Knowledge Update

​Toronto, Oct 1 (IANS) Researchers in Canada have developed two caffeine-based chemical compounds that show promise in preventing the ravages of Parkinson's disease.

Parkinson's disease attacks the nervous system, causing uncontrolled shakes, muscle stiffness, and slow, imprecise movement, chiefly in middle-aged and elderly people. 

It is caused by the loss of brain cells (neurons) that produce dopamine, an essential neurotransmitter that allows neurons to "talk" to each other.

The team from University of Saskatchewan focused on a protein called Alpha-synuclein (AS), which is involved in dopamine regulation.

In Parkinson's sufferers, AS gets misfolded into a compact structure associated with the death of dopamine-producing neurons. 

"Many of the current therapeutic compounds focus on boosting the dopamine output of surviving cells, but this is effective only as long as there are still enough cells to do the job," said one of the lead researchers Jeremy Lee from University of Saskatchewan College of Medicine.

"Our approach aims to protect dopamine-producing cells by preventing AS from mis-folding in the first place," Lee noted.

Although the chemistry was challenging, Lee explained the team synthesised 30 different "bifunctional dimer" drugs, that is, molecules that link two different substances known to have an effect on dopamine-producing cells. 

They started with a caffeine "scaffold," guided by literature that shows the stimulant has a protective effect against Parkinson's.

From this base, they added other compounds with known effects -- nicotine, the diabetes drug metformin, and aminoindan, a research chemical similar to the Parkinson's drug rasagiline.

Using a yeast model of Parkinson's disease, Lee and his team discovered two of the compounds prevented the AS protein from clumping, effectively allowing the cells to grow normally.

"Our results suggest these novel bifunctional dimers show promise in preventing the progression of Parkinson's disease," Lee said.

The findings were published in the journal ACS Chemical Neuroscience.

Beijing, Sep 30 (IANS) Concerned over falling iPhone sales and the phenomenal rise of Chinese smartphone players, Apple has set up its first research and development centre in China with the initial investment of 100 million yuan ($15 million).

New York, Sep 30 (IANS) Leading a healthy lifestyle can shorten the time that is spent disabled near the end of one's life by nearly two years, says a study.

Older adults with the healthiest lifestyles could expect to spend about 1.7 fewer years disabled at the end of their lives, compared to their unhealthiest counterparts, the findings showed.

"The duration of the disabled period near the end of one's life has enormous personal and societal implications, ranging from quality of life to health care costs," said senior author Anne Newman, Professor at University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health in the US.

"We discovered that, fortunately, by improving lifestyle we can postpone both death and disability. In fact, it turns out that we're compressing that disabled end-of-life period," Newman noted.

The findings, published online in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, are based on analysis of a quarter century of data.

Newman and her colleagues examined data collected by the Cardiovascular Health Study, which followed 5,888 US adults for 25 years.

All of the participants were aged 65 or older and were not institutionalised or wheelchair-dependent when they enrolled.

The participants reported or were assessed for various lifestyle factors, including smoking habits, alcohol consumption, physical activity, diet, weight and their social support system.

The researchers took into account and adjusted results for such factors as participants' age, sex, race, education, income, marital status and chronic health conditions.

Across all the participants, the average number of disabled years directly preceding death -- years when the person had difficulty eating, bathing, toileting, dressing, getting out of bed or a chair, or walking around the home -- averaged 4.5 years for women and 2.9 years for men.

For each gender, those with the healthiest lifestyle (those who were nonsmokers of a healthy weight and diet and getting regular exercise) not only lived longer, but had fewer disabled years at the end of their lives, the study said.

Singapore, Sep 30 (IANS) Oral administration of a compound derived from neem -- a medicinal plant native to the Indian sub-continent -- can significantly reduce the size of prostate tumour by up to 70 per cent as well as suppress its spread by half, a study led by an Indian-origin scientist has found.

Prostate cancer -- the most commonly diagnosed cancers worldwide -- occurs in a man's prostate -- a small walnut-shaped gland that produces seminal fluid. Current therapies available for metastatic prostate cancer are only marginally effective. 

The study revealed that nimbolide -- a bioactive terpenoid compound derived from neem plant -- can significantly suppress cell invasion and migration of prostate cancer cells, suggesting its ability to reduce tumour metastasis or spread.

