Knowledge Update

​New Delhi, Feb 24 (IANS) Mobile communication app Truecaller has become the only platform apart from Facebook and Google that delivers over 100 million impressions in a single day, a company statement said on Friday. An impression is when an ad is fetched from its source, and is countable. Whether the ad is clicked or not is not taken into account. Each time an ad is fetched, it is counted as one impression. The daily impression on Truecaller's ad platform has grown with over 200 per cent during the past six months, the company said. "Our targeting capabilities backed by call intent based approach ensures brands witness desired visibility and engagement with Truecaller users," said Tejinder Gill, Head of India Operations, Truecaller, in a statement. The mobile communication app delivered over 133 million impressions for e-commerce portal Jabong. "Truecaller has been fantastic for us in terms of delivering high impact and reach amongst smartphone users," added Rahul Taneja, Chief Business Officer, Jabong.

New York, Feb 24 (IANS) Fructose -- simple sugar found in fruits, vegetables, table sugar, and many processed foods -- is converted in the human brain from glucose, according to a new study.

Previous studies have established that excess consumption of fructose contributes to high blood sugar and chronic diseases like obesity. But it was not known whether fructose was produced in the brain or crossed over from the bloodstream.

"In this study, we show for the first time that fructose can be produced in the human brain," said first author Janice Hwang, Assistant Professor at Yale University, in the US.

The study showed that high concentration of fructose in the brain was due to a metabolic pathway called the polyol pathway that converts glucose to fructose.

"By showing that fructose in the brain is not simply due to dietary consumption of fructose, we've shown fructose can be generated from any sugar you eat. It adds another dimension into understanding fructose's effects on the brain," Hwang added, in the paper published in the journal JCI Insight. 

Glucose in the brain sends signals of fullness, but that is not the case with fructose. The conversion of glucose to fructose in the brain also occurs in other parts of the body.

This polyol pathway may be one other mechanism by which high blood sugar can exert its adverse effects.

The finding also raises questions about fructose's effects on the brain and eating behaviour, Hwang said.

For the study, the team gave eight healthy, lean individuals infusions of glucose over a four-hour period, where the sugar concentrations in the brains and blood of the participants were assessed.

The results revealed that cerebral fructose levels rose significantly in response to a glucose infusion, with minimal changes in fructose levels in the blood

​New York, Feb 24 (IANS) Astronomers have spotted an enormous, glowing blob of gas in the distant universe, with no obvious source of power for the light it is emitting.

Called an "enormous Lyman-alpha nebula" (ELAN), it is the brightest and among the largest of these rare objects, only a handful of which have been observed, the researchers said.

The newly discovered nebula was found at a distance of 10 billion light years in the middle of a region with an extraordinary concentration of galaxies. 

Researchers found this massive overdensity of early galaxies, called a "protocluster," through a novel survey project led by Zheng Cai, Hubble postdoctoral fellow at University of California, Santa Cruz in the US.

"Our survey was not trying to find nebulae. We're looking for the most overdense environments in the early universe, the big cities where there are lots of galaxies," said Cai, who is first author of a paper on the discovery to be published in the Astrophysical Journal.

"We found this enormous nebula in the middle of the protocluster, near the peak density," Cai said.

ELANs are huge blobs of gas surrounding and extending between galaxies in the intergalactic medium. 

They are thought to be parts of the network of filaments connecting galaxies in a vast cosmic web. 

Previously discovered ELANs are likely illuminated by the intense radiation from quasars, but it is not clear what is causing the hydrogen gas in the newly discovered nebula to emit Lyman-alpha radiation (a characteristic wavelength of light absorbed and emitted by hydrogen atoms), the researchers said.

The newly discovered ELAN is known as MAMMOTH-1.

"It's a terrifically energetic phenomenon without an obvious power source," said study co-author J. Xavier Prochaska, Professor at University of California, Santa Cruz.

​London, Feb 24 (IANS) Have a sweet tooth? Beware, you may be at risk of developing Alzheimer's disease, as a study has found a specific molecular link between abnormally high blood sugar levels, or hyperglycaemia -- a key characteristic of diabetes and obesity -- and Alzheimer's disease.

The findings showed that excess glucose damages a vital enzyme involved with inflammation response to the early stages of Alzheimer's and that is the reason behind diabetes patients having an increased risk of developing the disease compared to healthy individuals.

"Excess sugar is well known to be bad for us when it comes to diabetes and obesity, but this potential link with Alzheimer's disease is yet another reason that we should be controlling sugar intake in our diets," said Omar Kassaar, from the University of Bath in Britain.

For the study, published in the journal Scientific Reports, the team studied brain samples from people with and without Alzheimer's using a sensitive technique to detect glycation -- the bonding of a sugar molecule.

The results showed that in the early stages of Alzheimer's, glycation damages an enzyme called MIF (macrophage migration inhibitory factor) which plays a role in immune response and insulin regulation.

MIF is involved in the build-up of abnormal proteins in the brain during Alzheimer's. This inhibition and reduction of MIF activity caused by glycation could be the "tipping point" in disease progression, the researchers said.

"Normally MIF would be part of the immune response to the build-up of abnormal proteins in the brain and we think that because sugar damage reduces some MIF functions and completely inhibits others that this could be a tipping point that allows Alzheimer's to develop," explained Jean van den Elsen, Professor at the University of Bath.

