Knowledge Update

​New York, Dec 20 (IANS) If you are not physically with your family this Christmas, Facebook Messenger's latest group chat feature rolled out on Monday can mitigate the distance.

​New York, Dec 20 (IANS) Inspired by Iron Man's artificial assistant (AI) "Jarvis" and his capabilities, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has coded and developed his own "Jarvis" to run his home.

New York, Dec 20 (IANS) Popular world building game Minecraft is now available for purchase on the tvOS App Store with seven pieces of downloadable content which includes the latest Ender update, a media report said. All seven pieces of the downloadable content for the "Apple TV edition" of Minecraft are included in the $19.99 price, including the Holiday 2015, Town Folk, and City Folk skin packs, as well as the Plastic, Natural, Cartoon and Festive 2016 mash-ups, Apple Insider reported. The new Ender Update, which brings a whole bunch of new single-player content to the experience, is also available for free to Minecraft Pocket players on iOS. The new Festive Mash-Up Pack 2016 can be purchased for $3.99. Minecraft is also available for Mac for $26.95 and on iOS for $6.99. Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook first announced Minecraft was coming to Apple TV in MacBook Pro event in October. Minecraft, a sandbox video game originally created by Swedish game designer Markus "Notch" Persson and later developed and published by Mojang, was first released in 2009 and was ultimately purchased by Microsoft in September of 2014. The game allows players to build in a procedurally generated world either in a game-oriented survival mode, or in a free-build mode with no constraints on materials.

New Delhi, Dec 20 (IANS) Adding another product to its mirrorless camera line-up, Sony India on Tuesday launched its new flagship APS-C sensor camera, the alpha6500 with 4D FOCUS system that can focus on a subject in 0.05 seconds. Similar to alpha6300 model, the new camera features 425 phase detection autofocus points -- the world's highest number of AF points on any interchangeable lens camera, the company said in a statement. The alpha6500 features Sony's in-camera five-axis optical image stabilisation, making it the first Sony APS-C sensor camera to offer all of the benefits of advanced in-body stabilisation, including a shutter speed advantage of approximately five steps. The model comes equipped with touch screen functionality, allowing users to lock focus on a subject simply by touching it on the screen. The alpha6500 can shoot images at up to 11 frames per second with continuous autofocus and exposure tracking. The camera also offers internal 4K movie recording, as it can shoot 4K (3840 x 2160p) video in the Super 35mm format on the full width of the image sensor. It supports the XAVC S codec during video shooting, which records at a high bit rate of up to 100 Mbps during 4K recording and 50 Mbps during Full HD shooting. The alpha6500 features an APS-C sized 24.2 MP12 Exmor CMOS sensor that works together with a BIONZ X image processor. It is Wi-Fi, QR and NFC compatible and offers location data acquisition via Bluetooth. The alpha6500 camera is available in all Sony Centres, Alpha flagship stores and major electronic stores across India for Rs 119,990 (body only).

​New York, Dec 20 (IANS) Rumours that Apple was no longer keen on the desktop business because of the emergence of portable market has been discarded by CEO Tim Cook, saying new desktops were on the way. According to a report in TechCrunch on Tuesday that cited a posting by Apple CEO to an employee message board, the tech giant assures that "great desktops" are upcoming. "Some folks in the media have raised the question about whether we are committed to desktops," Cook wrote. "If there is any doubt about that with our teams, let me be very clear -- we have great desktops in our roadmap. Nobody should worry about that," Cook added. Answering to a question, Cook said the Mac desktop was very strategic for Apple. "It is unique compared to the notebook because you can pack a lot more performance in a desktop -- the largest screens, the most memory and storage, a greater variety of I/O, and fastest performance. So there are many different reasons why desktops are really important, and in some cases critical, to people," wrote Cook. Cook said Apple's greatest differentiator was their culture and people who were embedded with "change the world" attitude and boldness that "good is not good enough". "They are the foundation by which everything else comes about. Without great people and a great environment that people can live in, we would not have intellectual property. We would not have the best products. We would not have the inventions or features I mentioned earlier," Cook noted.

