Knowledge Update

​New York, March 7 (IANS) NASA is all set to send an ice chest-sized box to the International Space Station to create the coolest spot in the universe.

The suite of instruments developed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, is set to be sent on a SpaceX cargo delivery to the space station in August, the US space agency said on Monday.

The ice box called the Cold Atom Laboratory (CAL) is in the final stages of assembly at JPL.

"Its instruments are designed to freeze gas atoms to a mere billionth of a degree above absolute zero. That's more than 100 million times colder than the depths of space," NASA said in a statement.

"Studying these hyper-cold atoms could reshape our understanding of matter and the fundamental nature of gravity," said CAL Project Scientist Robert Thompson of JPL. 

"The experiments we'll do with the Cold Atom Lab will give us insight into gravity and dark energy -- some of the most pervasive forces in the universe," Thompson said.

When atoms are cooled to extreme temperatures, as they will be inside of CAL, they can form a distinct state of matter known as a Bose-Einstein condensate. 

In this state, familiar rules of physics recede and quantum physics begins to take over. 

Matter can be observed behaving less like particles and more like waves. 

NASA has never before created or observed Bose-Einstein condensates in space. On Earth, the pull of gravity causes atoms to continually settle towards the ground, meaning they are typically only observable for fractions of a second.

But on the International Space Station, ultra-cold atoms can hold their wave-like forms longer while in freefall. That offers scientists a longer window to understand physics at its most basic level. 

Thompson estimated that CAL will allow Bose-Einstein condensates to be observable for up to five to 10 seconds and future development of the technologies used on CAL could allow them to last for hundreds of seconds.

Five scientific teams plan to conduct experiments using the Cold Atom Lab. 

The results of these experiments could potentially lead to a number of improved technologies, including sensors, quantum computers and atomic clocks used in spacecraft navigation, NASA said.

New York, March 7 (IANS) Lungs tend to quickly lose their function outside the body. But this may soon change as researchers have found a method that could help maintain a fully functional lung outside the body for up to a week or even longer.

Lengthening the time to keep lungs functional outside the body could boost transplantation as a vast majority of donor lungs get rejected during transplantation due to delay in transport. It could also allow doctors to repair damaged donor lungs and make them suitable for transplant.

The research team found that "cross circulation" -- an abandoned surgical procedure used in the 1960s to exchange blood flow between two patients -- could enable long-term support of living organs outside the body by providing critical systemic and metabolic factors that are missing from all current technologies. 

Taking a cue from this procedure, the researchers developed a new technology to support fully functional lung outside the body for several days, according to a study published online in the journal Nature Biomedical Engineering.

"Our cross-circulation platform will likely allow us to extend the duration of support to a week or longer if needed, potentially enabling the recovery of severely damaged organs," said one of the lead researchers John O'Neill from Columbia University Medical Centre in the US. 

"Beyond prolonging support time, we also demonstrated several therapeutic interventions that vastly improve and accelerate recovery," O'Neill noted.

The researchers said that their new platform could be readily extended to recover other organs that are in high demand for transplant or in need of repair, including livers and kidneys, and they have already begun studies in these directions.

​New York, March 6 (IANS) The 5.8-inch iPhone 8 with an OLED display -- that may be called 'iPhone X' -- is reportedly being launched along two other devices -- updated iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus (with brand names as iPhone 7S and iPhone 7S Plus), a media report said. According to the financial newspaper Nikkei, Apple will shrink the top and bottom bezels to make iPhone 8 smaller than the iPhone 7 Plus. The report also claimed that priced at $1,000, iPhone 8 will be the most expensive smartphone Apple has ever released. In February, a report claimed that out of the a 5.8-inch display, only 5.15-inch would be usable. The rest of the space would feature a "function area". Apple's upcoming iPhone 8 would also come with wireless charging. The company was also planning to introduce a new connector type for accessories for the iPhone, iPad and other devices through its official Made-for-iPhone (MFi) licensing programme. Called 'Ultra Accessory Connector' (UAC), the eight-pin connector is slightly less thick than USB-C and near half as wide as both USB-C and Lightning.

​Toronto, March 6 (IANS) Researchers have shown that synthetic DNA motors can work in living cells and help early detection of deadly diseases such as cancer and also make drug delivery more precise.

