Knowledge Update

​London, May 27 (IANS) Even with a healthy diet, defects in the functioning of the immune system from birth could contribute to a malnourished state throughout life, a study says.

"Our immune system doesn't just fight infection; it affects metabolism, neurological function, and growth, which are things that are also impaired in malnutrition," said lead author Claire Bourke, postdoctoral research assistant at Queen Mary University of London.

"That traditional image of malnutrition - of someone just wasting away - is just the external picture. On the extreme are those height and weight defects," Bourke added.

The study was published in the journal Trends in Immunology.

Consumption of too few calories because of lack of food, an inability to absorb nutrients effectively, or an excess of fat and sugar in the diet can cause defects in immune system.

A dysfunctional immune system can cause a whole range of pro-inflammatory conditions like impaired gut function, weakened responses to new infection as well as a high metabolic burden.

Also, it can reduce the numbers of white blood cells, skin and gut membranes that are easier for pathogens to break through and malfunction the lymph nodes.

These altered immune systems could be passed down from generation to generation regardless of the diet. 

It is because that dysfunction is recorded in the DNA through epigenetic marks. This altered immune system may then cause malnutrition even if children have an adequate diet, the researchers explained.

The most common form of undernutrition globally is stunting -- where children fail to achieve their full height potential. 

Targeting immune pathways could be a new approach to reduce the poor health and mortality caused by under- and overnutrition, the researchers suggested.​

​New York, May 27 (IANS) NASA has released a video to highlight its 'Twins Study' that investigates metabolic changes in retired US astronaut Scott Kelly and his twin brother Mark.

The video titled "Metabolomics: You Are What You Eat" and sixth in the mini-series of eight videos, provides a broad overview of ongoing Twins Study research on the International Space Station and the importance of the metabolome -- the collection of an individual's metabolites, NASA's Human Research Programme said on Thursday.

Metabolites are key small molecules. They're the chemicals in the body to let you do all the things you do. It's all these things that give you energy, like glucose. They let you move, think, and digest your food.

Using a mass spectrometer, researchers can analyse blood and urine for secreted metabolites. 

By following Scott and Mark Kelly both in space and on Earth, scientists can see a collection of changes occurring. Some chemicals are indicative of high stress but other chemicals are unknown. 

It is hoped that the Twins Study will show which stress molecules get activated at which times and what other kinds of metabolites are present and active. 

Identical twins share the same fertilised egg, thus, share similar genes. Because of similarities, researchers can focus on the metabolic changes.

Researchers believe that diet definitely impacts a person's metabolites. They can see which foods cause what kinds of metabolic changes and how that evolves over time. 

The study could be helpful for researchers creating recommendations to protect the health of astronauts embarking on long-duration missions, such as a journey to Mars, as well as benefit humans on the Earth.​

​London, May 27 (IANS) Adolescents and young adults have a lower chance of surviving some common types of cancer than children, finds a new study on cancer survival across Europe.

"The good news is that the number of children, adolescents and young adults surviving for at least five years after diagnosis has risen steadily over time in Europe," said lead author Annalisa Trama from The National Institute of Cancer in Milan, Italy. 

"However, we found that adolescents and young adults still tend to die earlier than children for several cancers common to these age groups, particularly blood cancers like leukaemias and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL)," Trama added.

According to researchers, the variations in survival rates between both age groups are due to a number of factors including delays in diagnosis and treatment, a lack of treatment guidelines and clinical trials specifically for teenagers and young adults, as well as differences in the biology of some cancers.

For the study, published in the journal The Lancet Oncology, the team analysed data from 27 European countries on nearly 56,505 cancer cases in children, 3,12,483 in adolescents and young adults and 35,67,383 in adults. 

The findings showed that overall, survival was significantly worse for adolescents and young adults compared with children for eight relatively common cancers affecting both age groups -- acute lymphoid leukaemias, acute myeloid leukaemias, Hodgkin's lymphoma, Non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL), astrocytomas (type of brain tumour), Ewing's sarcoma of bone, rhabdomyosarcoma (cancer of soft tissue like muscle) and osteosarcoma (the most common type of bone cancer).

