Knowledge Update

​New York, July 7 (IANS) In a fresh bid to connect nearly four billion people to internet, Facebook on Thursday announced an open source and cost-effective, software-defined wireless access platform aimed to improve connectivity in remote areas of the world.

Washington, July 7 (IANS) What if your shirt or trouser can detect moisture in the air and gauge the outside temperature or your new-born baby's diaper can alert you that it is time for you to change it?

​New York, July 7 (IANS) Those who live exceptionally long lives lead a much healthier life, suggests new research. It found the onset of illness came decades later in life for centenarians than those not blessed with longevity.

The findings in a study of nearly 3,000 people contradict the notion that the older the people get, the sicker they become and the greater the cost of taking care of them.

"Most people struggle with an ever-increasing burden of disease and disability as they age," said study leader Nir Barzilai, Professor at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York.

"But we found that those who live exceptionally long lives have the additional benefit of shorter periods of illness -- sometimes just weeks or months -- before death," Barzilai said.

The study appeared in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.

The data for the study was collected from two studies with participants from North America, England, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand.

Analysis revealed a consistent pattern of delayed onset of illness in the centenarian groups compared to their respective comparison groups.

The findings suggest that discoveries made in one group of centenarians can be generalised to diverse populations. ​

New York, July 7 (IANS) Air pollutants interact with and break down plant-emitted scent molecules, which insect pollinators such as bees use to locate needed food, says a new study.

The pollution-modified plant odours can confuse bees and, as a result, bees' foraging time increases and pollination efficiency decreases, the study said.

This happens because the chemical interactions decrease both the scent molecules' life spans and the distances they travel.

While foraging for food, insects detect floral scent molecules in the air. Wind currents can carry these molecules up to thousands of feet from their original source to where bees have their hives.

"Many insects have nests that are up to 3,000 feet away from their food source, which means that scents need to travel long distances before insects can detect them," said Jose Fuentes, Professor at Pennsylvania State University in the US.

Plant-emitted hydrocarbons break down through chemical interactions with certain air pollutants such as ozone. 

This breakdown process results in the creation of more air pollutants, including hydroxyl and nitrate radicals, which further increase the breakdown rate of plant odours.

The researchers sought to understand how these chemical interactions, which start with the presence of air pollutants, would impact bees' ability to find food. 

The researchers ran 90,000 simulations representing various bees' foraging and movement patterns amid differing scent levels modified by air pollution and diluted by wind speeds.

The team reported in the journal Atmospheric Environment that, as air pollution increases, hydrocarbons' lifetime and travel distance decreases. 

The changes in air chemistry impacted the number of bees able to detect food sources in a given time frame. 

"We found that when we confused the bees' environment by modifying the gases present in the atmosphere, they spent more time foraging and would bring back less food, which would affect their colonies," Fuentes said. ​

​Seoul, July 7 (IANS) Riding on the huge success of its Galaxy S smartphone series, South Korean giant Samsung on Thursday announced that its operating profit rose to its highest level in about two years. The company earned 8.1 trillion Korean won ($7 billion) in operating profit in April-June period. The consolidated sales likely rose 3 per cent to about 50 trillion won from 48.5 trillion won a year earlier. Improvement in smartphone sales as well as a weaker won against the dollar helped push up the profit, media reports said. According to The Australian, the profits lend further evidence that the worst of the company's recent struggles may be over, thanks to the sustained popularity of the Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 Edge. Samsung sold the most number of smartphones worldwide in the first quarter of the year and is expected to sell 320 million smartphones by the end of the year, a new report said recently. According to US-based market research company IC Insights, buoyed by the strong sales growth of Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge, Samsung sold 81.5 million smartphones, followed by Apple with 51.6 million smartphones -- in the first quarter. Samsung Galaxy Note 5 device has also topped the 2016 American Consumer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) poll. According to the annual poll comprising 12,710 people, Samsung Galaxy Note 5 phablet has a rating of 86 out of 100, 9to5mac.com reported recently. The high-end smartphone market is expected to grow 19 per cent in 2016 from 15 per cent in the previous year as more and more customers are upgrading to premium devices from top brands like Samsung, Apple and OnePlus, another report said recently. While Samsung and Apple will continue to be strong players, new brands such as Gionee, Huawei, Vivo and Lenovo will make some commendable inroads, said the report released by the market research firm CyberMedia Research (CMR). Samsung and Apple increased their market share in 2015 (in the above Rs 20,000 price band) to 44 per cent and 27.3 per cent, respectively.​

​Sydney, July 6 (IANS) Children who have Type-1 diabetes can improve their cardiovascular health simply by taking an extra 1,000 steps a day, according a new research.