"This is really big because of the diverse potential applications," said one of the researchers Chris Le, Professor at University of Alberta in Canada.

"One outcome of this will be to provide better and earlier disease detection. Another is the controllable release of targeted drug molecules within patients, resulting in fewer side effects," Le said.

The process -- previously only successful in test tubes -- was described in a study published in the journal Nature Communications.

The team created the nanomachine from compartments made up of DNA enzyme molecules and substrates. 

"This nanomachine has the required fuels, DNA tracks, and a molecular switch," said Hongquan Zhang, Assistant Professor at University of Alberta, Canada.

For the study, it was 'tuned' to detect a specific microRNA sequence found in breast cancer cells. 

When it came into contact with the targetted molecules, the DNA motor was turned on and produced fluorescence as part of a reaction. 

The researchers were able to monitor the fluorescence, detecting which cells were cancerous. 

"We want to be able to detect cancer or disease markers in very minute amounts before the disease gets out of hand. That way physicians can attack it very early," Le said. 

"The trace amount of the target molecules that may be missed by other techniques can now be detected with this one," Le noted.

In addition to the potential for improved disease diagnosis, the researchers said DNA motors could also be used for precision drug delivery in patients. 

Conventional targetted drug therapy delivers medicine to a selectively targeted site of action, yet it still affects a large number of molecules that are not diseased. 

With the DNA motor, a drug payload can be delivered and then released only when triggered by disease specific molecules, the researchers said.

Rome, March 6 (IANS/AKI) The number of babies born in Italy hit a new historic low of 474,000 last year, 12,000 fewer than the 486,000 born in 2015, national statistics agency Istat said on Monday.

The total fertility rate fell to 1.34 children per woman in 2016 from 1.35 the previous year, while the average age at which women gave birth was nearly 32 (31.7 years), confirming the trend towards having children later, Istat data showed.

The drop in fertility "was due to the reduction of women of childbearing age (for national women) 
and to the aging process (for non national women)", Istat said.

Italy's population shrank to 60,579,000 in 2016, 86,000 less people than in the previous year, according to Istat figures.

A total of 134,000 more people died than were born in 2016, the second worse result ever, Istat said. 

There were more than 13.5 million people aged over 65 (22.3 percent of Italy's population) last year, 4.1 million over 80 and 17,000 people aged 100 and above, according to Istat.

Life expectancy rose in 2016 to 80.6 years for men and 85.1 years for women - a six-month increase for both sexes compared to last year, Istat figures showed.

​Toronto, March 5 (IANS) A team of scientists has developed an artificial intelligence system called DeepStack that recently defeated professional poker players.

The team of computing scientists from University of Alberta's Computer Poker Research Group, including researchers from Charles University in Prague and Czech Technical

New York, March 5 (IANS) Plants could be a renewable and biodegradable alternative to the polymers currently used in 3-D printing materials, researchers have found.

A new paper, published in the journal Advanced Materials Technologies, found that cellulose might become an abundant material to print with.

"Cellulose is the most important component in giving wood its mechanical properties. And because it is so inexpensive, it is biorenewable, biodegradable and also very chemically versatile, it is used in a lot of products," said Sebastian Pattinson, lead author of a paper, from Massachusetts Institute Of Technology (MIT).

"Cellulose and its derivatives are used in pharmaceuticals, medical devices, as food additives, building materials, clothing -- all sorts of different areas. And a lot of these kinds of products would benefit from the kind of customisation that additive manufacturing [3-D printing] enables," Pattinson added.

When heated, cellulose thermally decomposes before it becomes flowable, partly because of the hydrogen bonds that exist between the cellulose molecules. The intermolecular bonding also makes high-concentration cellulose solutions too viscous to easily extrude.

"We found that the strength and toughness of the parts we got... was greater than many commonly used materials for 3-D printing, including acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) and polylactic acid (PLA)," he said.

Cellulose acetate is already widely available as a commodity product. In bulk, the material is comparable in price to that of thermoplastics used for injection molding and it's much less expensive than the typical filament materials used for 3-D printing.

​New York, March 5 (IANS) At a time when humans are generating more data than hard drives, scientists have demonstrated that a computer operating system and a short movie could be stored on a DNA.

