Knowledge Update

​Beijing, Feb 17 (IANS) Chinese smartphone maker ZTE is set to launch the "Gigabit" phone at Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona later this month. "The ZTE Gigabit phone will revolutionise connectivity with a new standard of download speeds, 1Gbps, bringing a qualitative leap to a new world of mobile experience by making 360-degree panoramic VR video, instant Cloud storage, entertainment upgrades and fast cache of ultra Hi-Fi music and movies possible," the company said in a statement on Friday. ZTE will focus on leading 5G evolution, advancing cloudification, creating the Internet of Everything (IoT) and developing state of art devices. The company will also showcase the newly updated "Axon 7" with both Android Nougat and Daydream by Google along with a range of new devices as part of the highly acclaimed Blade series.

​London, Feb 17 (IANS) A fat pay cheque may be influenced by more than just physical attractiveness or the lack of it, say researchers dispelling the 'beauty premium' theory which says beautiful people earn more while those who are not so gorgeous are paid less.

The findings showed that healthier and more intelligent people and those with more conscientious, more extraverted and less neurotic personality traits are the ones who take fatter pay checks home. 

"Physically more attractive workers may earn more, not necessarily because they are more beautiful, but because they are healthier, more intelligent and have better personality traits conducive to higher earnings, such as being more conscientious, more extraverted and less neurotic," said Satoshi Kanazawa from the London School of Economics and Political Science. 

Economists have widely documented the "beauty premium" -- or, conversely, the "ugliness penalty" -- on wages.

Population-based surveys in the US and Canada for instance showed that people who are physically attractive earn more, while those who are aesthetically compromised earn less.

For the study, detailed in the Journal of Business and Psychology, the team analysed a nationally representative sample from a US data set that measured physical attractiveness of all respondents on a five-point scale at four different points in life over 13 years.

The beauty premium theory was dispelled when factors such as health, intelligence, and major personality factors together with other correlates of physical attractiveness were taken into account.

The analysis showed that people are not necessarily discriminated against because of their looks.

In addition, the study also offered narrower categories of relative attractiveness, with less attractive participants split into "very unattractive" and "unattractive."

The differentiation revealed an apparent ugliness premium, with very unattractive people earning more than their merely unattractive peers, the researchers said.

​London, Feb 17 (IANS) Antibiotics may be an effective treatment for acute non-complicated appendicitis in children, instead of surgery, a study says.

The condition, which causes the appendix -- a small organ attached to the large intestine -- to become inflamed due to a blockage or infection, affects mainly children and teenagers.

Appendicitis is currently treated through an operation to remove the appendix, known as an appendicectomy.

"Acute appendicitis is one of the most common general surgical emergencies worldwide and surgery has long been the gold standard of treatment. But it is invasive and costly, not to mention extremely daunting for the child concerned and their family," said lead researcher Nigel Hall, Associate Professor of Paediatric Surgery at the University of Southampton in Britain.

"Our review shows that antibiotics could be an alternative treatment method for children," Hall noted.

For the study, the researchers assessed existing literature published over the past 10 years that included 10 studies reporting on 413 children who received non-operative treatment rather than an appendectomy.

The review published in the journal Pediatrics showed that no study reported any safety concern or specific adverse events related to non-surgical treatment, although the rate of recurrent appendicitis was 14 per cent.

"When we compared the adult literature to the data in our review it suggested that antibiotic treatment of acute appendicitis is at least as effective in children as in adults. This now needs to be explored more widely," Hall said.

Seoul, Feb 17 (IANS) Researchers have found that gene editing tool CRISPR-Cas9 can be delivered directly into the eye to treat age-related macular degeneration (AMD), an advance that may pave way for a new therapy for non-hereditary degenerative diseases.

It is estimated that almost one in every ten persons over 65 has some signs of AMD -- a form of blindness which causes distorted vision and blind spots. 

In the study, scientists used CRISPR-Cas9 to perform "gene surgery" in the layer of tissue that supports the retina of living mice. 

"We believe that this is a new therapeutic modality for the treatment of non-hereditary degenerative diseases," said Kim Jeong-Hun, Professor at Seoul National University in South Korea.

The most common retinopathies causing blindness are 'retinopathy of prematurity' in children, 'diabetic retinopathy' and 'AMD' in older adults. 

In these diseases, abnormally high levels of a protein called Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor (VEGF) are secreted which leads to leakages of blood and fluid into the eye, damaging an area at the centre of the retina called macula.

Currently, injections of anti-VEGF drugs are the most common treatment against AMD. 

"The injections tackle the effects, but not the main cause of the problem. By editing the VEGF gene, we can achieve a longer-term cure," added Kim Jin-Soo, Director of the Center for Genome Engineering at the Institute for Basic Science (IBS) in South Korea.

The CRISPR-Cas9 system works by cutting DNA at a target site, inside the VEGF gene. 

For the study, published in the journal Genome Research, the team injected the pre-assembled CRISPR-Cas9 complex into the eyes of a mice model.

They found that the delivering CRISPR-Cas9 complex was more efficient, modified only the VEGF gene and did not affect other genes.

Washington, Feb 17 (IANS) In line with its shift in focus from low-Earth orbit to deep space missions, NASA has selected proposals for the creation of two multi-disciplinary, university-led research institutes that will focus on the development of technologies critical to extending human presence deeper into our solar system.

The new institutes will advance NASA's aim of developing technologies that will allow long-duration mission crews to manufacture the products they need, rather than relying on the current practice of resupply missions from Earth.

