Knowledge Update

​Washington, May 30 (IANS) NASA's New Horizon probe has sent home the most detailed view of Pluto's terrain you will see for a very long time.

The mosaic strip - extending across the hemisphere that faced the New Horizons spacecraft as it flew past Pluto on July 14, 2015 - now includes all of the highest-resolution images taken by the NASA probe.

With a resolution of about 260 ft per pixel, the mosaic gives New Horizons scientists and the public the best opportunity to examine the fine details of the various types of terrain on Pluto, and determine the processes that formed and shaped them.

"This new image product is just magnetic. It makes me want to go back on another mission to Pluto and get high-resolution images like these across the entire surface," said Alan Stern, New Horizons principal investigator from Southwest Research Institute, Boulder, Colorado.

The view extends from the "limb" of Pluto at the top of the strip, almost to the "terminator" (or day/night line) in the southeast of the encounter hemisphere.

The width of the strip ranges from more than 90 km at its northern end to about 75 km at its southern point.

New Horizons spacecraft recently observed a first object in Kuiper Belt - a region of the solar system beyond the orbit of Neptune.

"1994 JR1" is a 145-km-wide Kuiper Belt object (KBO) orbiting more than 5 billion km from the Sun.

The images shatter New Horizons' own record for the closest-ever views of this KBO in November 2015 when New Horizons detected "JR1" from 280 million km away.

The observations contain several valuable findings.

"Combining the November 2015 and April 2016 observations allows us to pinpoint the location of JR1 to within 1,000 km, far better than any small KBO," said Simon Porter from Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) in Boulder, Colorado.

The more accurate orbit also allows the science team to dispel a theory, suggested several years ago, that JR1 is a quasi-satellite of Pluto.

The team also determined the object's rotation period, observing the changes in light reflected from JR1's surface to determine that it rotates once every 5.4 hours (or a JR1 day).

"That's relatively fast for a KBO. This is all part of the excitement of exploring new places and seeing things never seen before," added science team member John Spencer from SwRI in a NASA statement.

The observations are great practice for possible close-up looks at about 20 more ancient Kuiper Belt objects that may come in the next few years.

New Horizons flew through the Pluto system, making the first close-up observations of Pluto and its family of five moons.

The spacecraft is on course for an ultra-close flyby of another Kuiper Belt object, "2014 MU69", on January 1, 2019.​

​London, May 29 (IANS) A team of archaeologists has scanned the highest prehistoric paintings of animals in Europe discovered in a rock shelter in the French Alps 2,133 metres above sea level.

The team from the University of York used car batteries to power laser and white-light scanners in a logistically complex operation to reveal the rock paintings of Abri Faravel that were discovered in 2010.

The rock shelter has seen phases of human activity from the Mesolithic to the medieval period, with its prehistoric rock paintings known to be the highest painted representations of animals (quadrupeds) in Europe.

Researchers recently published the scans in online journal Internet Archaeology.

"After years of research in this valley, the day we discovered these paintings was undeniably the highlight of the research programme," said project lead Kevin Walsh from University of York. 

"As this site is so unusual, we made the decision to carry out a laser-scan of the rock shelter and the surrounding landscape, plus a white-light scan of the actual paintings," he added. 

The scanning was logistically complex as the only source of electricity was car batteries, which, along with all of the scanning equipment, had to be carried up to the site. 

"This is the only example of virtual models, including a scan of the art, done at high altitude in the Alps and probably the highest virtual model of an archaeological landscape in Europe," Walsh said.

The project was part of a study that investigates the development of human activity over the last 8,000 years at high altitude in the southern Alps.

Artefacts found in Abri Faravel also include Mesolithic and Neolithic flint tools, Iron Age hand-thrown pottery, a Roman fibula and some medieval metalwork.

However, the paintings are the most unique feature of the site, revealing a story of human occupation and activity in one of the world's most challenging environments from the Mesolithic to post-Medieval period.

​London, May 30 (IANS) Even if comets did not play as big a role in delivering water as once thought to the Earth they certainly had the potential to deliver the ingredients of life, new research has found.

The possibility that water and organic molecules were brought to the early Earth through impacts of objects like asteroids and comets have long been the subject of debate.

The European Space Agency's (ESA) Rosetta probe has now shown a significant difference in composition between Comet 67P/C-G's water and that of Earth.

“The multitude of organic molecules already identified by ROSINA, now joined by the exciting confirmation of fundamental ingredients like glycine and phosphorus, confirms our idea that comets have the potential to deliver key molecules for prebiotic chemistry," explained Matt Taylor, Rosetta project scientist of the European Space Agency (ESA).

While more than 140 different molecules have already been identified in the interstellar medium, amino acids could not be traced. 

However, hints of the amino acid glycine, a biologically important organic compound commonly found in proteins, were found during NASA's Stardust mission that flew by “Comet Wild 2” in 2004.

