Knowledge Update

​Beijing, July 3 (IANS) Installation was completed on the world's largest radio telescope on Sunday as the last of 4,450 panels was fitted into the centre of the big dish.

Hoisting of the last triangular panel to the reflector, which is the size of 30 football fields, began at 10.47 a.m. and lasted about an hour. It was a landmark step for the telescope's planned launch of operations in September, Xinhua news agency reported.

About 300 people, including builders, experts, science fiction enthusiasts and reporters, witnessed the installation at Karst Valley in the southwestern province of Guizhou.

"The telescope is of great significance for humans to explore the universe and extraterrestrial civilisations," said Liu Cixin, a renowned science fiction writer.

"I hope scientists can make epoch-making discoveries," said Liu, who won the 2015 Hugo Award for Best Novel.

Scientists will begin debugging and trial observation of the 500 metre Aperture Spherical Telescope (FAST), said Zheng Xiaonian, deputy head of the National Astronomical Observation (NAO) under the Chinese Academy of Sciences, which built the telescope.

The project has the potential to search for more strange objects to better understand the origin of the universe and boost the global hunt for extraterrestrial life, said Zheng. It will be the global leader for the next 10 to 20 years.

In the first two or three years after its completion, the telescope will undergo further adjustment, and during that period Chinese scientists will use it for early-stage research.

After that, it will be open to scientists worldwide, said Peng Bo, director of the NAO Radio Astronomy Technology Laboratory.

Upon completion, the telescope will dwarf Puerto Rico's Arecibo Observatory, which is 300 metres in diameter. It will also be 10 times more sensitive than the steerable 100-metre telescope near Bonn in Germany, he said.

Work on the 1.2-billion-yuan ($180 million) FAST project began in 2011.​

​Toronto, July 3 (IANS) Activities such as playing cards and repeatedly throwing a foam ball or wad of paper into a wastepaper basket are just as effective in helping people regain strength and co-ordination following a stroke as playing virtual reality games, a new study has found.

The study, published in the 'Lancet Neurology' journal, was based on a clinical trial conducted at 14 centres in four countries in which patients were randomised into two groups.

One group received one-hour sessions of virtual reality using the Nintendo Wii system and the other spent the same amount of time doing simple recreational activities such as playing cards or dominoes.

Patients randomised to both groups saw a 30 per cent and 40 per cent improvement in motor performance at the end of two weeks of the intervention and four weeks after the intervention, respectively.

"There was no significant difference between the two groups in terms of strength, dexterity, gross motor skills, quality of life or activities of daily living. We all like technology and have the tendency to think that new technology is better than old-fashioned strategies, but sometimes that's not the case," said Dr. Gustavo Saposnik, scientist at St. Michael's Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute in Toronto. 

This study revealed that simple recreational activities that can be implemented anywhere may be as effective as technology.​

​Beijing, July 4 (IANS) At least 14 more meteorological satellites will be launched by China into orbit by 2025, officials said at a science conference on Monday.

China plans to launch one Fengyun-II satellite, four Fengyun-IIIs, three Fengyun-IVs and another six for multiple meteorological purposes, Xinhua quoted an official of the State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defence, as saying.

Fengyun satellites are a series of remote-sensing meteorological satellites developed by China. The Fengyun series is an important part of the earth observation satellite system.

China has launched 14 Fengyun satellites since 1988, with seven still in orbit as part of the World Meteorological Organisation network.​

​New York, July 2 (IANS) Ever thought of a walking meeting at your office? Organise one this Monday as it will surely keep you and your colleagues (boss included), who spend most of their working hours sitting in chairs, healthy.

Converting just one seated meeting per week at work into a walking meeting increased the work-related physical activity levels of workers by 10 minutes, a study has shown.

"Interventions such as the walking meeting protocol that encourages walking and raises levels of physical activity in the workplace are needed to counter the negative health effects of sedentary behaviour," said lead investigator Alberto J Caban-Martinez, Assistant Professor at University of Miami in the US.

Nearly 30 minutes a day or 150 minutes per week of moderate-intensity physical activity in adults is imperative for good health, according to recommendations by the American Heart Association.

"There are limited opportunities for physical activity at work. This study provides early evidence that white-collar workers find it feasible and acceptable to convert a traditional seated meeting into a walking meeting," Caban-Martinez added.

Previous studies have proven that engaging in moderate exercise, which includes brisk walking, for as little as 15 minutes per day can add up to three years of life expectancy.

The new research, published in the journal Preventing Chronic Disease, suggested that walking meetings has the potential to positively influence the health of many individuals, the researchers said.

In the study, the participants were recruited from the University of Miami and wore accelerometers to measure physical activity levels during the workday over a three-week period.

They also followed a "walking meeting protocol" that included guidance for leading meetings and taking notes while walking.

The average combined moderate/vigorous physical activity reported by participants increased from 107 minutes in the first week to 114 minutes in the second week and to 117 minutes in week three of the study.​

​Washington, July 1 (IANS) Even as Google Glass undergoes a "comprehensive redesign", plastic surgeons see some clear advantages of using the eye wearable device in the operating room, reports a study.

