Knowledge Update

​London, Sep 8 (IANS) An international team of researchers has found that a stellar system classified as a globular cluster for the 40-odd years since its detection actually has properties uncommon for a globular cluster that make it the ideal candidate for a living fossil from the early days of the Milky Way.

The cluster, known as Terzan 5 -- 19,000 light-years from Earth -- harbours stars of hugely different ages -- an age-gap of roughly seven billion years -- and bridges the gap in understanding between our galaxy's past and its present, the study said.

"Such galactic fossils allow astronomers to reconstruct an important piece of the history of our Milky Way," explained lead author of the study Francesco Ferraro from University of Bologna in Italy.

While the properties of Terzan 5 are uncommon for a globular cluster, they are very similar to the stellar population which can be found in the galactic bulge, the tightly packed central region of the Milky Way. 

These similarities could make Terzan 5 a fossilised relic of galaxy formation, representing one of the earliest building blocks of the Milky Way.

"Terzan 5 could represent an intriguing link between the local and the distant Universe, a surviving witness of the Galactic bulge assembly process," Ferraro said.

The team scoured data from the Advanced Camera for Surveys and the Wide Field Camera 3 on board Hubble, as well as from a suite of other ground-based telescopes. 

They found compelling evidence that there are two distinct kinds of stars in Terzan 5 which not only differ in the elements they contain, but have an age-gap of roughly seven billion years.

The ages of the two populations indicate that the star formation process in Terzan 5 was not continuous, but was dominated by two distinct bursts of star formation. 

"This requires the Terzan 5 ancestor to have large amounts of gas for a second generation of stars and to be quite massive. At least 100 million times the mass of the Sun," co-author of the study Davide Massari from National Institute for Astrophysics (INAF) , Italy.

Its unusual properties make Terzan 5 the ideal candidate for a living fossil from the early days of the Milky Way, said the study published in the Astrophysical Journal.

Somehow Terzan 5 has managed to survive being disrupted for billions of years, and has been preserved as a remnant of the distant past of the Milky Way.

The researchers believe that this discovery paves the way for a better and more complete understanding of galaxy assembly. 

New York, Sep 8 (IANS) Activities like playing video games or tennis may help enhance your memory, a study has found.

Attention-grabbing experiences release memory-enhancing chemicals in brain, helping to store memories that occur just before or soon after the experience, the study mentioned.

"Activation of the locus coeruleus (part of the brainstem) increases our memory of events that happen at the time of activation and may also increase the recall of those memories at a later time," said Robert Greene, Professor at the Peter O'Donnell Jr. Brain Institute at UT Southwestern Medical Center's Texas Institute for Brain Injury and Repair, at Dallas in Texas.

The study, published in the journal Nature explains at the molecular level why people tend to remember certain events in their lives with particular clarity as well as unrelated details surrounding those events.

The latest study established that dopamine in the brain can be naturally activated through behavioural actions and that these actions enhance memory retention.

The study tested 120 mice to establish a link between locus coeruleus (LC) neurons and neuronal circuits of the hippocampus -- the region of the brain responsible for recording memories -- that receive dopamine from the LC.

One part of the research involved putting the mice in an arena to search for food hidden in sand that changed location each day. 

The study found that the mice that were given a chance to explore an unfamiliar floor surface 30 minutes after being trained to remember the food location did better in remembering where to find the food the next day.

Researchers correlated this memory enhancement to a molecular process in the brain by injecting the mice with a genetically encoded light-sensitive activator called channelrhodopsin. 

This sensor allowed them to selectively activate dopamine-carrying neurons of the locus coeruleus that go to the hippocampus and to see first-hand which neurons were responsible for the memory enhancement.

They found that selectively activating the channelrhodopsin-labeled neurons with blue light (a technique called optogenetics) could substitute for the novelty experience as a memory enhancer in mice. 

They also found that this activation could cause a direct, long-lasting synaptic strengthening -- an enhancement of memory-relevant communication occurring at the junctions between neurons in the hippocampus. This process can mediate improvement of learning and memory.

"Some next steps include investigating how big an impact this finding can have on human learning, whether it can eventually lead to an understanding of how patients can develop failing memories, and how to better target effective therapies for these patients," Greene added.

New York, Sep 8 (IANS) Risk of death from sudden loss of heart function is significantly greater in patients with high thyroid hormone levels, according to a study.

