Knowledge Update

New York, May 8 (IANS) Introducing a noise net around airfields that emit sound levels equivalent to those of a conversation in a busy restaurant could prevent collisions between birds and aircraft, saving lives and billions in damages, new research has found.

Filling a controlled area with acoustic noise around an airfield, where the majority of collisions tend to take place, can reduce the number of birds in the area by 80 percent, the findings showed.

"We are using a different kind of deterrent - trying to stop birds from hearing one another by playing a noise that is at the same pitch as the alarm calls or predator noises they are listening out for," said lead researcher John Swaddle, professor of biology at College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, US.

"By playing a noise at the same pitch, we mask those sounds, making the area much riskier for the birds to occupy. The birds don't like it and leave the area around the airfields, where there is potential for tremendous damage and loss of life," Swaddle noted.

The researchers set up speakers and amplifiers in three areas of an airfield in Virginia state and observed bird abundance over eight weeks, the first four weeks without noise and the second four weeks with the noise turned on.

Results showed a large decrease in the number of birds in the 'sonic net' and areas just outside and found that it was particularly effective at deterring a number of species that were at high risk of bird strike such as starlings.

"We have conducted prior research in an aviary but this is the first study done out in the field to show the efficacy of the sonic net," Swaddle, who is also a visiting research associate at University of Exeter in Britain, said.

The study was published in the journal Ecological Applications.

Bird strikes cost the aviation industry worldwide billions of dollars annually, and were responsible for 255 deaths between 1988 and 2013, yet measures to reduce these have been largely ineffective, the study noted.

Techniques to deter birds from airports include shooting, poisoning, live-capture and relocation, and the use of scare technologies, but these have proved largely ineffective.​

​New York, May 9 (IANS) Researchers have developed a device with the potential of shortening the time required to rapidly diagnose bacterial infections from days to a couple of hours.

The system could also allow point-of-care diagnosis, as it does not require the facilities and expertise available only in hospital laboratories, the study said. 

"Health-care-associated infections are a major problem that affects more than 600,000 patients each year, more than 10 percent of whom will die, and incurs more $100 billion in related costs," said co-senior author of the study Ralph Weissleder from Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) in Boston, US.

"Rapid and efficient diagnosis of the pathogen is a critical first step in choosing the appropriate antibiotic regimen, and this system could provide that information in a physician's office in less than two hours," Weissleder noted.

The system developed by the MGH team, dubbed PAD for Polarization Anisotropy Diagnostics, allows for accurate genetic testing in a simple device. 

In this study, the team used a prototype PAD system to test clinical samples from nine patients and compared the results with those acquired by conventional microbiology cultures. 

Testing for the presence of five important bacterial species -- E. coli, Klebsiella, Acinetobacter, Pseudomonas, and Staph aureus -- and for factors indicating the virulence and antibiotic resistance of specific strains produced identical results with both procedures. 

But while PAD provided results in less than two hours, the bacterial culture process took three to five days. 

The findings were reported in the journal Science Advances.

"We can see three immediate applications for a system that can provide such rapid and accurate results - quickly diagnosing a patient's infection, determining whether antibiotic-resistant bacteria are present in a group of patients, and detecting bacterial contamination of medical devices or patient environments," co-senior author Hakho Lee, associate professor of radiology at Harvard Medical School, pointed out.​

New York, May 7 (IANS) If you are able to steadily maintain a lean body all your life, you are likely to live longer in comparison to those who have since childhood a heavy body that has got heavier during middle age, new research reveals.

The findings showed that people who had a heavy body shape from their childhood and also put on weight during their middle age are at highest risk of mortality with a 15-year risk of death being 19.7 percent in women and 24.1 percent in men.

In contrast, those who remained stably lean throughout life had the lowest mortality, with a 15-year risk of death being 11.8 percent in women, and 20.3 percent in men.

"Our findings provide further scientific rationale for recommendations of weight management, especially avoidance of weight gain in middle life, for long-term health benefit," said Mingyang Song, doctoral student at Harvard University in the US.

In addition, high body mass index (BMI) in adulthood can also increase the mortality risk.

Among the study participants, lowest mortality was found in the BMI range 22-23 among including healthy non-smokers and excluding people with prevalent diseases.

