Knowledge Update

New York, Sep 21 (IANS) Smart and safe candle company LuDela has introduced the first real-flame candles that don't require matches -- but just the press of a button on your smartphone -- to be lit.

​Beijing, Sep 20 (IANS) Chinese internet and technology conglomerate LeEco on Tuesday announced that its electric car division SEE Plan (Super Electric Ecosystem Plan) has completed first round of funding worth $1.08 billion.

​San Francisco, Sep 20 (IANS) Apple Inc. has joined a global renewable energy initiative to extend its clean energy plan into the manufacturing supply chain.

Lisa Jackson, vice president for environment, policy and social initiatives with the company behind the iPhone and iPad, announced joining RE100, a collaborative, global

​New York, Sep 20 (IANS) Although you will still type in 140 characters but from now, you can add photos, videos, GIFs and polls and these will not count against the 140-character limit.

​London, Sep 20 (IANS) British multi-national automotive company Jaguar Land Rover on Tuesday announced a tie-up with global music streaming service Spotify for an in-car app for listening to music. Available across entire vehicle range, the iOS app will be available to download from App Store from September 27, the company said in a statement on Tuesday. "Spotify for Jaguar Land Rover is the result of a year's worth of collaborative development between the two companies," the company said. Spotify, launched this month in Jaguar Land Rover's InControl Apps library, delivers the best in-car Spotify experience. Spotify users can access personalised 'Just for You' playlists containing recommended tracks in the car, saving time scrolling through music on the move. Its 'Offline Mode' also displays downloaded content despite poor internet connection. Once downloaded, the app will automatically show up on the vehicle touch screen when the smartphone is connected. Users do not need a premium subscription to access Spotify via InControl Apps.

​Washington, Sep 21 (IANS) The online shopping portal Amazon's algorithms make customers pay more for popular products giving prominence to items that benefit the retail giant, a study by ProPublica said. ProPublica on Tuesday said it reviewed 250 frequently purchased products over several weeks to see what all were chosen to appear in the highly-prized 'buy box' that pops up first as a suggested purchase. Amazon that bills itself as the "Earth's most customer-centric company", not only sells products directly itself, but also allows other retailers to sell their own products through its platform. This means that the same product could be offered by dozens of vendors at different prices and with different shipping costs. When customers search for and click on a product, the Amazon algorithm chooses one vendor's offer to put in the buy box. Having product in this buy box offers a major advantage for the retailer -- as most customers end up adding it to the cart and buying it. ProPublica found that almost three-quarters of the time Amazon would place its own products or those from companies that pay Amazon to fulfil orders into the buy box -- even though they might not always be the cheapest. If a customer bought everything recommended by Amazon's buy box they would end up paying 20 per cent more than if the same products was bought at the lowest price on the platform, the study said. Amazon, however, offers a tool to allow customers to compare product prices by producing a list that ranks sellers of the same item by "price and shipping". Although even there, the company gives itself an advantage by omitting the shipping costs for its own products. This would mean the rankings were accurate for Amazon Prime members, who get unlimited 'free' shipping for $99 per year, but for anyone else the ranking is misleading. Amazon insists that its algorithm chooses products to go into the buy box based on a range of factors -- including customer service and free delivery. Amazon founder and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Jeff Bezos had said in 2007 that it uses "very objective customer-centred algorithms" to automatically award the buy box to the lowest priced seller, which is clearly no longer the case. At least 94 per cent of sellers who won the buy box placement without having the cheapest listing were either sold by Amazon itself or companies paying Amazon. The companies that do not pay Amazon hefty fees (between 10-20 per cent of sales) to fulfil orders, find themselves sidelined. ProPublica concluded that it shows how hidden algorithms govern online interaction from Google search results to Facebook news feeds.

​New York, Sep 21 (IANS) Individuals with binge-eating disorder (BED) may be at high risk of getting diagnosed with illnesses associated with the endocrine and circulatory systems, a study suggests.

Binge-eating disorder is a serious eating disorder in which an individual frequently consumes unusually large amounts of food and is unable to stop craving for more.

Individuals with BED could be at an increased risk of 2.5-times of having an endocrine disorder and at 1.9-times of having a circulatory system disorder.

The endocrine system influences heart, bones and tissues growth, and even fertility.

It plays a vital role in determining whether there were chances of developing diabetes, thyroid disease, growth disorders, sexual dysfunction, and a host of other hormone-related disorders.

BED is closely associated with hypertension - commonly called high blood pressure - that causes the heart to work harder and could lead to such complications as heart attack, stroke, or kidney failure, among others.

Among individuals with obesity and BED, there is a 1.5-times increased risk of having a respiratory disease and a 2.6-times of having a gastrointestinal disease.

"We encourage clinicians to -- have the conversation -- about BED with their patients. Accurate screening and detection could solve BED problem with treatment," said Professor Cynthia Bulik, from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, in the US.

"BED afflicts people of all shapes and sizes. The somatic illnesses that we detected were not simply effects of being overweight or obese," Bulik clarified, in the study published in the International Journal of Eating Disorders.

​London, Sep 21 (IANS) Introducing eggs and peanuts into children's diet early and at a young age may reduce their risk of developing food allergy, a new study has found.

