Knowledge Update

​New York, Nov 20 (IANS) In a breakthrough research, US scientists have identified that early signs of Alzheimer's disease can be detected by looking at the back of patients' eyes.

The researchers found that the retina tissue shows evidence of toxic tau and inflammation -- crucial for the onset of the neurodegenerative disease.

"Using the retina for detecting Alzheimer's disease and other neurodegenerative diseases would be non-invasive, inexpensive and could become a part of a normal screening done at patient checkups," said lead author Ashley Nilson, graduate student at The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston.

The study demonstrated that the toxic tau, which spreads between connected brain regions, may initiate inflammation in brain regions.

In Alzheimer's, the tau protein changes into a toxic form called tau oligomers and begins clumping into neurofibrillary tangles, which can leading to the eventual death of the brain cells.

"Our findings suggest that the degeneration of nerve cells due to chronic inflammation induced by the tau oligomers may be combated through the combination of anti-tau oligomer and anti-inflammatory therapeutics for the treatment of Alzheimer's and related diseases," added Rakez Kayed, Associate Professor at The University of Texas Medical Branch.

This situation can create a cycle of toxic tau, inflammation and cell death throughout the brain over time.

For the study, the team performed a systematic analyses of brain and retina samples from people with Alzheimer's and a mouse model of Alzheimer's.

"Early detection of Alzheimer's warning signs would allow for early intervention and prevention of neurodegeneration before major brain cell loss and cognitive decline occurs," Nilson said.

Beyond determining eye health and corrective lens prescriptions, having an eye exam can alert health care professionals of several different health conditions including diabetic complications, high cholesterol and high blood pressure, the researchers suggested, in the paper in the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease.

Thimphu, Nov 19 (IANS) Farmers and exporters in Bhutan's Phuentsholing town, on the border with India, have been hit hard as the demonetisation of high-value currency by India has led to cardamom and potato sales dropping drastically.

Beijing, Nov 19 (IANS) The Coca-Cola Company on Saturday announced the reshaping of its bottling operations in China. The announcement was made jointly following an agreement of the Coca-Cola Company and its Bottling Investments Group China, COFCO Coca-Cola Beverages Limited (a subsidiary of COFCO Corporation), and Swire Beverage Holdings Limited, Xinhua news agency reported. As a result, Coca-Cola's bottling operations in China will be concentrated in its two franchise partners, COFCO and Swire. COFCO will own and operate 18 bottling plants, while Swire will own and operate 17. "Today's announcement marks our refocus on core strengths of building great brands and leading a strong, global franchise system," said Muhtar Kent, Chairman and CEO of the Coca-Cola Company. By refranchising all company-owned bottling operations in China to local partners, Coca-Cola aims to position these companies to leverage greater efficiency throughout China to invest for growth. "China's long and stable economic growth provides great opportunity for sustainable development of the beverages industry," said Zhao Shuanglian, Chairman of COFCO Corporation.

​New York, Nov 19 (IANS) After it launched the HP Elite x3 smartphone in 2016 which was not quite successful, HP is planning to launch another Windows Phone handset in 2017. The company is rumoured to have teamed up with Microsoft for the release of a more customer-focused Windows Phone probably in February 2017, Phone Arena reported. It is believed that HP will develop and sell the smartphone, while Microsoft will offer budget for the same. Microsoft may also provide HP with technology that was used inside Lumia smartphones. "Features like Glance, ClearBlack display, double tap to wake, and advanced camera functionality will be implemented in the HP's Windows Phone handset," the report added. Sources said that that Microsoft has already revealed a new Windows 10 Mobile handset this week in Redmond, and is expected to be officially announced in February 2017. But certain details of the launch were not yet confirmed.

Barcelona, Nov 19 (IANS) Nokia is planning to re-enter the smartphone business in 2017, a slide from Nokia's Capital Markets Day 2016 has revealed. The event that was held on November 15 for investors, the company stated that 2017 will represent "Nokia brand's return to smartphones.," Phone Arena reported on Friday. Since it does not have the required manufacturing facilities, Nokia will rope in Finnish company HMD Global, and Taiwanese giant Foxconn to manufacture the smartphones. Led by former Nokia execs, HDM will "develop, market and sell Nokia-branded phones and accessories", while Foxconn is dealing with R&D and manufacturing, the report added. The first smartphone of Nokia after its come back is rumoured to be the D1C that runs on Android 7 Nougat with a Snapdragon 430 processor, and offers a 1080p display and 3 GB of RAM.