But for cancers with a better prognosis, the five-year survival rates were found to be higher in teenagers and young adults at 82 percent compared with 79 percent in children.

Further, adolescents and young adults were found to have a survival advantage over adults for almost all major cancers affecting both age groups, supporting the idea that younger patients with few other illnesses are likely to fare better than older patients.

However, adolescents and young adults were found at a survival disadvantage for breast and prostate cancer. 

"This reflects the fact that younger women often present with larger, higher-grade cancers that are more advanced, and that prostate disease tends to be more aggressive in younger men," Trama noted.​

London, May 28 (IANS) Is your toddler struggling to learn a language? If so, using words that have repetitive syllables rather than mixed sounds may help him or her to learn language faster, a study suggests.

The findings showed that children are better at grasping the names of objects with repeated syllables, over words with non-identical syllables.

"This is the first evidence to show that infants have a repetition bias in learning new words,” said lead researcher Mitsuhiko Ota from University of Edinburgh in Britain. 

This may be the reason why words or phrases, such as 'train' and 'good night', have given rise to versions with repeated syllables, such as choo-choo and night-night

Such words are easier for infants to learn, and may provide them with a starter point for vocabulary learning.

“The study also shows that there may be a good reason why in so many cultures across the world, existing adult words and expressions are replaced by words with repeated syllables in baby-talk vocabulary. Some examples could be tum-tum, mama, dada, din-din and wee-wee," Ota added.

For the study, published in the journal Language Learning and Development, the team assessed language learning behaviour among 18-month-olds in a series of visual and attention tests using pictures on a computer screen of two unfamiliar objects.

The two objects were named with made-up words, which were communicated to the infants by a recorded voice - one with two identical syllables, for example neenee, and the other without repeated syllables, such as bolay.

The infants were then tested for their recognition of each made-up word. 

Recordings of their eye movements showed they looked more reliably at the object labelled with repeated syllables, than the other object.​

​New York, May 27 (IANS) A new method developed by two Indian-origin engineers can provide important insights into how exactly a machine-learning algorithm comes to a decision to either accept or reject your loan application - something that usually remains a mystery.

​New York, May 26 (IANS) A team of researchers has listed some web apps that help people work collaboratively and complete shared tasks online, often over long distances.

The results noted the evaluation of 20 popular apps for usability, including Google Drive, Skype, Doodle Poll, Gmail, Windows Hotmail, CoSketch and DropBox.

​Tokyo, May 26 (IANS) The world's first robotic mobile phone RoBoHon, a pocket-size walking and dancing robot, started sale on Thursday in Japan.

The human-shaped smartphone, developed by Japanese electronics company, Sharp and engineer Tomotaka Takahashi, inventor of the first robot astronaut 'Kirobo', went on

​Singapore, May 28 (IANS) Imagine if you could combine the myriad of pills you need to take for your ailment in just one tablet and release the drug in a timely manner or if doctors could easily make tablets on the spot that are tailored to each patient's needs. All these could become a reality with a new method of tablet fabrication designed by researchers from the National University of Singapore (NUS). The novel system can make customisable pills that release drugs with any desired release profiles. "For a long time, personalised tablets has been a mere concept as it was far too complex or expensive to be realised. This new tablet fabrication method is a game changer -- it is technically simple, relatively inexpensive and versatile,” said assistant professor Siow Ling Soh. "It can be applied at individualised settings where physicians could produce customised pills on the spot for patients, or in mass production settings by pharmaceutical companies," he noted in a statement released by National University of Singapore. Instead of manufacturing the drug tablet by printing layer by layer, the drug tablet designed by the Singapore scientists consists of three distinct components, including a polymer containing the drug in a specifically designed shape that will determine the rate of release of the drug. Using the new system, a doctor only needs to draw the desired release profile in a computer software to generate a template for making tablets specific to a patient's treatment, which can then be used to easily produce the desired pills using a 3D printer. The system is easy to use and does not involve any complex mathematical computation whenever a new release profile is needed. The fully customisable system is able to create a template to print tablets for any release profile, the researchers said. . In drug delivery, it is also often important to administer more than one type of drug into the human body simultaneously to treat an illness. The new fabrication method can be modified to include multiple types of drugs loaded within the same tablet -- and more importantly, each drug can be customised to release at different rates even within the same tablet, the study noted.​

​London, May 26 (IANS) Are you a workaholic? If so, you may be at an increased risk of having psychiatric disorders like anxiety and depression, warns a new study, suggesting that taking work to the extreme may be a sign of deeper psychological or emotional issues.

