Knowledge Update

​Beijing, Jan 11 (IANS) China's tourist spending is expected to be more than six trillion yuan ($865 million) in 2017, Xinhua news agency said citing a report.

The number of domestic, inbound and outbound tourists might reach over five billion in 2017, with outbound tourism expected to grow as more Chinese people have time and money to travel abroad, according to a report released by the China Tourism Academy and online travel agency giant Tuniu.com.

Chinese tourists are called "walking wallets".

Around 4.7 billion domestic, inbound and outbound tourists spent 5.5 trillion yuan in 2016, the report claimed.

Chinese tourists no longer prefer group tours and many go to suburban and rural areas.

Cruises and island tours are gaining popularity, with cruises expected to have earned 1.8 billion yuan in 2016.

China plans to raise tourism revenue to 7 trillion yuan by 2020, according to the country's five-year tourism plan.

New York, Jan 11 (IANS) Contrary to the common perception that people who post frequent selfies on social media platforms are generally narcissists, a new study now says selfie lovers may have different motives which often extend beyond self-obsession and showing off.

After analysing their survey results and interviews, a team of researchers from Texas Tech University found that there are three categories of selfie-takers -- communicators, autobiographers and self-publicists.

"It is important to recognise that not everyone is a narcissist," said Steven Holiday, study co-author in a paper published in the journal Visual Communication Quarterly.

Communicators are those who post selfies on social media such as Facebook and Instagram primarily to engage with their friends, family or followers in a conversation.

"They are all about two-way communication," added team member Maureen "Mo" Elinzano.

Autobiographers use selfies on social media platform as a tool to record key events in their lives and preserve significant memories. 

Lastly, self-publicists are the people who love documenting their entire lives.

"Identifying and categorising the three groups is important because it's a different kind of photography than we have ever experienced before," Holiday added.

Understanding people's motives can be valuable, because years from now, our society's visual history is going to be largely comprised of selfies. 

"And to find out why people do it, that contributes a lot to the discussion on selfies and visual communication in general," added Matt Lewis, co-author.

Sydney/Kolkata, Jan 11 (IANS) Think twice before blaming the weather gods for achy joints as researchers now claim that the weather plays no part in the symptoms associated with either back pain or osteoarthritis.

A new research from The George Institute for Global Health has debunked beliefs that episodes of both back pain and arthritis can be triggered by changes in the weather, including temperature, humidity, air pressure, wind direction and precipitation.

"The belief that pain and inclement weather are linked dates back to Roman times. But our research suggests this belief may be based on the fact that people recall events that confirm their pre-existing views," said Chris Maher, of the institute.

"Human beings are very susceptible so it is easy to see why we might only take note of pain on the days when it is cold and rainy outside, but discount the days when they have symptoms but the weather is mild and sunny," he added.

The studies were carried out across Australia with average daily temperatures ranging from 5.4 degrees Celsius to 32.8 degrees Celsius.

Almost 1,000 people with lower back pain, and around 350 with knee osteoarthritis were recruited for the Australia-based studies.

Weather data from the Australian Bureau of Meteorology were sourced for the duration of the study period.

Results showed no association between back pain and temperature, humidity, air pressure, wind direction or precipitation.

However, higher temperatures did slightly increase the chances of lower back pain, but the amount of the increase was not clinically important.

Back pain affects up to a third of the world's population at any one time, while almost 10 per cent of men and 18 per cent of women over the age of 60 have osteoarthritis.

Manuela Ferreira, who led the osteoarthritis research at the institute, said: "People who suffer from either of these conditions should not focus on the weather as it does not have an important influence on your symptoms and it is outside your control."

Washington, Jan 11 (IANS) Charon -- Pluto's moon which is more than half its diameter and orbits only 12,000 or so miles away -- is slowing down the decay of Pluto's atmosphere, scientists have found.

To put that into perspective, picture our moon three times closer to Earth and as large as Mars.

A new study from the Georgia Institute of Technology has provided additional insight into this relationship and how it affects the continuous stripping of Pluto's atmosphere by solar wind. 

When Charon is positioned between the Sun and Pluto, the research indicates that the moon can significantly reduce atmospheric loss.

