Knowledge Update

​The relationship between gender and language had been one of the most debated topics since the beginning of women`s movement in the late 1960s. The movement that had tried to look at the representation of gender in different fields. More specifically, the concept of gender and language is always associated with the differences between women and men in terms of the way the speech is structured and the way language is used. Thus, and because of the social norms and what every society dictates on its individuals, these differences between men and women`s speech were omnipresent across a range of languages. In this article an attempt will be made to inspect some of the gender differences common in men`s and women`s speeches.

​New York, Jan 18 (IANS) Vision deterioration in astronauts is likely owing to the lack of a day-night cycle in intracranial pressure, say scientists, adding that using a vacuum device to lower pressure for part of each day might prevent the problem.

To study how zero-gravity conditions affect intracranial pressure, researchers from University of Texas Southwestern Medical Centre recruited volunteer patients who had had a port permanently placed in their head as part of treatment for cancer. 

The ports provided a way for researchers to measure intracranial pressure. 

NASA flights then flew the eight volunteers one by one on steep up-and-down maneuvers (parabolic flights) that created 20-second intervals of weightlessness. 

The researchers measured intracranial pressure during the zero-gravity intervals and compared these with intracranial pressure during standard times of sitting, lying face upward (supine), and lying with head inclined downward.

The findings showed that intracranial pressure in zero-gravity conditions, such as exists in space, is higher than when people are standing or sitting on Earth, but lower than when people are sleeping on Earth. 

"These challenging experiments were among the most ambitious human studies ever attempted and changed the way we think about the effect of gravity - and its absence - on pressure inside the brain," said senior author Dr Benjamin Levine, Professor of Internal Medicine.

It suggests that the constancy of pressure on the back of the eye causes the vision problems astronauts experience over time.

"The information from these studies is already leading to novel partnerships with companies to develop tools to simulate the upright posture in space while astronauts sleep, thereby normalising the circadian variability in intracranial pressure," added Dr Levine.

"The idea is that the astronauts would wear negative pressure clothing or a negative pressure device while they sleep, creating lower intracranial pressure for part of each 24 hours," noted first author Dr Justin Lawley in a paper appeared in the Journal of Physiology.

​New York, Jan 18 (IANS) Fungal infections that are often poorly diagnosed worldwide causes doctors to over-prescribe antibiotics, increasing harmful resistance to antimicrobial drugs, resulting in 1.5 million deaths a year, according to a study.

Antibiotic resistance is one of the biggest threats to global health, according to the World Health Organization. 

The study showed that inadequate attention by physicians to fungal infection is the major cause failure of antibacterial treatment. 

"If we're trying to deliver globally on a comprehensive plan to prevent antimicrobial resistance and we're treating blindly for fungal infections that we don't know are present with antibiotics, then we may inadvertently be creating greater antibiotic resistance," said lead author David Perlin, Rutgers University in New Jersey, US.

Fungal infections, often undiagnosed, result in 1.5 million deaths a year, said researchers from the Global Action Fund for Fungal Infections (GAFFI) - a Britain-based organisation to promote global awareness of fungal disease.

"Fungal disease diagnostics are critical in the AMR fight and will improve survival from fungal disease across the world," added David Denning, Professor at the University of Manchester.

Inexpensive, rapid diagnostic tests are available for important fungal infections but are not being widely used.

Better training is needed to encourage health care practitioners to test for fungal infections so the correct drugs are administered.

Paying closer attention to underlying fungal infections is necessary to reduce drug resistance, Perlin said.

The study was published in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases.

​London, Jan 17 (IANS) The Bank of England is keeping a close watch on Britain's consumer spending amid signs of households dipping into their savings and amassing debts to keep spending in the face of rising inflation, media reports said.

New York, Jan 17 (IANS) A new patent filed by Microsoft hints at a device supported by flexible hinge that would transform a phone into a tablet.

The flexible hinge will also let users set up the device in tent mode similar to Lenovo's Yoga tablet.

​New York, Jan 17 (IANS) Aiming to cater to the needs of professional users, Apple is predicted to offer up to 32GB of "potentially desktop-class" RAM in its high-end MacBook Pro models in 2017 and 16GB of RAM in its 12-inch MacBook. According to the report in AppleInsider, Apple's 2017 laptop line will focus on internal component updates, notably platform-wide adoption of Intel's Kaby Lake architecture. Essentially, the Intel Skylake CPUs used in Apple's MacBook Pro only support up to 16GB of LPDDR3 RAM. Apple is also predicted to start manufacturing of a 15-inch MacBook Pro with up to 32GB of RAM in the fourth quarter. Beyond the high-end 15-inch model, Apple is expected to start production of new 13 and 15-inch MacBook Pros in the third quarter of 2017. Cupertino-based Apple in October introduced the thinnest and lightest MacBook Pro ever with Touch Bar. The MacBook Pro features sixth-generation quad-core and dual-core processors, up to 2.3 times the graphics performance over the previous generation, super-fast SSDs and up to four Thunderbolt 3 ports. The new 15-inch MacBook Pro, at just 15.5 mm thin, is 14 per cent thinner and has 20 per cent less volume than before, and weighing just 1.83 kg is nearly half a pound lighter. The 15-inch MacBook Pro, also features Touch Bar and Touch ID, a 2.6GHz quad-core Intel Core i7 processor with Turbo Boost speeds up to 3.5GHz, 16GB of memory and 256GB of flash storage. The 13-inch MacBook Pro features a 2.0GHz dual-core Intel Core i5 processor with Turbo Boost speeds up to 3.1GHz, 8GB of memory and 256GB of flash storage. The 13-inch MacBook Pro with the Touch Bar and Touch ID features a 2.9GHz dual-core Intel Core i5 processor with Turbo Boost speeds up to 3.3GHz, 8GB of memory and 256GB of flash storage.

