Knowledge Update

Washington, Sep 27 (IANS) The moon was formed by a planetary object hitting the infant Earth some 4.5 billion years ago, say researchers who studied a layer of iron and other elements.

The authors argue this was the same impact that sent a great mass of debris hurtling into space, creating the moon.

The scientists used laboratory simulations of an Earth impact as evidence that a stratified layer beneath the rocky mantle -- which appears in seismic data -- was created when Earth was struck by a smaller object.

"Our experiments bring additional evidence in favour of the giant impact hypothesis," said Maylis Landeau, post-doctoral fellow in Johns Hopkins University's department of Earth and Planetary Sciences.

"The giant impact scenario also explains the stratification inferred by seismology at the top of the present-day Earth's core. This result ties the present-day structure of Earth's core to its formation," added Landeau, now a Marie Curie Fellow at University of Cambridge.

According to Peter Olson, Research Professor at Johns Hopkins, the giant impact argument for the formation of the moon is the most prevalent scientific hypothesis on how Earth satellite was formed, but it is still considered unproven because there's been no "smoking gun" evidence.

"We're saying this stratified layer might be the smoking gun," said Olson. "Its properties are consistent with it being a vestige of that impact."

Their argument is based on seismic evidence of the composition of the stratified layer -- believed to be some 200 miles thick and lie 1,800 miles below Earth's surface -- and on laboratory experiments simulating the turbulence of the impact.

The turbulence, in particular, is believed to account for the stratification -- meaning a mix of materials in layers rather than a homogeneous composition -- at the top of the core.

The stratified layer is believed to consist of a mix of iron and lighter elements, including oxygen, sulphur and silicon.

The very existence of this layer is understood from seismic imaging, as it lies far too deep underground to be sampled directly.

The study was published in the journal Nature Geoscience.

London, Sep 27 (IANS) Bilingual educational programmes in those subjects that were taught in English have a negative effect on the level of competence and knowledge in students, finds a study.

Bilingual education programmes, in which a substantial part of the teaching is done in a language different from the mother tongue and from the language of the students' surroundings, have been introduced in countries such as India, Spain and the US. 

The researchers analysed the effects of these programmes and have found a negative effect on the level of competence and knowledge displayed by the students who have followed this bilingual programme in those subjects that were taught in English.

The study, which was published in the journal Economic Inquiry, used data from the test of essential knowledge administered by the Community of Madrid when students complete their elementary education.

"These students and teachers are making an additional effort because they have to teach and learn the subjects in a language that is not theirs. They have to spend more time and make a greater effort to learn English, which can affect their learning of the specific material taught in subjects such as Science, History and Geography," said Jesus Carro, researcher at the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Spain.

This negative result is more pronounced in those students whose parents have a lower level of education, while the difference is hardly noticeable in students whose parents have a higher level of studies.

"We can establish a number of hypotheses with the regard to the reasons behind this, such as that they receive more help at home, they have greater resources, they are more exposed to situations where other languages are used or that are linguistically richer," Carro added. 

According to the study, it is possible that the negative effect that has been detected will disappear at that point because, in secondary school, the students have a higher level of English

​New York, Sep 27 (IANS) Scientists know that stimulating the brain via electricity or other means may help ease the symptoms of various neurological and psychiatric disorders like epilepsy and depression.

Now, researchers from the University of Pennsylvania and University at Buffalo have discovered that stimulation of a single region of the brain affects the activation of other regions and large-scale activity within the brain.

"We don't have a good understanding of the effects of brain stimulation," said first author Sarah Muldoon, assistant professor of mathematics in University at Buffalo's college of arts and sciences.

"When a clinician has a patient with a certain disorder, how can they decide which parts of the brain to stimulate? Our study is a step toward better understanding how brain connectivity can better inform these decisions," she added.

If you look at the architecture of the brain, it appears to be a network of interconnected regions that interact with each other in complicated ways. 

"The question we asked in this study was how much of the brain is activated by stimulating a single region. We found that some regions have the ability to steer the brain into a variety of states very easily when stimulated, while other regions have less of an effect," explained Danielle S Bassett, associate professor of bioengineering in the University of Pennsylvania.

The study used a computational model to simulate brain activity in eight individuals whose brain architecture was mapped.

The research examined the impact of stimulating each of 83 regions within each subject's brain. While results varied by person, common trends emerged.

Network hubs -- areas of the brain that are strongly connected to other parts of the brain via the brain's white matter -- displayed what researchers call a "high functional effect": 

Stimulating these regions resulted in the global activation of many brain regions.

