Knowledge Update

​Washington, May 5 (IANS) Pluto behaves less like a comet than expected and somewhat more like a planet like Mars or Venus in the way it interacts with the solar wind -- a continuous stream of charged particles from the Sun, a first ever analysis has revealed.

Using data from the New Horizons flyby of Pluto last year, scientists have observed the material coming off of Pluto's atmosphere and studied how it interacts with the solar wind, leading to yet another "Pluto surprise".

"This is a type of interaction we've never seen before anywhere in our solar system," said David J. McComas, professor of astrophysical sciences at the Princeton University.

According to space physicists, they now have a treasure trove of information about how Pluto's atmosphere interacts with the solar wind.

Solar wind is the plasma that spews from the Sun into the solar system at a supersonic 160 million km per hour, bathing planets, asteroids, comets and interplanetary space in a soup of mostly protons and electrons.

Previously, most researchers thought that Pluto was characterised more like a comet which has a large region of gentle slowing of the solar wind as opposed to the abrupt diversion solar wind encounters at a planet like Mars or Venus.

Instead, like a car that is part gas-and part battery-powered, Pluto is a hybrid, researchers said.

"These results speak to the power of exploration. Once again we've gone to a new kind of place and found ourselves discovering entirely new kinds of expressions in nature," added Alan Stern, New Horizons' principal investigator.

Since it is so far from the Sun, scientists thought Pluto's gravity would not be strong enough to hold heavy ions in its extended atmosphere.

But, "Pluto's gravity clearly is enough to keep material relatively confined", McComas noted.

Like the Earth, Pluto has a long ion tail that extends downwind at least a distance of about 118,700 km, almost three times the circumference of the Earth, loaded with heavy ions from the atmosphere and with "considerable structure".

The findings, published in the Journal of Geophysical Research-Space Physics offer clues to the magnetised plasmas that one may find around other stars.​

​London, May 5 (IANS) Large meteorite and comet impacts in the sea created structures that provided conditions favourable for life on Earth, reveal geochemists from Trinity College Dublin in Ireland.

Water then interacted with impact-heated rock to enable synthesis of complex organic molecules and the enclosed crater itself was a microhabitat within which life could flourish, said the team.

It has long been suggested that the meteoritic and cometary material that bombarded early Earth delivered the raw materials - complex organic molecules and water - and the energy that was required for synthesis. 

According to the researchers, impact craters were ideal environments to facilitate the reactions that saw the first “seeds of life” take root.

“The findings suggest that extensive hydrothermal systems operated in an enclosed impact crater at Sudbury, Ontario, Canada,” said first study author Edel O'Sullivan in a paper published in the journal Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta.

The Sudbury basin provides a unique opportunity to study the sediment that filled the basin as a guide to what the earlier impact craters would have looked like. 

The Sudbury structure has an unusually thick basin fill and much of this is almost black in colour (due to carbon), also containing hydrothermal metal deposits.

To reach these findings, representative samples across the basin fill were analysed for their chemistry and for carbon isotopes.​

​New York, May 5 (IANS) Researchers have discovered how an immune system molecule hijacks a brain circuit and reduces appetite when you are inflicted with an illness.

While loss of appetite during illness is common, it contributes to reducing a patient's strength and in cancer patients, it can even shorten lifespan.

The new research points to potential targets for treating loss of appetite and restoring a patient's strength.

"Treating loss of appetite won't cure an underlying disease, but it could help a patient cope," said senior author of the study Bruno Conti, professor at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) in California, US.

"Many times, loss of appetite can compromise clinical outcome. A weak individual is less likely to be able to cope with chemotherapy, for instance," Conti said.

Many people recover their appetite after illness. But in patients with diseases such as cancer or AIDS, loss of appetite can turn into a wasting disease called cachexia, also known as "the last illness" because it can accelerate a patient's decline.

The findings were published in The Journal of Neuroscience.