The new Space Technology Research Institutes (STRIs) created under these proposals will bring together researchers from various disciplines and organisations to collaborate on the advancement of cutting-edge technologies in bio-manufacturing and space infrastructure.

The goal is to create Earth-independent, self-sustaining exploration mission capabilities, NASA said in a statement.

"NASA is establishing STRIs to research and exploit cutting-edge advances in technology with the potential for revolutionary impact on future aerospace capabilities," said Steve Jurczyk, Associate Administrator for NASA's Space Technology Mission Directorate in Washington.

"These university-led, multi-disciplinary research programs promote the synthesis of science, engineering and other disciplines to achieve specific research objectives with credible expected outcomes within five years," Jurczyk added.

Each STRI will receive up to $15 million over the five-year period of performance, said NASA .

​London, Feb 17 (IANS) Treating schizophrenia patients with high-dose B-vitamins -- including B6, B8 and B12 -- supplements may significantly reduce symptoms of the mental disorder that affects nearly one per cent of the population more than standard treatments alone, researchers suggest.

Schizophrenia is a severe mental disorder that affects how a person thinks, feels, and behaves.

The findings showed that B-vitamin interventions which used higher dosages or combined several vitamins were consistently effective for reducing psychiatric symptoms, whereas those which used lower doses were ineffective.

"Looking at all of the data from clinical trials of vitamin and mineral supplements for schizophrenia to date, we can see that B vitamins effectively improve outcomes for some patients," said lead author Joseph Firth from University of Manchester in Britain. 

Currently, treatments are based around the administration of antipsychotic drugs.

Although patients typically experience remission of symptoms such as hallucinations and delusions within the first few months of treatment, long-term outcomes are poor and 80 per cent of patients relapse within five years.

B-vitamin supplements were also found most beneficial when implemented early on, as B-vitamins were most likely to reduce symptoms when used in patients with shorter illness durations.

"High-dose B-vitamins may be useful for reducing residual symptoms in people with schizophrenia," Firth added. 

For the study, published in Psychological Medicine, the team carried out a meta-analysis that identified 18 clinical trials with a combined total of 832 patients receiving antipsychotic treatment for schizophrenia.

"The study builds on existing evidence of other food-derived supplements, such as certain amino-acids, been beneficial for people with schizophrenia," noted co-author Jerome Sarris, Professor at Western Sydney University in Australia.

Wellington, Feb 17 (IANS) Zealandia -- a lost continent submerged in the southwest Pacific -- is a step closer to being recognised, the authors of a new scientific paper have claimed.

A paper published in GSA Today, the journal of the Geological Society of America, contends that the vast, continuous expanse of continental crust, which centres on New Zealand, is distinct enough to constitute a separate continent, the Guardian reported.

The paper's authors argued that the incremental way in which it came to light goes to show that even "the large and the obvious in natural science can be overlooked".

Zealandia covers nearly 5 million sq. km, of which 94 per cent is under water, and encompasses not only New Zealand but also New Caledonia, Norfolk Island, the Lord Howe Island group and Elizabeth and Middleton reefs.

The area, about the same size as the Indian subcontinent, is believed to have broken away from Gondwana -- the immense landmass that once encompassed Australia -- and sank between 60 and 85 million years ago.

"This is a big piece of ground we're talking about, even if it is submerged," said Nick Mortimer, a New Zealand geologist who co-authored the paper.

Geologists have argued in favour of Zealandia being recognised as its own continent intermittently over the past 20 years.

Zealandia would be the world's seventh and smallest continent, after Eurasia, Africa, North America, South America, Antarctica, and Australia. 

Mumbai, Feb 16 (IANS) In a bid to foray into a new era of tech-powered healthcare, Intelenet Global Services -- a Mumbai-based business process service provider -- on Thursday launched a mobile app called Radius that can help transform the nursing allocation process.

​Moscow, Feb 16 (IANS) Russia-based software security company Kaspersky Lab on Thursday launched an updated version of its Password Manager app that offers users remote access to their passwords through their personal page on the My Kaspersky portal.

​Mumbai, Feb 16 (IANS) As global smartphone sales to end-users hit nearly 432 million units in the fourth quarter of 2016, once a market leader BlackBerry now virtually has a zero per cent share. According to the market research firm Gartner, out of more than 431.5 million smartphones sold last year, about 200,000 were BlackBerry devices that were running on its own operating system but that gives it less than half the unit volume of the "other OS" category. "This wasn't hard to see coming given BlackBerry's years-long decline, gradual shift toward Android and recent focus on services," Engadget reported. Microsoft's Windows phones are not doing good either. The share of Windows fell from 1.1 percent to 0.3 percent in the last quarter of 2016. In a bid to provide acceleration to BlackBerry's transition into a security software and services company, BlackBerry and TCL Communication Technology Holdings Limited entered into a long-term licensing agreement recently. Under the terms, BlackBerry will license its security software and service suite, as well as related brand assets, to TCL Communication who will design, manufacture, sell and provide customer support for BlackBerry-branded mobile devices. TCL Communication will be the exclusive global manufacturer and distributor for all BlackBerry-branded smartphones with the exception of the following countries -- India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh and Indonesia. The company announced partnership with Optiemus, a Delhi-based telecom enterprise to licence software and services for the production of secure Android handsets in India, Sri Lanka, Nepal and Bangladesh. Under the terms of the agreement, BlackBerry will licence its security software and services suite, as well as related brand assets to Optiemus Infracom Ltd. The partner will design, manufacture, sell, promote and provide customer support for BlackBerry-branded mobile devices that offer the full BlackBerry experience, including the trusted BlackBerry for Android secure software.