"The study demonstrated that nimbolide can inhibit tumour cell viability -- a cellular process that directly affects the ability of a cell to proliferate, grow, divide, or repair damaged cell components -- and induce programmed cell death in prostate cancer cells," said Gautam Sethi, Associate Professor at the National University of Singapore (NUS). 

The findings showed that oral administration of nimbolide for 12 weeks can reduce the size of prostate cancer tumour by as much as 70 per cent and decreased its spread by about 50 per cent, without exhibiting any adverse effects.

Nimbolide directly targets glutathione reductase -- an enzyme which is responsible for maintaining the antioxidant system that regulates the STAT3 gene in the body. 

This activation of the STAT3 gene has been reported to contribute to prostate tumour growth and metastasis, explained the researchers. 

"We have found that nimbolide can substantially inhibit STAT3 activation and thereby abrogating the growth and metastasis of prostate tumour," Sethi added.

The results of the study were published in the journal Antioxidants & Redox Signaling.

​Washington, Sep 30 (IANS) Using data from NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, scientists have found the first gamma-ray binary in another galaxy and the most luminous one ever seen.

The dual-star system, dubbed LMC P3, contains a massive star and a crushed stellar core that interact to produce a cyclic flood of gamma rays, the highest-energy form of light.

"Fermi has detected only five of these systems in our own galaxy, so finding one so luminous and distant is quite exciting," said lead researcher Robin Corbet from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

Gamma-ray binaries are prized because the gamma-ray output changes significantly during each orbit and sometimes over longer time scales.

"This variation lets us study many of the emission processes common to other gamma-ray sources in unique detail," Corbet added.

These rare systems contain either a neutron star or a black hole and radiate most of their energy in the form of gamma rays.

LMC P3 is the most luminous such system known in gamma rays, X-rays, radio waves and visible light, and it's only the second one discovered with Fermi.

LMC P3 lies within the expanding debris of a supernova explosion located in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), a small nearby galaxy about 163,000 light-years away.

In 2012, scientists using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory found a strong X-ray source within the supernova remnant and showed that it was orbiting a hot, young star many times the sun's mass.

Corbet's team discovered a 10.3-day cyclic change centred near one of several gamma-ray point sources recently identified in the LMC.

Prior to Fermi's launch, gamma-ray binaries were expected to be more numerous than they have turned out to be.

"It is certainly a surprise to detect a gamma-ray binary in another galaxy before we find more of them in our own," said Guillaume Dubus, a team member at the Institute of Planetology and Astrophysics of Grenoble in France.

A paper describing the discovery is forthcoming in The Astrophysical Journal.

New York, Sep 30 (IANS) Hypertension or high blood pressure is rapidly increasing in children, largely as a consequence of their obesity.

This high blood pressure in children and adolescents can significantly affect their mental skills, a study has found. 

In the study, children with hypertension performed low on cognitive tests on visual and verbal memory, processing speed, and verbal skills.

Children with sleep issues were found to have had hypertension, which intensified the effect of poor sleep on cognition and executive function, the researchers said. 

Knowing how these physical changes might affect cognitive skills could be important in future studies that assess whether anti-hypertensive treatments could improve cognitive performance in children with hypertension and reverse or prevent future adult hypertension-related problems, said Marc B. Lande from the University of Rochester in New York, US.

In the study, researchers compared different tests of cognitive skills in 75 children aged between 10-18 years with newly-diagnosed hypertension and 75 children without hypertension. 

The children with hypertension were not cognitively impaired, but rather performing less well than children without hypertension.

Overall, this study provides evidence that hypertension in children is associated with a subtle pattern of decreased performance on cognitive testing, the authors concluded. 

The study is forthcoming in The Journal of Pediatrics.

​New York, Oct 1 (IANS) Do we have an inherited hunting instinct, like dogs, cats and other predators? Quite likely, as the popularity of the augmented reality game Pokemon Go suggests, according to a new study.

Pokemon Go allows players to catch virtual wild animals in real-world locations through the mobile phone camera.

"It is possible that we all have the hunting instinct, but it has never been proven," said study author Vladimir Dinets, Assistant Research Professor of Psychology at University of Tennessee, Knoxville in the US.

