Knowledge Update

​London, Sep 21 (IANS) Children who spend just 15 minutes or more a day watching their favourite cartoons on television may be at an increased risk of losing their creative minds as compared to those who read books or solve jigsaw puzzles, a study says.

"There was clear evidence that children came up with less original ideas immediately after watching television,"said Sarah Rose, Lecturer at Staffordshire University in Britain," although adding "these effects disappeared after a short time."

However, "if children are less creative in their play, this could, over time, negatively impact their development," Rose said.

There is a belief that slow-paced programmes are more educational but our findings do not support this, Sarah said. 

In the study, the team looked at the immediate impact of television on three-year-old's creativity. They compared children who watched -- Postman Pat, with those who read books or played jigsaw puzzles. 

The children were tested for throwing up maximum original creative ideas.

The study is potentially useful to those who produce children's television shows, early year educators, as well as parents.

The findings were presented at the British Psychological Developmental Conference in Belfast, recently.

​London, Sep 21 (IANS) The upper depths of the world's oceans have warmed significantly since 1995, resulting in severe hurricanes, storm surges and an increase in the number of icebergs, according to a new report.

"Many people may associate warmer seas with the pleasant weather conditions they're used to experiencing while on holiday, but the fact of the matter is that an increase in sea temperatures is having a huge impact on the world's weather," said one of the study authors Grant Bigg from University of Sheffield in Britain. 

"Our study has shown that severe hurricanes, storm surges, melting ice in the Arctic region and changes to El Nino are all being caused by sea temperatures rising across the planet. These are all things that can have a devastating impact on the way we live our lives," Bigg noted.

The rise in ocean temperatures has caused an increase in the number of severe hurricanes and typhoons, such as Hurricane Katrina, which devastated New Orleans in 2005, and Typhoon Haiyan, which caused massive destruction in the Philippines in 2013, the study said.

Hurricanes have even been observed in the South Atlantic for the first time since satellite records began in the 1970s. 

The area was traditionally viewed as an unlikely region for hurricane formation because of its cooler sea surface temperatures, however in 2004 conditions were more favourable than normal due to warmer ocean temperatures, spawning Hurricane Catarina off the coast of Brazil.

The report, presented at the IUCN World Conservation Congress in Hawaii, also showed that warmer seas have resulted in a significant loss of ice in the Arctic region. 

The atmosphere in the polar regions has warmed at about twice the average rate of global warming with Arctic coasts experiencing a rise in the occurrence of storm surges.

This increase in storm surges can have a detrimental effect on fragile ecosystems in the area, such as low relief tundra, underlain by permafrost, according to the report.

Warmer oceans have also caused a distinct change in El Nino events -- the warmer currents associated with the cycle have now been observed towards the central Pacific rather than the west, according to the Sheffield scientists.

"We hope that this research, together with studies presented by our colleagues in Hawaii this week, will help to shape the response of conservation and sustainable development to ocean warming," Bigg said.

​New York, Sep 21 (IANS) Have you ever wondered how our brain enables us to read a book even in a noisy cafe by filtering out the irrelevant stimuli coming through ears and "gating" in the relevant ones in our vision -- words on a page? It is possible due to the inhibitory neurons that the brain employs in such situations, new research suggests.

The inhibitory neurons are brain's traffic cops that help ensure proper neurological responses to incoming stimuli by suppressing other neurons and working to balance excitatory neurons, which aim to stimulate neuronal activity, said the study.

"Our computational model shows that inhibitory neurons can enable a neural circuit to gate in specific pathways of information while filtering out the rest," said senior author Xiao-Jing Wang, Professor at New York University.

Of particular interest to the team was a specific subtype of inhibitory neurons that targets the excitatory neurons' dendrites -- components of a neuron where inputs from other neurons are located. 

These dendrite-targeting inhibitory neurons are labeled by a biological marker called somatostatin and can be studied selectively by experimentalists. 

The researchers proposed that they not only control the overall inputs to a neuron, but also the inputs from individual pathways -- for example, the visual or auditory pathways converging onto a neuron.

"This was thought to be difficult because the connections from inhibitory neurons to excitatory neurons appeared dense and unstructured," Guangyu Robert Yang, a doctoral candidate in Wang's lab, observed. 

"Thus a surprising finding from our study is that the precision required for pathway-specific gating can be realised by inhibitory neurons," Yang noted.

The study's authors used computational models to show that even with the seemingly random connections, these dendrite-targeting neurons can gate individual pathways by aligning with excitatory inputs. 

In the study published in the journal Nature Communications, they showed that this alignment can be realised through synaptic plasticity -- a brain mechanism for learning through experience.

​New York, Sep 21 (IANS) Rocks formed by the grinding together of other rocks during earthquakes are rich in trapped hydrogen and similar seismic activity on Mars may produce enough hydrogen to support life, a study says.

"Mars is not very seismically active, but our work shows that 'Marsquakes' could produce enough hydrogen to support small populations of microorganisms, at least for short periods of time," said first author of the study Sean McMahon from Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, US.

"NASA has plans to measure seismic activity on Mars during its 2018 InSight mission, and our data will make those measurements all the more interesting," study co-author John Parnell from University of Aberdeen in Scotland said.

The researchers studied rock formations around active fault lines in the Outer Hebrides, off the coast of Scotland. 

"Previous work has suggested that hydrogen is produced during earthquakes when rocks fracture and grind together. Our measurements suggest that enough hydrogen is produced to support the growth of microorganisms around active faults," McMahon said.

