Knowledge Update

New Delhi, Feb 16 (IANS) Concerned over Malaysia losing Indian tourists to other South-East Asian countries in recent years, the Malaysian government has come up with certain measures to check the fall in numbers and plans to make further investment to attract more tourists.

Malaysia's Tourism Minister Mohamed Nazri bin Abdul Aziz, talking to IANS, said they were in the process of fixing the visa-related issues -- the top-most concern raised by some quarters.

"Othe countries, such as Thailand, Vietnam and Indonesia, are making it easier for Indians to travel to their countries, thus taking away some of the tourists previously visiting Malaysia. So, now we have introduced visa-free entry facility for Indians, even for those living away from their home country," Nazri said.

Nazri said that after he found that extra visa fee was being charged from those Indians applying for multiple entry, he standardised the visa fee.

The minister said that his government was planning a tie-up with PayTM --a digital wallet widely used in India -- to facilitate smooth transaction for India tourists in his country.

Noting that Indians are frequent visitors to his country, Nazri said: "We have planned many incentives for Indians. For example, we have made easier for Indian travel agents to set up companies in Malaysia, investors can have 100 per cent ownership, such as in five-star hotels and resorts, without any involvement of local partners."

"We will also make it easy for the Indian movie-makers to shoot in Malaysia and provide some special incentives to Indian markets," he said and stressed the traditional social and cultural bonding between the two countries.

In 2015, over 722,000 tourists from India visited Malaysia, making the country one of the 10 largest source of tourists. However, the number declined to 620,000 in 2016, against the projected one million tourists for the year.

Nazri said that he did not know the exact tourist projection for this year "but the number will top 700,000".

"We are promoting eco-tourism in Borneo. Also, health tourism is big thing in Malaysia and we have many Indian tourists visiting Malaysia for treatment. Almost 25 per cent of our doctors are trained in India," he said.

Asked about the effect of the demonetisation of high-value currency notes in India, Nazri said: "It will be too early to say if it had any impact on the decline in number of Indian tourists to Malaysia."

"Even if it did affect, the impact will be minimal. The most important issue is visa, which we are already addressing," he said.

New York, Feb 16 (IANS) Have you ever thought of having a Tablet that can be stretched from small to a large size, or a wallpaper that turns a wall into an electronic display? This imagination may soon be a future reality.

Engineering researchers at Michigan State University (MSU) have developed the first stretchable integrated circuit that is made entirely using an inkjet printer, raising the possibility of inexpensive mass production of smart fabric.

"We can conceivably make the costs of producing flexible electronics comparable to the costs of printing newspapers. Our work could soon lead to printed displays that can easily be stretched to larger sizes, as well as wearable electronics and soft robotics applications," said Chuan Wang, Assistant Professor at MSU.

Since the material can be produced on a standard printer, it has a major potential cost-advantage over current technologies that are expensive to manufacture.

According to the researchers, the smart fabric is made up of several materials fabricated from nanomaterials and organic compounds. 

"These compounds are dissolved in solution to produce different electronic inks, which are run through the printer to make the devices," a paper published in the journal ACS Nano noted.

Researchers created an elastic material, the circuit and the organic light-emitting diode, or OLED from the ink. 

Researchers estimate that in a year or two, they will be able to combine the circuit and OLED into a single pixel, and once that is done, the smart fabric can be potentially commercialised.

"Conceivably, the stretchable electronic fabric can be folded and put in one's pocket without breaking. This is an advantage over current 'flexible' electronics material technology that cannot be folded," added Wang.

"We have taken it one big step beyond the flexible screens that are about to become commercially available," Wang added.

Dubai, Feb 16 (IANS) The United Arab Emirates (UAE) will build the first city on the Red Planet as part of the 2117 Mars project in collaboration with specialised international organisations and scientific institutes.

The Mars 2117 Project was announced by Sheikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, and Sheikh Mohammad Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Abu Dhabi Crown Prince and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces, Gulf News reported on Tuesday.

As part of a 100-year national programme, the UAE will set in operation a plan to prepare national cadres who can achieve scientific breakthroughs to facilitate the transport of people to the Red Planet over the next decades.

The 100-year plan will involve scientific research programmes to nurture national cadres specialised in space sciences at universities in the UAE. 

The announcement was made on the sidelines of the World Government Summit in the presence of representatives of 138 governments, six major international organisations, as well as leading international tech companies. 

The new project will be associated with research themes featuring the exploration of transportation means, energy and food on Mars. It will also try to find faster transportation methods for travelling to and from Mars.

