Knowledge Update

​New York, Oct 3 (IANS) Meditation can help tame your emotions even if you are not a mindful person, suggests a new study

Mindfulness, a moment-by-moment awareness of one's thoughts, feelings and sensations, has gained worldwide popularity as a way to promote health and well-being. 

"Our findings not only demonstrate that meditation improves emotional health, but that people can acquire these benefits regardless of their 'natural' ability to be mindful," said lead investigator Yanli Lin, a graduate student at the Michigan State University. 

For the study, the team assessed 68 participants for mindfulness using a scientifically validated survey. 

The participants were then randomly assigned to engage in an 18-minute audio-guided meditation or listen to a control presentation of how to learn a new language, before viewing negative pictures (such as a bloody corpse) while their brain activity was recorded.

The participants who meditated -- they had varying levels of natural mindfulness -- showed similar levels of "emotion regulatory" brain activity as people with high levels of natural mindfulness. 

In other words, their emotional brains recovered quickly after viewing the troubling photos, essentially keeping their negative emotions in check, the researchers said.

Further, some of the participants were instructed to look at the gruesome photos "mindfully" while others received no such instruction. 

The people who viewed the photos "mindfully" showed no better ability to keep their negative emotions in check.

According to Jason Moser, Associate Professor at Michigan State University, this suggests that for non-meditators, the emotional benefits of mindfulness might be better achieved through meditation, rather than "forcing it" as a state of mind.

"If you're a naturally mindful person, and you're walking around very aware of things, you're good to go. You shed your emotions quickly," Moser said. 

"If you're not naturally mindful, then meditating can make you look like a person who walks around with a lot of mindfulness," Moser observed. 

But for people who are not naturally mindful and have never meditated, forcing oneself to be mindful 'in the moment' doesn't work. You'd be better off meditating for 20 minutes, the researchers concluded in the paper published in Frontiers in Human Neuroscience. 

​London, Oct 3 (IANS) In a promising step towards being able to manipulate and control the behaviour of high energy, or 'hot', electrons, scientists have, for the first time, identified a method of visualising the quantum behaviour of electrons on a surface.

Hot electrons are necessary for a number of processes and the implications of being able to manipulate their behaviour are far-reaching -- from enhancing the efficiency of solar energy, to improving the targetting of radiotherapy for cancer treatment.

"Hot electrons are essential for a number of processes -- certain technologies are entirely reliant on them. But they're notoriously difficult to observe due to their short lifespan, about a millionth of a billionth of a second," said one of the researchers Peter Sloan from University of Bath in England.

"This visualisation technique gives us a really new level of understanding," Sloan noted.

In the experiment, a Scanning Tunnelling Microscope was used to inject electrons into a silicon surface, decorated with toluene molecules. As the injected charge propagated from the tip, it induced the molecules to react and 'lift off' from the surface.

By measuring the precise atomic positions from which molecules departed on injection, the team were able to identify that electrons were governed by quantum mechanics close to the tip, and then by more classical behaviour further away.

The team found that the molecular lift-off was "suppressed" near the point of charge injection, because the classical behaviour was inhibited. 

The number of reactions close to the tip increased rapidly until reaching a radius, up to 15 nanometres away, before seeing relatively slow decay of reactions beyond that point more in keeping with classical behaviour. 

This radius, at which the behaviour changes from quantum to classical, could be altered by varying the energy of the electrons injected, said the study published in the journal Nature Communications.

"When an electron is captured by a molecule of toluene, we see the molecule lift off from the surface -- imagine the Apollo lander leaving the moon's surface. By comparing before and after images of the surface we measure the pattern of these molecular launch sites and reveal the behaviour of electrons in a manner not possible before," Professor Richard Palmer from the University of Birmingham explained.

​London, Oct 3 (IANS) It may appear counter-intuitive, but a new study suggests that you are more likely to get help from others in emergency situation than in harmless everyday condition as extreme conditions bring out the best in people, especially those who are altruistic and pro-social.