Allergies to foods -- like nuts, egg, milk or wheat -- are caused by the malfunctioning and over-reacting of the immune system triggering symptoms of rashes, swelling, vomiting and wheezing.

The study showed that children who started eating egg between the ages of four and six months had a 40 per cent reduced risk of egg allergy compared to children who tried egg later in life.

Children who ate peanuts between the ages of four and eleven months had a 70 per cent reduced peanut allergy risk compared to children who ate the food later.

Further, the researchers also found that where 5.4 per cent of people with egg allergy was introduced to egg between four and six months of age, 24 cases per 1,000 people were reduced.

For peanuts, with 2.5 per cent of people the introduction to the food between four and eleven months, 18 cases reduced per 1,000.

Until now parents were advised to delay giving allergenic foods such as egg, peanut, fish and wheat to their infant.

However, "this new analysis pools all existing data, and suggests introducing egg and peanut at an early age may prevent the development of two of the most common allergies," said lead Author Robert Boyle, at Imperial College London.

In addition, the team analysed milk, fish (including shellfish), tree nuts - almonds - and wheat, but did not find enough evidence to show introducing these foods at a young age reduces allergy risk.

The researchers cautioned against introducing egg and peanut to a baby who already has a food allergy, or has another allergic condition such as eczema.

"If your child falls into these categories, talk to your doctor before introducing these foods," Boyle said.

Moreover, Boyle also noted that whole nuts should not be given to babies or toddlers due to choking hazard, "If you decide to feed peanut to your baby, give it as smooth peanut butter," he said.

For the study, which is the largest analysis of evidence on the effect of feeding allergenic foods to babies, scientists analysed data from 146 studies and involved more than 200,000 children.

The research was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

New York, Sep 21 (IANS) Loneliness is linked to poor physical and mental health, and a new study of more than 10,000 people has found that the risk for feeling lonely is at least partially due to genetics.

Genetic risk for loneliness is also associated with neuroticism -- long-term negative emotional state -- and depressive symptoms, said the study published in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology.

"For two people with the same number of close friends and family, one might see their social structure as adequate while the other doesn't," said lead researcher Abraham Palmer, Professor of Psychiatry at University of California - San Diego School of Medicine in the US.

"And that's what we mean by 'genetic predisposition to loneliness' -- we want to know why, genetically speaking, one person is more likely than another to feel lonely, even in the same situation," Palmer noted.

In their latest research, Palmer and his team examined genetic and health information from 10,760 people aged 50 years and older that was collected by the Health and Retirement Study, a longitudinal study of health, retirement and aging sponsored by the National Institute on Aging at the US National Institutes of Health. 

The researchers found that loneliness, the tendency to feel lonely over a lifetime, rather than just occasionally due to circumstance, is a modestly heritable trait -- 14 to 27 per cent.

The researchers also determined that loneliness tends to be co-inherited with neuroticism and a scale of depressive symptoms. 

The study, however, suggests that although feeling lonely is partially due to genetics, environment plays a bigger role.

The team is now working to find a genetic predictor -- a specific genetic variation that would allow researchers to gain additional insights into the molecular mechanisms that influence loneliness.

​London, Sep 17 (IANS) Alterations in alignment of teeth, which is a common dental problem, can lead to poorer control of posture as well as static balance, Spanish researchers have confirmed.

Misaligned teeth, or occlusion, may include teeth that do not touch perfectly such as a shifted midline, gaps between teeth, crowding, crossbites and missing teeth.

Dental occlusion is the contact made between the top and bottom teeth when closing the mouth. Teeth may be perfectly aligned or they may present alterations with varying levels of severity.

Dental occlusion's association with postural control may seem statistically weak, but grows stronger when a person experiences fatigue or when instability is a factor, the study said.

"Postural control is the result of a complex system that includes different sensory and motor elements arising from visual, somatosensory -- denoting a sensation such as pressure, pain, or warmth -- and vestibular information -- regarding motion, equilibrium, and spatial orientation," agenciasinc.es quoted Sonia Julia-Sanchez, researcher at the University of Barcelona in Spain, as saying.

Further, malocclusion -- imperfect positioning of the teeth when the jaws are closed -- has also been associated with different motor and physiological alterations, especially when people were fatigued than when they were rested.

But postural control was shown to improve -- both in static and dynamic equilibrium -- when different malocclusions are corrected by positioning the jaw in a neutral position.

"When the subjects were tired their balance was worse under both stable and unstable conditions. Under static conditions, the factor that had the greatest impact on imbalance was fatigue, Julia-Sanchez added. 

In contrast, a significant relationship between exhaustion and dental occlusion was observed under conditions of maximum instability, Julia-Sanchez said.

However, this relationship can play a crucial role in athletes in how well they ultimately perform as well as in the prevention of injuries such as sprains, strains and fractures caused by unexpected instability as fatigue increases and motor control capacity decreases.

"Therefore, it would be helpful for both the general population and athletes to consider correcting dental occlusions to improve postural control and thus prevent possible falls and instability due to a lack of motor system response," Julia-Sanchez concluded, in the paper published in the journal Motor Control and Neuroscience Letters.