Knowledge Update

​London, June 28 (IANS) Britain's National Audit Office on Tuesday put the country's biggest ever rail project under the spotlight, warning of rising costs and the project's timetable.

​New York, June 28 (IANS) With an aim to taking digital signatures mainstream, software major Adobe on Tuesday announced the Cloud Signature Consortium -- a group comprised of industry and academic organisations committed to building a new open standard for cloud-based digital signatures across mobile and web.

New York, June 28 (IANS) Contrary to common perception, chronic fatigue syndrome may not be psychological in origin as researchers have now identified biological markers of the disease in gut bacteria and inflammatory microbial agents in the blood.

The findings suggest that changing diets, using prebiotics such as dietary fibers or probiotics could treat chronic fatigue syndrome, a condition where normal exertion leads to debilitating fatigue that is not alleviated by rest.

Physicians have been mystified by the disease as there are no known triggers, and diagnosis often requires lengthy tests administered by an expert.

Now, for the first time, Cornell University researchers described how they correctly diagnosed myalgic encephalomyeletis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) in 83 per cent of patients through stool samples and blood work, offering a noninvasive diagnosis and a step toward understanding the cause of the disease.

"Our work demonstrates that the gut bacterial microbiome in chronic fatigue syndrome patients isn't normal, perhaps leading to gastrointestinal and inflammatory symptoms in victims of the disease," said professor Maureen Hanson, senior author of the study.

"Furthermore, our detection of a biological abnormality provides further evidence against the ridiculous concept that the disease is psychological in origin," Hanson noted.

"In the future, we could see this technique as a complement to other noninvasive diagnoses, but if we have a better idea of what is going on with these gut microbes and patients, maybe clinicians could consider changing diets, using prebiotics such as dietary fibers or probiotics to help treat the disease," first author of the study Ludovic Giloteaux noted.

In the study, published in the journal Microbiome, the researchers recruited 48 people diagnosed with ME/CFS and 39 healthy controls to provide stool and blood samples.

The researchers sequenced regions of microbial DNA from the stool samples to identify different types of bacteria. 

Overall, the diversity of types of bacteria was greatly reduced and there were fewer bacterial species known to be anti-inflammatory in patients with chronic fatigue syndrome compared with healthy people, an observation also seen in people with Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis.

At the same time, the researchers discovered specific markers of inflammation in the blood, likely due to a leaky gut from intestinal problems that allow bacteria to enter the blood, Giloteaux said.​

​London, June 28 (IANS) Touted as man's best friend, canines can now also be trained to sniff out conditions of low blood sugar in patients with Type-1 diabetes, finds an interesting study.

Hypoglycaemia -- low blood sugar -- can cause problems such as shakiness, disorientation and fatigue and comes with little warning. 

If the patient does not receive a sugar boost in time, it can cause seizures and lead to unconsciousness. 

The findings showed that the scent of chemical isoprene found in human breath could act as a warning for patients with Type-1 diabetes experiencing a rapid decline in the blood sugar levels.

"Isoprene is one of the commonest natural chemicals that we find in human breath," said Mark Evans from University of Cambridge. 

In the study, the team analysed eight women with Type-1 diabetes and within an average age of 40.

The participants' blood glucose levels were slowly lowered during controlled conditions.

Researchers used mass spectrometry to distinguish the presence of chemicals in the women's breath that may change as the blood sugar levels change. 

Isoprene levels were found to significantly rise during hypoglycaemia. 

"We suspect it's a by-product of the production of cholesterol, but it isn't clear why levels of the chemical rise when patients get very low blood sugar,” Evans added.

Further, dogs were found to sniff out the start of a hypoglycemic episode and as a result, prevent blood sugar levels from dropping dangerously low. 

"Humans aren't sensitive to the presence of isoprene, but dogs with their incredible sense of smell, find it easy to identify and can be trained to alert their owners about dangerously low blood sugar levels,” Evans explained.

Isoprene provides a 'scent' that could help us develop new tests for detecting hypoglycaemia and reducing the risk of potentially life-threatening complications for patients living with diabetes," the researchers said in the study published in the journal Diabetes Care.

New York, June 28 (IANS) Based on an analysis of cooling rate and the composition of lava deposits on Mercury's surface, a team of geologists has found that the planet likely has the composition of an enstatite chondrite -- a type of meteorite that is extremely rare on Earth.

The new information on Mercury's past is of interest for tracing the Earth's early formation, according to Timothy Grove from Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

"Here we are today, with 4.5 billion years of planetary evolution, and because the Earth has such a dynamic interior, because of the water we've preserved on the planet, [volcanism] just wipes out its past," Grove said.

"On planets like Mercury, early volcanism is much more dramatic, and [once] they cooled down there were no later volcanic processes to wipe out the early history. This is the first place where we actually have an estimate of how fast the interior cooled during an early part of a planet's history," he added.