"Emergency situations seem to amplify people's natural tendency to cooperate," said one of the researchers Mehdi Moussaid from Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin, Germany.

In the study published in the journal Scientific Reports, the researchers showed that readiness to help depends heavily on personality. 

The experiments showed that pro-social and altruistic people in particular often helped others even more in an emergency situation than in a relaxed and non-threatening situation, whereas selfish participants became less cooperative.

The researchers invited 104 individuals to participate in a computer game that was developed specifically for the experiment. 

In this "help-or-escape dilemma game," participants under time and monetary pressure had to decide whether they were willing to risk taking time to help others before reaching their goal or saving themselves in two different situations ? one everyday and one emergency situation. 

After the game, the researchers measured participants' social value orientation -- that is, their concern for others -- and categorised them as having a pro-social or individualistic profile.

The researchers found that many of those categorised as pro-social were more helpful in the emergency situation -- 44 per cent of them were more ready to help in the emergency than in the everyday situation. 

The opposite was true of participants categorised as individualistic, 52 per cent of whom reduced their cooperative behaviour in the emergency situation.

​Sydney, Oct 4 (IANS) Your colleagues at work - and not your spouse or kids -- decide how healthy you will be as you age, as you are likely to spend an average of one third of your day on the job.

According to the researchers, health at work is determined to a large extent by our social relationships in workplace -- and, more particularly, the social groups we form there.

In a new meta-analysis covering 58 studies and more than 19,000 people across the globe, psychologists found out that how strongly we identify with the people or organisation where we work is associated with better health and lower burnout.

"This study is the first large-scale analysis showing that organisational identification is related to better health," said lead researcher Dr Niklas Steffens from University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia.

"The results show that both performance and health are enhanced to the extent that workplaces provide people with a sense of 'we' and 'us'," Steffens added.

The team reviewed 58 studies covering people in a variety of occupations, from service and health to sales and military work, in 15 countries.

"Social identification contributes to both psychological and physiological health, but the health benefits are stronger for psychological health," said Steffens.

The positive psychological benefit may stem from the support provided by the work group but also the meaning and purpose that people derive from membership in social groups.

"We are less burnt out and have greater well-being when our team and our organisation provide us with a sense of belonging and community -- when it gives us a sense of 'we-ness'," Steffens pointed out.

The authors also found that the health benefits of identifying with the workplace are strongest when there are similar levels of identification within a group -- that is, when identification is shared.

So if you identify strongly with your organisation, then you get more health benefits if everyone else identifies strongly with the organisation too.

The team was surprised to find that more the women present in a sample, the weaker the identification-health relationship grew.

"This was a finding that we had not predicted and, in the absence of any prior theorising, we can only guess what gives rise to this effect," said Steffens in a paper appeared in the journal Personality and Social Psychology Review.

One of the reasons may relate to the fact that there are still many workplaces that have somewhat "masculine" cultures.

This mean that even when female employees identify with their team or organisation, they still feel somewhat more marginal within their team or organisation.

The team also recommends exploring the role of leadership: how leaders manage teams and groups has a strong influence on the social identification-health connection.

"Leaders play a key role in shaping a sense of group identity in the workplace," Steffens added.

​New York, Oct 4 (IANS) Do you know why some people are better at performing complex duties and multi-tasking? Because their brains are not static and the level of coordination between different parts of their brains seems to ebb and flow.

After analysing the brains of people at rest or carrying out complex tasks, researchers at Stanford University have learnt that the integration between those brain regions also fluctuates.

When the brain is more integrated, people do better on complex tasks.

"The brain is stunning in its complexity and I feel like, in a way, we've been able to describe some of its beauty in this story," said study lead author Mac Shine, post-doctoral researcher in the lab of Russell Poldrack, Professor of psychology.

"We've been able to say, 'Here's this underlying structure that you would never have guessed was there, that might help us explain the mystery of why the brain is organized in the way that it is,"" Shine added.

