Knowledge Update

London, July 13 (IANS) Cycling, often marked as a recreational activity, can significantly reduce the risk of developing Type 2 diabetes (T2D), if used as a means of transport to work daily, suggests a research.

The findings showed that people who took up habitual cycling were at 20 per cent lower risk for T2D than non-cyclists.

"Because cycling can be included in everyday activities, it may be appealing to a large part of the population. This includes people who due to lack of time, would not otherwise have the resources to engage in physical activity," said Martin Rasmussen from the University of Southern Denmark.

Further, cycling can lower the risk of various chronic diseases not only in young people but also people who are in their middle age or are entering old age, the researcher said.

"We find it especially interesting that those who started cycling had a lower risk of Type 2 diabetes, given that the study population were men and women of middle and old age," Rasmussen added.

In addition, the risk of developing T2D appeared to decrease with the time spent in cycling per week.

For the study, the team included 24,623 men and 27,890 women from Denmark, between the ages of 50 and 65, and compared the association between self-reported recreational and commuter cycling habits with T2D incidence measured in the Danish National Diabetes Registry.

It seems beneficial to encourage adults of middle and old age to engage in commuter and recreational cycling to prevent the development of T2D in late adulthood, said the paper published in the journal PLOS Medicine.

​New York, July 12 (IANS) Water can be the potential secret weapon in the fight against the ever-burgeoning waistline, finds a study.

According to researchers, drinking water which contains no carbohydrates, fat or protein -- key factors for obesity -- may help avoid overeating and thus lead to a healthier weight.

"Staying hydrated is good for you no matter what, and our study suggests it may also be linked to maintaining a healthy weight," said lead author Tammy Chang, Assistant Professor at University of Michigan, in the US.

"Our findings suggest that hydration may deserve more attention when thinking about addressing obesity on a population level," Chang added.

The findings showed that people who are obese and have a higher body mass index (BMI) are more likely to be inadequately hydrated.

On the other, people with inadequately water content are also likely to be obese and have a higher BMI.

Staying hydrated by drinking water and eating more water-loaded fruits and vegetables can help with weight management, specially in obese individuals.

However, "the link between hydration and weight is not clear. Our study further explains this relationship on a population level using an objective measure of hydration," Chang noted.

In addition, people with higher BMIs, who are expected to have higher water needs might also demonstrate behaviours that lead to inadequate hydration, the researchers said.

For the study, published in Annals of Family Medicine journal, the team looked at a nationally representative sample of 9,528 adults. Roughly a third of the adults, who spanned ages 18 to 64, were inadequately hydrated.​

​July 12 (IANS) Pomegranates are found with a potential to boost muscle strength and help to counteract the ageing, say researchers.

The findings showed that when we drink the pomegranate juice, our body produces Urolithin A -- a molecule.

When this molecule gets transformed by microbes in the gut, it enables the muscle cells to protect themselves against ageing and also increases the muscle mass.

As we age, our cells increasingly struggle to recycle the mitochondria -- the powerhouse of the cells -- and are no longer able to carry out their vital function and thus gets accumulated in the cell.

This degradation affects the health of many tissues, including muscles, which gradually weaken over the years and leads to age-related various diseases.

Urolithin A has been found to re-establish the cell's ability to recycle the components of the defective mitochondria.

"It's the only known molecule that can relaunch the mitochondrial clean-up process, otherwise known as mitophagy," said Patrick Aebischer, President, Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne -- a research institute in Switzerland.

"It's a completely natural substance, and its effect is powerful and measurable," Aebischer added.

For the study, the team tested their hypothesis on the nematode C.elegans - roundworm - which is considered elderly, after just 8-10 days.

The lifespan of worms exposed to urolithin A increased by more than 45 per cent compared with the control group.

In the rodent studies, older mice, around two years of age, exposed to urolithin A showed 42 per cent better endurance while running than equally old mice in the control group.

