Knowledge Update

​Canberra, Feb 23 (IANS) Australian engineers have created an advanced microscope using a beefed-up "barcode scanner", which they believe will help doctors better analyse complex medical conditions such as cancer.

Engineers from the Australian National University (ANU) said the microscope can film moving blood cells and neurons in living animals, something which they say will help doctors and scientists to research complex blood disorders, Xinhua news agency reported.

Steve Lee, a biomedical optics engineer at the ANU, said the microscope used technology similar to retail barcode scanners and office laser printers.

"Scientists can use our new microscope to analyse complex medical problems ranging from blood disorders and cancer to neurological disorders," Lee said in a statement released on Thursday.

"The microscope can speed up or slow down to capture the slow moving cells in a blood stream or live neurons firing rapidly in the brain, making it much more flexible than other microscopes on the market."

In traditional, "supermarket-style", barcode scanners, a laser beam bounces off a spinning polygon mirror, allowing it to scan across a sample very quickly. The scanner detects the unique sequence of each barcode to identify each certain product.

Lee said the ANU microscope used a more powerful laser beam as the light source and up to 36 mirror facets to "scan the laser beam across the biological sample in a few thousandths of a second".

"We achieve the same imaging resolution of conventional scanning microscopes on the market but at double the speed," he said.

"The innovation here is that we modernised the polygon mirror microscopy system with advanced electronics and software controls to enable real-time imaging applications, with up to 800 frames per second."

Washington, Feb 22 (IANS) NASA's Fermi gamma-ray space telescope has found a signal at the centre of the neighbouring Andromeda galaxy that could be coming from dark matter, an unknown substance that makes up most of the universe, according to a study.

The gamma-ray signal is similar to one seen by Fermi at the centre of our own Milky Way galaxy.

"Our galaxy is so similar to Andromeda, it really helps us to be able to study it, because we can learn more about our galaxy and its formation," said study co-author Regina Caputo, a research scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Centre in Greenbelt, Maryland. 

Gamma rays are the highest-energy form of light, produced by the universe's most energetic phenomena.

They are common in galaxies like the Milky Way because cosmic rays, particles moving near the speed of light, produce gamma rays when they interact with interstellar gas clouds and starlight.

Surprisingly, the latest Fermi data shows the gamma rays in Andromeda -- also known as M31 -- are confined to the galaxy's centre instead of spread throughout, said the study to be published in an upcoming issue of The Astrophysical Journal.

To explain this unusual distribution, scientists are proposing the emission may come from several undetermined sources. One of them could be dark matter.

"We expect dark matter to accumulate in the innermost regions of the Milky Way and other galaxies, which is why finding such a compact signal is very exciting," said led scientist Pierrick Martin, an astrophysicist at the National Center for Scientific Research and the Research Institute in Astrophysics and Planetology in Toulouse, France. 

"M31 will be a key to understanding what this means for both Andromeda and the Milky Way," Martin said.

Another possible source for this emission, according to the scientists, could be a rich concentration of pulsars in M31's centre.

​New York, Feb 21 (IANS) The much-anticipated video recording 'Spectacles' from photo-sharing service Snapchat is now available online for users in the US at $129.99. Snapchat 'Spectacles' record video and pair to user's phone over Bluetooth or WiFi which can then be uploaded to the user's Snapchat account. According to a report in Fortune, 'Spectacles' come with a charging case and cable in three shades including black, coral red and teal blue. "Snap's (Snapchat's parent company) IPO is expected to take place on March 2, so the move to sell Spectacles to the masses could give Snap a stronger footing as it tries to court investors during its whirlwind roadshow over the next two weeks," the report said. 'Spectacles' was launched in September last year and was available for purchase from vending machines at surprise locations in the US. The five-year-old Snap Inc, which filed documents for one of the biggest IPO by a technology company, is valued at $20-$25 billion.

​Spain, Feb 21 (IANS) Chinese smartphone maker Oppo will unveil a new smartphone with 5x zooming ability at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona, Spain, later this month. The company has teased the smartphone with the tagline 'Go 5x further' on its Facebook page. "We chose MWC to unveil the 5x technology with the belief that we can inspire the industry to aim higher, and continue to create pioneering products that give amazing experiences to consumers," GSMArena.com quoted Sky Li, Vice President, Oppo and Managing Director, International Mobile Business & President, Oppo India, as saying. According to a recent report from market analytics firm Counterpoint Research, "Oppo, Huawei, Vivo, Meizu and Gionee captured a combined 58 per cent of the total Chinese smartphone market in 2016."

Sydney, Feb 21 (IANS) Australia's New South Wales state will focus on better preparing students for university and employment in a major overhaul of its school curriculum.

New South Wales on Tuesday unveiled changes to its high school syllabus for the first time in 18 years, the BBC reported.

