Knowledge Update

New York, Dec 18 (IANS) Recreation activities in protected areas such as hiking impact wildlife mostly in negative ways, a study said.

Nature-based outdoor recreation is the most widespread human land use in protected areas and is permitted in more than 94 per cent of parks and reserves globally, the researchers said.

Hiking, a common form of outdoor recreation in protected areas, can create a negative impact by causing animals to flee, taking time away from feeding and expending valuable energy, the study said.

"People generally assume that recreation activities are compatible with conservation goals for protected areas," said lead author Courtney Larson from Colorado State University in the US.

"However, our review of the evidence across wildlife species and habitat types worldwide suggests otherwise," Larson noted.

Protected areas include national parks, wilderness areas, community conserved areas, nature reserves and privately-owned reserves.

The researchers reviewed 274 scientific articles published between 1981 and 2015 on the effects of recreation on a variety of animal species across all geographic areas and recreational activities.

More than 93 per cent of the articles reviewed, indicated at least one impact of recreation on animals, the majority of which or 59 per cent were negative.

Decreased species diversity, survival, and behavioural or physiological disturbance such as decreased foraging or increased stress are among the negative effects of outdoor recreation in protect areas, according to the study published in the journal PLOS ONE.

Surprisingly, studies of hiking and other non-motorised activities found negative effects on wildlife more frequently than studies of motorised activities.

However, since motorised activities generally cover a larger area, their influence on animals can also be widespread.

"They can also result in other environmental impacts, such as soil loss and vegetation disturbance," Larson said.

Toronto, Dec 18 (IANS) An international team of scientists has discovered a planetary system with a host star similar to Earth's sun, which could tell the history and connections between stars and their planets.

The team, which included researchers from the University of Chicago, said that unlike the artificial planet-destroying Death Star in the movie "Star Wars", this natural version could provide clues about how planetary systems evolve over time.

"It does not mean that the sun will 'eat' the Earth any time soon," Jacob Bean, co-author of an Astronomy and Astrophysics article on the research, said in a university statement.

"But our discovery provides an indication that violent histories may be common for planetary systems, including our own," Bean added.

Astronomers discovered the first planet orbiting a star other than the sun in 1995 and since then, more than two thousand exoplanets have been identified.

Rare among them are planets that orbit a star similar to Earth's sun. Due to their extreme similarity to the sun, these so-called solar twins are ideal targets for investigating the connections between stars and their planets.

It's tricky to draw conclusions from a single system, cautioned Megan Bedell, co-author of the research and the lead planet finder for the collaboration.

She said the team plans "to study more stars like this to see whether this is a common outcome of the planet formation process".

​San Francisco, Dec 16 (IANS) Responding to criticism from all quarters over the spread of fake news, Facebook has asked its users to flag fake news stories which will be verified by third party fact-checkers.

​New York, Dec 17 (IANS) Microsoft has released a set of 100,000 questions and answers that artificial intelligence (AI) researchers can use to create systems that can read and answer questions as precisely as a human.

​New Delhi, Dec 17 (IANS) Finnish health care technology company Health Care Success (HCS) on Saturday said it entered into an agreement with New Delhi-based Immpetus Enterprises LLP to launch a wide range of fitness bands in India under the brand name Tango.

​Paris, Dec 17 (IANS) The Grand Musee de Parfum, Paris' first perfume museum, opened its doors here, inviting visitors to discover perfume history through a quite innovative sensory and olfactory exhibition.

The Grand Musee du Parfum, which opened for public on Friday, is created after noting the absence of an emblematic place of French perfumery in Paris despite the sector's flourishing influence abroad, Xinhua news agency quoted Guillaume de Maussion, the museum president, as saying.

The museum gathered major players in French and international perfume industry, including the Federation of Beauty Enterprises, the French Syndicate of Perfumery and the International Flavours and Fragrances, de Maussion said.

The Grand Musee du Parfum intends to create three spaces with one area dedicated to the history of perfumes.

France has world's leading cosmetics-perfumes sector and its turnover totalled 25 billion euros ($26 billion) in 2014. (1 euro=$1.04)