​New York, July 1 (IANS) Neuroscientists have found that the resting-state brain activity - the neural activity that goes on while we are doing nothing in particular - helps some people learn new languages faster.

"The way someone's brain functions while at rest predicts 60 per cent of their capacity for learning a second language," said study author Chantel Prat from University of Washington.

In the small yet significant study, published recently by the US Office of Naval Research, 19 participants between the ages of 18 and 31 with no previous experience learning French, visited Prat's lab twice weekly over eight weeks for 30-minute French lessons delivered through a virtual-reality computer programme called Operational Language and Cultural Training System (OLCTS).

OLCTS is designed to make military personnel proficient in a foreign language after 20 hours of training. The programme guides users through a series of scenes and stories. A voice-recognition component enables users to check their pronunciation.

For five minutes before and after the eight-week curriculum, Prat had participants sit still, close their eyes, breathe deeply and wear an EEG (electroencephalogram) headset measuring resting-state brain activity from the cerebral cortex - an area of the brain crucial to memory, attention and perception.

"The brain waves we recorded reflect synchronised firing of large networks of neurons," Prat said. 

"We found that the larger the networks were in 'beta' frequencies (brain frequencies associated with language and memory), the faster our participants learned French," he added.

To confirm this, at the end of the eight-week language programme, participants also completed a proficiency test covering the lessons they had finished. Those with the larger "beta" networks learned French twice as quickly.

However, Prat pointed out that language learning rates were the only things predicted by the recorded brain activity. Participants with smaller "beta" networks still learned the material to which they were exposed equally well.

"There's more that goes into learning a new language than speed," Prat said. "You also have to factor in motivation, study habits and practice methods," he added.​

​Washington, July 2 (IANS) After its historic first-ever flyby of Pluto, NASA's New Horizons mission has received the green light to fly onward to an object deeper in the Kuiper Belt.

The spacecraft's planned rendezvous with the ancient object named 2014 MU69 -- considered one of the early building blocks of the solar system -- is January 1, 2019.

"The New Horizons mission to Pluto exceeded our expectations and even today the data from the spacecraft continue to surprise," said NASA's Director of Planetary Science Jim Green.

"We're excited to continue onward into the dark depths of the outer solar system to a science target that wasn't even discovered when the spacecraft launched," he added.

In addition to the extension of the New Horizons mission, NASA said the Dawn spacecraft should remain at the dwarf planet Ceres rather than changing course to the main belt asteroid Adeona.

"The long-term monitoring of Ceres, particularly as it gets closer to perihelion -- the part of its orbit with the shortest distance to the sun -- has the potential to provide more significant science discoveries than a flyby of Adeona," Green noted in a statement.

The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN), the Opportunity and Curiosity Mars rovers, the Mars Odyssey orbiter, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), and NASA's support for the European Space Agency's Mars Express mission have also got extension.​

Colombo, July 1 (IANS) An increase in tourists mainly from China and India will help strengthen Sri Lanka's frail economy as tourism is poised to become the largest foreign exchange earner for the country, an official said on Friday.

The number of tourists from China and India increased in the recent years and due to the prevailing crisis in Europe, Asia has become an ideal destination, Xinhua news agency reported.

"India and China are one of our main markets and we will conduct more promotional programmes to attract tourists from these two countries in the future. Currently, the average money spent by a tourist per day is valued at $165, which is good," an official said.

While tourism was currently the third foreign exchange earner, it would soon lead as a higher number of tourists were selecting Sri Lanka as an ideal tourism destination, the official added.

An estimated 1.8 million tourists arrived in Sri Lanka in 2015, contributing to $2.98 billion of earnings to government revenues. 

The government said it hoped to attract at least three million tourists by the end of 2016, and it has set a target of four million by 2020.​

London, July 1 (IANS) Finding it difficult to complete a task? If so, speaking to yourself that "I can do better" can improve your performance, new research says.

The findings showed that people using self-talk, like telling oneself "I can do better next time" - performed better than the control group in every portion of the task.

The greatest improvements were seen in self-talk-outcome (telling yourself, "I can beat my best score"), self-talk-process (telling yourself, "I can react quicker this time"), imagery-outcome (imagining yourself playing the game and beating your best score) and imagery-process (imagining yourself playing and reacting quicker than last time).

The study, which examined if one motivational method would be more effective for any specific aspect of a task, tested over 44,000 people to discover which physiological skills would help people improve their scores in an online game.

The methods tested were self-talk, imagery and if-then planning. Each of these psychological skills was applied to one of four parts of a competitive task: process, outcome, arousal-control, and instruction.

If-then planning was found to be one of the least successful of this study, despite being an effective tool in weight management and other real life challenges.

Online interventions that focus on increasing motivation, increased arousal, effort invested, and pleasant emotions were the most effective, said Andrew M. Lane, Professor at University of Wolverhampton in Britain.

Further, watching a short motivational video was also found to improve performance, said the paper published in Frontiers in Psychology has found.​

​New York, June 30 (IANS) Facebook has announced an update to its "News Feed" to prioritise posts from the user's friends and family "so that people can see what they care about first, and don’t miss important stuff from their friends".