Knowledge Update

​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.

​London, Dec 20 (IANS) Noise sensitivity in individuals may be caused by alterations in the brain functions linked with sound processing, a study has found.

The study, led by researchers from University of Helsinki in Finland showed that noise sensitivity is associated with functional alteration of auditory stimulus encoding and discrimination of noisy sounds.

The auditory system of noise sensitive individuals is less responsive to new sound features introduced among repetitive sounds, especially if the novel sound is noisier than the rest.

This finding suggests that it may be harder for sensitive people to build a prediction about changes in a varying soundscape and their auditory system might "tune down" its responsiveness to sounds in order to protect itself from overreacting to noise, the researchers observed.

"The study advances the view on noise sensitivity being more than just a negative attitude to sounds and brings us new information on the physiology of environmental sensitivity," said lead author Marina Kliuchko, doctoral student at the University of Helsinki.

The findings also showed that those who are noise sensitive are more likely to experience negative emotions from unwanted sounds and they show greater susceptibility to adverse effects of noise on health.

According to previous studies, such individuals are more prone to negative effects of noise on health, such as sleep disturbance and heart diseases and the reason that they are so sensitive to noise may be because of one's genetic profile.

The researchers hope that their work will highlight that noise sensitivity is an important issue to be recognised in planning noise control in living and working environments.

"We need further studies to conclude whether we've discovered something that is the reason why people are noise sensitive or is it the result of the brain's contractions against excessive noise," Kliuchko added.

The study appeared in the journal Scientific Reports.

​New York, Dec 20 (IANS) Researchers, including one of Indian-origin, have developed an oral vaccine against Salmonella -- the bacteria responsible for one of the most common food-borne illnesses in the world.

Most people infected with Salmonella bacteria develop diarrohea, fever, and abdominal cramps between 12 and 72 hours after infection, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"In the current study, we analysed the immune responses of mice that received the vaccination by mouth as well as how they responded to a lethal dose of salmonella," said Ashok Chopra, Professor at University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston.

"We found that the orally administered vaccines produced strong immunity against salmonella, showing their potential for future use in people," Chopra noted.

Currently, antibiotics are the first choice in treating salmonella infections, but the fact that some strains of salmonella are quickly developing antibiotic resistance is a serious concern. 

In earlier studies, the researchers developed potential vaccines from three genetically mutated versions of the salmonella bacteria, that is Salmonella Typhimurium, that were shown to protect mice against a lethal dose of salmonella. 

In these studies, the vaccines were given as an injection.

However, oral vaccination is simplest and least invasive way to protect people against salmonella infection. 

Taking this vaccine by mouth also has the added advantage of using the same pathway that salmonella uses to wreak havoc on the digestive system.

The findings were detailed in an article published in the journal Frontiers in Cellular and Infection Microbiology.

​New Delhi, Dec 20 (IANS) A top scientist at National Physics Laboratory (NPL) here has said that industry should come forward to commercialise the concept of the hydroelectric cell as it has the potential to be a very cheap source of electricity.


The inventor of the cell that produces electricity from water, R.K. Kotnala, the Chief Scientist at NPL, urged industry leaders to come forward and help improve the workability of the cell, which, he said, can be a great source of green energy. 

"It is a portable source of electricity as it can be used as a dry cell (like the common battery used in torches, remotes). And once it goes into production, will be cheaper than solar energy," Kotnala told IANS in an interview. 

"In case of wind energy, electricity can be produced using local sources only, plus a single windmill won't do, you have to build a series, which is very expensive. None of these factors can be a hindrance with the hydroelectricity cell," he added. 

He said that there is no potential harm from the battery upon disposal as no chemicals are used in its making. 

A team led by Kotnala proved the workability of producing electricity from water at room temperature without the use of any chemicals after working on it for 13 years. 

"We spent the first 11 years in working out the principle of the technology, and two years on building the device," Kotnala said. 

The results were published in the International Journal of Energy Research (IJER) in June this year under the title "Green Hydroelectrical Energy Source Based on Water Dissociation by Nano-porous Ferrite". 

The team used nano-porous magnesium ferrite to split water into hydronium (H3O) and hydroxide (OH) ions spontaneously, and silver and zinc as electrodes to make a cell that produces electricity. 

Using magnesium ferrite which was two inches in diametre, they were able to produce current of 86-110 milli-ampere and voltage of 0.9 volts, which is enough to charge a small plastic fan or an LED bulb of one watt. 

"For the last 70 years, research was going on around the world on how to dissociate water molecules to create energy, but we were the first ones to do it," Kotnala said, adding that all the components and raw materials were from India. 

The path-breaking work done by Kotnala straddles three different disciplines of science -- chemistry, physics and material science -- and can be claimed to be the biggest breakthrough in the world of batteries since 1980, when the working principle for the lithium-ion battery was demonstrated by scientist John Bannister Goodenough. 

The lithium-ion battery was commercialised by Sony in 1991 and since then has become the indispensable innard of every consumer-electronic device, laptop, smart-phone, DSLR, etc. 

Kotnala, whose research experience spans 32 years, most of it on solar cells, is proud of the fact that the whole enterprise was an Indian affair from the beginning. He also said that it has a strong chance of revolutionalising the green energy field at a time nations around the globe are trying to find means to curtail their carbon-footprints. 

He also admitted the limitations of the prototype cell and added that the most important thing was that it worked in principle, and the concept now can be made refined by degrees. 

"Since we can muster just so many resources at the lab, the model is not devoid of limitations. But that can be addressed once we have the right backing," he added.

New York, Dec 19 (IANS) With Christmas just a few days away, Google has integrated its famous Santa Tracker into artificial intelligence-powered Google Assistant letting a user to check the location of Santa by asking "Where is Santa" or "Track Santa".

​New York, Dec 19 (IANS) The global autonomous cars market is expected to reach 138,089 units by 2024, a study by US-based market research and consulting company Grand View Research said on Monday. The growing acceptance of semi-autonomous technologies, such as adaptive cruise control (ACC), automatic parking and forward collision avoidance is anticipated to pave the way for the adoption of driverless automobiles over the next seven years. "The self-driving technology exhibits a huge potential, owing to its capability to improve on-road safety, lower the energy consumption and reduce congestion," the findings showed. North America is anticipated to dominate the market with over 40 per cent of the volume share in 2017.he region is further anticipated to witness a considerable growth over the next seven years. Europe is a key region for the deployment of self-driving vehicles, owing to the high consumer preference for technologically advanced products and is estimated to hold more than 35 per cent of the volume share in 2017. "This is attributed to the presence of players such as Volvo, Volkswagen, PSA Peugeot Citroën, and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles in Germany and Britain," the report added. Asia Pacific is expected to witness a sluggish growth as compared to North America and Europe. However, it is anticipated to grow substantially in the later phase of the forecast period due to the growing adoption of technologically advanced cars in China. In addition, the Japanese government has specifically laid down a plan for the successful self-driving vehicle deployment and is expected to catapult the product demand over the forecast period. The Singaporean government has also proposed to build separate roads for driverless automobiles to accelerate the adoption. "An upsurge in the demand for increased comfort and convenience, particularly in countries with an aging population, is expected to propel the driverless vehicles demand over the forecast period," the study added.