Knowledge Update

Beijing, March 23 (IANS) China's economy has been ranked the top performing in terms of overall strength and vitality in a report released at the Boao Forum for Asia on Thursday.

​Los Angeles, March 23 (IANS) Global box office revenue hit a record $38.6 billion in 2016, according to a report released by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA).

The report on Wednesday said the results mark a 1 per cent rise from last year's record-breaking $38.4 billion, representing a slowdown compared to the growth of more than 5

​London, March 23 (IANS) Researchers have found that several unsaturated fatty acids in the brain may be associated with the progression of Alzheimer's disease.

Alzheimer's disease is a neurodegenerative disorder, which causes impaired memory, executive function and language. It accounts for 60-80 per cent of total dementia cases worldwide, with over 46 million people suffering from the disease worldwide. The number of patients is estimated to rise to 131.5 million by 2050.

Currently it is thought that the main reason for developing memory problems in dementia is the presence of two big molecules in the brain called tau and amyloid proteins -- that are shown to start accumulating in the brain up to 20 years prior to the onset of the disease. 

However, the findings, published in the journal PLOS Medicine, showed that the metabolism of omega-3 and omega-6 unsaturated fatty acids were significantly decreased in Alzheimer's brains when compared to brains from healthy patients.

"Our results show a potentially crucial and unexpected role for fats in the onset of dementia. Most surprisingly, we found that a supposedly beneficial omega-3, DHA, actually increased with the progression of the disease," said Cristina Legido Quigley from King's College London. 

In the study, the team looked at brain tissue samples from 43 people ranging in age from 57 to 95 years old. 

The researchers then measured the metabolite levels of the brain regions that are commonly associated with neurodegerative diseases -- the middle frontal gyrus and the inferior temporal gyrus -- as well as the metabolite levels in a brain area that is not normally affected by the disease's pathology -- the cerebellum.

The results showed that unsaturated fatty acid metabolism is significantly dysregulated in the brains of patients with varying degrees of Alzheimer pathology.

The main molecules that were different were six small fats -- docosahexaenoic acid, linoleic acid, arachidonic acid, linolenic acid, eicosapentaenoic acid, and oleic acid -- including omegas, which changed in abundance in different regions of the brain.

Washington, March 23 (IANS) While Arctic Sea ice reached this year a record low wintertime maximum extent, sea ice around Antarctica also hit its lowest extent ever recorded by satellites at the end of summer in the Southern Hemisphere, scientists have said.

In February this year, the combined Arctic and Antarctic sea ice extent was at its lowest point since satellites began to continuously measure sea ice in 1979, said scientists at NASA and the NASA-supported National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) in Boulder, Colorado.

Total polar sea ice covered 16.21 million square km, which is two million square km less than the average global minimum extent for 1981-2010 -- the equivalent of having lost a chunk of sea ice larger than Mexico, the study said.

"It is tempting to say that the record low we are seeing this year is global warming finally catching up with Antarctica," Walt Meier, a sea ice scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, said in a NASA release on Wednesday.

"However, this might just be an extreme case of pushing the envelope of year-to-year variability. We'll need to have several more years of data to be able to say there has been a significant change in the trend," Meier added.

The ice floating on top of the Arctic Ocean and surrounding seas shrinks in a seasonal cycle from mid-March until mid-September. 

As the Arctic temperatures drop in the autumn and winter, the ice cover grows again until it reaches its yearly maximum extent, typically in March. 

The ring of sea ice around the Antarctic continent behaves in a similar manner, with the calendar flipped --it usually reaches its maximum in September and its minimum in February.

This winter, a combination of warmer-than-average temperatures, winds unfavourable to ice expansion, and a series of storms halted sea ice growth in the Arctic, the scientists said.

This year's maximum extent, reached on March 7 at 14.42 million square kilometres, is 97,00 square kilometres below the previous record low, which occurred in 2015, and 1.22 million square kilometres smaller than the average maximum extent for 1981-2010, according to the scientists.

New York, March 23 (IANS) While the rise in machine learning technology may be making people's lives smarter and easier, it has conversely given rise to fear and anxiety among people about losing jobs to artificial intelligence (AI) devices, a study has showed.

"Technophobes" -- persons who fear robots, artificial intelligence and new technology that they don't understand -- are three times more likely to be fearful of losing their jobs to technology when compared to others and nearly three times more likely to fear not having enough money in the future, the study has shown.

