Knowledge Update

Washington, March 2 (IANS) Apple's corporate reputation took a hit in the first quarter of 2017, according to a recent market research study that placed the Cupertino-headquartered tech giant at 20th place, far behind Google, placed fifth. In 2017, Apple slipped 10 spots from last year's ranking, according to Reputation Institute's Global RepTrak 100, a ranking that measures public perception towards the world's top companies. The study assigns rankings to large corporations across a number of industries, including tech, automotive, consumer goods and luxury brands. The survey measured the public perception twoards the top companies on seven key rational dimensions of reputation -- products and services, innovation, workplace, governance, citizenship, leadership and performance. More than 170,000 ratings were compiled for the study. Luxury watchmaker Rolex took the top spot on this year's RepTrak 100 list released this week. Consumer toymaker LEGO followed in second place, while Walt Disney took the third position. Apple's rival Samsung posted the most notable decline this year, taking 70th place overall from last year's 17th. Microsoft dropped out of the top 10 in the first quarter to finish in 11th place, Appleinsider.com reported.

​Barcelona, Feb 27 (IANS) Samsung Electronics unveiled its end-to-end portfolio of 5G mobile network products and solutions for 2017 that will provide foundation for the first commercial 5G network launches expected in 2018. Showcased products included consumer devices for fixed wireless access connectivity, a 5G Radio Base Station (5G Access Unit), Next-Generation Core Network infrastructure, and more. "With pre-commercial deployment of our 5G products already underway in the US, we are starting to see some of the earliest evidence of the potential for new and compelling 5G-driven services," Paul Kyungwhoon Cheun, Executive Vice President and Head of Next Generation Communications Business Team at Samsung Electronics, told reporters here. With pre-commercial versions of the equipment already under deployment in trial networks across the globe, Samsung's commercial 5G portfolio is backed by a continually growing foundation of experience, knowledge and concrete trial results, the company said in a statement on Sunday. The 5G Home Router will provide direct and straightforward connectivity to the wireless network, with the simple placement of the 5G Home Router in a window facing a nearby 5G Radio Base Station. A peak data rate of up to 1Gbps will allow service providers to dimension networks that provide an attractive alternative to often-costly Fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) deployments. The 5G Radio Base Station itself is a natural extension of today's LTE small cells, designed to be installed in a dense configuration that allows for very high network capacities.

Melbourne, March 2 (IANS) The brains of obese people could be "wired" to seek out fatty foods, Australian scientists have found.

Researchers from the Bio-Medicine Discovery Institute at Melbourne's Monash University are investigating the messaging system between the brain and the body with hopes of discovering the neurological cause of obesity, Xinhua news agency reported.

"There is no question the brain is the key site regulating appetite and obesity," associate professor Zane Andrews from Monash told Thursday.

"There are a number of genetic mutations that increase the risk of obesity and the majority are located somewhere in the brain."

Andrews said his focus was on brain cells responsible for sensing hunger that also influenced motivation and reward.

He said that early results indicated that the brains of obese people were not sending messages to tell the body that they already have enough energy stored.

Andrews' team has identified that part of the problem could form while the brain pathways are forming during childhood, with children who are rewarded for good behaviour with sweet treats, forming an association between sugar and feeling good.

The team has been able to delete an enzyme in mice that plays an important role in stopping the brain from sending messages that the body is still hungry.

"What we think is the problem in obesity is that those cells are not receiving or sensing the signals to say the person is full so they keep firing, causing people to continue eating," Andrews added.

​New York, March 2 (IANS) Researchers have found a way to activate the immune system's natural cancer-killing T-cells and cause tumours to shrink in mice with colon cancer.

The intervention essentially trains the immune system to recognise and attack the tumour, and to protect against additional tumour formation - a significant issue in colon cancer, said corresponding author Ajay Maker, Associate Professor at University of Illinois College of Medicine in Chicago, US.

In the study, published in the journal Cancer Research, the researchers reported that increasing expression of a chemical cytokine called LIGHT in mice with colon cancer activated the immune system's natural cancer-killing T-cells and caused primary tumours in the liver to shrink.

LIGHT is an immune-stimulating chemical messenger previously found to have low levels of expression in patients with colon cancer metastases.

"For most patients with colon cancer that has spread to the liver, current treatments are palliative and not curative," Maker said.

"And while studies have suggested that immunotherapy may be a promising approach for advanced cancers, the use of such treatments for advanced gastrointestinal metastases have not yet been very successful," Maker said.

This study is exciting because it looks at an immunotherapy intervention for a previously unresponsive gastrointestinal cancer, Maker said.

For the study, the researchers established colon cancer tumors in a mouse model, in which the animals had an intact and unedited immune system. 

Once tumours were sizable, the mice were randomised into two groups - one group had the cytokine LIGHT turned on in the tumours, and the other served as a control group for comparison.

Tumours exposed to LIGHT showed an influx of T-cells that resulted in rapid and sustained diminishment in size, even after expression of the cytokine stopped. 

In cases where the tumour spread to liver, expression of LIGHT similarly provoked a potent immune response that resulted in a significant decrease in tumour burden.

"We demonstrated that delivery of a therapeutic immune-stimulating cytokine caused T-cells to traffic to tumours and to become activated tumor-killing cells," Maker said. 

Johannesburg, March 2 (IANS) African elephants -- the largest land animal -- sleep for just an average of two hours a day and regularly survive for nearly two days without sleep, a study has found.