​New Delhi, Dec 20 (IANS) Beginning your day on the right note is extremely important and hence it is necessary to follow some basic rituals like looking sharp and sweating it out for that confidence. Experts at Gillette dole out tips on how one can control their day by following five morning rituals. * Sweat it out: Nothing like a morning workout to boost your metabolism and stay energetic for the rest of the day. A walk, a run, a tennis match, a swim, pick one that works well with your body clock and fitness levels. * Eat right: A power breakfast can put you in the right mood to tackle the day's biggest tasks. * Look sharp: Start your day with a close, precise shave and a sharp dress code. How you look makes a world of difference to your confidence. Look, feel and perform your best every day. * Say no to distractions: Invest your time on social media instead of spending it. Say yes to everything that improves the quality of your work and say no to social media notifications that distract you from your productive morning routine. * Plan ahead: Experts believe in ‘power hour', an hour dedicated to planning your day and tackling the biggest and most difficult task.

London, Dec 20 (IANS) Using the latest satellite data that helps create an 'x-ray' view of the planet, scientists discovered a jet stream within the Earth's molten iron core.

"The European Space Agency's Swarm satellites are providing our sharpest x-ray image yet of the core. We've not only seen this jet stream clearly for the first time, but we understand why it's there," said lead researcher Phil Livermore from the University of Leeds in Britain.

"We can explain it as an accelerating band of molten iron circling the North Pole, like the jet stream in the atmosphere," Livermore said.

Because of the core's remote location under 3,000 kilometres of rock, for many years scientists have studied the Earth's core by measuring the planet's magnetic field - one of the few options available.

Previous research had found that changes in the magnetic field indicated that iron in the outer core was moving faster in the northern hemisphere, mostly under Alaska and Siberia.

But new data from the Swarm satellites revealed these changes are actually caused by a jet stream moving at more than 40 kilometres per year.

This is three times faster than typical outer core speeds and hundreds of thousands of times faster than the speed at which the Earth's tectonic plates move.

The European Space Agency's Swarm mission features a trio of satellites which simultaneously measure and untangle the different magnetic signals which stem from the Earth's core, mantle, crust, oceans, ionosphere and magnetosphere. 

They have provided the clearest information yet about the magnetic field created in the core, according to the scientists.

The study, published in the journal Nature Geoscience, found the position of the jet stream aligns with a boundary between two different regions in the core. 

The jet is likely to be caused by liquid in the core moving towards this boundary from both sides, which is squeezed out sideways.

"This feature is one of the first deep-Earth discoveries made possible by Swarm. With the unprecedented resolution now possible, it's a very exciting time - we simply don't know what we'll discover next about our planet," Rune Floberghagen, ESA's Swarm mission manager, said.

​New York, Dec 20 (IANS) Researchers have developed the first vaccine for chikungunya fever made from an insect-specific virus that does not have any effect on people, making the vaccine safe and effective.

The newly developed vaccine quickly produces a strong immune defence and completely protects mice and non-human primates from disease when exposed to the chikungunya virus, showed the findings detailed in the journal Nature Medicine.

"This vaccine offers efficient, safe and affordable protection against chikungunya and builds the foundation for using viruses that only infect insects to develop vaccines against other insect-borne diseases," said study senior author Scott Weaver, Professor at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston in the US.

Chikungunya is a mosquito-borne virus that causes a disease characterised by fever and severe joint pain, often in hands and feet, and may include headache, muscle pain, joint swelling or rash. 

There is currently no commercial chikungunya vaccine.

Traditionally, vaccine development involves tradeoffs between how quickly the vaccine works and safety. 

Live-attenuated vaccines that are made from weakened versions of a live pathogen typically offer rapid and durable immunity but reduced safety. 