These patterns suggest that doctors could pursue two classes of therapies when it comes to brain stimulation: a "broad reset" that alters global brain dynamics, or a more targeted approach that focuses on the dynamics of just a few regions.

The research was published in the journal PLOS Computational Biology.

New York, Sep 28 (IANS) US researchers have designed a peptide-based nanoparticle, which when injected into an injured joint will not only suppress the inflammation immediately but also reduce the destruction of cartilage, thus lowering the risk for osteoarthritis.

Osteoarthritis is a type of arthritis that occurs when flexible tissue at the ends of bones wears down.

In this study, the nanoparticles were injected locally shortly after injury into the joint of the participants to penetrate into the injured cartilage to prevent cartilage breakdown that could eventually cause osteoarthritis. 

Within 24 hours the nanoparticles were at work to tame the inflammation in the joint, the researchers said. 

"These nanoparticles remain in the joint longer (than the traditional anti-inflammotory drugs) and help prevent cartilage degeneration," said Associate Professor Christine Pham from Washington University in St. Louis in the US. 

"The nanoparticles are injected directly into the joint, and due to their size, they easily penetrate into the cartilage to enter the injured cells," added Professor Samuel Wickline of Washington University. 

The newly developed nanoparticles carry a peptide derived from a natural protein called melittin that has been modified to enable it to bind to a molecule called small interfering RNA (siRNA). 

The melittin delivers siRNA to the damaged joint, interfering with inflammation in cells.

It is more than 10 times smaller than a red blood cell, which helps them penetrate deeply into tissues, the researchers noted. 

The findings were reported online in the early edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

​Sydney, Sep 28 (IANS) Cinnamon just not enhances taste but significantly contributes in improving health by cooling the body by up to two degrees, according to research.

The research published in the journal Scientific Reports said that the investigators used pigs for the study and found that cinnamon maintained the integrity of the stomach wall.

"When pigs feed at room temperature, carbon dioxide (CO2) gas increases in their stomach. Cinnamon in their food reduces this gas by decreasing the secretion of gastric acid and pepsin from the stomach walls, which in turn cools the pigs' stomachs during digestion," said Kourosh Kalantar-zadeh, Professor at the RMIT's School of Engineering.

The researchers have developed swallowable gas sensor capsules or smart pills which the by-product of digestion and could provide valuable insights into the functioning and health of the gut.

"Our experiments with pigs and cinnamon show how swallowable gas sensor capsules can help provide new physiological information that will improve our understanding of diet or medicine. They are a highly reliable device for monitoring and diagnosing gastrointestinal disorders," Kalantar-zadeh added.

​Palo Alto (California), Sep 28 (IANS) Rapid urbanisation, changing demographics, hyper globalisation and accelerated innovation will shape the future of technology in the next 30 years for countries like India and HP is ready to address these with its advanced research centre HP Labs, a tops executive has said.

Celebrating the 50th anniversary of HP Labs here on Tuesday, the printer and laptop major said the research centre was dedicated to develop technology to improve the lives of people globally.

"This is a company on the move and while we are on the move, we have a simple vision to make life better for everyone, everywhere," Dion Weisler, President and Chief Executing Officer, HP, told select mediapersons here.

The vision of blended reality drives the research at HP Labs. 

"Blended reality fuses digital and physical worlds to create new and improved experiences for people at home, at work and on the go," added Shane Wall, Chief Technology Officer, HP and and global head of HP Labs.

In 1991, there were 10 mega cities (defined as having more than 10 million people). 

By 2030, there will be over 40 mega cities and by the end of 30 year time frame, there will be over 50 mega cities.

"Those mega cities will be largely located outside of the mature markets. In fact, most of them are going to be in India, China and Africa," Wall noted. 

On the changing demographics trend, Wall said that 97 per cent of the world's growth will be in emerging markets like India and China and only three per cent will occur in the US and Western Europe.

"By 2025, over half of Fortune 500 companies will be outside the US," Wall noted.

Accelerated innovation in the form of tablets, phablets and PCs that surround us are going to be billion times more powerful 10 years down the line than today.

"HP's vision of blended reality highlights four emerging technologies --3D transformation, Internet of All Things, hyper mobility and microfluidics," the chief technology officer added.

According to Wall, 3D transformation in the form of 3D printing will serve as the next industrial revolution that will transform and disrupt manufacturing, supply chains and the way we live.

It also includes designing in digital way and Wall believes that industry will move to digital manufacturing.

Internet of All Things includes tables, chairs and everything that moves and can be tracked through a supply chain.