For the past 100 years, scientists have understood that different areas of the brain serve unique purposes. Only recently have they realised that the organisation isn't static.

In a three-part project, the researchers used open source data from the Human Connectome Project to examine how separate areas of the brain coordinate their activity over time - both while people are at rest and while they are attempting a challenging mental task.

They then tested a potential neurobiological mechanism to explain these findings.

For the resting state condition, the researchers used a novel analysis technique to examine functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data of people who weren't doing any particular task.

They found that even without any intentional stimulation, the brain network fluctuates between periods of higher and lower coordinated blood flow in the different areas of the brain.

The researchers found that the brains of participants were more integrated while working on complicated task than they were during quiet rest.

"This research shows really clear relationships between how the brain is functioning at a network level and how the person's actually performing on these psychological tasks," noted co-author Poldrack in a paper appeared in the journal Neuron.

The researchers plan to further investigate the connection between neural gain and integration in the brain.

They also want to figure out how universal these findings are to other behaviours, such as attention and memory.

This research may also eventually help us better understand cognitive disorders, such as Alzheimer's disease or Parkinson's disease.

​London, Oct 4 (IANS) Suffering from those itchy red pimples? Take heart, as your skin may age more slowly than those with no history of acne, a study has found.

Signs of ageing such as wrinkles and skin thinning often appear much later in people who have experienced acne in their lifetime. 

It has been suggested that this is due to increased oil production but there are likely to be other factors involved, the study said.

The findings revealed that people who have previously suffered from acne are likely to have longer telomeres in their white blood cells, meaning that their cells could be better protected against ageing.

Telomeres are repetitive nucleotide sequences found at the end of chromosomes, which protect them from deteriorating during the process of replication. 

The telomeres gradually break down and shrink as cells age, eventually leading to cell death, which is a normal part of human growth and ageing.

"Our findings suggest that the cause could be linked to the length of telomeres which appears to be different in acne sufferers and means their cells may be protected against ageing," said lead author Simone Ribero, a dermatologist at King's College London. 

Previous studies have shown that white blood cell telomere length can be predictive of biological ageing and is linked with telomere length in other cells in the body.

"For many years dermatologists have identified that the skin of acne sufferers appears to age more slowly than in those who have not experienced any acne in their lifetime. Whilst this has been observed in clinical settings, the cause of this was previously unclear," Ribero said.

'Longer telomeres are likely to be one factor explaining the protection against premature skin ageing in individuals who previously suffered from acne," added Veronique Bataille from King's College London. 

In the study the team measured the length of white blood cell telomeres in 1,205 twins. 

A quarter of the twins reported having experienced acne in their lifetime.

Statistical analyses which adjusted for age, relatedness, weight and height showed that telomere length in acne sufferers was significantly longer, meaning that white blood cells were more protected from the usual deterioration with age. 

The researchers also examined gene expression in pre-existing skin biopsies from the same twins to identify possible gene pathways linked to acne. 

One gene pathway (the p53 pathway), which regulates programmed cell death, was found to be less expressed in acne sufferers' skin. 

This requires further investigation to identify other genes involved in cell ageing and how they differ in acne sufferers, the researchers noted, in the paper published in the Journal of Investigative Dermatology.

Washington, Oct 4 (IANS) After collecting some key samples on the Red Planet for the past four years, NASA's Curiosity rover is driving toward uphill destinations as part of its two-year mission extension that commenced from October 1.

The destinations include a ridge capped with material rich in the iron-oxide mineral hematite, about two-and-half km ahead and an exposure of clay-rich bedrock beyond that.

These are key exploration sites on lower Mount Sharp where Curiosity is currently investigating evidence of ancient, water-rich environments that contrast with the harsh, dry conditions on the surface of Mars today.

"We continue to reach higher and younger layers on Mount Sharp. Even after four years of exploring near and on the mountain, it still has the potential to completely surprise us," said Indian-origin project scientist Ashwin Vasavada from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California.