On the other hand, the inability of inactivated vaccines to replicate enhances safety at the expense of effectiveness, often requiring several doses and boosters to work properly. 

There may be a risk of disease with both of these vaccine types, either from incomplete inactivation of the virus or from incomplete or unstable weakening of the live virus that is only recognised when rare vulnerable individuals contract disease.

To overcome these tradeoffs, the researchers used the Eilat virus as a vaccine platform since it only infects insects and has no impact on people. 

The researchers used an Eilat virus clone to design a hybrid virus-based vaccine containing chikungunya structural proteins.

The Eilat/Chikungunya vaccine was found to be structurally identical to natural chikungunya virus. 

The difference is that although the hybrid virus replicates very well in mosquito cells, it cannot replicate in mammals.

Within four days of a single dose, the candidate vaccine induced neutralising antibodies that lasted for more than 290 days. 

The antibodies provided complete protection against chikungunya in two different mouse models. 

In non-human primates, the vaccine elicited rapid and robust immunity -- there was neither evidence of the virus in the blood nor signs of illness such as fever after chikungunya virus infection, the study said.

​London, Dec 20 (IANS) Young girls who exhibit a poor mastery of fundamental movement skills (FMS) such as running, catching and balance are more likely to be obese than boys who have similarly low skills, according to a research.

Previous studies have shown that primary school children with a higher body mass index are likely to have poorer fundamental movement skills.

For the new study, the team assessed running, catching and balance skills of 250 girls and boys between 6-11 years, categorising their FMS as either low, medium or high.

The researchers then cross-referenced the kids' motor skills with their body fatness to investigate the relationship between the two. The children's habitual physical activity was also taken into account.

The results showed that body fatness was significantly higher among girls in the low FMS category compared with boys as well as girls with high FMS.

"What we've found is significant because it signals a need to review the strategies we have to enhance motor proficiency in girls," said lead researcher Mike Duncan, professor at Coventry University in Britain.

"The next big question is whether developmental delays in acquiring these motor skills, whether in girls or boys, may actually be the cause of children gaining unhealthy weight status," Duncan said.

The study was presented recently at the British Association of Sport and Exercise Sciences Conference 2016 in Nottingham, Britain.

New York, Dec 20 (IANS) Using a gene-editing technology, scientists have identified three human genes essential for HIV infection, a finding that may promise new targets for treatment of the deadly infection.

HIV virus has only nine genes, while humans have more than 19,000. Thus, viruses take control of human genes to make essential building blocks for their replication, the study said. 

The study focussed on human immune cells T cells, the primary targets of HIV, and to identify host genes with the most dramatic role in viral infection of T cells.

"Our goal was to identify human genes, also called host genes, that are essential for HIV to replicate but could be eliminated without harming a human patient," said Bruce Walker, Professor at Harvard Medical School in Boston, US.

In the study, using CRISPR to screen a cell line derived from HIV-susceptible CD4 T cells, the scientists identified five genes that, when inactivated, protected cells from HIV infection without affecting cellular survival. 

In addition to CD4 and CCR5, the screen identified genes for two enzymes -- TPST2 and SLC35B2 -- that modify the CCR5 molecule in a way that is required for the binding of HIV. 

An additional gene identified through the screen was ALCAM, which is involved in cell-to-cell adhesion. When CD4 T cells are exposed to low amounts of virus, as might be seen in natural transmission, loss of ALCAM was associated with striking protection from HIV infection.

The study demonstrates how CRISPR-based screens can be applied to identify host factors critical to the survival of other viral pathogens but dispensable for host cell viability. 

"CRISPR makes it possible to completely knock out genes at the DNA level; and our genome-wide, CRISPR-Cas9-based approach targets more than 18,500 genes, the vast majority of human protein-coding genes," explained Tim Wang, doctoral student at Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research -- a non-profit research institution in Massachusetts, US. 

The study was published in the journal Nature Genetics.