​New York, Nov 19 (IANS) A handful of walnuts every day can help young men happily tackle life's daily stress as this nutrient-dense snack can lead to a happier state-of-mind, suggests a new study. The researchers found a significant improvement in mood in young, healthy males who consumed walnuts every day for eight weeks. "In the past, studies on walnuts have shown beneficial effects on many health outcomes like heart disease, diabetes and obesity," said researcher Peter Pribis, Professor at University of New Mexico in the US. "Our study was different because we focused on cognition, and in this controlled randomised trial (CRT) we measured mood outcomes in males and females," Pribis added. The participants of the study were 64 students between the ages of 18-25. The participants were asked to eat three slices of banana bread every day for sixteen weeks -- eight weeks of banana bread with walnuts and eight weeks of banana bread without walnuts. The nuts were finely ground into the dough so the two banana breads were similar in taste and appearance. While eating banana bread with walnuts the participants consumed half a cup of walnuts daily. The mood of the students was measured at the end of each eight-week period. "We used a validated questionnaire called Profiles of Mood States (POMS)," Pribis said. "It is one of the most widely used and accepted mood scales in studies on cognition. The test has six mood domains: tension, depression, anger, fatigue, vigor, confusion and also provides a Total Mood Disturbance score (TMD)," Pribis explained. The researchers found that consumption of walnuts led to a significant improvement in mood in young, healthy males. "In non-depressed healthy young males, walnuts seem to have the ability to improve mood," the study, published in the journal Nutrients, said. "There was a meaningful, 28 per cent improvement of mood in young men," Pribis pointed out. There are several nutrients in walnuts that could be responsible for the improved mood like alpha-Linolenic acid, vitamin E, folate, polyphenols or melatonin, the researchers said. "However we did not observe any improvement of mood in females. Why this is we do not know," Pribis said.

New York, Nov 19 (IANS) Increased sensitivity to uncertain threat, or fear of the unknown, is common to many anxiety disorders, including panic disorder, social anxiety disorder and specific phobias, says a study.

The finding could help steer treatment of these disorders away from diagnosis-based therapies to treating their common characteristics.

"Knowing that sensitivity to uncertain threat underlies all of the fear-based anxiety disorders also suggests that drugs that help specifically target this sensitivity could be used or developed to treat these disorders," said senior author on the study K. Luan Phan, Professor at the University of Illinois in Chicago.

"A treatment, or set of treatments, focused on sensitivity to uncertain threat could result in a more impactful and efficient way of treating a variety of anxiety disorders and symptoms," Stephanie Gorka from the University of Illinois College of Medicine, added. 

Uncertain threat is unpredictable in its timing, intensity, frequency or duration and elicits a generalised feeling of apprehension and hypervigilance.

When a person is sensitive to uncertain threat, they can spend the entire day anxious and concerned that something bad could happen to them, Gorka said.

Panic disorder is one example -- patients are constantly anxious over the fact that they could have a panic attack at any moment, she said.

Predictable threat, on the other hand, produces a discreet fight-or-flight response that has a clear trigger and it abates once the threat has resolved.

For the study, the researchers looked at data from participants who underwent a task in two different studies performed at the University of Illinois at Chicago. 

The two studies, of participants aged 18 to 65, included 25 participants with major depressive disorder; 29 with generalised anxiety disorder; 41 with social anxiety disorder; and 24 with a specific phobia. 

Forty one control participants had no current or prior diagnoses of psychopathology.

The researchers measured the participants' eye-blink responses to predictable and unpredictable mild electric shocks to the wrist. To elicit blinking during the shock-task, the participants heard short, acoustic tones via headphones.

The study, published in the Journal of Abnormal Psychology, found that participants with social anxiety disorder or a specific phobia blinked much more strongly during the unpredictable shocks, when compared to participants without a mental health diagnosis.

​New York, Nov 18 (IANS) Giving more power to its 1.2 billion daily users, Facebook will now allow them to automatically launch its crisis response tool "Safety Check" in case of an earthquake, terror attack, tsunami and so on.

​Madrid, Nov 18 (IANS) Japanese gaming giant Nintendo on Friday launched Pokemon Sun and Pokemon Moon, the latest games in the series, in Japan and the US, four months after the release of Pokemon Go. The release of the seventh generation of the multi-billion dollar franchise, which has not launched any new games in the series since October 2013, coincides with the 20th anniversary of the launch of the original Pokemon video games and follows the stupendous success of Pokemon Go, which has been downloaded over 500 million times. The new games, designed for Nintendo's 3DS portable game console, will be released in Europe on November 23 and Nintendo has already shipped 10 million copies throughout the world, EFE news cited the company as saying in a statement. Nintendo, who said during the release of its results for the first quarter of the Japanese financial year (April-September) that the success of Pokemon Go helped boost sales of software in the Pokemon series during the same period, hopes the effect is enhanced with the new games. The starting price of the games is 4,980 yen in Japan, $39.99 in the US and 44.95 euros in Europe. The games take place in the Alola region, composed of four tropical islands and an artificial one, and feature a total of over 800 pocket monsters for the players to hunt. A few Pokemon-enthusiasts had recently grabbed pirated copies of the game leading Nintendo to ban them from its online network.

Tel Aviv, Nov 18 (IANS) Coca-Cola has designed a "Selfie bottle" that will take your self-portrait which you can instantly share with your friends on online platforms like SnapChat, Facebook and Instagram. The bottle is fitted with an in-built camera at its base and a sensor to detect when it is tilted to 70-degree, at which point the camera takes a snap of its owner mid-drink, Drum News reported on Friday. The "Selfie Bottle" has been devised by Gefen Team for the Coca-Cola Summer Love campaign -- Israel's largest outdoor brand event. "Users tag themselves and their friends in photos on Coca-Cola's social media assets. It really does the trick and makes the partygoers more present and active during the event, knowing they can share their special moments just by drinking," Coca-Cola said in a statement. However, there are no reports when the "Selfie Bottle" will make it to the market.