However, pomegranate itself doesn't contain the miracle molecule, but rather its precursor, the researchers said.

Depending on the species of animal and the flora present in the gut microbiome, the amount of urolithin A produced can vary widely.

For those without the right microbes in their guts, urolithin A are not produced, they noted.

"For urolithin A to be produced in our intestines, the bacteria must be able to break down what we're eating. When, via digestion, a substance is produced that is of benefit to us, natural selection favours both the bacteria involved and their host," explained Chris Rinsch, CEO of Amazentis -- a life sciences company in Switzerland.

Rinsch also said precursors to urolithin A are found not only in pomegranates, but also in smaller amounts in many nuts and berries.

The findings, published in the journal Nature Medicine, are under trail in humans.​

​London, July 11 (IANS) Apart from reducing the risk of cancer and heart attacks, consuming up to eight portions of more fruit and vegetables a day can substantially increase people's happiness levels in life, finds a new study.

"Eating fruit and vegetables apparently boosts our happiness far more quickly than it improves human health,” said Andrew Oswald, professor at the University of Warwick in London.

The findings showed that happiness increased incrementally for each extra daily portion of fruit and vegetables up to eight portions per day.

People who changed from almost no fruit and vegetables to eight portions of a day showed an increase in life satisfaction.

Usually people's motivation to eat healthy food is weakened by the fact that these were predictive of alterations in happiness and satisfaction later in life.

“However, well-being improvements from increased consumption of fruit and vegetables are closer to immediate," Oswald added.

Large positive psychological benefits were found within two years of an improved diet consisting of more fruit and vegetables, the researchers said.

"There is a psychological payoff now from fruit and vegetables -- not just a lower health risk decades later," noted Redzo Mujcic, researcher at University of Queensland in Australia.

The results could be used by health professionals to persuade people to consume more fruit and vegetables, particularly in the developed world where the typical citizen eats an unhealthy diet, said the paper to be published in the American Journal of Public Health.

For the study, the team followed food diaries of 12,385 randomly selected people.

The authors adjusted the effects on incident changes in happiness and life satisfaction for people's changing incomes and personal circumstances.

​London, July 7 (IANS) Grouping young tennis players according to their physical maturity rather than their chronological age could help us develop future tennis champions, suggests new research.

Boys and girls can vastly vary in their rates of growth and maturity during adolescence.

Those who mature early are taller, quicker, bigger and stronger, giving them a significant advantage over their late maturing peers. 

"Tennis is a sport that favours youth who are taller and mature earlier than their peers. Our data show that this selection bias impacts girls from the age of 10 and boys from the age of 12,” said Sean Cumming, Senior Lecturer in Health at University of Bath in England.

"Every extra inch in height of a player increases the velocity of their serve by five per cent. At the elite level, it is quite common to find junior players, especially adolescent boys, who are six foot or greater in height," Cumming noted.

This means that later maturing players are often overlooked in the elite tennis selection process.

"While early maturing boys and girls have initial advantages, the pressure to win can lead them to play to their physical strengths at the expense of their technical development,” Cumming said.

"In contrast, talented, yet late maturing players might be excluded or overlooked by talent spotters on the basis of physical characteristics that are not fully realised until adulthood," Cumming explained.

The research team, which includes mathematicians from Bath's Institute for Mathematical Innovation, is developing new statistical methods to allow practitioners to better assess and account for individual differences in biological maturity and help ensure players are evaluated on the basis of their physical development, and not just their chronological age.

The team published its research in the journal Pediatric Exercise Science.

"The challenge for those working with young tennis players is to look beyond differences in maturity, and recognise those players who may have the greatest potential for success as an adult,” Cumming said.

Now the Lawn Tennis Association (LTA), the governing body for the game of tennis in Great Britain, is collaborating with scientists at the University of Bath to use statistics to avoid selection bias towards early maturing players, a university statement said.