"If you're afraid of losing your job to a robot, you're not alone. This is a real concern among a substantial portion of the population. They are not simply a subgroup of generally fearful people," said researcher Paul McClure, a sociologist in Baylor University's College of Arts & Sciences, in Texas, US.

"People in certain occupations may legitimately fear losing their jobs to robots and software that can work for cheaper and for longer hours than any human," McClure added, in the paper published in the journal Social Science Computer Review.

Technophobes also have 95 per cent greater odds of not being able to stop or control worrying when compared to others, and 76 per cent greater odds of feeling as if something awful might happen and are also more likely to suffer anxiety-related mental health issues.

While a transformation would most likely be gradual, it could trigger a major social unrest among those who are displaced from their jobs, McClure said.

For his study, McClure examined 1,541 participants, of whom more than a third were found to be more fearful of automation that could lead to job displacement than they are of potentially threatening or dangerous circumstances such as romantic rejection, public speaking and police brutality.

New Delhi, March 22 (IANS) Joining the 'go digital' bandwagon, South Korean giant Samsung on Wednesday launched Samsung Pay, the company's flagship mobile payments service, in India.

​Las Vegas, March 22 (IANS) Claiming it is "creating magic in the clouds", top officials of creatives company Adobe launched its Experience Cloud, bringing together digital intelligence and machine learning to provide customers with what they called was a complete solution for their digital needs.

​Hong Kong, March 22 (IANS) Investors based in Hong Kong are putting more money in start-ups and are increasingly looking at India as an investment option due to its strengths in areas such as information technology, a senior official has said.

New Delhi, March 22 (IANS) Marking its entry into the mid-segment smartphone category, domestic mobile manufacturing company Lava on Wednesday launched Z25 and Z10 smartphones at Rs 18,000 and Rs 11,500, respectively. Lava Z25 sports 5.5-inch 2.5D-curved HD IPS display. The dual-sim device is powered by an Octacore processor, supported by 4GB and 32GB on-board memory with 3020 mAh (ATL) battery. The phone runs on Android Marshmallow 6.0 operating system. The device sports 13MP rear camera and an 8MP selfie camera. "Lava Z25 and Z10 are packed with premium features of camera, fingerprint, design and durability that go well beyond the conventional boundaries in this price segment," said Gaurav Nigam, Product Head, Lava International. Lava Z10 sports a 5 inch 2.5D curved HD IPS Display, an 8MP rear camera and 5MP selfie shooter. It is also powered by Octacore processor and runs on Android Marshmallow 6.0 OS. This device has 2620 mAh (ATL) battery with 'Power Saver mode' and ‘Super Power Saver mode'. Lava Z25 and Lava Z10 will be available in select retail stores in Delhi from March 23 and in other cities in a few weeks' time, the company said.

​New York, March 22 (IANS) Scientists have developed an ultra-thin gel-like coating material that has the potential to extend the life and improve the efficiency of lithium-sulfur batteries.

"Our approach is general, in that it can be integrated with virtually any kind of sulfur electrode to increase cycling stability," said lead investigator of the study Hailiang Wang, Assistant Professor of Chemistry at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, US.

In a study published online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the researchers described the new material which can be applied to any sulfur cathode. 

A cathode is the positive terminal on a battery.

Sulfur cathodes coated with the material can be stably discharged and recharged for more than 1,000 cycles, enhancing the battery's efficiency and number of cycles, according to the researchers.

"The developed film is so thin and light it will not affect the overall size or weight of the battery, and thus it will function without compromising the energy and power density of the device," Wang said.

New types of electrodes -- positive and negative terminals -- are considered essential for the development of a new generation of high energy-density batteries. 

As lithium-ion batteries -- currently widely used in mobile phones and laptops, among other electronic devices -- begin to reach their capacity limits, many researchers are looking at lithium-sulfur as a solution. 

Sulfur is both lightweight and abundant, with a high theoretical energy capacity. 

The Yale team made its discovery by combining the distinct properties of two material components. 

They merged the mechanical strength of graphene oxide with the ability of a dendrimer molecule to confine lithium polysulfides. 

The result is a gel-like slurry that can be readily coated as a 100-nanometer-thin film onto sulfur electrodes, the study said.