Previous studies of sleep in captive elephants have shown that they sleep for four to six hours per day. 

However, "in their natural habitat, wild, free-ranging elephants sleep only for two hours per day, the least amount of sleep of any mammal studied to date, but this appears to be related to their large body size," said Paul Manger from the University of Witwatersrand in South Africa. 

For the study, published in the journal PLOS ONE, the team monitored two free-roaming African elephant matriarchs in Chobe National Park in Botswana for 35 days. The elephants were implanted with an actiwatch, in the trunk to track sleep accurately and a collar with a gyroscope to track sleeping position.

The researchers found that the elephants slept an average of two hours a day -- the shortest known sleep time of any land mammal. 

On several days, the elephants were found to survive without sleep for up to 46 hours. 

They travelled long distances of around 30 km during these periods, possibly due to disturbances such as lions or poachers and were found to sleep lying down only every few nights. 

"In addition, it appears that elephants only go into REM (rapid eye movement), or dreaming, sleep every three to four days, which makes elephant sleep unique," Manger added.

Beijing, March 2 (IANS) China will launch a space station core module in 2018 as the first step in completing the country's first space outpost, Xinhua news agency reported.

The core module of the space station, named "Tianhe-1" according to previous reports, will be launched on board a new-generation Long March-5 heavyweight carrier rocket, said Bao Weimin, director with CASC and a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC).

It will be followed by a series of launches for other components of the space station, including two space labs, which will dock with the core module while in space, in the next four years or so, he said, adding that the space station will be completed around 2022.

Assembly of the core module has already been completed and tests are currently under way, said Bao, who is in Beijing for the annual session of China's top political advisory body.

Earlier reports said the new Chinese space station will initially be much smaller than the current International Space Station (ISS), which weighs 420 tonnes, but could be expanded for future scientific research and international cooperation.

With the ISS set to retire in 2024, the Chinese space station will offer a promising alternative, and China will be the only country with a permanent space station.

Bao said the Chinese outpost will function in orbit for "dozens of years", and that it had been specially designed to be able to handle space debris.

"For the big pieces (of space debris), we could conduct evasive manoeuvres, and for those measuring less than 10 cm in size, we just take the hit," Bao said, adding that all key parts of the space station will be serviceable and replaceable.

He went on to say that the next five years will see some exciting advances in China's space programme.

​New York, March 1 (IANS) Days after it announced an exclusive "Made for India" Skype Lite app, Microsoft said it will soon discontinue its Skype Wi-Fi, a media report said.

The Skype Wi-Fi app would be delisted and it would no longer function after March 31.

​Singapore, March 1 (IANS) Using nearly 100,000 images extracted from Google Street View, a team of researchers has developed a method to map and quantify how street trees regulate ecosystem services.

London, March 1 (IANS) Frogs have the unique ability to see colour even when it is so dark that we are not able to see anything at all, new research has found.

The findings, published in the journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, suggest that the night vision of frogs and toads may be superior to that of all other animals. 

"It's amazing that these animals can actually see colour in extreme darkness, down to the absolute threshold of the visual system. These results were unexpected," said one of the study authors Almut Kelber, Professor at Lund University in Sweden.

Most vertebrates, including humans, have two types of visual cells located in the retina, namely cones and rods. 

The cones enable us to see colour, but they usually require a lot of light and, therefore, stop working when it gets dark, in which case the rods take over so that we can at least find our way home, although in black and white.

In toads and frogs, the rods are a bit special. 

It was previously known that toads and frogs are unique in having rods with two different sensitivities. 

This has not been found in other vertebrates, and it is also the reason why researchers have long suspected that frogs and toads might be able to see colour also in low-light conditions.

The new study proves this to be true, and the results exceeded all expectations.

The researchers studied to what extent frogs and toads use their colour vision when searching for a mate or hunting for food. 

The results showed that the animals stop using their colour information fairly early when it comes to finding someone with whom to mate, whereas they continue to take advantage of their colour vision to select food in such low-light conditions that humans lose their ability to see colour.

"We have previously shown moths and geckos are also able to see colour in inferior light conditions compared to humans. However, frogs apparently have a unique ability to see colour in the dark," Kelber said.

New York, March 1 (IANS) Researchers have identified 35 mosquito species, including 26 previously unsuspected ones, that could possibly transmit the deadly Zika virus.

"The biggest take-home message is that these are the species that we need to prioritise," said lead author Michelle Evans from University of Georgia in the US. 

Zika virus is currently known to be transmitted to people primarily through the bite of an infected Aedes species mosquito (Ae. aegypti and Ae. albopictus). 

These are the same mosquitoes that spread dengue and chikungunya viruses, according to US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The researchers said that targetting Zika's potential vectors -- species that can transmit the virus from one host to another -- is an urgent need, given its explosive spread and the devastating health effects associated with it.

The new predictive model, detailed in the journal eLife, could streamline the initial step of pinpointing Zika vectors.

"What we've done is to draw up a list of potential vector candidates based on the associations with viruses that they've had in the past as well as other traits that are specific to that species," study co-author Courtney Murdock, Assistant Professor at University of Georgia, said.

"That allows us to have a predictive framework to effectively get a list of candidate species without having to search blindly," Murdock said.

The researchers developed their model using machine learning, a form of artificial intelligence that is particularly useful for finding patterns in large, complicated data sets. 

Data used in the model consisted of information about the traits of flaviviruses -- the family that includes Zika, yellow fever and dengue -- and all the mosquito species that have ever been associated with them.