Gill Myburgh, a Strength and Conditioning coach at the LTA also sees potential benefits in periodically matching players by maturity status, rather than age, in training and competition.​

​New York, July 13 (IANS) The micro-blogging website Twitter and Bloomberg Media have signed a deal to live stream several media company's TV news shows on Twitter platform.

​London, July 10 (IANS) Scientists at Finland's Aalto University have set a new world record in microwave detection, breaking the old record by fourteen-fold -- a feat that may lead to manufacturing of ultrasensitive cameras and accessories for the emerging quantum computer.

The record was made using a partially superconducting microwave detector. The first of the two key enabling developments is the new detector design consisting of tiny pieces of superconducting aluminum and a golden nanowire.

This design guarantees both efficient absorption of incoming photons and very sensitive readout. The whole detector is smaller than a single human blood cell, according to the scientists.

"For us size matters. The smaller the better. With smaller detectors, we get more signal and cheaper price in mass production," said Mikko Mottonen, the leader of the record-breaking Quantum Computing and Devices research group.

The European Research Council (ERC) has recently awarded Mottonen a prestigious proof of concept grant to develop the detector towards commercial applications.

The new detector works at a hundredth of a degree above absolute zero temperature. Thermal disturbances at such low temperatures are so weak that the research team could detect energy packets of only a single zeptojoule. That is the energy needed to lift a red blood cell by just a single nanometre.

The second key development concerns the amplification of the signal arising from the tiny the energy packets. To this end, the scientists used something called positive feedback, which means that there is an external energy source that amplifies the temperature change arising from the absorbed photons.

Microwaves are currently used in mobile phone communications and satellite televisions, thanks to their ability to pass through the walls. 

More sensitive microwave detectors may lead to great improvements of the present communication systems and measurement techniques.

"Existing superconducting technology can produce single microwave photons. However, detection of such travelling photons efficiently is a major outstanding challenge. Our results provide a leap towards solving this problem using thermal detection," said Joonas Govenius, the first author of the work.​

​New York, July 12 (IANS) Micro-blogging website Twitter has increased its animated GIF (graphics interchange format) size limit from 5MB to 15MB if uploaded on the web from a desktop, a media report said on Tuesday.

​New Delhi, July 11 (IANS) India has the most transparent companies because of a strong regulation system firmly in place, a new report revealed on Monday, adding that China on the other hand has weak or non-existent anti-corruption policies and has the most opaque firms.

​New York, July 10 (IANS) Rats, humans and cockroaches have a system similar to the Global Positioning System (GPS) in their heads that allows them to navigate new surroundings, researchers have discovered.

A team of researchers from Case Western Reserve University in the US recorded the activity in the brain of a restrained cockroach and found that insects use sight and a vestibular-like system to track direction and angle.

The finding, published in journal Current Biology, is an example of convergent evolution -- distinct animals developed similar systems to manage the same problems.

"We've known that a mammal can come into a new area and, after a short period of being disoriented, find its way around," said Roy Ritzmann, a Biology Professor at Case Western Reserve and an author of the new study.

Humans and other mammals rely on head-direction, place and grid cells in their brains to process, integrate and update sensory information. The cues come from the direction they look, what they see and motion, he said.

"Orienting contributes to spatial memory, so they can return to point A or navigate to something they like or away from something they don't like," said PhD student Adrienn G. Varga, lead author of the study.

By repeating experiments that uncovered head-direction cells in rats, Ritzmann and Varga found head-direction-like activity and evidence of contextual cue processing in cockroaches.

When the researchers closely examined the activity of central complex cells, they found that some neurons appear to encode head direction like a compass, while others appeared to encode the relative direction of the rotation after each stop, storing navigational context.

"The fact we found these cell activities that are very similar to those in mice and rats and us strongly indicates insects rely on the same sensory inputs we need to orient ourselves and their brains process these inputs in a similar manner," Varga said.

Ritzmann said either humans and cockroaches have a common ancestor and this capability was retained or, more likely, represents convergent evolution.​