which constitute less than one percent of total ODS remain to be phased out.

A MIT study says there already are early signs that the ozone layer has started recovering and is likely to come to its pre-depletion level by 2050. The world has created an example of 'handing over the natural heritage to the next generation, in same state as was received from our earlier generation'.

In Kigali, countries have decided to use the Montreal Protocol along with its mechanisms as a vehicle to phase-down HFCs and went beyond the mandate of the original Protocol and accepted the legally binding agreement to mitigate the emissions of GHGs. They expect the Protocol to deliver much needed reduction of 0.5 degrees Celsius of warming by the end of the century, bringing the maximum total warming of 1.5 degrees within reach. It is virtually impossible to deliver that under the Paris Agreement.

The countries also want to derive the benefit from this transformation away from HFCs to get more energy-efficient and even super-efficient air-conditioners to save energy, save costs, reduce pollution and derive health benefits.

To that end, Kigali has demonstrated that Silicon Valley, where the concept originated, doesn't have a monopoly on disruptive innovation.

New York, Oct 19 (IANS) Something must be going on in the brains of older adults that causes them to struggle to follow speech amid background noise, even when their hearing would be considered normal, researchers from University of Maryland have determined.

Researchers Samira Anderson, Jonathan Z. Simon and Alessandro Presacco found that adults aged 61-73 with normal hearing scored significantly worse on speech understanding in noisy environments than adults aged 18-30 with normal hearing.

The researchers studied two areas of the brain. They looked at the more 'ancestral' midbrain area which does basic processing of all sounds.

They also looked at the cortex which is particularly large in humans and part of which specialises in speech processing.

In the young group, the midbrain generated a signal that matched its task in each case - looking like speech in the quiet environment, and speech clearly discernable against a noisy background in the noise environment.

But in the older group, the quality of the response to the speech signal was degraded even when in the quiet environment, and the response was even worse in the noisy environment.

"For older listeners, even when there isn't any noise, the brain is already having trouble processing the speech," said Simon.

Neural signals recorded from cortex showed that younger adults could process speech well in a relatively short amount of time.

But the auditory cortex of older test subjects took longer to represent the same amount of information.

"Part of the comprehension problems experienced by older adults in both quiet and noise conditions could be linked to age-related imbalance between excitatory and inhibitory neural processes in the brain," Presacco added.

This imbalance could impair the brain's ability to correctly process auditory stimuli and could be the main cause of the abnormally high cortical response observed in the study.

"Older people need more time to figure out what a speaker is saying. They are dedicating more of their resources and exerting more effort than younger adults when they are listening to speech," Simon noted in a paper published by the Journal of Neurophysiology.

This eroding of brain function appears to be typical for older adults and a natural part of the ageing process.

The researchers are now looking into whether brain training techniques may be able to help older adults improve their speech comprehension.

​Washington, Oct 19 (IANS) In a major step towards faster and convenient delivery of medical tests, Washington State University researchers have developed a low-cost, portable laboratory on a smartphone that can analyse several samples at once to catch a cancer biomarker, producing lab quality results.

At a time when patients and medical professionals expect always faster results, researchers are trying to translate biodetection technologies used in laboratories to the field and clinic, so patients can get nearly instant diagnoses in a physician's office, an ambulance or the emergency room.

The research team created an eight channel smartphone spectrometer that can detect human interleukin-6 (IL-6), a known biomarker for lung, prostate, liver, breast and epithelial cancers.

A spectrometer analyses the amount and type of chemicals in a sample by measuring the light spectrum.

"The spectrometer would be especially useful in clinics and hospitals that have a large number of samples without on-site labs, or for doctors who practice abroad or in remote areas," said lead researcher Lei Li, Assistant Professor in the School of Mechanical and Materials Engineering.

"They can't carry a whole lab with them. They need a portable and efficient device," Li noted.

Although smartphone spectrometers exist, they only monitor or measure a single sample at a time, making them inefficient for real world applications. 

The multichannel spectrometer can measure up to eight different samples at once using a common test called ELISA that identifies antibodies and colour change as disease markers, according to a study published in the journal Biosensors and Bioelectronics.

"With our eight channel spectrometer, we can put eight different samples to do the same test, or one sample in eight different wells to do eight different tests. This increases our device's efficiency," said Li, who has filed a provisional patent for the work.

Although the system currently works with an iPhone 5, the researchers said they are creating an adjustable design that will be compatible with any smartphone.

​London, Oct 16 (IANS) Swedish scientists in a breakthrough research have found a highly cost-effective technology which can examine individual cells in leukemia and can eventually transform treatment for patients suffering from the cancer.

The new method helped researchers to examine individual tumour cells in patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) -- a cancer of blood-forming tissues, hindering the body's ability to fight infection. 

The finding showed that leukemia tumours are comprised of cells having entirely different gene expressions.

"The study found that CLL cells do not consist of a single cell type, but of a number of sub-clones that exhibit entirely different gene expression," said Joakim Lundeberg, Professor at KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden.