The new focus eschews "social context" teaching -- which had drawn criticism -- for more in-depth, critical thinking.

It comes after an international study in December showed Australia's maths and science ranking had tumbled.

The changes address recent criticism over a lack of rigour, said Tom Alegounarias, the head of the state's Education Standards Authority.

"We reviewed the whole (syllabus), we looked at what the community is demanding for now and in the future," Alegounarias told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

"The major shift is towards greater depth, rigour, and mastery of content learning."

However, education officials said the concerns were addressed.

Maths will now include more statistics and algorithms, such as those used by internet search engines.

In English, texts will no longer be studied through themes like "journey" or "discovery" but examined for their individual merit.

In history, subjects such as the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution will be explored in depth, rather than focusing on a breadth of topics.

The new curriculum will be introduced from next year, the BBC added.

New York, Feb 21 (IANS) Adolescents suffering from trauma and stress are likely to have impairment in the ability to recognise facial expressions that is critical for social functioning and communicating emotions, researchers say.

The findings showed that adolescents with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms are more likely to misidentify sad and angry faces as fearful.

"Our findings suggest that exposure to stress and trauma can have acute emotional impacts that simply translate to misidentification of important affective cues," said lead author Shabnam Javdani, Assistant Professor at New York University - Steinhardt in the US.

"Fear is particularly relevant for understanding PTSD, as the disorder has been associated with a 'survival mode' of functioning characterised by an overactive fight-or-flight response and increased threat perception," Javdani added.

In contrast, teens with conduct disorder -- a group of behavioural and emotional problems characterised by callousness or aggression towards others -- were more likely to misidentify sad faces, but did not have trouble recognising angry or fearful faces. 

Conduct disorder symptoms were associated with mistaking sadness for anger, suggesting that youth with higher levels of conduct disorder interpret sad faces as angry and may be less effective at recognising others' sadness, pain and suffering.

"Difficulty interpreting displays of sadness and misidentifying sadness as anger may contribute to the impaired affective bonding, low empathy, and callous behaviour observed in teens with conduct disorder," Javdani said.

For the study, published in the journal Child and Adolescent Mental Health, the team examined 371 teens, ages 13-19, to understand the effects of PTSD and conduct disorder symptoms on how youth with emotional and behaviour problems process facial expressions. 

Enhancing the accuracy of recognising facial expressions may be an important treatment goal for youth with symptoms of PTSD and conduct disorder, the researchers said.

​London, Feb 21 (IANS) Offering a glimmer of hope for people suffering from chronic nerve pains, researchers have found that a novel substance inhibits the pain effectively and is well tolerated.

The standard treatment for this chronic nerve pain, known as trigeminal neuralgia, a condition that can lead to acute pain in the teeth or facial area, is associated with burdening side effects. 

In this study, published in the journal Lancet Neurology, the substance, BIIB074, was found to reduce the pain to a tolerable level.

"Unlike conventional drugs, which often cause tiredness and concentration problems, BIIB074 was not only effective, but also very well tolerated," said one of the researchers, Dominik Ettlin, a dental specialist at University of Zurich in Switzerland. 

"We will now test the new substance in a lot more subjects during the next study phase, which will reveal whether the new hope for more effective pain relief is justified," he added.

Bouts of pain in people with trigeminal neuralgia can be triggered by touch, such as shaving, putting on make-up, showering, talking and tooth brushing, or even a gust of wind. 

The cause is usually an irritation of the trigeminal nerve, the cranial nerve responsible for the sensory innervation of the facial area, parts of the scalp, and the oral cavity.

Pain signals reach the brain via the activation of sodium channels located in the membranes of nerve cells. 

The sodium channel "1.7" is frequently expressed on pain-conducting nerves and higher pain intensity is linked to higher channel activity. 

Blocking this sodium channel inhibits the pain. 

In trigeminal neuralgia, the nerve damage is presumed to be at the base of the skull. However, this region is hard to reach by local injections and therefore requires drug treatment.

In this study, the researchers found that the more active this sodium channel gets, the stronger it is blocked by the novel substance BIIB074. 

By contrast, currently available medications block the sodium channel irrespective of the nerve activity, which commonly results in burdening side effects, the study said.

New York, Feb 21 (IANS) Popular messaging platform WhatsApp has updated to "Status" feature that allows users to share images and videos with their contacts on WhatsApp in a secure way.

​New York, Feb 21 (IANS) US tech giant Apple is reportedly working on Siri-powered speaker just like Amazon Echo -- an artificial intelligence (AI)-based speaker that can be controlled by voice.

​Beijing, Feb 21 (IANS) China is close to completing construction of its second aircraft carrier, which will begin service by 2020, a media report said on Tuesday.

The People's Liberation Army (PLA) Navy's Type 001A class aircraft carrier's scaffold has been removed and red undercoat has been painted below the ship's waterline in Dalian,