"Our results indicate that thyroid hormone levels may be useful for assessing risk to prevent sudden cardiac death," said Layal Chaker, researcher at the Erasmus University Medical Center, at Rotterdam in the Netherland, in the study, published in the journal Circulation.

Although the link between abnormal levels of thyroid hormone and cardiovascular disease is well established, the hormone's relationship with sudden cardiac death is unclear.

Researchers analysed 10,318 patients with an average age of 65 and more than half were women for the study and linked the association of thyroid-stimulating hormone and free thyroxine thyroid hormone levels in blood samples with sudden cardiac deaths listed on medical records and death certificates.

They found that participants with free thyroxine hormone levels at the high end of the normal range were 2.5 times more likely to die of sudden cardiac death, compared to patients with levels at the lower end.

The ten-year risk of sudden cardiac death was four times greater among patients with higher free thyroxine levels compared to those with lower levels.

The increased risk persisted even after controlling for other risk factors such as high cholesterol and high blood pressure.

"The study suggests more caution is warranted in the treatment of thyroid hormone replacement. Replacement therapy is often aimed at the high normal range which carries a risk of over-treatment," Chaker added. 

​San Francisco, Sep 8 (IANS) Ending round-the-clock rumours that had sent the world of technology into a tizzy for quite some time now, Apple CEO Tim Cook on Wednesday unveiled stunning iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus along with next-generation 'Apple Watch Series 2' at the jam-packed Bill Graham Civic Auditorium here. iPhone 7 will cost the same as iPhone 6s, starting at $649 (US price) and comes in three variants: 32GB, 128GB, and 256GB (16 GB variant no more). iPhone 7 Plus will start at $769. Pre-orders for the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus begins from September 9 and the shipping will start from September 16 at first in 28 countries, with 30 more countries one week later, Tech Crunch reported. So, this is what iPhone 7 finally has: Water and dust resistance, dual-lens camera (in iPhone 7 Plus), 4.6-inch retina HD display, a new home button, 7 MP HD front camera and 12 MP rear main camera, no traditional 3.5 mm headphone jack, iOS 10, A10 fusion chip and and longest battery life to date. The phone will come in rose gold, gold, silver, black, and jet black colours. "Optical image stabilisation in all new iPhones, allowing for up to 3x longer exposure," Tech Crunch said. Apple's twin lens setup is wide angle and telephoto in the iPhone 7 Plus. For actual, optical zoom, one lens handles 1x zoom; the other handles 2x, the report added. iPhone 7 Plus now has 10x zoom. The camera app is getting a "portrait" mode that'll use the dual-lenses and depth mapping to simulate the DSLR visual quality. "We're not saying that iPhone replaces your DSLR. We're saying this is the best camera we've ever built in any iPhone. For many customers, it'll be the best camera they've ever owned," said Philip W. Schiller, Senior Vice President (Worldwide Marketing) at Apple. Starting at $369, the 'Apple Watch Series 2' will be water resistant to 50 metres and the speaker will literally repel the water like a piston. Pre-orders for 'Series 2' will open on September 9 and the shipment will start from September 16. The device will have a dual core processor with GPU that is up to two times faster. The second generation watch will have the brightest display ever (1,000 nits so that users can see it in full sunlight) and runs watchOS 3. "If you've used a GPS Watch before, you know that sometimes it can take a while to connect to satellites. With Apple Watch, you just hit start and it's ready," Jeff Williams, Apple's Chief Operating Officer, told the gathering. The company also launched wireless headphones called Airpods that will cost $159. Infrared sensors will detect when the AirPods are in your ear. It comes with a compact charging case with 24 hours of additional battery charge. Apple also unveiled Apple Watch Nike+ -- a watch built with runners in mind. "Selling in just eight months of 2015, we became the second most popular watch brand [behind Rolex]," Williams said earlier. "Since its launch, Apple Music has grown to 17 million subscribers. Seventeen million Apple Music subscribers compared to 39 million for digital music service Spotify," Apple CEO Tim Cook announced. "140 billion apps have been downloaded from the iOS App Store till date. In the last two months, we've seen [downloads] grow by 106 per cent year over year," Cook told the audience, adding that Apple App Store has seen two times as much revenue as our closest competitor. Apple also debuted a 'Notify' option on the App Store for a brand new "Super Mario Run" game. The GPS-powered Pokemon Go game has also arrived on Apple Watch. Apple has sold over one billion iPhones till date.