"The landing of people on other planets has been a longtime dream for humans. Our aim is that the UAE will spearhead international efforts to make this dream a reality," said Sheikh Mohammad Bin Rashid.

Sheikh Mohammad Bin Zayed said the short-term goal is to develop the capacities and skills of Emiratis. 

"The 2117 Mars initiative is a long-term project, which will first help develop our education, universities and research centres that will empower young Emiratis to enter all disciplines of scientific research fields," he said.

In 2015, the UAE announced its Mars Probe mission, which will send the Arab world's first spacecraft to the Red Planet in a scientific exploration mission that will land on planet in 2021.

​Children who regularly intake fructose present in soda, sweetened beverages, pizza and salty food, biscuits, yogurt may be be prone to liver disease, researchers warn. According to a study, led by researchers from Bambino Gesu Hospital in Italy, dietary fructose increases serum uric acid concentrations.

Both uric acid concentration and fructose consumption may be high in individuals with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) -- a condition where extra fat is accumulated in liver cells in people who drink little or no alcohol. It is estimated to affect up to 30 per cent of the general population in Western countries and up to 9.6 per cent of all children and 38 per cent of obese children across a spectrum of liver disease, including NASH (defined as steatosis, hepatocyte ballooning and inflammation).

Although NASH is a less aggressive form of NAFLD, it can progress to severe fibrosis and cirrhosis, with development of hepatocellular carcinoma in adults. The findings suggested that fructose consumption was independently associated with high uric acid, which occurred more frequently in patients with NASH than in not-NASH patients.

"It is plausible that dietary fructose intake and uric acid concentrations are potential risk factors for liver disease progression in NAFLD," said Valerio Nobili from Bambino Gesu Hospital in Italy.

"The study shows for the first time that uric acid concentrations and dietary fructose consumption are independently and positively associated with NASH," Nobili added. For the study, reported in the Journal of Hepatology, the team analysed 271 obese children and adolescents with NAFLD -- 155 males, mean age 12.5 years -- who underwent liver biopsy.

Nearly 90 per cent were found drinking sodas and soft drinks one or more times a week. Almost 95 per cent of patients regularly consumed morning and afternoon snacks consisting of crackers, pizza and salty food, biscuits, yogurt, or other snacks. The development of NASH may markedly affect life expectancy and quality of life in affected individuals.

Thus, "it is crucial to understand the risk factors for NASH in children and adolescents in order to design effective interventions," Nobili said.

​London, Feb 15 (IANS)

New York, Feb 15 (IANS) Days after Twitter revealed its fourth-quarter earnings that missed company's revenue estimates, CEO Jack Dorsey has bought $7 million worth of Twitter stock, media reports said.

​London, Feb 15 (IANS) Researchers have identified more than 200 genetic markers that may help predict a man's chance of severe hair loss, in a study over 52,000 males.

Male pattern baldness can have substantial psychosocial effects and it has been phenotypically linked to adverse health outcomes such as prostate cancer and cardiovascular disease. 

Based on the presence or absence of certain genetic markers, the researchers from the University of Edinburgh in Britain, created a formula to try and predict the chance that a person will go bald. 

The findings, published in PLOS Genetics, pinpointed 287 genes, many of which are related to hair structure and development, and could provide possible targets for drug development to treat baldness or related conditions.

Further, the study showed-in line with a previous study, but with much greater precision that a substantial proportion of individual differences in hair loss patterns can be explained by common genetic variants on the autosomes as well as on the X chromosome -- the gene for the androgen receptor, which binds to the hormone testosterone. 

"We identified hundreds of new genetic signals. It was interesting to find that many of the genetics signals for male pattern baldness came from the X chromosome, which men inherit from their mothers," said Saskia Hagenaars, doctoral student at the University of Edinburgh.

"We are still a long way from making an accurate prediction for an individual's hair loss pattern. However, these results take us one step closer. The findings pave the way for an improved understanding of the genetic causes of hair loss," added Riccardo Marioni from the University of Edinburgh. 

​New York, Feb 15 (IANS) Astronomers have spotted a rare pulsating star which is expanding and contracting in three different directions simultaneously.

It is situated 7,000 light years away from Earth in the constellation Pegasus, said astronomer Farley Ferrante, a member of the team that made the discovery at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas.

The star is one that pulsates and so is characterised by varying brightness over time. 

Called a variable star, this particular star is one of only seven known stars of its kind in our Milky Way galaxy.

"It was challenging to identify it," Ferrante said in a university statement. 

The Milky Way has more than 100 billion stars. But just over 400,900 are catalogued as variable stars. 