The researchers believe the circuit affected by an immune molecule called interleukin 18 (IL-18) may be a potential drug target for treating loss of appetite, and possibly support weight loss for those with metabolic disorders.

"IL-18 regulates feeding by locking directly into the neuronal circuitry," Conti said.​

New York, May 4 (IANS) Medical error is the third leading cause of death in the US after heart disease and cancer, experts have said.

While accurate data on deaths associated with medical error is lacking, recent estimates suggest a range of 210,000 to 400,000 deaths a year among hospital patients in the US.

Using studies from 1999 onwards - and extrapolating to the total number of US hospital admissions in 2013 - the researchers calculated a mean rate of death from medical error of 251,454 a year.

Comparing their estimate to the annual list of the most common causes of death in the US, compiled by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), suggests that medical error is the third most common cause of death in the US.

"Although we cannot eliminate human error, we can better measure the problem to design safer systems mitigating its frequency, visibility, and consequences," the researchers said in the article published in the journal The BMJ.

Death certificates in the US have no facility for acknowledging medical error, lamented the researchers Martin Makary and Michael Daniel from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore.

Currently, death certification in the US relies on assigning an International Classification of Disease (ICD) code to the cause of death - so causes of death not associated with an ICD code, such as human and system factors, are not captured.

The researchers suggested three strategies to reduce death from medical care - making errors more visible when they occur so their effects can be intercepted, having remedies at hand to rescue patients, and making errors less frequent by following principles that take human limitations into account.

For instance, instead of simply requiring cause of death, they suggest that death certificates could contain an extra field asking whether a preventable complication stemming from the patient's medical care contributed to the death.

Another strategy would be for hospitals to carry out a rapid and efficient independent investigation into deaths to determine the potential contribution of error.

Measuring the consequences of medical care on patient outcomes "is an important prerequisite to creating a culture of learning from our mistakes, thereby advancing the science of safety and moving us closer towards creating learning health systems," the researchers noted.​

Tokyo, May 4 (IANS) The number of children in Japan under the age of 15 reached a historic low again, according to figures released by the government on Wednesday.

On April 1, the number of children of up to 14 years of age was 16.05 million, a year-on-year drop of 150,000 or almost one percent, and the worst figure since 1950 when the data began to be compiled, EFE news reported.

The number has dipped for the 35th consecutive year.

In terms of gender, the number of girls and boys stood at 7.82 million and 8.22 million respectively.

This age group now represents only 12.6 percent of the total population, and the 42nd consecutive year of decrease, according to the ministry of interior and communications data.

The data shows a serious fall in birth rate in the world's third largest economy, which has seen a downward trend since 1982.

Meanwhile, the number of children rose in only one of the 47 prefectures -- Tokyo -- this year, while only two -- Fukuoka and Okinawa -- maintained their figures from last year.​

Moscow, May 5 (IANS) A team of international scientists has developed a device that will help doctors to perform heart bypass surgery without stopping the heart.

Scientists from MISiS National University of Science and Technology, Moscow and their colleagues from Australia's Endogene-Globetek medical company have developed a unique device to enhance cardiovascular surgery. 

The stapler like device for mending blood vessels using strong staples makes it possible to quickly and safely restore blood vessels and to considerably reduce the post-operative period. 

"The world has no other device like it. The main advantage is that it reliably patches up the blood vessels in no time," said Sergei Prokoshkin, a professor at pressure metal treatment department of MISiS National University of Science and Technology.

"In addition, it is very easy to quickly learn to use the stapler. It can be used during abdominal surgery to patch up blood vessels and other hollow body organs, including aortic aneurisms or during intestinal surgery," Prokoshkin added.

A standard heart bypass surgery lasts four to five hours, with doctors having to stop the heart, and entails lengthy post-operative rehabilitation. 

This new stitching instrument allows doctors to operate on the heart while it beats. Instead of sawing the breast-bone apart, surgeons can now simply bore two holes through it and put the bypass in place. 

The entire operation lasts about 60 minutes, and the patient can be discharged on the following day.