Keeping count of daily steps and boosting physical activity can really pay off for children with Type-1 diabetes, the findings showed. 

For the study, the researchers tracked the daily physical activity of 90 pre- to early-teenage children with Type-1 diabetes and found that those who undertook additional physical activity showed improvements in their blood vessel structure and other reductions in risk factors for heart disease.

"Children with Type-1 diabetes often report lower physical activity levels than recommended for children of the same age. We also tend to see early signs of atherosclerosis - a build up of plaque in the arteries - and other adverse cardiovascular risks at an earlier age than usual for these children," said lead author Alexia Pena from University of Adelaide in Australia.

The research team found that 55 per cent of the children took fewer than 10,000 steps per day.

The results were published online in the journal Diabetes Care.

"There were clear correlations between artery thickness and the average number of steps per day. With an increase of 1000 steps each day, we saw a measurable decrease in this arterial thickness," Pena added.

The report also suggested that in the children who had extra physical activity, saw reductions in weight, blood pressure and trigylcerides, which indicates an overall reduction in risk of heart disease.​

New York, July 7 (IANS) People with anger issues tend to misunderstand the intentions of other people and they also do not take in all the data from a social interaction, such as body language, because of decreased connectivity between regions of the brain that process a social situation, a study says.

People with intermittent explosive disorder (IED), or impulsive aggression, have a weakened connection between regions of the brain associated with sensory input, language processing and social interaction, the findings showed.

In a new study published in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology, the scientists showed that white matter in a region of the brain called the superior longitudinal fasciculus (SLF) has less integrity and density in people with anger issues than in healthy individuals and those with other psychiatric disorders. 

The SLF connects the brain's frontal lobe--responsible for decision-making, emotion and understanding consequences of actions--with the parietal lobe, which processes language and sensory input.

"It's like an information superhighway connecting the frontal cortex to the parietal lobes," said lead author of the study Royce Lee, Associate Professor at University of Chicago in the US. 

"We think that points to social cognition as an important area to think about for people with anger problems," Lee said.

Lee and his colleagues, including senior author Emil Coccaro, MD, Ellen C. Manning Professor and Chair of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neuroscience at Chicago. 

For the study, the researchers used diffusion tensor imaging, a form of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) that measures the volume and density of white matter connective tissue in the brain. 

Connectivity is a critical issue because the brains of people with psychiatric disorders usually show very few physical differences from healthy individuals.

"It's not so much how the brain is structured, but the way these regions are connected to each other," Lee said. 

​Tokyo, July 6 (IANS) In a first, Japanese researchers have rehabilitated a paralysed chimpanzee through interaction with computers and touch screens.

The case of Reo, a male chimpanzee that learned to walk again after being paralysed due to illness, shows how much can be done to rehabilitate animals injured in captivity, said lead author Yoko Sakuraba of Kyoto University.

Reo's example suggests that euthanasia does not have to be the only option for injured animals

The case was described in an article in Primates, the official journal of the Japan Monkey Centre published by Springer.

In their normal work, researchers of the Primate Research Institute at Kyoto University use chimpanzees' interaction with computers and touch screens to study the cognition and perception of these primates. 

When Reo was paralysed from the neck down, dedicated staff put this technology to further use by encouraging the animal to walk again. 

When Reo was 24 years old in 2006, he suddenly became paralysed when a portion of his spinal cord became inflamed. 

For the first ten months thereafter, the chimpanzee was severely disabled, lying on his back. He gradually recovered enough to sit up, and could later pull himself upright by using suspended ropes. 

Intensive physiotherapy over a period of 41 months followed, after which he was able to climb about again using only his arms.

To aid Reo's ultimate integration back among the other twelve animals held at the institute, his carers decided to try to get him walking again. 

They incorporated a computerised task in this process. This was considered an option because in his youth Reo had learnt how to perform cognitive tasks on a touch panel, and in so doing had become used to receiving food rewards whenever he succeeded at tasks presented to him.

A computer-controlled monitor was, therefore, placed on one wall, and cognitive tasks were again put to him. 

The rehabilitation sessions encouraged him to increase his movements considerably, and he started walking up to five hundred metres in a two-hour session.

"Cognitive tasks may be a useful way to rehabilitate physically disabled chimpanzees, and thus improve their welfare in captivity," Sakuraba said.​

Milan, July 6 (IANS/AKI) Italian media mogul and former premier Silvio Berlusconi confirmed that he is selling AC Milan to Chinese investors in a deal he expects to inject 400 million euros into the Serie A team over two years.

New York, July 6 (IANS) In a bid to regain footing in the social media landscape, Micro-blogging site Twitter has appointed Bret Taylor -- former chief technology officer at Facebook and an ex-Google employee who helped build Google Maps -- to its board.