In a new study, published in journal Science, a pair of researchers at Columbia University and the New York Genome Center (NYGC) showed that an algorithm designed for streaming video on a cellphone can unlock DNA's nearly full storage potential by squeezing more information into its four base nucleotides.

The researchers showed that their coding strategy packs 215 petabytes of data on a single gram of DNA, which study co-author Yaniv Erlich believe was the highest-density data-storage device ever created.

According to the team, DNA is an ideal storage medium because it is ultra-compact and can last hundreds of thousands of years if kept in a cool, dry place.

"DNA won't degrade over time like cassette tapes and CDs, and it won't become obsolete -- if it does, we have bigger problems," said Erlich.

Erlich and his colleague Dina Zielinski stored six files into a DNA -- a full computer operating system, an 1895 French film "Arrival of a train at La Ciotat", a $50 Amazon gift card, a computer virus, a Pioneer plaque and a 1948 study by information theorist Claude Shannon.

They compressed the files into a master file, and then split the data into short strings of binary code made up of ones and zeros.

Using an erasure-correcting algorithm called fountain codes, they randomly packaged the strings into so-called droplets and mapped the ones and zeros in each droplet to the four nucleotide bases in DNA.

They also demonstrated that a virtually unlimited number of copies of the files could be created with their coding technique by multiplying their DNA sample through polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and that those copies, and even copies of their copies, and so on, could be recovered error-free.

​New York, March 5 (IANS) While some people believe tanning makes them more beautiful, this habit can actually damage their skin in the long run, leading to wrinkles and sagging skin, says a study.

"Ultraviolet radiation from the sun and indoor tanning beds not only can increase your risk of skin cancer but also can contribute to skin ageing," said Arianne Shadi Kourosh from the Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, US.

"Moreover, other forms of radiation, such as heat and visible light, can negatively impact the skin, as can pollution, so protecting your skin from the environment can benefit both your health and appearance," Kourosh said in a statement released by the American Academy of Dermatology.

Since both types of UV rays -- long wave ultraviolet A (UVA) and short wave ultraviolet B (UVB) -- can damage the skin, it is important to use a broad-spectrum sunscreen that provides both UVA and UVB protection, with an SPF (Sun Protection Factor) of 30 or higher, Kourosh said.

Environmental factors can damage the skin in multiple ways, from UVB rays causing sunburns and uneven pigmentation to UVA and infrared radiation penetrating more deeply into the skin to damage existing collagen and reduce collagen production, resulting in wrinkles and sagging skin, Kourosh said.

Habitual UV exposure can cause blood vessels to become more prominent, causing skin redness, while visible light and pollution can cause uneven skin tone, she said.

New York, March 4 (IANS) If you are diagnosed with depression, just take a deep breath and join yoga classes to experience significant reduction in symptoms without the side effects associated with antidepressants, new research suggests. "This study supports the use of a yoga and coherent breathing intervention in major depressive disorder in people who are not on antidepressants and in those who have been on a stable dose of antidepressants and have not achieved a resolution of their symptoms," explained corresponding author Chris Streeter, Associate Professor at Boston University School of Medicine in the US. Major depressive disorder (MDD) is common, recurrent, chronic and disabling. The findings, published in the Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine, provide support for the use of yoga-based interventions as an alternative or supplement to pharmacologic treatments for depression. Due in part to its prevalence, depression is globally responsible for more years lost to disability than any other disease. Up to 40 per cent of individuals treated with antidepressant medications for MDD do not achieve full remission. This study used lyengar yoga that has an emphasis on detail, precision and alignment in the performance of posture and breath control. Individuals with major depressive disorder were randomised to the high dose group, three 90-minute classes a week along with home practice, or the low dose group, two 90-minute classes a week, plus home practice. Both groups had significant decreases in their depressive symptoms and no significant differences in compliance. Although a greater number of participants in the high dose group had less depressive symptoms, the researchers believe attending twice weekly classes (plus home practice) may constitute a less burdensome but still effective way to gain the mood benefits from the intervention. Compared with mood altering medications, this intervention has the advantages of avoiding additional drug side effects and drug interactions, Streeter said. "While most pharmacologic treatment for depression target monoamine systems, such as serotonin, dopamine and norepinephrine, this intervention targets the parasympathetic and gamma aminobutyric acid system and provides a new avenue for treatment," Streeter explained.