Knowledge Update

​New York, Jan 25 (IANS) Early Mars was warmed intermittently by a powerful greenhouse effect caused by methane gas, researchers have revealed.

The team from Harvard University's John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Science (SEAS) found that interactions between methane, carbon dioxide and hydrogen in the early Martian atmosphere may have created warm periods when the planet could support liquid water on the surface.

In a paper published in Geophysical Research Letters, first author Robin Wordsworth wrote that if humans understand how early Mars operated, it could tell something about the potential for finding life on other planets outside the solar system.

Four billion years ago, the Sun was about 30 per cent fainter than today and significantly less solar radiation reached the Martian surface, the paper said, adding that the scant radiation that did reach the planet was trapped by the atmosphere, resulting in warm, wet periods.

As carbon dioxide makes up 95 per cent of today's Martian atmosphere, it alone does not account for Mars' early temperatures.

"You can do climate calculations where you add carbon dioxide and build up to hundreds of times the present day atmospheric pressure on Mars and you still never get to temperatures that are even close to the melting point," said Wordsworth.

Wordsworth and his collaborators looked to these long-lost gases -- known as reducing gases -- and found that billions of years ago geological processes could have released significantly more methane into the atmosphere. 

This methane would have been slowly converted to hydrogen and other gases, in a process similar to that occurring today on Saturn's moon, Titan, the research found.

Wordsworth and his team experimented to see what happens when methane, hydrogen and carbon dioxide collide and how they interact with photons. The team found that this combination resulted in very strong absorption of radiation.

"We discovered that methane and hydrogen and their interaction with carbon dioxide, were much better at warming early Mars than had previously been believed," Wordsworth said.

​London, Jan 25 (IANS) People are more likely to get affected by superbugs due to over use of antibiotics rather than dirty hospitals, a study has found.

The study, led by researchers at the University of Oxford, showed that the widespread prescription of fluoroquinolone antibiotics such as ciprofloxacin was the reason behind a serious stomach bug Clostridium difficile (C. diff), that caused a diarrhoea outbreak in Britain in 2006.

In 2007, a programme of deep cleaning aimed at combating lack of hygiene in hospitals was announced by the National Health Services.

However, the cases of C. difficile fell only when fluoroquinolone use was restricted and used in a more targeted way as one part of many efforts to control the outbreak, the researchers said.

The restricted use of fluoroquinolones resulted in the disappearance in the vast majority of cases and lead to around an 80 per cent fall in the number of these infections.

"Our study shows that the C. difficile epidemic was an unintended consequence of intensive use of an antibiotic class, fluoroquinolones and control was achieved by specifically reducing use of this antibiotic class, because only the C. difficile bugs that were resistant to fluoroquinolones went away," said Derrick Crook, Professor at University of Oxford.

Meanwhile, the smaller number of cases caused by C. diff bugs not resistant to fluoroquinolone antibiotics remained the same.

Infection prevention and control measures such as better handwashing had no impact on the number of C.diff bugs transmitted between people in hospital, the researchers noted.

Ensuring antibiotics are used appropriately is the most important way to control the C. difficile superbug. 

For the study, published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases, the team analysed data on the numbers of C. diff infections and amounts of antibiotics used in hospitals and by doctors in Britain.

​Dhaka, Jan 24 (IANS) The Bangladeshi government has made jute bags mandatory for packaging of 11 more products to boost domestic use of the golden fiber, in wake of the imposition of anti-dumping duty on jute goods imported from Bangladesh by the Indian government.

​Tokyo, Jan 24 (IANS) Shares of Japanese automobile firms fell at the Tokyo Stock Exchange on Tuesday after the US exited from the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) deal, the media reported.

​Beijing, Jan 24 (IANS) China's central bank on Tuesday announced that it had lent 245.5 billion yuan ($36 billion) to 22 financial institutions through medium-term lending facility (MLF) to keep liquidity basically stable.

​Sydney, Jan 24 (IANS) US-based driverless car company Tesla along with facilities management firm Spotless Group is set to install thousands of electric car-charging stations across Australia.

Canberra, Jan 24 (IANS) Australia will work with the remaining TPP nations and salvage what can be of the doomed free trade agreement after the US decision to withdraw from the deal, Trade Minister said.

​Washington, Jan 24 (IANS) US President Donald Trump on Monday signed an executive order to officially withdraw US from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal.

Trump called the move "a great thing for the American workers", local media reported. "We've been talking about this for a long time," Xinhua news agency quoted Trump as

​Seoul, Jan 24 (IANS) Thanks to its components (mainly chips) and semiconductors business, Samsung Electronics has posted an operating profit of 29.2 trillion won ($25 billion) in 2016, despite losses suffered by its mobile division due to the Galaxy Note 7 fiasco.

​Sydney, Jan 24 (IANS) The Australian city of Sydney was on Tuesday named the second most expensive city for housing in the world while Hong Kong was ranked as the most expensive urban centre.