Grove's team utilised data collected by NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft. During its mission, MESSENGER produced images that revealed kilometre-thick lava deposits covering the entire planet's surface.

An X-ray spectrometer onboard the spacecraft measured the X-ray radiation from the planet's surface, produced by solar flares on the sun, to determine the chemical composition of more than 5,800 lava deposits on Mercury's surface.

In the study, published recently in the journal Earth and Planetary Science Letters, the team recalculated the surface compositions of all 5,800 locations and correlated each composition with the type of terrain in which it was found -- from heavily cratered regions to those that were less impacted.

The researchers determined the chemical compositions of the tiny crystals that formed in each sample in order to identify the original material that may have made up Mercury's interior before it melted and erupted onto the surface. 

They found the closest match to be an enstatite chondrite, an extremely rare form of meteorite that is thought to make up only about 2 per cent of the meteorites that fall on Earth.

"We now know something like an enstatite chondrite was the starting material for Mercury, which is surprising, because they are about 10 standard deviations away from all other chondrites," Grove said.​

​New York, June 28 (IANS) An experimental method that can kill up to 95 per cent of cancer cells in two hours may tremendously help people with inoperable or hard-to-reach tumours, as well as young children stricken with cancer, a study suggests.

The newly patented method to kill cancer cells has been developed by Matthew Gdovin, Associate Professor at University of Texas at San Antonio.

The new treatment involves injecting a chemical compound, nitrobenzaldehyde, into the tumour and allowing it to diffuse into the tissue. 

He then aims a beam of light at the tissue, causing the cells to become very acidic inside and, essentially, commit suicide. 

With this method, Gdovin estimated, up to 95 per cent of the targeted cancer cells die withing two hours.

The study was published in The Journal of Clinical Oncology.

"Even though there are many different types of cancers, the one thing they have in common is their susceptibility to this induced cell suicide," Gdovin said.

Gdovin tested his method against triple negative breast cancer, one of the most aggressive types of cancer and one of the hardest to treat. 

After one treatment in the laboratory, he was able to stop the tumor from growing and double chances of survival in mice.

Gdovin hopes that his non-invasive method will help cancer patients with tumors in areas that have proven problematic for surgeons, such as the brain stem, aorta or spine. 

It could also help people who have received the maximum amount of radiation treatment and can no longer cope with the scarring and pain that goes along with it, or children who are at risk of developing mutations from radiation as they grow older.

"There are so many types of cancer for which the prognosis is very poor," he said. 

"We're thinking outside the box and finding a way to do what for many people is simply impossible," Gdovin said.​

​New York, June 27 (IANS) Older people with high levels of “bad” or low-density lipoprotein (LDL-C) cholesterol live as long, and often longer, than their peers with low levels of the same cholesterol, a University of South Florida professor and an international team of experts have found.

The findings, which came after analysing past studies involving more than 68,000 participants over 60 years of age, call into question the "cholesterol hypothesis," which suggested that people with high cholesterol are more at risk of dying and would need statin drugs to lower cholesterol.

Appearing in the British Medical Journal (BMJ), the team's analysis represents the first review of a large group of prior studies on this issue.

"We have known for decades that high total cholesterol becomes a much weaker risk for cardiovascular disease with advancing age. In this analysis, we focused on the so-called "bad cholesterol" which has been blamed for contributing to heart disease,” said lead researcher David Diamond from the University of South Florida.

According to the authors, either a lack of association or an inverse relationship between LDL-C and cardiovascular deaths was present in each of the studies they evaluated. 

Subsequently, the team called for a re-evaluation of the need for drugs such as statins, which are aimed at reducing LDL-C as a step to prevent cardiovascular diseases.

"We found that several studies reported not only a lack of association between low LDL-C, but most people in these studies exhibited an inverse relationship, which means that higher LDL-C among the elderly is often associated with longer life," Diamond noted.

The research suggests that high cholesterol may be protective against diseases which are common in the elderly. 

For example, high levels of cholesterol are associated with a lower rate of neurological disorders, such as Parkinson's disease and Alzheimer's disease. 

Other studies have suggested that high LDL-C may protect against some often fatal diseases, such as cancer and infectious diseases, and that having low LDL-C may increase one's susceptibility to these diseases.

"Our results pose several relevant questions for future," said study leader and co-author health researcher Dr Uffe Ravnskov. 

"For example, why is total cholesterol a factor for cardiovascular disease for young and middle-age people, but not for the elderly? Why do a substantial number of elderly people with high LDL-C live longer than elderly people with low LDL-C?" he asked.

"Our findings provide a contradiction to the cholesterol hypothesis," Diamond said. ​

New York, June 27 (IANS) A gene responsible for the elimination of paternal mitochondria in the offspring has revealed how and why mitochondria are only passed on through a mother's egg and not the father's sperm.