​London, Jan 17 (IANS) The world's lightest mechanical watch revealed is a key step forward into the development of more widespread applications of graphene, officials at the University of Manchester said. Graphene, first isolated in 2004 by Nobel-winning scientists at the university, is just an atom thick, and is expected to revolutionise the automotive and aerospace industries. The watch was unveiled Monday in Geneva, Xinhua news agency reported. In a statement issued in Manchester, the university said the watch was a unique collaboration with watchmaking brand Richard Mille and racing team, McLaren F1 to create world's lightest mechanical chronograph by pairing leading graphene research with precision engineering. A spokesman at the university said: "The RM 50-03 watch is made using a unique composite incorporating graphene to manufacture a strong but lightweight new case to house the delicate watch mechanism." "The graphene composite known as Graph TPT weighs less than previous similar materials used in watchmaking." The strap of the watch has also been improved by the addition of graphene material. The rubber of the strap was also injected with graphene which has shown to improve its mechanical properties and its resistance to wear. Overall the ultralight watch weighs just 40 grams. Professor Robert Young from the University of Manchester said: "The striking watch has been precisely designed and inspired by the wishbone suspension structure of a McLaren-Honda Formula 1 car. Combining the design and materials the casing of the watch has withstood tremendous shock damage and survived unscathed in tests."

New York, Jan 17 (IANS) At a time when existing LEDs are helping to keep electricity bills low, a group of scientists has developed a more efficient and low-cost alternative to the materials used in traditional LEDs.

Princeton engineering researchers refined the manufacturing of light sources made with crystalline substances known as perovskites that provide more efficiency, lower-cost and long life to the new LEDs.

In this technique, nanoscale perovskite particles self-assemble to produce more efficient, stable and durable perovskite-based LEDs and the working was published in journal Nature Photonics.

"Our new technique allows these nanoparticles to self-assemble to create ultra-fine grained films, an advance in fabrication that makes perovskite LEDs look more like a viable alternative to existing technologies," said lead researcher Barry Rand. 

Rand's team and others researchers are exploring perovskites as a potential lower-cost alternative to gallium nitride (GaN) and other materials used in LED manufacturing. Lower-cost LEDs would speed the acceptance of the bulbs, reducing energy use and environmental impacts.

Perovskite is a mineral originally discovered in the mid-1800s in Russia and named in honour of the Russian mineralogist Lev Perovski. 

Sydney, Jan 17 (IANS) Australian astrophysicists have come a step closer to solving a galactic murder mystery on Tuesday when they studied the effects of dark matter in 11,000 galaxies, a media report said.

They saw that when gas was rapidly stripped from a galaxy, the building block of stars was lost and the galaxy was "effectively killed", said study leader Toby Brown of Melbourne's Swinburne University of Technology.

The study was conducted by researchers from the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research, a joint venture between Curtin University and The University of Western Australia, Xinhua news agency reported. 

"Galaxies are embedded in clouds of dark matter that we call dark matter halos. During their lifetimes, galaxies can inhabit halos of different sizes, ranging from masses typical of our own Milky Way to halos thousands of times more massive," Brown said.

"As galaxies fall through these larger halos, the superheated intergalactic plasma between them removes their gas in a fast-acting process called ram-pressure stripping. 

"You can think of it like a giant cosmic broom that comes through and physically sweeps the gas from the galaxies," Brown explained.

The study combined the world's largest galaxy survey -- the Sloan Digital Sky Survey -- with the largest ever set of radio observations for atomic gas -- the Arecibo Legacy Fast ALFA survey in order to solve the case.

But according to Brown, ram-pressure stripping is not the only way a galaxy can die, galaxies can also be "strangled."

"Strangulation occurs when the gas is consumed to make stars faster than it's being replenished, so the galaxy starves to death," he said.

"It's a slow-acting process. On the contrary, what ram-pressure stripping does is bop the galaxy on the head and remove its gas very quickly -- of the order of tens of millions of years -- and astronomically speaking that's very fast." 

​Beijing, Jan 17 (IANS) China will launch a satellite this year to gather electromagnetic data which may be used in monitoring and forecasting earthquakes.

According to China's earthquake administrative agencies on Tuesday, the satellite will be launched in the latter half of this year, Xinhua news agency reported. 

Movements of the Earth's crust generate electromagnetic radiation which can be observed from space.

By collecting data on the Earth's electromagnetic field, ionosphere plasma and high-energy particles, the satellite will be used in real-time monitoring of earthquakes and possible seismic precursors in China and neighbouring regions.

The satellite will be China's first space-based platform for earthquake monitoring, providing a new approach for research.

According to Shen Xuhui, deputy chief of the mission, it is designed to remain in orbit for five years and record the electromagnetic situation of earthquakes above 6 magnitude in China and quakes above 7 magnitude all over the world.

Scientists are expecting to find common factors that may be used to develop earthquake forecasting technology, Shen said.