​New Delhi, Sep 7 (IANS) As the world's largest technology merger between EMC and Dell formally came into being on Wednesday, the driving force behind the $67 billion marriage, Michael Dell, said that this was just the beginning and "the real show is just getting started," in the coming digital revolution.

​New York, Sep 7 (IANS) Imagine being greeted by a humanoid robot which answers your queries and tells you directions. Chihira Junco, a robot, does that when it welcomes and meets tourists at a shopping mall in Tokyo.

​London, Sep 7 (IANS) Aimed at making the task of predicting renewable output easier for the industry, researchers have created an interactive web tool to estimate the quantum of energy that could be generated by wind or solar farms at any location.

The researchers have already used the tool, called Renewables.ninja, to estimate current Europe-wide solar and wind output.

"Renewables.ninja has already allowed us to answer important questions about the current and future renewable energy infrastructure across Europe and in the UK, and we hope others will use it to further examine the opportunities and challenges for renewables in the future," said Stefan Pfenninger from ETH Zurich in Switzerland.

To test the model, Pfenninger and Iain Staffell from College London used the tool to estimate the productivity of all wind farms planned or under construction in Europe for the next 20 years. 

Wind and solar energies have a strong dependence on weather conditions, and these can be difficult to integrate into national power systems that requires consistency. If there is excess power generated by all energy sources, then some supplies have to be turned off.

Currently, wind and solar power generators are the easiest to switch on and off, so they are often the first to go, meaning the power they generate can be wasted.

Renewables.ninja uses 30 years of observed and modelled weather data from organisations such as NASA to predict the wind speed likely to influence turbines and the sunlight likely to strike solar panels at any point on the Earth during the year, the researchers said in a paper published in the journal Energy.

These figures are combined with manufacturer's specifications for wind turbines and solar panels to give an estimate of the power output that could be generated by a farm placed at any location.

​Johannesburg, Sep 7 (IANS) Scientists, including researchers from India, have predicted the existence of a new boson that might aid in the understanding of dark matter in the universe.

Using data from a series of experiments that led to the discovery of Higgs boson at the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) in 2012, the team led by the High Energy Physics Group (HEP) of the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg established what they call "Madala boson".

The experiment was repeated in 2015 and 2016, after a two-and-half years' shut-down of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN.

The data reported by the LHC experiments in 2016 have corroborated the features in the data that triggered the Madala hypothesis in the first place.

The Wits Madala project team consists of approximately 35 young South African and African students and researchers, along with theorists such as Professor Alan Cornell and Dr Mukesh Kumar.

Some of these scientists include Dr Deepak Kar and Dr Xifeng Ruan, two new academic staff in the group, who have years of expertise at the LHC.

"Based on a number of features and peculiarities of the data reported by the experiments at the LHC and collected up to the end of 2012, the Wits HEP group in collaboration with scientists in India and Sweden formulated the Madala hypothesis," says Professor Bruce Mellado, team leader of the HEP group at Wits, in a statement.

The hypothesis describes the existence of a new boson and field, similar to the Higgs boson.

Boson is a subatomic particle, such as a photon, which has zero or integral spin and follows the statistical description given by theoretical physicists Satyendra Nath Bose and Albert Einstein.

However, where the Higgs boson in the Standard Model of Physics only interacts with known matter, the Madala boson interacts with dark matter, which makes about 27 per cent of the universe.

The theory that underpins the understanding of fundamental interactions in nature in modern physics is referred to as the Standard Model of Physics.

With the discovery of the Higgs boson at the LHC in 2012, for which the Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded in 2013, the Standard Model of Physics is now complete.

However, this model is insufficient to describe a number of phenomena such as dark matter.

"With the Madala hypothesis predictions of striking signatures are made, that is being pursued by the young scientists of the Wits HEP group," the authors noted.

Hanoi, Sep 7 (IANS) The Vietnamese capital city of Hanoi is considering the construction of a software park with a total investment of over $1 billion, which will create over 40,000 jobs, officials said on Wednesday.

San Francisco, Sep 7 (IANS) Google has started bringing online a new high-speed fibre optic undersea cable to speed up its services in Asia.