Of those, a mere seven -- including the newly-identified one -- are the rare intrinsic variable star called a Triple Mode 'high amplitude delta Scuti' or Triple Mode HADS(B), for short.

"The discovery of this object helps to flesh out the characteristics of this unique type of variable star. These and further measurements can be used to probe the way the pulsations happen," Robert Kehoe, Professor at Southern Methodist University, said.

"Pulsating stars have also been important to improving our understanding of the expansion of the universe and its origins, which is another exciting piece of this puzzle," Kehoe said.

The astronomers discovered the variable star by analysing light curve shape -- a key identifier of star type -- created from archived data procured by ROTSE-I telescope.

​New York, Feb 15 (IANS) In a surprising discovery, astronomers have observed a black hole producing cold, star-making fuel from hot plasma jets and bubbles.

The researchers found that powerful radio jets from the black hole -- which normally suppress star formation -- are stimulating the production of cold gas in the galaxy's extended halo of hot gas. 

This newly identified supply of cold, dense gas could eventually fuel future star birth as well as feed the black hole itself, said the study published in the Astrophysical Journal.

The researchers studied a galaxy at the heart of the Phoenix Cluster, an uncommonly crowded collection of galaxies about 5.7 billion light-years from Earth.

The team analysed observations of the Phoenix cluster gathered by the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA), a collection of 66 large radio telescopes spread over the desert of northern Chile. 

The researchers believe that the new findings may help to explain the Phoenix cluster's exceptional star-producing power. 

They may also provide new insight into how supermassive black holes and their host galaxies mutually grow and evolve.

"With ALMA we can see that there's a direct link between these radio bubbles inflated by the supermassive black hole and the future fuel for galaxy growth," said study lead author Helen Russell, an astronomer with the University of Cambridge in Britain.

"This gives us new insights into how a black hole can regulate future star birth and how a galaxy can acquire additional material to fuel an active black hole," Russell said.

What the researchers believe to be happening is that, as jet inflate bubbles of hot gas near the black hole, they drag behind them a wake of slightly cooler gas. 

The bubbles eventually detach from the jets and float further out into the galaxy cluster, where each bubble's trail of gas cools, forming long filaments of extremely cold gas that condense and rain back onto the black hole as fuel for star formation.

"It's a very new idea that the bubbles and jets can actually influence the distribution of cold gas in any way," said study co-author Michael McDonald, an astrophysicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the US.

New York, Feb 14 (IANS) While anti-ageing moisturisers only go skin deep, reducing calorie consumption can slow the ageing process at cellular level, suggests new research. The study, published in the journal Molecular & Cellular Proteomics, showed that when ribosomes -- the cell's protein makers -- slow down, the ageing process slows too. The decreased speed lowers production but gives ribosomes extra time to repair themselves. "The ribosome is a very complex machine, sort of like your car, and it periodically needs maintenance to replace the parts that wear out the fastest," said study senior author John Price, Professor at Brigham Young University in in Provo, Utah, US. So what causes ribosome production to slow down in the first place? Reduced calorie consumption, show the results of the study tested in mice. Price and his fellow researchers observed two groups of mice. One group had unlimited access to food while the other was restricted to consume 35 per cent fewer calories, though still receiving all the necessary nutrients for survival. "When you restrict calorie consumption, there's almost a linear increase in lifespan," Price said. "We inferred that the restriction caused real biochemical changes that slowed down the rate of ageing," he added. "The calorie-restricted mice are more energetic and suffered fewer diseases," Price said. "And it's not just that they're living longer, but because they're better at maintaining their bodies, they're younger for longer as well," he said. Despite this study's observed connection between consuming fewer calories and improved lifespan, Price assured that people should not start counting calories and expect to stay forever young. Calorie restriction has not been tested in humans as an anti-ageing strategy, the researchers pointed out.

Kathmandu, Feb 14 (IANS) Chinese technology company Coolpad on Tuesday launched Cool 1 smartphone in Nepal. Priced at Nepali Rs 30,996, the smartphone has dual rear 13MP camera, dual-tone LED flash and 5.5-inch full-HD display. "We aim to sell around 5,00,000 units of Coolpad smartphone and be one of the top five players in 2017 in Nepal," said James Du, Global CEO, Coolpad, in a statement. Cool 1 is powered with 1.8GHz octa-core processor and comes with two different RAM variants -- 3GB and 4GB -- with an internal storage of 32GB. The device sports 8MP front camera and houses 4,000mAh battery with fast charging support. The company also showcased three other models -- Note 3S, Mega 3 and Mega 2.5D -- in the country.