The study may be vital to developing a chronology of how Alzheimer's progresses and help identify those at risk of Alzheimer's and lead to new treatments or ways to prevent the disease, the researchers noted.

Sydney, Feb 24 (IANS) Sweating depends on body size, weight and not on gender, meaning that larger individuals sweat more than smaller ones during exercises in warm and tolerable conditions, a study has found, negating the conventional belief that gender influences sweat.

The body cools itself down in two main ways: Sweating and increasing circulation to the skin's surface. Body shape and size dictates which of these two is relied upon for heat loss, the researchers said. 

"Gender has long been thought to influence sweating and skin blood flow during heat stress. We found that these heat loss responses are, in fact, gender independent during exercise in conditions where the body can successfully regulate its temperature," said lead author Sean Notley from the University of Wollongong in Australia.

The study found that smaller males and females with more surface area per kg of body mass are more dependent on heat loss through increasing circulation and less dependent upon sweating.

For the study, published in the journal Experimental Physiology, the team looked at skin blood flow and sweating responses in 36 men and 24 women.

They performed two trials -- one of light exercise and the other of moderate -- at 28 degrees Celsius and 36 per cent humidity. 

These are conditions where the body is able to mitigate the additional heat produced during exercise and prevent further rises in body temperature by increasing sweating and blood flow to the skin.

The results showed that the body temperature changes were same in all participants within each trial regardless of the gender.

New York, Feb 24 (IANS) Nature's clock is running fast in the Arctic, thanks to climate change. Due to diminishing sea ice cover, spring is coming sooner to some plant species in the low Arctic of Greenland, while other species are delaying their emergence amid warming winters, says a study.

The timing of seasonal events, such as first spring growth, flower bud formation and blooming make up a plant's phenology -- the window of time it has to grow, produce offspring, and express its life history. It can be called "nature's clock."

While how early a plant emerges from its winter slumber depends on the species, the study, published in the journal Biology Letters, demonstrates that the Arctic landscape is changing rapidly. 

Such changes carry implications for the ecological structure of the region for years to come.

"The Arctic is really dynamic, and it's changing in a direction that won't be recognisable as the same Arctic to those of us who have been working there for decades," said lead author Eric Post, a polar ecologist at the University of California - Davis in the US.

"The picture is definitely being reorganised," Post said.

The study covered 12 years of observations at a West Greenland field site, about 240 km inland from the Davis Strait. 

The site is near Russell Glacier, a dynamic front protruding from the massive inland ice sheet that covers most of the island. 

Each year from early May to late June, researchers looked daily for the first signs of growth in plots enclosing individual plant species.

They found that warming winters and springs associated with declining arctic sea ice cover created a mixture of speed demons, slowpokes and those in between. 

One racehorse of a sedge species now springs out of the proverbial gate a full 26 days earlier than it did a decade ago. 

This was the greatest increase in the timing of emergence the researchers had seen on record in the Arctic.

"When we started studying this, I never would have imagined we'd be talking about a 26-day per decade rate of advance," Post said.

"That's almost an entire growing season. That's an eye-opening rate of change," Post said.

​London, Feb 23 (IANS) Announcing its entry into the $4 billion mobile data connectivity and cross-border Internet of Things (IoT) market, Tata Communications on Thursday unveiled "MOVE" platform that will enable humans and IoT devices to connect seamlessly on a global scale.

​Kathmandu, Feb 23 (IANS) India has approved 16 road projects to be undertaken through its financial assistance to the Himalayan country under the third Line of Credit.

The matter was agreed upon here on Wednesday during the 5th bilateral two-day Line of Credit (LoC) Review Meeting between the two governments.

​New York, Feb 23 (IANS) US wireless communications service provider Verizon and Swedish communication technology firm Ericsson are set to put 5G network on trial in multiple cities across the US.

​London, Feb 23 (IANS) People who suffer long-term stress may also be more prone to gaining extra kilos overtime, says a study. The findings, published in the journal Obesity, are based on examination of hair samples for levels of cortisol, a hormone which regulates the body's response to stress. The study showed that exposure to higher levels of cortisol over several months is associated with people being more heavily, and more persistently, overweight. "People who had higher hair cortisol levels also tended to have larger waist measurements, which is important because carrying excess fat around the abdomen is a risk factor for heart disease, diabetes, and premature death," said lead researcher Sarah Jackson from the University College London. "These results provide consistent evidence that chronic stress is associated with higher levels of obesity," Jackson added. Chronic stress has long been hypothesised to be implicated in obesity -- people tend to report overeating and 'comfort eating' foods high in fat, sugar and calories in times of stress, and the stress hormone cortisol plays an important role in metabolism and determining where fat is stored. Previous studies looking at the link between cortisol and obesity relied mainly on measurements of the hormone in blood, saliva or urine which may vary according to the time of day and other situational factors. These studies failed to capture long-term cortisol levels. This research involved 2,527 men and women aged 54 and older taking part in the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing, taking data over a four-year period. In the research, the scientists took a lock of hair two centimetre long from each participant which was cut as close possible to a person's scalp. This represented approximately two months' hair growth with associated accumulated levels of cortisol. The researchers found that people who had higher levels of cortisol present in their hair tended to have larger waist circumference measurements, were heavier, and had a higher body mass index (BMI).