While humans and other animals get their energy mainly from the reaction between oxygen and sugar, bacteria use a wide array of alternative reactions to obtain energy. 

The oxidation of hydrogen gas, for example, generates enough energy for bacteria deep in the Earth's subsurface.

"This is just one part of the emerging picture of the habitability of the Martian subsurface, where other sources of energy for life may also be available. The best way to find evidence of life on Mars may be to examine rocks and minerals that formed deep underground around faults and fractures, which were later brought to the surface by erosion," McMahon pointed out.

The study was published in the journal Astrobiology.

​New York, Sep 21 (IANS) A computer-based brain training programme developed at Yale University helps improve student performance in reading and math -- in some cases even more than individualised tutoring, according to a new study.

In a study of more than 500 second graders, math and reading scores on school- administered tests increased significantly more in children who used the brain training programme Activate during the school year than in control classes.

The effect on math achievement scores was greater than what has been reported for one-on-one tutoring, said the study published in the journal Scientific Reports.

"The programme increases focus, self-control, and memory -- cognitive skills essential for learning," said lead author of the study Bruce Wexler, Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, US . 

"And these are the exactly the cognitive skills affected by poverty, so we believe brain training programmes like Activate can help reduce the achievement gaps related to poverty that are seen in schools across the country," Wexler noted.

The findings illustrate that the benefits of the training, conducted three times a week for a four-month period, extend beyond getting better on the training games themselves and lead to improved learning of material that is very different from that in the games.

In a second finding from the same study, researchers discovered that doing a five-minute brain warm-up game just before beginning an Activate math or reading curricular content game can increase math and reading performance. 

New York, Sep 21 (IANS) Exposure to certain common chemicals called endocrine-disrupting chemicals found in several consumer products, including plastic bottles, may reduce levels of vitamin D in the bloodstream, says a study.

Endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDC) are found in everyday products and throughout the environment. Bisphenol A (BPA), a known EDC, is often found in plastics and other consumer products. 

"Nearly every person on the planet is exposed to BPA and another class of endocrine-disrupting chemicals called phthalates, so the possibility that these chemicals may even slightly reduce vitamin D levels has widespread implications for public health," said the study's first author Lauren Johns from the University of Michigan School of Public Health in Ann Arbor.

EDCs are chemicals or mixtures of chemicals that can cause adverse health effects by interfering with hormones in the body. 

"Vitamin D plays a broad role in maintaining bone and muscle health. In addition, low vitamin D levels have been implicated in outcomes of numerous conditions such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes and cancer," Johns said.

The study examined data from 4,667 US adults who participated in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) between 2005 and 2010. 

The participants provided blood samples so their vitamin D levels could be measured. To measure EDC exposure, the participants had their urine analysed for substances left behind after the body metabolised phthalates and BPA.

The study, published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, found people who were exposed to larger amounts of phthalates were more likely to have low levels of vitamin D in the bloodstream than the participants who were exposed to smaller amounts of the EDCs. 

The link was strongest in women. There also was an association between exposure to higher levels of BPA and reduced vitamin D levels in women, although the relationship was not statistically significant in men.

"More research is needed into why an association exists, but it is possible that EDCs alter the active form of vitamin D in the body through some of the same mechanisms that they use to impact similar reproductive and thyroid hormones," senior author of the study John Meeker, Professor at the University of Michigan, explained.

​New York, Sep 20 (IANS) In a bid to build Wi-Fi drones, data servers and virtual reality goggles faster, social media giant Facebook has acquired Silicon Valley-based start-up Nascent Objects for an undisclosed sum, a media report said.

San Francisco, Sep 20 (IANS) Oracle Corp has predicted a sharp drop in the traditional IT spending of businesses across the globe over the next decade, making way for cloud services and leaving more room for innovation than hardware and software maintenance.

​Toronto, Sep 19 (IANS) Excessive use of internet may significantly increase the risk of mental health problems such as depression and anxiety, especially among college-going students, a study has found.

The findings showed that individuals with internet addiction had more trouble dealing with their day-to-day activities, including life at home, at work/school and in social settings.

They had problems with planning and time management, greater levels of attentional impulsivity as well as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

Internet addiction may also be strongly linked to compulsive behaviour and several other addiction in students, the study said.

"This leads us to a couple of questions like are we grossly underestimating the prevalence of internet addiction and are these other mental health issues a cause or consequence of this excessive reliance on the internet?" said lead researcher Michael Van Ameringen from the McMaster University in Canada.

The study may also have practical medical implications.

"If you are trying to treat someone for an addiction when in fact they are anxious or depressed, then you may be going down the wrong route. We need to understand this more, so we need a bigger sample, drawn from a wider, more varied population," Ameringen added.

The Internet Addiction Test (IAT) developed in 1998 prior to the widespread use of smartphone technology, is the only standard test used to measure excessive reliance on the internet.

However, over the last 18 years internet use has changed radically with a substantial number of people working online, using social media among others, round the clock.

"We were concerned that the IAT questionnaire may not have been picking up on problematic modern internet use, or showing up false positives for people who were simply using the internet rather than being over-reliant on it," Ameringen said.

For the study, the team surveyed 254 students and correlated internet use with general mental health and wellbeing.

Only 33 students met screening criteria for internet addition, according to the IAT.

The research team also administered a further series of self-reported tests to see how the internet addicts compared to the others in the survey on areas such as symptoms of depression and anxiety, impulsiveness, inattention and executive functioning, as well as tests for ADHD.

The results were presented at the European College of Neuropsychopharmacology (ECNP) conference in Vienna, recently.