Obesity has become a public health crisis in most countries worldwide. But, these results indicate the importance of weight management across the lifespan, the researchers noted.

For the results, published in The BMJ, the team of researchers tracked the evolution of body shape and associated mortality in two large cohort studies.

Body shape of 80,266 women and 36,622 men were studied at ages 5, 10, 20, 30, and 40 years.

Their body mass indexes were measured at age 50, and were followed from age 60 over a median of 15-16 years for death. 

In a second study, the team carried out a large meta-analysis of 230 prospective studies with more than 3.74 million deaths among more than 30.3 million participants.

They analysed people who never smoked to rule out the effects of smoking, and the lowest mortality was observed in the BMI range 23-24 among this group.

​Beijing, May 5 (IANS) The Chinese sports industry will amount to over three trillion yuan ($460 billion) by the end of 2020, according to the Asian country's five-year sports development plan released on Thursday.

London, May 5 (IANS) Researchers from University of Exeter have created an app which can help aid humanitarian rescue work in disaster-struck regions by using geographic data to map landscapes.

​Moscow, May 6 (IANS) Tourism authorities in Russia want customs and immigration officials to brush up on their English, even as they acknowledge that not knowing the language could prove an impediment to increasing tourist inflows from the English-speaking world, especially India. Random delays at immigration counters and a dearth of English signages have emerged as some of the red flags for Russian tourism authorities, who have begun to focus on the outbound market from India, which is expected to grow to $40 billion by 2020. "There is very little excuse for the discomfort caused by the conduct of the customs officers. We regret it. Knowledge of English among customs officials in Russia has to increase, there is no question about it," Rimma Sachunova, deputy chairperson of the St. Petersburg Committee on Tourism Development told IANS after a group of travel agents from India were detained for nearly three hours at Moscow's Domodedovo airport. "We will write an official letter to the customs service because now we have a lot of hope and expectation from the Indian tourist market," Sachunova said. Tourism experts believe that while the need for Russia to open up its locales for tourism is very real and necessary, the transition from being a country that was once "behind the Iron Curtain" to a democracy with open transit norms is not an easy one. "Give us a little bit of time for us to change our borders," said Marina Sokolov of Indigo Tour, which caters to the bulk of the inbound Indian tourists to Russia. Ekaterina Borisova, attached to the Moscow Tourism Office, hoped that the federal government's plan to set up a tourist office at major transit points used by international tourists could help cut down on the delay at Russian immigration and customs counters. "We are trying to make customs (and immigration) more open, but unfortunately it takes time. Hopefully, we will open a tourist office at the airport, railway stations and all places where tourists arrive," she said. Sachunova also said that efforts to include the English language in the city's road and Metro signages were already underway. "We are working at ensuring that there are more signages in English at St. Petersburg. In fact St. Petersburg is the only city in Russia that has English signages in all its Metro stations," she said. While the lack of knowledge of the English language both among officials and amongst the populace is an acknowledged impediment, when it comes to enhancing tourist inflows to Russia from India, Paresh Navani of the Russian Information Centre, India, claimed that visa norms should be tinkered to allow easy access to Indians to visit Russia as tourists. "With the Russian Federation opening up its policies and borders to ease tourism, this gives Indians the opportunity to tour these locations with ease, safety, comfort and at very reasonable costs compared to any other European destination and even in comparison to domestic destinations in India," Navani said. Over 50,000 Indian tourists visit Russia annually, while around 200,000 Russians visit India, especially Goa, every year.​

New York, May 6 (IANS) Scientists from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have compiled a comprehensive list of potential gases to guide search for life on exoplanets.

Biosignature gases emitted by exoplanetary life forms could be detected remotely by space telescopes but these gases might have quite different compositions from those in the Earth's atmosphere.

“This work reminds me of Charles Darwin's voyage aboard 'The Beagle', exploring the vast diversity of life by sailing around the world," said Nancy Y Kiang, scientist at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies. 

“In the search for life beyond our planet, we are currently at a similarly exciting, early but rapidly evolving stage of exploration as the discovery of exoplanets accelerates,” he added.

Instead of netting strange creatures from the bottom of the sea, the authors searched and found thousands of curious, potentially biogenic gas molecules. 