The findings showed that workaholics are at greater risk of anxiety, depression and disorders such as attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), -- a chronic condition including attention difficulty, hyperactivity and impulsiveness -- obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) -- excessive thoughts that lead to repetitive behaviours.

"Workaholics scored higher on all the psychiatric symptoms than non-workaholics," said Cecilie Schou Andreassen, researcher and clinical psychologist specialistat the University of Bergen (UiB) in Norway.

Among the study participants, 32.7 percent workaholics met criteria for ADHD in contrast to 12.7 percent non-workaholics.

While 25.6 percent workaholics fulfilled the criteria for OCD, only 8.7 percent among non-workaholics were found at risk.

Anxiety was seen in 33.8 percent workaholics and 11.9 percent in non-workaholics.

8.9 percent people met criteria for depression among workaholics and only 2.6 per cent among non-workaholics.

"Whether this reflects overlapping genetic vulnerabilities, disorders leading to workaholism or, conversely, workaholism causing such disorders, remain uncertain," Andreassen explained

For the study, published in the journal PLOS One, the team examined the associations between workaholism and psychiatric disorders among 16,426 working adults.

The results clearly highlight the importance of further investigating neurobiological deviations related to workaholic behaviour, the researchers concluded.​

​New York, May 26 (IANS) Final preparations were underway on Thursday for the expansion of the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module (BEAM) -- an expandable habitat for astronauts crucial for future deep space exploration -- which was installed at the International Space Station (ISS) in April.

NASA astronaut Jeff Williams performed leak checks and installed hardware to monitor and support BEAM expansion set to begin at 6.30 p.m. (India time). The expansion could potentially start earlier, NASA said in a statement.

Meanwhile, a new trio of ISS crew members is ready in Russia for final qualification exams for a mission set for launch on June 24. 

Cosmonaut Anatoly Ivanishin will command the new Soyuz MS-01 spacecraft carrying NASA astronaut Kate Rubins and JAXA astronaut Takuya Onishi. 

NASA Television will broadcast the expansion activities live. Crew entry into BEAM, which has an expanded habitable volume of 565 cubic feet (16 cubic meters), is planned for June 2.

Recently, carrying over 3,700 pounds of NASA cargo, science and technology demonstration samples from the ISS, a SpaceX Dragon cargo spacecraft splashed down in the Pacific Ocean.

The Dragon spacecraft was taken by ship to Long Beach where some cargo was removed and returned to NASA for processing.

On April 17, engineers at NASA Johnson Space Centre in Houston used the ISS's high-tech robotic arm to pluck BEAM from the back of the SpaceX Dragon cargo ship that reached the space station on April 11 and added it onto the orbiting laboratory complex.

At the time of installation, the space station was moving over the Southern Pacific Ocean at an altitude of about 350 km from the Earth's surface. It will remain attached to the station for the two-year test period, US space agency NASA had written in a blog.

NASA is investigating concepts for habitats that can keep astronauts healthy during space exploration and BEAM will be the first test of such a module attached to the space station. 

It will allow investigators to gauge how well it performs overall and how it protects against solar radiation, space debris and the temperature extremes of space.

Expandable habitats require less payload volume on the rocket than traditional rigid structures and expand after being deployed in space to provide additional room for astronauts to live and work inside.

After the testing period is completed, BEAM will be released from the space station to eventually burn up harmlessly in the earth's atmosphere.

The 1,400 kg BEAM is a 17.8 million dollar project to test the use of an inflatable space habitat in micro-gravity. 

A total of six astronauts are already on-board the ISS along with another US commercial cargo ship called Cygnus that has been attached to the station since March 26. ​