"The recent explosive popularity of the Pokemon Go game, which allows players to hunt for virtual animals across a real terrain, shows how addictive such proxies can be and how many people can enjoy hunting-like behaviour despite being city dwellers completely isolated from natural environments," Dinets said. 

Hunting has played a major role in human history, helping humans survive and populate the world, but whether we have a an inherited hunting instinct or not is not known.

"The take-home message of the study is that we have predatory instincts and have to be aware of them. But this doesn't mean that we have to be real predators; instead, we can follow these instincts in more intelligent ways," Dinets added.

The study was published recently in the open-access journal Humanimalia.

New York, Sep 29 (IANS) In a major boost to artificial intelligence (AI) research, five top-notch tech companies -- Facebook, Amazon, Google, IBM and Microsoft -- have joined hands to announce a historic partnership on AI and machine learning.

New York, Sep 30 (IANS) Humans reached the southern cone of South America some 14,000 years ago, earlier than previously thought, says a study based on ancient artifacts found at an archaeological site in Argentina.

Humans' arrival in southern South America 14,000 years ago may represent the last step in the expansion of Homo sapiens throughout the world and the final continental colonisation, the researchers said.

Approximately 13,000 years ago, a prehistoric group of hunter-gathers known as the Clovis people lived in Northern America. 

Previous research suggests that the Clovis culture was one of the earliest cultures in South America. 

However, the new research from the Pampas region of Argentina supports the hypothesis that early Homo sapiens arrived in the South America earlier than the Clovis hunters did.

The evidence for earlier human arrival in South Americas comes from a rich archaeological site in southeastern South America called Arroyo Seco 2. 

"The Arroyo Seco 2 site contains a rich archaeological record, exceptional for South America, to explain the expansion of Homo sapiens into the Americas and their interaction with extinct Pleistocene mammals," the study said.

A group of scientists led by Gustavo Politis from Universidad Nacional del Centro de la Provincia de Buenos Aires presented the research in a new study published in the journal PLOS ONE.

At Arroyo Seco 2, the researchers excavated ancient tools, bone remains from a variety of extinct species, and broken animal bones containing fractures caused by human tools. 

They used radiocarbon dating to determine the age of the mammal bones and analyzed the specimens under a microscope.

The analysis revealed the presence of limb bones from extinct mammals at the site, which may indicate human activities of transporting and depositing animal carcasses for consumption at a temporary camp. 

The bones of some mammal species were concentrated in a specific part of the site, which could indicate designated areas for butchering activities. 

Microscopic examination also revealed that some bones contained fractures most likely caused by stone tools. 

The remains were dated between 14,064 and 13,068 years ago, and the authors believe that Arroyo Seco 2 may have been occupied by humans during that time.

This timeline, along with evidence from other South American sites, indicates that humans may have arrived in southern South America prior to the Clovis people inhabiting the Americas, but after the onset of the Last Glacial Maximum, the last glacial period, which took place 19,000 to 20,000 years ago, the researchers said.

Washington, Sep 30 (IANS) Chemistry in the surface material on Mars contributed dynamically to the make-up of its atmosphere over time, a study has found.

The findings come from the NASA's Curiosity rover's Sample Analysis at Mars, or SAM, instrument suite, which studied the gases xenon and krypton in the Mars atmosphere.

The two gases can be used as tracers to help scientists investigate the evolution and erosion of the Martian atmosphere. 

The SAM team ran a series of first-of-a-kind experiments to measure all the isotopes of xenon and krypton in the Martian atmosphere, a paper published in the journal Earth and Planetary Science Letters said.

The team's method is called static mass spectrometry, and it is good for detecting gases or isotopes that are present only in trace amounts. 

"The unique capability to measure in situ the six and nine different isotopes of krypton and xenon allows scientists to delve into the complex interactions between the Martian atmosphere and crust," said Michael Meyer, lead scientist for the Mars Exploration Programme at NASA Headquarters in Washington. 

"Discovering these interactions through time allows us to gain a greater understanding of planetary evolution," Meyer noted.

A lot of information about xenon and krypton in Mars' atmosphere came from analyses of Martian meteorites and measurements made by the Viking mission.

"What we found is that earlier studies of xenon and krypton only told part of the story," lead author of the report Pamela Conrad, and SAM's Deputy Principal Investigator at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, said.

"SAM is now giving us the first complete in situ benchmark against which to compare meteorite measurements," Conrad noted.