London, Dec 17 (IANS) The sense of well-being and relaxation experienced during sauna bathing can help reduce risk of dementia, new research suggests. In a 20-year follow-up study involving 2,000 middle-aged men, the researchers found that men taking a sauna four to seven times a week were 66 per cent less likely to be diagnosed with dementia than those taking a sauna once a week. The more frequently saunas were taken, the lower was the risk of dementia, showed the study published in the journal Age and Ageing. Frequent sauna bathing was earlier found to significantly reduce the risk of sudden cardiac death, the risk of death due to coronary artery disease and other cardiac events, as well as overall mortality. Sauna bathing may protect both the heart and memory to some extent via similar, still poorly known mechanisms, said lead researcher Jari Laukkanen, Professor at University of Eastern Finland. "However, it is known that cardiovascular health affects the brain as well. The sense of well-being and relaxation experienced during sauna bathing may also play a role," Laukkanen noted. The effects of sauna bathing on the risk of Alzheimer's disease and other forms of dementia were studied in the Kuopio Ischaemic Heart Disease Risk Factor Study (KIHD), involving more than 2,000 middle-aged men living in the eastern part of Finland. Based on their sauna-bathing habits, the study participants were divided into three groups -- those taking a sauna once a week, those taking a sauna two to three times a week, and those taking a sauna four to seven times a week. Among those taking a sauna four to seven times a week, the risk of any form of dementia was 66 per cent lower and the risk of Alzheimer's disease 65 per cent lower than among those taking a sauna just once a week, the study said.

​London, Dec 17 (IANS) Drugs used to lower blood pressure can potentially block breast and pancreatic cancer invasion by inhibiting their cellular structures, say researchers.

The study discovered that calcium channel blockers -- currently used to treat hypertension -- can efficiently stop cancer cells move and invade surrounding tissue.

Identification of anti-hypertension drugs as potential therapeutics against breast and pancreatic cancer metastasis was a big surprise, said reseachers. 

The targets of these drugs were not known to be present in cancer cells and therefore no one had considered the possibility that these drugs might be effective against aggressive cancer types, said Johanna Ivaska at the University of Turku in Finland. 

The findings showed that aggressively spreading cancer cells express a protein called Myosin-10 which drives cancer cell motility.

Myosin-10 expressing cancers have a large number of structures called filopodia, or sticky finger-like structures the cancer cells extend to sense their environment and to navigate - imagine a walking blind spider, explained Guillaume Jacquemet, postdoctoral researcher at University of Turku. 

The calcium channel blockers target specifically these sticky fingers rendering them inactive, thus efficiently blocking cancer cell movement. This suggest that they might be effective drugs against cancer metastasis, the researchers said.

The findings were published in the journal Nature Communications.

​London, Dec 17 (IANS) Dropping cholesterol to the lowest level possible -- to levels similar to those we were born with -- may help reduce the risk of heart attack, stroke or fatal heart disease by nearly one third, a study has found.

Reducing cholesterol as low as possible is safe and more beneficial than the current normal levels -- 100 mg/dL (deci-litres) or below -- achieved with existing drugs such as statins, the study said.

However, participants in the study used a additional novel drug called alirocumab -- for patients whose cholesterol levels are not sufficiently lowered by statins.

The combined effect of the new drug and the statin therapy in the trials meant that patients reached very low cholesterol - lower than 50 mg/dL -- comparable to the levels we are born with.

For every 39 mg/dL reduction in low density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol -- or 'bad' cholesterol -- responsible for clogging arteries, the risk of heart attack -- stroke, angina or death from heart disease -- decreased by 24 per cent, the researchers observed.

"Experts have been uncertain whether very low cholesterol levels are harmful, or beneficial. This study suggests not only are they safe, but they also reduced risk of heart disease, heart attack and stroke," said lead author Kausik Ray, Professor at Imperial College London in Britain.

This lowest cholesterol levels is only achievable in adulthood, through medication, as well as lifestyle changes like healthy food and exercise, the researchers suggested.

For the study, published in the journal Circulation, the team analysed data from 10 trials, involving around 5,000 patients, diagnosed with high cholesterol.

​London, Dec 17 (IANS) Researchers have identified a molecule that impairs the lungs' ability to repair damages on their own after developing chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) that makes it makes it hard for sufferers to breathe.

The first indication of COPD is usually a chronic cough. As the disease progresses, the airways narrow and often pulmonary emphysema develops. This indicates irreversible expansion and damage to the alveoli, or air sacks. 

"The body is no longer able to repair the destroyed structures," explained Melanie Konigshoff from Helmholtz Zentrum Munchen -- German Research Centre for Environmental Health.

"In our current work we have been able to show that COPD results in a change in the messengers that lung cells use to communicate with one another," Konigshoff added.

In the study published Journal of Experimental Medicine, the researchers blamed the increased production of the molecule Wnt5a for this problem.

"Our working hypothesis was that the relationship between different Wnt messengers is no longer balanced in COPD," the study's first author Hoeke Baarsma from Helmholtz Zentrum Munchen.

"In both the pre-clinical model and the tissue samples from patients, we found that in COPD tissue particularly the non-canonical Wnt5a molecule is increased and occurs in a modified form," Baarsma added.

Stimuli that typically cause a reaction in COPD, such as cigarette smoke, additionally lead to increased production of Wnt5a and consequently to impaired lung regeneration, the researchers said.

The findings could lead to new therapeutic approaches to treat the disease.