Now, for the first time, repeated detections at a comet have been confirmed by Rosetta in Comet 67P/C-G's fuzzy atmosphere or coma.

“This is the first unambiguous detection of glycine in the thin atmosphere of a comet," says Kathrin Altwegg, principal investigator of the ROSINA instrument at University of Bern. 

At the same time, the researchers also detected the organic molecules methylamine and ethylamine which are precursors to forming glycine. 

Unlike other amino acids, glycine is the only one that has been shown to be able to form without liquid water. 

"The simultaneous presence of methylamine and ethylamine, and the correlation between dust and glycine, also hints at how the glycine was formed," Altwegg noted.

Another exciting detection by ROSINA made for the first time at a comet is of phosphorus. 

It is a key element in all living organisms and is found in the structural framework of DNA and RNA.

“Demonstrating that comets are reservoirs of primitive material in the solar system and vessels that could have transported these vital ingredients to Earth is one of the key goals of the Rosetta mission, and we are delighted with this result,” Taylor pointed out in a paper forthcoming in the journal Science.​

​New York, May 28 (IANS) In a bid to expand its user base, social media giant Facebook has announced it will begin displaying ads to web users who are not members of its social network.

​Tokyo, May 27 (IANS) Japan's transport ministry on Friday said seven million more vehicles with Takata-made airbags will be recalled within the country, bringing the total number of vehicles called back as a result of the Takata airbag defect in Japan to a whopping 19.6 million. The decision came after the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) ordered earlier this month that airbag inflators using ammonium nitrate as propellant without desiccant shall also be recalled, Xinhua news agency reported. With recall expanded in the US, Japan's Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport has required automakers to recall vehicles equipped with airbags with the same problems also in Japan. The total number of Takata-made airbags to be called back is expected to top 100 million globally, costing over $9.12 billion to Takata Corp. and automakers, though how much each will shoulder is not decided yet. The cost is expected to be a huge burden for the Tokyo-based company, which recorded a net loss of $1.19 trillion in fiscal 2015, its second straight year of red ink, amid impact of the global recall of its airbag inflators. The Takata-made airbag inflators, which could explode with too much force, spraying metal fragments at passengers, have been reportedly linked to at least 10 deaths worldwide.​

​Sydney, May 27 (IANS) In a finding that could lead to new drugs to treat cancer and autoimmune diseases, researchers, including one of Indian-origin, have discovered a new way of triggering cell death.

Programmed cell death, also called apoptosis, is a natural process that removes unwanted cells from the body. Failure of apoptosis can allow cancer cells to grow unchecked or immune cells to inappropriately attack the body.

The protein known as Bak is central to apoptosis. In healthy cells Bak sits in an inert state but when a cell receives a signal to die, Bak transforms into a killer protein that destroys the cell.

In this study, researcher Sweta Iyer from the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research, Victoria, and colleagues discovered a novel way of directly activating Bak to trigger cell death. 

The researchers discovered that an antibody they had produced to study Bak actually bound to the Bak protein and triggered its activation.

"We were excited when we realised we had found an entirely new way of activating Bak," said Ruth Kluck who is also from Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research in Australia.

The researchers hope to use this discovery to develop drugs that promote cell death.

"There is great interest in developing drugs that trigger Bak activation to treat diseases such as cancer where apoptosis has gone awry," she said. 

"This discovery gives us a new starting point for developing therapies that directly activate Bak and cause cell death," Kluck pointed out.

The researchers used information about Bak's three-dimensional structure to find out precisely how the antibody activated Bak.

The study was published in the journal Nature Communications.

"The advantage of our antibody is that it can't be 'mopped up' and neutralised by pro-survival proteins in the cell, potentially reducing the chance of drug resistance occurring," Kluck said.​

​New York, May 27 (IANS) Researchers, including one of Indian-origin, have discovered that lower levels of a hormone may make teenagers vulnerable to gaining unhealthy weight.

"Our study is the first to look at levels of spexin in the pediatric population," said one of the study authors Seema Kumar from Mayo Clinic Children's Centre in Minnesota, US. 

Potentially tied to weight management, spexin is also believed to have a role in controlling arterial blood pressure as well as salt and water balance.

"Previous research has found reduced levels of this hormone in adults with obesity. Overall, our findings suggest spexin may play a role in weight gain, beginning at an early age," she added.

The study was published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism.

The study analysed spexin levels in 51 obese and 18 teenagers of normal weights between ages 12 and 18. The participants had blood samples taken between 2008 and 2010 as part of separate clinical trials.

Researchers tested the blood samples to measure spexin levels. They divided the teenagers into four groups based on their spexin levels. 

Among the participants with the lowest levels of spexin, the odds of having obesity were a little more than five times higher than in the group with the highest levels of the hormone.

"It is noteworthy that we see such clear differences in spexin levels between obese and normal weight adolescents," Kumar said. 

