Knowledge Update

​New York, June 28 (IANS) Scientists have built a "bionic" cardiac patch that could act similarly to a pacemaker and monitor as well as respond to cardiac problems.

The researchers from Harvard University constructed nanoscale electronic scaffolds that can be seeded with cardiac cells to produce a bionic cardiac patch -- the engineered heart tissue with ability to replace heart muscle damaged during a heart attack. 

"I think one of the biggest impacts would ultimately be in the area that involves replaced of damaged cardiac tissue with pre-formed tissue patches," said Charles Lieber, who along with colleagues described the work in the journal Nature Nanotechnology.

"Rather than simply implanting an engineered patch built on a passive scaffold, our works suggests it will be possible to surgically implant an innervated patch that would now be able to monitor and subtly adjust its performance," he added.

Once implanted, the "bionic" patch could act similarly to a pacemaker -- delivering electrical shocks to correct arrhythmia.

Unlike traditional pacemakers, the "bionic" patch -- because its electronic components are integrated throughout the tissue -- can detect arrhythmia far sooner, and operate at far lower voltages.

"Even before a person started to go into large-scale arrhythmia that frequently causes irreversible damage or other heart problems, this could detect the early-stage instabilities and intervene sooner," Lieber said. "It can also continuously monitor the feedback from the tissue and actively respond," he added.

The patch might also find use as a tool to monitor the responses under cardiac drugs, or to help pharmaceutical companies to screen the effectiveness of drugs under development.

​Beijing, June 28 (IANS) A new study has pinned down an overlooked source of outdoor pollution in Beijing -- residential cooking and heating -- which according to scientists contributes more to the city's choking smog than do the transportation sector and power plants combined.

"Coal and other dirty solid fuels are frequently used in homes for cooking and heating," said Denise Mauzerall from Princeton University who was part of the research team. 

"Because these emissions are essentially uncontrolled they emit a disproportionately large amount of air pollutants which contribute substantially to smog in Beijing and surrounding regions," she added.

According to the team from Princeton, the University of California-Berkeley, Peking University and Tsinghua University, households account for about 18 per cent of total energy use in the Beijing region but produce 50 per cent of black carbon emissions and 69 per cent of organic carbon emissions. 

In the Beijing area, households contribute more pollutants in the form of small soot particles (which are particularly hazardous to human health) than the transportation sector and power plants combined. In the winter heating season, households also contribute more small particles than do industrial sources.

The high levels of air pollutant emissions are due to the use of coal and other dirty fuels in small stoves and heaters that lack the pollution controls in place in power plants, vehicles and at some factories, according to the study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The region in the study included the cities of Beijing and the surrounding Tianjin and Hebei provinces.​

New York, June 29 (IANS) Scientists have discovered a new way to potentially treat muscle regeneration in patients with severe burns.

Severe burns results in profound skeletal muscle atrophy -- wasting away of muscles. This persistent muscle loss combined with weakness are major complications that hamper recovery from burn injury.

The findings showed that satellite cells -- the resident stem cell in skeletal muscle cells -- responsible for maintaining and regenerating skeletal muscle following injury was reduced in burn patients.

Further, while a severe burn injury causes cell death in the muscles, it also induces the muscle regeneration properties of satellite cells.

Satellite cells undergo concurrent cell death and activation acutely following a burn, with a net reduction in satellite cell content compared to healthy controls. 

The activation and death of satellite cells likely impacts the recovery of lean tissue following a severe burn, contributing to prolonged frailty in burn survivors.

"Our results highlight the therapeutic potential of satellite cells to aid regeneration and preservation of muscle mass following a severe burn injury," said lead researcher Celeste C. Finnerty, Associate Professor at the University of Texas Medical Branch in the US.

Additionally, a significant percentage of satellite cells in burn patients expressed protein Ki67, a marker for cellular proliferation

"We found a very high amount of the marker protein Ki67, which indicates that the burn injury activates satellite cells and thus stimulates skeletal muscle regeneration," added lead author Christopher S. Fry, Assistant Professor at the University of Texas Medical Branch. 

For the study, published in The Journal of Physiology, the team collected tissue samples from 12 patients with severe burn injuries and 12 healthy subjects. 

They used immunohistochemical -- the process of detecting antigens in cells of a tissue section -- techniques to analyse and compare the satellite cell content, activation and cell death (apoptosis), as well as muscle fibre regeneration in the tissue samples. 

“Future studies can now investigate therapies that can prevent satellite cells from cell death and promote their activity to regenerate skeletal cells, improving the recovery of severe burns patients," Finnerty noted.​

​London, June 29 (IANS) Researchers have developed a new method to calculate your 10-year risk for heart attack with greater precision than traditional risk factors alone.

Levels of cholesterol and triglycerides, body mass index (BMI), smoking habits and blood pressure are considered as traditional risk factors for cardiovascular disease.

There are several risk prediction calculators available today.

However, the use of risk prediction calculators has declined in the primary care setting because the currently available calculators only explain a modest proportion of the incidence.

For myocardial infarction or heart attack, it is estimated that 15-20 per cent of the patients had none of the traditional risk factors and would be classified as "low risk".

"Our study showed that by measuring a combination of five different microRNAs and adding this information to the traditional risk factors for cardiovascular disease, we could identify those that were going to experience a myocardial infarction with considerably improved precision", said study first author Anja Bye from Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU). 

The study was published in Journal of Molecular and Cellular Cardiology.

The researchers designed this study to explore the possibility of a new type of bio marker called circulating microRNAs, to predict 10-year risk for myocardial infarction.