Mitochondria, present inside the cells of nearly all multicellular animals, plants and fungi, organelles, plays an important role in generating the energy that cells need to survive. 

The findings showed that a gene CPS-6 serves as a paternal mitochondrial factor that is critical for its degradation.

Further, the enzyme that CPS-6 encodes first breaks down the interior membrane of the paternal mitochondria before moving to the space within the inner membrane to breakdown mitochondrial DNA.

CPS-6 plays a key role in initiating the self-destruction of paternal sperm, which likely benefits the embryo. 

Delayed removal of paternal mitochondria causes increased embryonic lethality, demonstrating that paternal mitochondrial elimination is important for normal animal development, the researchers explained. 

Shortly after a sperm penetrates an egg during fertilisation, the sperm's mitochondria are degraded while the egg's mitochondria persist. 

The paternal mitochondria were found to partially self-destruct before the mitochondria were surrounded by autophagosomes, which target components within a cell and facilitate their degradation, said Qinghua Zhou from the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a US-based nonprofit organisation.

For the study, the team analysed sperm mitochondria or paternal mitochondria in Caenorhabditis elegans -- a type of roundworm -- during early stages of development.​

Washington, June 28 (IANS) US space agency NASA is set to test-fire a booster for the world's most powerful rocket Space Launch System (SLS) which will power astronauts on the journey to Mars and on other deeper space missions

The booster will be fired up at Orbital ATK Propulsion Systems' test facilities in Promontory, Utah, at 7.05 p.m. (Indian standard time) on Tuesday.

The test will provide NASA with critical data to support booster qualification for flight.

This is the last time the booster will be fired in a test environment before the first test flight of SLS with NASA's Orion spacecraft, known as Exploration Mission-1 (EM-1), in 2018.

The first, full-scale booster qualification test was successfully completed in March 2015.

The SLS that will launch an uncrewed Orion spacecraft to a stable orbit beyond the Moon in 2018 will also carry 13 tiny satellites to test innovative ideas.

These small satellite secondary payloads or "CubeSats" will carry science and technology investigations to help pave the way for future human exploration in deep space, including the journey to Mars.

SLS' first flight, referred to as Exploration Mission-1 (EM-1), provides the rare opportunity for these small experiments to reach deep space destinations, as most launch opportunities for CubeSats are limited to low-Earth orbit.

"The 13 CubeSats that will fly to deep space as secondary payloads aboard SLS on EM-1 showcase the intersection of science and technology, and advance our journey to Mars," said NASA deputy Administrator Dava Newman in an earlier statement.

On this first flight, the SLS will launch the Orion spacecraft to a stable orbit beyond the moon to demonstrate the integrated system performance of Orion and the SLS rocket prior to the first crewed flight.

The CubeSats will be deployed following Orion separation from the upper stage and once Orion is a safe distance away.​

​New York, June 28 (IANS) A single oral dose of a drug that is already being used to treat a type of blood disorder could also improve our memory, suggests new research.

The researchers found that single dose of the common, inexpensive and safe chemical called methylene blue results in an increased response in brain areas that control short-term memory and attention.

Methylene blue is used to treat methemoglobinemia, a blood disorder in which oxygen is unable to release effectively to body tissues, and as a surgical stain.

"Although the memory-enhancing effects of methylene blue were shown in rodents in the 1970s, the underlying neuronal changes in the brain responsible for memory improvement and the effects of methylene blue on short-term memory and sustained-attention tasks have not been investigated," said study author Timothy Duong from University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, Texas. 

"Our team decided to conduct the first multi-modal MRI study of methylene blue in humans," Duong noted.

Twenty-six healthy participants, between the ages of 22 and 62, were enrolled in a double-blinded, randomised, placebo-controlled clinical trial to measure the effects of methylene blue on the human brain during working-memory and sustained-attention tasks. 

The participants underwent functional MRI (fMRI) before and one hour after low-dose methylene blue or placebo administration to evaluate the potential effects of the compound on cerebrovascular reactivity during tasks. 

Mean cerebral blood flow was measured pre- and post-intervention.

The results showed methylene blue increased response in the bilateral insular cortex -- an area deep within the brain associated with emotional responses -- during a task that measured reaction time to a visual stimulus. 

The functional MRI results also showed an increased response during short-term memory tasks involving the brain's prefrontal cortex, which controls processing of memories, the parietal lobe, primarily associated with the processing of sensory information, and the occipital cortex, the visual processing centre of the brain. 

In addition, methylene blue was associated with a seven percent increase in correct responses during memory retrieval.

The study was published online in the journal Radiology.

The findings suggest that methylene blue can regulate certain brain networks related to sustained attention and short-term memory after a single oral low dose​