"The vision we are driving to is the Internet of All Things," Wall said.

Microfluidics, or labs-on-a-chip is also the next big thing and the last research effort will focus on hypermobility.

"We stare at our phones 137 times a day. In the future, the 'phone' will be on us, either as a wearable or 'on your body, attached to your body, a part of your body,' Wall pointed out.

"The entire way we manufacture will moved to digital manufacturing: How do we take the technologies we have and apply them in areas of health care and life sciences to have a profound effect on life?" the HP Labs global head told the media.

​New York, Sep 28 (IANS) Sustained financial hardship early in life may put youngsters at risk of developing worse cognitive functions as well as premature ageing, a study has found.

"Income is dynamic and individuals are likely to experience income changes and mobility especially between young adulthood and midlife," said lead investigator Adina Zeki Al Hazzouri from University of Miami.

"The study places economic hardship as the pathway to cognitive ageing and as an important contributor to premature ageing among economically disadvantaged populations," Hazzouri added. 

The researchers found strong and graded associations between exposure to economic hardship and worse cognitive function, especially in processing speed. 

In the study, individuals with all-time poverty performed significantly worse than individuals never in poverty. 

Similar results were observed in persons with perceived financial difficulty, the reseachers said.

Previous research has shown that exposure to poor socio-economic conditions during childhood, adulthood or cumulatively is associated with cognitive deficits. 

However, most of these studies involved older adults and so there is little data on whether economic adversity influences cognitive health much earlier in a person's life.

For the new study, the team examined the effects of sustained poverty and perceived financial difficulty on cognitive function in midlife using income data for about 3,400 adults in US, aged between 18 to 30, at the start of the study in 1985-86.

Sustained poverty was defined as the percentage of time the participants' household income was less than 200 per cent of the federal poverty level. 

Participants were divided into four groups: never in poverty, less than one-third of the time, from one-third to nearly 100 per cent of the time, or always in poverty. 

In 2010, at a mean age of 50 years, participants underwent three tests that are considered reliable to detect cognitive ageing. 

"It is important to monitor how trends in income and other social and economic parameters influence health outcomes," Hazzouri said in a paper published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

​New York, Sep 28 (IANS) In a groundbreaking feat, a team of biomedical engineers has successfully implanted lab-grown artificial blood vessels in young lambs which are capable of growth within the recipient.

If confirmed in humans, these new vessel grafts would prevent the need for repeated surgeries in some children with congenital heart defects, said the team from the University of Minnesota.

"This might be the first time we have an 'off-the-shelf' material that doctors can implant in a patient and it can grow in the body," said professor Robert Tranquillo from the University of Minnesota Department of Biomedical Engineering.

"In the future, this could potentially mean one surgery instead of five or more surgeries that some children with heart defects have before adulthood," he added.

One of the greatest challenges in vessel bioengineering is designing a vessel that will grow with its new owner.

In this study, Tranquillo and his colleagues generated vessel-like tubes in the lab from a post-natal donor's skin cells and then removed the cells to minimise the chance of rejection.

When implanted in a lamb, the tube was then repopulated by the recipient's own cells allowing it to grow.

To develop the material for the study, researchers combined sheep skin cells in a gelatin-like material, called fibrin, in the form of a tube and then rhythmically pumped in nutrients necessary for cell growth.

The researchers then used special detergents to wash away all the sheep cells, leaving behind a cell-free matrix that does not cause immune reaction when implanted.

The vessel graft replaced a part of the pulmonary artery in three lambs at five weeks of age.

The implanted vessels were soon populated by the lambs' own cells, causing the vessel to bend its shape and grow together with the recipient until adulthood.

"What's important is that when the graft was implanted in the sheep, the cells repopulated the blood vessel tube matrix," Tranquillo noted.

"If the cells don't repopulate the graft, the vessel can't grow. This is the perfect marriage between tissue engineering and regenerative medicine where tissue is grown in the lab," he added in a paper published in the journal Nature Communications.

At 50 weeks of age, the sheep's blood vessel graft had increased 56 per cent in diameter and the amount of blood that could be pumped through the vessel increased 216 per cent.

No adverse effects such as clotting, vessel narrowing or calcification were observed.

Tranquillo said the next step is talking with doctors to determine the feasibility of requesting approval from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for human clinical trials within the next few years.

​New Delhi, Sep 25 (IANS) With Yahoo announcing a massive data breach last week where 500 million of its user accounts were compromised in 2014, experts feel that the trick to avoid email account hacking is to use really long random string for a password.