Curiosity has taken more than 180,000 images since landing on Mars in August 2012. 

Newly available vistas include the rover's latest self-portrait from the colour camera at the end of its arm and a scenic panorama from the colour camera at the top of the mast.

"Curiosity's assignment is the ongoing study of ancient habitability and the potential for life," said Curiosity Programme Scientist Michael Meyer from NASA.

This latest drill site -- the 14th for Curiosity -- is in a geological layer about 600 feet thick called the Murray formation. 

Curiosity has climbed nearly half of this formation's thickness so far and found it consists primarily of mudstone, formed from mud that accumulated at the bottom of ancient lakes. 

The findings indicate that the lake environment was enduring, not fleeting. 

For roughly the first half of the new two-year mission extension, the rover team anticipates investigating the upper half of the Murray formation.

"We will see whether that record of lakes continues further," Vasavada said. 

The "Hematite Unit" and "Clay Unit" above the Murray formation were identified from Mars orbiter observations before Curiosity's landing. 

"The Hematite and the Clay units likely indicate different environments from the conditions recorded in older rock beneath them and different from each other. It will be interesting to see whether either or both were habitable environments," added Vasavada.

The mission is also monitoring the modern environment of Mars, including natural radiation levels.

New York, Oct 4 (IANS) US researchers have identified 41 genes that may cause gum disease, paving the way for developing compounds that can be used in targeted treatment of severe periodontitis before loss of teeth and supportive bone occurs.

Periodontal disease is inflammation of the tissue around the teeth, often causing shrinkage of the gums and loosening of the teeth.

In the study, the team "reverse-engineered" the gene expression data to build a map of the genetic interactions that lead to periodontitis and identify individual genes that appear to have the most influence on the disease.

"Our approach narrows down the list of potentially interesting regulatory genes involved in periodontitis," said Panos N Papapanou, Professor at Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC) in New York.

"This allows us to focus on the handful of genes that represent the most important players in the process rather than the whole transcriptome," Papapanou added.

The researchers examined RNA from healthy and diseased gum tissues of 120 patients with periodontitis. 

Many of the genes identified by Papapanou and his team are implicated in immune and inflammatory pathways, confirming laboratory and clinical observations of the development of periodontal disease.

"Now it's important to do the downstream work of validating these master regulator genes in the lab before we can test these genes in experimental models," Papapanou noted in the paper published in the Journal of Dental Research.

Beijing, Oct 2 (IANS) China will have 240 million people aged 60 or above by 2020.

By 2020, senior citizens will make up 17 per cent of the population, Xinhua news agency on Sunday quoted Liu Qian, deputy head of the National Health and Family Planning Commission, as saying.

Liu said there were more than 260 million chronically ill patients in the country. These illnesses were to blame for over 86 per cent of deaths in China.

Liu said the per capita annual spending on health was estimated at around $472 last year.

​New York, Oct 2 (IANS) Using a food additive, a team of researchers has created environment-friendly plastic solar cells that can be manufactured at room temperature.

The efficient, semi-printed solar cells have implications for large-scale commercial production, said the researchers from North Carolina State University and the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Two of the key advantages are that these cells can be mass produced in the open air environment and that the process doesn't pose health or environmental hazards, said Long Ye, post-doctoral research scholar in physics at NC State.

Ye and his colleagues developed a semi-printed plastic solar cell that utilised o-methylanisole (o-MA) as the solvent. 

O-MA is a commonly used flavouring agent in foods and is non-toxic to humans.

Plastic solar cells are popular because they are lightweight, flexible, transparent and inexpensive to manufacture. 

Unfortunately, the halogen-containing solvents used in their manufacture are an obstacle to large-scale commercialisation. 

These solvents are key to making sure that the solar cell's morphology, or structure, maximises its energy efficiency. However, they are environmentally hazardous. 

"Hopefully, this work can help pave the way for printing solar cells in ambient air (room temperature)," Ye added in a paper that appeared in the journal Chemistry of Materials.