"Charon doesn't always have its own atmosphere. But when it does, it creates a shield for Pluto and redirects much of the solar wind around and away," said Carol Paty, associate professor in the school of earth and atmospheric sciences.

This barrier creates a more acute angle of Pluto's bow shock, slowing down the deterioration of the atmosphere. 

When Charon doesn't have an atmosphere, or when it's behind or next to Pluto (a term scientists call "downstream"), then Charon has only a minor effect on the interaction of the solar wind with Pluto.

The study's predictions, performed before the New Horizons probe collected and returned data to Earth, is consistent with the measurements made by the spacecraft about Pluto's atmospheric loss rate. 

The research was published in a special Pluto issue of the journal Icarus.

London, Jan 11 (IANS) In a first, Danish researchers including one of Indian origin, have engineered E. coli bacteria to develop a cell line that produces large quantities of the compound serine -- used in detergents, tube feeding formula and as building blocks for many key chemicals.

The researchers from The Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Biosustainability (DTU Biosustain) believe this cell line will help produce the ingredients sustainably and at low cost. 

"This discovery is quite unique and proves that we can actually adapt cells to tolerate large amounts of serine -- something many people thought wasn't possible," said Professor Alex Toftgaard Nielsen from DTU Biosustain. 

In order to develop these cells, the team used highly specialised robots.

"Cell growth must be monitored 24 hours a day, and the cells must be transferred to new medium at a certain time of growth. Therefore, it is crucial that we use 'Adaptive Laboratory Evolution' (ALE) robots," explained lead author Hemanshu Mundhada from Technical University of Denmark.

Serine is an amino acid important for humans because it is one of the 20 amino acids forming proteins in our bodies. 

Being highly water soluble, serine finds application as moisturiser in lotions of pharma and cosmetic industry.

The first step in the development process was to produce E. coli cells that could survive high concentrations of serine. 

To achieve this, the scientists used ALE method in which they first exposed the cells to a small amount of serine. When the cells had grown accustomed to these conditions, the bacteria were transferred to a slightly higher concentration. 

The experiment was repeated several times with the cells best suited to tolerate serine.

The tolerant E. coli cells were subsequently optimised genetically to produce serine.

"We have shown that our E coli cells can use regular sugar and even residues from sugar production, molasses, in lower concentrations. We have seen promising results with less expensive sugars, which makes it even more attractive to produce serine in E. coli," Mundhada added in a paper published in the journal Metabolic Engineering.

​Seoul, Jan 10 (IANS) Auto exports in South Korea posted a double-digit decline in 2016 amid soft demand for cars globally, labour strikes at key domestic carmakers and expanded production in overseas factories, a government report showed on Tuesday.

Beijing, Jan 10 (IANS) Chinese economy is estimated to have grown about 6.7 per cent in 2016, a top economic planner said on Tuesday.

The world's second largest economy registered the same growth rate in the first, second and third quarter in 2016, Xinhua news agency quoted Xu Shaoshi, director of the

Tokyo, Jan 10 (IANS) Japanese vehicle manufacturer Toyota Motor will invest at least $10 billion in the US over the next five years, a company spokesperson said on Tuesday.

The plan comes just days after US President-elect Donald Trump threatened Toyota with high taxes if it was to produce in Mexico and export to the US, Efe news reported.

​New York, Jan 10 (IANS) "Finder for Airpods", an app that helped people track lost AirPod ear pieces has been banned by Apple.

Last week, mobile app developer studio Deucks Pty released the app on App Store.

​New York, Jan 10 (IANS) Social media giant Facebook is planning to show ads in the middle of videos and share the revenue generated with the publishers -- giving them 55 per cent of the sales -- media reported. "The company is testing a new 'mid-roll' ad format which will give video publishers a chance to insert ads into their clips after people have watched them for at least 20 seconds," Re/Code reported on Tuesday. The ads can also pop up on videos that run for atleast 90 seconds. The new format suggests that the social networking giant is relatively giving more importance to the time people spend watching videos, rather than the total number of videos they watch. To give users even more ways to watch, Facebook last year rolled out the ability to stream videos from the social network to your TV through devices like Apple TV or Google Chromecast.