Typically, RNA sequencing will provide information about what RNA molecules are present in a biological sample, but not where or in which cells they are active, the researcher said.

"With this new, highly cost-effective technology, we can now get a whole new view of this complexity within the blood cancer sample. Molecular resolution of single cells is likely to become a more widely-used therapy option," Lundeberg observed.

The method provides analysis of all mRNA molecules in individual cells by binding a location tag to the molecules.

Individual cells are sorted on a specially-made glass surface and using analysis of RNA molecules with next-generation sequencing, one can tell which genes are active. 

"With the new method we can study thousands of cells in a day," Lundeberg said, in the paper reported in the journal Nature Communications.

Washington, Oct 10 (IANS) The US space agency has successfully maneuvered its spacecraft on way to asteroid Bennu, fine-tuning its trajectory to reach it and bring back samples from a potentially dangerous asteroid that could collide with the Earth.

The Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) spacecraft is on a journey that could revolutionise our understanding of the early solar system.

The OSIRIS-REx spacecraft fired its Trajectory Correction Maneuver (TCM) thrusters for the first time last weekend in order to adjust its trajectory on the outbound journey.

"We're very excited about what this mission can tell us about the origin of our solar system, and we celebrate the bigger picture of science that is helping us make discoveries and accomplish milestones that might have been science fiction yesterday, but are science facts today," said NASA Administrator Charles Bolden.

The $800 million mission's main goal is to collect a small sample of rocks and surface soil from Bennu that finds a place in NASA's list of Potentially Hazardous Asteroids.

Asteroids like Bennu are remnants from the formation of our solar system more than 4.5 billion years ago. Scientists suspect that asteroids may have been a source of the water and organic molecules for the early Earth and other planetary bodies.

Although the odds are low, scientist have calculated that Bennu -- which is the size of a small mountain -- may impact Earth sometime between 2175 and 2199.

If all goes according to plan, OSIRIS-REx will arrive in August 2018 and spend the next two years photographing and mapping the asteroid's surface to better understand its chemical and mineralogical composition, including selecting the sample site.

Then, in July 2020, the spacecraft will touch the asteroid for only three seconds to collect at least 60 grams of loose rocks and dust using a device called the Touch-and-Go Sample Acquisition Mechanism and store the material in a sample return capsule.

OSIRIS-REx will return the sample to Earth in September 2023, when it will then be transported to NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston for examination.

​Beijing, Oct 7 (IANS) China may be the only space station in service when the International Space Station (ISS) retires in 2024, an official of the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC) said on Friday.

China plans to launch the experimental core module of its space station around 2018 with a Long March-5 heavyload carrier rocket, and the 20 tonne combination space station will be sent into orbit around 2022, Xinhua news agency quoted Chairman of CASC Lei Fanpei as saying.

CASC is a major space developer.

When the International Space Station, China's space station may be the only one left in service, Lei said.

China's space station will include a core module and two lab modules, with ports that will allow multiple spacecraft to dock, according to Lei.

Following this, a manned spacecraft and cargo spacecraft will travel between the space station and the Earth to provide supplies. Taikonauts -- Chinese astronaut -- can stay at the space station for over one year.

The space station has a designed life of 10 years in orbit which is 400 km above the Earth's surface.

With this space station, China will become the second country after Russia to have developed a space station, Lei said.

China in 1992 made a three-step strategy for its manned space program, the large-scale manned space station being the last step.

In mid October, the Shenzhou-11 spacecraft would transport two taikonauts to Tiangong-2. They would stay there for 30 days.

​New York, Oct 6 (IANS) Researchers at Stanford University have developed a smartphone microscope that allows kids to play games or make more serious observations with miniature light-seeking microbes called Euglena.

"Many subject areas like engineering or programming have neat toys that get kids into it, but microbiology does not have that to the same degree," said Ingmar Riedel-Kruse, Assistant Professor of Bioengineering. 

"The initial idea for this project was to play games with living cells on your phone. And then it developed much beyond that to enable self-driven inquiry, measurement and building your own instrument," Riedel-Kruse noted.

Riedel-Kruse named his device the LudusScope after the Latin word "Ludus," which means "play," "game" or "elementary school". 

The LudusScope consists of a platform for the microscope slide where the Euglena swim freely, surrounded by four LEDs. 

Kids can influence the swimming direction of these light-responsive microbes with a joystick that activates the LEDs.

Above the platform, a smartphone holder positions the phone's camera over a microscope eyepiece, providing a view of the cells below.

On the phone, children can run a variety of software that overlay on top of the image of the cells. 

One looks like the 1980s video game Pac-Man, with a maze containing small white dots. Kids can select one cell to track, then use the LED lights to control which direction the cell swims in an attempt to guide it around the maze and collect the dots. 

Another game looks like a soccer stadium. 

Kids earn points by guiding the Euglena through the goal posts.

Other non-game applications provide microscope scale-bars, real-time displays of swimming speed or zoomed-in views of individual cells. 

These let kids collect data on Euglena behaviour, swimming speed and natural biological variability. 

The details of the LudusScope were published in the journal PLOS ONE