Knowledge Update

​New York, Dec 6 (IANS) If you're a man, gorging on delicious delicacies at a holiday meal or friend's BBQ might have more to do with your ego than the quality of the food. According to a new study, men are at particular risk of overeating in social situations even when there is no incentive to do so, but opportunities for them to "show off". "Even if men aren't thinking about it, eating more than a friend tends to be understood as a demonstration of virility and strength," said Kevin Kniffin from Cornell Food and Brand Lab, a US-based non-profit research firm. For the study, researchers recruited college aged students of similar weight to participate in either a competitive chicken wing eating challenge with cheering spectators, or a competitive chicken wing eating challenge with no spectators. The prize for eating the most chicken wings was a worthless plastic medal, but competitors still ate about four times more food than normal. Men who ate in front of spectators ate 30 per cent more than those without spectators and described the experience as challenging, cool and exhilarating. Women, on the other hand, ate less with spectators than without them and described the experience as slightly embarrassing, the researchers said. "Focus on your friends and not the food," noted Brian Wansink, Director from the Cornell Food and Brand Lab. "If you want to prove how macho you are, challenge your friend to a healthy arm wrestle instead of trying to out-eat him," Wansink said, in the paper published in the journal Frontiers in Nutrition.

​New Delhi, Dec 6 (IANS) Cashing in on the ongoing demonetisation drive across India, Amazon India is witnessing triple-digit growth in its sales as it has switched to various electronic payments platforms, said the company's Vice President and Country Manager Amit Agarwal.

​Moscow, Dec 6 (IANS) The Russian economy is an integral part of the global economic system and should not develop in isolation from it, President Vladimir Putin has said.

"We have never believed and we should not believe that we must develop our economy in isolation from the global economy. The Russian economy has already become an

​Hanoi, Dec 6 (IANS) The Asia Pacific Gateway (APG) submarine fiber optic cable line will be operational in Vietnam, according to the Vietnam Post and Telecommunication Group (VNPT) on Tuesday.

​New York, Dec 6 (IANS) After a disastrous launch of its previous chatbot Tay, Microsoft is reportedly releasing another artificial intelligence (AI)-powered chatbot named 'Zo' on the social messaging app 'Kik', reports said on Tuesday.

​Toronto, Dec 6 (IANS) People with high attachment anxiety -- those who worry their partners do not love and care for them -- are especially likely to think of past grudges in new, unrelated contexts, leading to more conflicts in the relationship, says a study.

To them, past misdeeds tend to feel closer to the present than for those who are more secure in their relationships, the study said.

"When memories feel closer to the present, those memories are construed as more relevant to the present and more representative of the relationship," said co-author of the study Kassandra Cortes from the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada.

"If one bad memory feels recent, a person will also be more likely to remember other past slights, and attach more importance to them," Cortes said.

The researchers found that even if no one mentions the transgressions during arguments, just thinking about them could be enough to have a detrimental effect on the relationship.

A person may feel confused and frustrated if they do not understand why their partner has become so upset over something so seemingly minor.

The study - published in the journal Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin - found that those who reported thinking about past transgressions during a recent conflict said they reacted to the current conflict more destructively, reported having more frequent and intense conflicts with their partners and felt worse about their relationships in general.

"It may be useful for people to resolve an issue with their partner when it occurs, rather than pretending to forgive their partner or just letting it go when they are clearly upset. This way, the issue may be less likely to resurface in the future," the study said.

​New York, Dec 6 (IANS) Famine may have a lasting impact on the male descendants of its victims, suggests new research focused on survivors of a mass famine that took place in the early 1920s in several rural regions of Russia.

The findings suggest that periods of fasting or starvation may significantly shorten the lifespans of both children and their male descendants.

"A variety of experimental and epidemiological studies have tried to propose that intermittent or periodic fasting, like caloric restriction, may slow the aging process and extend lifespans," said lead researcher Eugene Kobyliansky, Professor at Sackler School of Medicine, Tel Aviv University in Israel.

"But there is also evidence demonstrating that even moderate caloric restriction may not extend but, on the contrary, can shorten the human lifespan," Kobyliansky said.

Past research suggests a strong correlation between telomere dynamics and the processes that determine human ageing and lifespan. 

Telomeres, compound structures at the end of each chromosome that protects the end of the chromosome from deterioration, are the genetic key to longevity. They shorten with every chromosome replication cycle.

The team evaluated telomere lengths in a population-based sample comprised of survivors of the mass famine of the early 1920s and in the survivors' descendants, who originated from Chuvashia, a rural area in the mid-Volga region of Russia. 

In Chuvashia, the proportion of starving inhabitants reached 90 per cent in late March 1922, and mortality among starving peasants reached between 30-50 per cent. The situation only began to improve in April 1923. By the end of that year, the mass famine in Chuvashia was considered over.

The researchers found that here were shorter leukocyte telomeres in men born after 1923 after the mass famine ended than in men born before 1922.

There was a stable inheritance of shorter telomeres by men born in ensuing generations, the findings showed. 

But there was an absence of any correlation between shorter telomeres and women born before or after the event, said the study published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

New York, Dec 6 (IANS) Pre-school children's skills in patterning, comparing quantities and counting objects were stronger predictors of their math achievement in fifth grade than other skills, researchers said.

The study showed that pre-school math skills supported first-grade math skills, which in turn supported fifth-grade math knowledge. 

By first grade, patterning remained important and understanding written numbers and calculating emerged as important predictors of later achievement.

But, because not all types of math knowledge were equally important, certain early math topics should get more attention than they currently do, the researchers said.

"Counting, calculating, and understanding written numbers already get a lot of attention from teachers and parents, for good reasons," said lead author Bethany Rittle-Johnson, Professor at Vanderbilt University in Tennessee, US. 

"However, comparing quantities may merit more attention in pre-school and patterning knowledge may merit more attention in both pre-school and the early elementary grades," Rittle-Johnson added.

The findings suggest that educators and school administrators may want to consider carefully which areas of math study should they shift attention to as they develop curricula for the early years.

For the study, the team followed 517 low-income children aged between 4-11.

Determining how to help children achieve in math is important, particularly for children from low-income families who often enter school with weaker math knowledge than their peers, the researchers suggested. 

The study appeared in the journal Child Development.

​San Francisco, Dec 21 (IANS) After successfully rolling out the live video feature, Facebook has now introduced "Live Audio" option - like traditional radio or podcasting -- in your News Feed where users will be able to broadcast audio directly to the social network.

​New York, Dec 13 (IANS) In a move aimed at doing away with the rigid touch most robots are associated with, researchers have devised a way for a soft robot to feel its surroundings internally, in much the same way humans do.