This innovative stapler uses special resilient nickel titanium (nitinol) reversible shape memory staples. These staples are inserted inside a cartridge which is then placed inside the polymer-body stapler's distal end.

Pre-clinical tests have already been completed and this technology has also been patented in Russia and Australia. 

This Russian-Australian invention received an award at the 44th International Exhibition of Inventions of Geneva held last month.​

​Washington, May 3 (IANS) Pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson has lost its second legal battle in a row over its talcum powder which allegedly causes cancer. The company must now pay $55 million to a woman who says she got ovarian cancer after using the product. Less than four months after losing a $72 million case in the same St. Louis, Missouri, courthouse, Johnson & Johnson was ordered to pay $5 million in compensation and $50 million in punitive damages to Gloria Ristesund. The 62-year-old South Dakota woman was diagnosed with cancer in 2011, which she stated was “a direct and proximate result of the unreasonably dangerous and defective nature of talcum powder” which she used for almost 40 years. Ristesund’s cancer is currently in remission, since she underwent a hysterectomy and related surgeries. Ristesund has also accused J&J of “wrongful and negligent conduct in the research, development, testing, manufacture, production, promotion distribution, marketing, and sale of talcum powder”. Ristesund was one of over 60 plaintiffs who filed a class-action lawsuit against J&J, its supplier Imerys Talc America Inc and Personal Care Products Council, accusing them of “wrongful conduct” that caused their cancers, RT news reported. J&J was planning to appeal the verdict. Company spokeswoman Carol Goodrich argued that the jurors’ 9-3 decision in favour of Ristesund contradicted 30 years of research. One of the world’s largest maker of health-care products, J&J has been denying any links between talc and ovarian cancer as well as any need to warn its consumers. “Unfortunately, the jury’s decision goes against 30 years of studies by medical experts around the world that continue to support the safety of cosmetic talc," Goodrich said in a statement. “Johnson & Johnson has always taken questions about the safety of our products extremely seriously,” she added. In February, J&J was ordered to pay $72 million in damages to the family of Jacqueline Salter Fox, who claimed that the company’s talcum powder caused the ovarian cancer that killed her within three years. That case was the first to result in money compensation. In 2013, a federal jury in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, found that plaintiff Deane Berg’s ovarian cancer had been caused in part by Johnson & Johnson’s body powder, but Berg was not awarded any damages.​

London, May 4 (IANS) A larger placenta during pregnancy could lead to larger bones in children, new research has found.

Larger bones in early life are likely to lead to larger, stronger bones in older adulthood, which reduces the risk of osteoporosis and broken bones in later life. 

The researchers believe that this latest research offers new insights into earlier observations linking maternal factors in pregnancy with offspring bone health.

"These findings really help us to understand the possible mechanisms whereby factors such as maternal diet, smoking, physical activity and vitamin D status may influence offspring bone development," said lead researcher Nicholas Harvey, professor at University of Southampton in Britain.

The researchers studied 518 children in the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC) who underwent bone scans at nine, 15 and 17 years of age. Measurements such as thickness, volume and weight, were also taken from the mothers' placenta.

The team found that greater placental size at birth was associated with larger bones at each age in childhood.

The study, published in the Journal of Bone and Mineral Research, found that the relationship between the placenta and offspring bone remained robust even after adjusting for factors such as the child's height and weight and pubertal status.

"This work builds on our previous findings from the Southampton Women's Survey, and demonstrates that positive associations between placental size and offspring bone size are maintained even through puberty," Harvey noted.​

​New Delhi, April 13 (IANS) With a barrage of smartphone health apps being launched globally -- claiming to go beyond fitness or calorie checkers and spot mental illnesses or respiratory diseases -- health experts stress that such digital applications can never be a replacement for a qualified, well-trained health service provider.

​Riyadh, May 2 (IANS) Indian IT major Wipro on Monday announced that it has signed a tripartite deal to set up Saudi Arabia's first all-women business and technology park in collaboration with Saudi Aramco and Princess Nourah University here.