They included 212 participants (40-70 years) from the Nord-Trondelag Health Study 2 (HUNT2, blood collected in 1996) who either died from heart attack within 10 years or remained healthy at the time of HUNT3 (2006).

New York, June 29 (IANS) Parents who tend to get overly involved in the affairs of their kids, may kindly note: Crossing the line between supportive and too involved could indirectly lead to issues such as depression and anxiety for young adults, a study says.

"Helicopter parents are parents who are overly involved," said one of the researchers, Kayla Reed from Florida State University. 

"They mean everything with good intentions, but it often goes beyond supportive to intervening in the decisions of emerging adults," Reed noted.

For the study, the researchers surveyed more than 460 college students, ages 18 to 25, about how their mothers influenced their life decisions by asking the students how their mothers would respond to sample situations. 

They specifically looked at mothers because they are traditionally in the primary caregiver role.

They also asked students to self-assess their abilities to persist in complicated tasks or adverse situations and then also rate their depression, life satisfaction, anxiety and physical health.

Students who had mothers who allowed them more autonomy reported higher life satisfaction, physical health and self-efficacy. 

However, students with a so-called helicopter parent were more likely to report low levels of self-efficacy, or the ability to handle some tougher life tasks and decisions.

In turn, those who reported low levels of self-efficacy also reported higher levels of anxiety and depression, and lower life satisfaction and physical health.

The findings appeared online in the Journal of Child and Family Studies.

"The way your parents interact with you has a lot to do with how you view yourself," Mallory Lucier-Greer, Assistant Professor at Florida State University, said.

"If parents are simply being supportive, they are saying things like 'you can manage your finances, you can pick out your classes.' It changes if they are doing that all for you,” Lucier-Greer said.

"I think there are good intentions behind those helicopter behaviours, but at the end of the day you need to foster your child's development," she noted.​

​New Delhi, June 28 (IANS) Privately owned pan-African telecom group Liquid Telecom has entered into an agreement to acquire South African network operator Neotel, owned by Tata Communications and Nexus Connexion, for South African Rand 6.55 billion (Rs 29 billion), a company statement said on Tuesday.

​Hanoi, June 28 (IANS) The Taj Mahal in India is among the 50 most beautiful places in Asia, according to Conde Nast Traveler (CNT) magazine.

The 17th-century Taj, built entirely in marble by Mughal emperor Shahjahan in memory of his wife Mumtaz, is located in Agra, about 200 km south of New Delhi. It is India's most visited tourist spot. 

Xinhua news agency quoted CNT as saying that among the other 50 most breathtaking sites in Asia were Forbidden City in Beijing, the Great Wall of China and Lhasa in Tibet.​

​Dhaka, June 26 (IANS) The World Bank has approved $150 million in additional financing to help strengthen Bangladesh's health systems and improve its services.

The financing will support implementation of the government's health sector-wide programme, Xinhua news agency cited the World Bank as saying in a statement on Sunday.

​London, June 28 (IANS) Children who regularly participate in physical activities are likely to have improved brain function, intellect and academic performance, says a research.

The findings showed that regular exercise can help children in developing important life skills, boost self-esteem, motivation, confidence as well as foster relationship with their parents and peers.

Vigorous exercise in childhood can also help keep at bay the risk of developing heart disease and Type 2 diabetes in later life.

A frequent exercise schedule of moderate intensity can also act as a natural cure for heart problems as well as improve the metabolic process in children.

Regular exercise since childhood can strengthen the cardiovascular region and muscles of the body, which would further help in keeping a check over the risk of developing heart disease and Type 2 diabetes in later life, said the paper published online in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.

Further, a session of physical activity before, during, and after school can boost academic prowess in children.

"Incorporating physical activity into every aspect of school life and providing protected public spaces, such as bike lanes, parks and playgrounds are both effective strategies for providing equitable access to, and enhancing physical activity for, children and youth," suggested researchers including form Exeter University, Birmingham University, Chester University and University of East London.

London, June 28 (IANS) Sending text messages on a smartphone or iPad can change the rhythm of brain waves in humans -- a finding that has significant implications for brain-computer interfacing, gaming and driving.

People communicate increasingly via text messaging, though little is known on the neurological effects of smartphone use.

To find out more about how our brains work during textual communication using smartphones, a team led by Mayo Clinic researcher William Tatum analysed data from 129 patients.

Their brain waves were monitored over a period of 16 months through electroencephalograms (EEGs) combined with video footage.

Dr Tatum found a unique 'texting rhythm' in approximately one in five patients who were using their smartphone to text message while having their brain waves monitored.

"We believe this new rhythm is an objective metric of the brain's ability to process non-verbal information during use of electronic devices and that it is heavily connected to a widely distributed network augmented by attention or emotion," Dr Tatum commented.

The researchers asked patients to perform activities such as message texting, finger tapping and audio cellular telephone use in addition to tests of attention and cognitive function.

Only text messaging produced the newly observed brain rhythm, which was different than any previously described brain rhythm.

The unicity of the texting rhythm compared to other forms of mental stimulation could be caused by the combination of mental activity with motor and auditory-verbal neurological activity.

The 'texting rhythm' was also found in iPad users.

The researchers hypothesised that the presence of a different brain wave rhythm while using mobile, handheld devices might be caused by their smaller screens, which require more concentration.

“There is now a biological reason why people shouldn't text and drive - texting can change brain waves,” Dr Tatum added in a paper published in the journal Epilepsy & Behavior.​