“These will inspire a new body of research into identifying also larger molecules, investigating their origin and fate here, and their potential expression on exoplanets as signs of life,” Kiang added.

This approach maximises the chances of identifying planets orbiting nearby stars that support life.

According to S Seager, W Bains and J.J. Petkowski from MIT and Rufus Scientific from the University of Cambridge in a paper published in the journal Astrobiology, all stable and potential volatile molecules should be considered as possible biosignature gases.

Beijing, May 6 (IANS) Chinese archaeologists said they have found a paddy field more than 8,000 years old. This could be the earliest wet rice farming site in the world.

The field, covering less than 100 square metres, was discovered at the neolithic ruins of Hanjing in Jiangsu province in November 2015, Xinhua quoted a spokesman with the archaeology institute of Nanjing Museum as saying.

At a seminar held in late April to discuss findings at the Hanjing ruins, 70 scholars from universities, archaeology institutes and museums in China concluded that the wet rice field was the oldest ever discovered.

Researchers with the institute found that the field was divided into parts with different shapes, each covering less than 10 square metres.

They also found carbonised rice that was confirmed to have grown more than 8,000 years ago based on carbon dating as well as evidence that the soil was repeatedly planted with rice.

Lin Liugen, head of the institute, said Chinese people started to cultivate rice about 10,000 years ago and carbonised rice of the age has been found in the past but paddy remnants were quite rare.​

​London, May 6 (IANS) Insulin when taken in conjunction with metformin -- a cheap and common drug that helps control blood sugar levels -- has the potential to reduce mortality risk and heart attacks in people with Type 2 diabetes, a new study has found.

"In this research we found that there was a considerable reduction in deaths and heart problems when this cheap and common drug was used in conjunction with insulin,” said lead author Craig Currie, professor at Cardiff University in Britain.

Increased dosage of insulin has been previously known to raise the risk of cancer, heart attacks and mortality. 

But the findings have shown that metformin can attenuate the risks associated with insulin.

However, according to researchers, there was no difference in the risk of cancer between people treated with insulin as a single therapy or in combination with metformin.

The retrospective research, published in the journal PLOS ONE, looked at people with Type 2 diabetes who were treated with insulin with or without metformin from the year 2000 onwards. 

12,020 people were identified from a general practice data source, and the research team tracked them for three-and-a-half years on average, from the time they were first prescribed insulin.

"While this research indicates the potential of using these treatments together, further studies are needed to determine the risks and benefits of insulin in Type 2 diabetes and the possible benefits associated with the administration of metformin alongside insulin," Currie concluded.

New York, May 6 (IANS) It is possible for us to intentionally forget past experiences by changing how we think about the context of those memories, says a study.

The findings have a range of potential applications centred on enhancing desired memories, such as developing new educational tools, or diminishing harmful memories, including treatments for post-traumatic stress disorder.

Memory theorists have known for long that we use context -- or the situation we are in, including sights, sounds, smells, where we are, who we are with -- to organise and retrieve our memories. 

But this study wanted to explore whether and how people can intentionally forget past experiences. 

The researchers showed participants images of outdoor scenes, such as forests, mountains and beaches, as they studied two lists of random words.

The study's participants were told to either forget or remember the random words presented to them interspersed between scene images. 

"We used fMRI ( functional magnetic resonance imaging) to track how much people were thinking of scene-related things at each moment during our experiment. That allowed us to track, on a moment-by-moment basis, how those scene or context representations faded in and out of people's thoughts over time," said study lead author Jeremy Manning, assistant professor at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, US.

Right after they were told to forget, the fMRI showed that they "flushed out" the scene-related activity from their brains.

"It's like intentionally pushing thoughts of your grandmother's cooking out of your mind if you don't want to think about your grandmother at that moment," Manning said. 

"We were able to physically measure and quantify that process using brain data," Manning noted.

But when the researchers told participants to remember the studied list rather than forget it, this flushing out of scene-related thoughts did not occur. 

Further, the amount that people flushed out scene-related thoughts predicted how many of the studied words they would later remember, which shows the process is effective at facilitating forgetting.

The study appeared in the journal Psychonomic Bulletin and Review.​