"Since this is a cross-sectional study, more research is needed to explore the physiological significance of spexin, how it may be involved in the development of childhood obesity, and whether it can be used to treat or manage the condition," she added.​

​New York, May 27 (IANS) In order to help you identify between habitual and goal-directed action, your brain's circuits compete for control and make a fine balance between the two actions, an international team of researchers has identified.

They found brain chemicals and neural pathway involved in switching between habitual behaviour and deliberate decision-making -- providing the strongest evidence to date that the brain's circuits for habitual and goal-directed action compete for control. 

"We need a balance between habitual and goal-directed actions. For everyday function, we need to be able to make routine actions quickly and efficiently, and habits serve this purpose," said lead author Christina Gremel from the University of California-San Diego.

"However, we also encounter changing circumstances, and need the capacity to 'break habits' and perform a goal-directed action based on updated information. When we can't, there can be devastating consequences," she added.

The study, published recently in the journal Neuron, worked with a mouse model to demonstrate what happens in the brain for habits to control behaviour.

Gremel said the brain's circuits for habitual and goal-directed action compete for control -- in the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), a decision-making area of the brain -- and that neurochemicals called endocannabinoids allow for habit to take over, by acting as a sort of brake on the goal-directed circuit.

"Habit takes over when the OFC is quieted," Gremel said.

In the study, since endocannabinoids are known to reduce the activity of neurons in general, the researchers hypothesised that endocannabinoids may be quieting or reducing activity in the OFC and, with it, the ability to shift to goal-directed action. 

They trained mice to perform the same lever-pressing action for the same food reward but in two different environments that differentially bias the development of goal-directed versus habitual actions. 

Like humans who don't suffer from neuropsychiatric disorders, healthy mice readily shifted between performing the same action using a goal-directed versus habitual action strategy. 

To test their hypothesis on the role played by endocannabinoids, the researchers then deleted a particular endocannabinoid receptor. 

Mice missing these receptors did not form habits -- showing the critical role played by the neurochemicals as well as that particular pathway.​

​New York, May 27 (IANS) As the difficulty of making a decision increases, activity in a part of the brain that is crucial to making coherent thoughts also increases, a study says.

Researchers found a strong positive correlation between perceptual difficulty and activity in insular cortex which is generally divided into anterior insula, middle insula, and a posterior insula.

Perceptual decision-making is the process in which sensory information is gathered and used to influence our behaviour. For instance, if a person is driving and suddenly sees an object in front of the vehicle, he or she must decide what action to take, such as whether to slow down or bypass the object.

"This study found the activity of the anterior insulae can predict how well the sensory information is perceived or what the difficulty level of the perceptual task is," said Mukesh Dhamala, associate professor at Georgia State University in the US.

"This research is important because the anterior insulae, along with two nearby brain structures, make up the salience network, and when this network is impaired, it affects the ability to switch between tasks and make coherent thoughts,” Dhamala noted.

“Impairment in this network could possibly be linked to psychiatric illnesses, such as schizophrenia, dementia and autism, so it's essential to learn more about how this brain area should be functioning," he explained.

The findings were reported in the journal Neuroscience.

The study involved 33 people with normal or corrected-to-normal vision and normal neurological history. 

They completed four tasks, in which the researchers manipulated the visual and audiovisual stimuli to create varying degrees of task difficulty.

In all four experimental tasks, researchers found that anterior insulae activity consistently increased with task difficulty.

​London, May 27 (IANS) Have you ever wondered why any talk of giving money to the unemployed often triggers a political storm whereas increase in healthcare costs often earn laurels? The answer, say researchers, can be found deep in our psychology, where powerful intuitions lead us to view illness as the result of bad luck and worthy of help.

People intuitively believe that those who fall ill are unlucky, while unemployed people have brought it on themselves, the study found.

Using techniques to uncover people's implicit intuitions, the researchers explored the fundamental differences behind our attitudes towards unemployment benefits and healthcare.

According to the researchers, the differences may be found in the evolutionary history of our species.

Unemployment came about as a result of the industrialisation, while illness is something the human species has faced for millions of years. 

"For millions of years, a need for health care reflected accidents such as broken legs or random infections. Evolution could therefore have built our psychology to think about illnesses in this way, as something we have no control over,” said one of the researchers Michael Bang Petersen, professor in political science at Aarhus University in Denmark.

“People everywhere seem to have this deep-seated intuition that ill people are unfortunate and deserve to be helped," he noted.

The researchers did research in Denmark, the US and Japan and found that everywhere people intuitively believed that people who fall ill are unlucky, while unemployed people have brought it on themselves.

"When it comes to healthcare, everyone seem united in the belief that people who are ill are unlucky and need help,” he said.

The findings appeared in the American Journal of Political Science.

“This means that the policies in the areas of health care and unemployment are very different, as we all more or less agree on the goal in healthcare, while we deeply disagree on whether or not unemployed people deserve help," the researcher said.​