Knowledge Update

Riyadh, Feb 20 (IANS) The Riyadh metro, one of the world's largest urban transportation projects and the first in the oil-rich kingdom, is set to be operational by 2019. But its main challenge, officials said, will be to ensure "people get used to public transportation" in a country where they love their big cars.

Beijing, Feb 20 (IANS) China has started to build a new-generation supercomputer that is expected to be 10 times faster than the current world champion, a media report said.

This year, China is aiming for breakthroughs in high-performance processors and other key technologies to build the world's first prototype exascale supercomputer, the Tianhe-

​Beijing, Feb 20 (IANS) Majority of Chinese families that have a second child are happier, according to a survey.

The survey, jointly conducted by Radio Guangdong News Channel and a number of fertility websites, interviewed nearly 10,000 two-child families, with 63 per cent reporting feeling happier after the birth of the second child, Xinhua news agency reported on Monday.

The major reason for the rise in happiness was seeing two children grow up together.

After decades of the one-child policy, many parents are believed to be concerned as to whether their first child could accept a younger sibling.

However, the survey found that 44 per cent of children were fine with a younger sibling, and only 1.5 per cent could not accept a sibling at all.

"Though having a second child is often described as tiring, it is not a burden but a happiness to see two children beginning to get along well and keeping each other company," said Zhu Yuzi, who worked for the survey team and is a mother of two.

Starting in the late 1970s, China's one-child policy ended on January 1, 2016, when the government allowed all married couples to have two children.

In 2016, there were 18.67 million newborns in China, 11 per cent more than in 2015, and about 45 per cent of them were not the first child, according to the National Health and Family Planning Commission.

According to the survey, though 47 per cent of parents have husbands that help more with the child-raising after a second child, 57 per cent of wives said they had to quit their jobs to take care of the children.

New York, Feb 19 (IANS) Researchers have developed an app that could help people speak the language of eyes -- literally.

The smartphone app that researchers working with Microsoft have developed can interpret eye gestures in real time, decode these gestures into predicted utterances, and

New York, Feb 19 (IANS) A team of scientists has developed small, soft biological robots -- bio-bots -- that can walk and swim on their own or when triggered by electrical or light signals.

​London, Feb 19 (IANS) Effecting a breakthrough in making insect-inspired robots run faster, Swiss researchers, led by an Indian-origin scientist, have found a new way by which six-legged insects increase their walking speed.

New York, Feb 19 (IANS) Researchers have developed an electrode that is more durable and could allow for improved restoration of mobility after spinal cord accidents, as well as improved powered prosthetic limbs.

This "glassy carbon" electrode that is patterned inside chips lasts longer in the body and transmits clearer and more robust signals than available electrodes.

When people suffer spinal cord injuries and lose mobility in their limbs, it is a neural signal processing problem. The brain can still send clear electrical impulses and the limbs can still receive them but the signal gets lost in the damaged spinal cord.

According to the study, published in the journal Nature Scientific Reports, this new chip can record neural electrical signals and transmit them to receivers in the limb, bypassing the damage and restoring movement.

"Glassy carbon is much more promising for reading signals directly from neurotransmitters. You get about twice as much signal-to-noise. It's a much clearer signal and easier to interpret," said Sam Kassegne, one of the study's lead investigators. 

The current material for electrodes in these devices is thin-film platinum which can fracture and fall apart over time.

Researchers in Kassegne's lab are using these new and improved brain-computer interfaces to record neural signals both along the brain's cortical surface and from inside the brain at the same time.

​New York, Feb 19 (IANS) In a first, researchers have found that neurotransmitter dopamine -- a chemical that acts in various brain systems to spark the motivation necessary to work for a reward -- was involved in human bonding.

In the research, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a researcher studied 19 mother-infant pairs and found that the results had important implications for therapies addressing disorders of the dopamine system.

"The infant brain is very different from the mature adult brain -- it is not fully formed," said Lisa Feldman Barrett of Northeastern University psychology.

"Our study shows that a biological process in one person's brain, the mother's, is linked to behaviour that gives the child the social input that will help wire his or her brain normally. That means parents' ability to keep their infants cared for leads to optimal brain development, which over the years results in better adult health and greater productivity," Barrett added.

To conduct the study, the researchers used a machine capable of performing two types of brain scans simultaneously--functional magnetic resonance imaging, or fMRI and positron emission tomography, or PET.

fMRI studied the brain in slices, front to back, like a loaf of bread and tracked blood flow to its various parts. 

Barrett's team tied the mothers' level of dopamine to her degree of synchrony with her infant as well as to the strength of the connection within a brain network called the medial amygdala network that, within the social realm, supports social affiliation.

"We found that social affiliation is a potent stimulator of dopamine. This link implies that strong social relationships have the potential to improve your outcome if you have a disease, such as depression, where dopamine is compromised," Barrett noted.

​London, Feb 19 (IANS) It is not the brain that determines whether a person is a lefty or a righty, but the spinal cord, a study has claimed.

Until now, it had been assumed that differences in gene activity of the right and left hemisphere might be responsible for a person's handedness -- people's tendency to naturally favour the use of one hand over the other. 

But the recent study demonstrated that gene activity in the spinal cord is asymmetrical already in the womb and could be linked to the handedness of a person.

"Our findings suggest that molecular mechanisms for epigenetic regulation within the spinal cord constitute the starting point for handedness, implying a fundamental shift in our understanding of the ontogenesis of hemispheric asymmetries in humans," said Sebastian Ocklenburg from Ruhr University Bochum in Germany.

According to ultrasound scans carried out in the 1980s, a preference for moving the left or right hand develops in the womb from the eighth week of pregnancy. From the 13th week of pregnancy, unborn children prefer to suck either their right or their left thumb.

Arm and hand movements are initiated via the motor cortex in the brain. It sends a corresponding signal to the spinal cord, which in turn translates the command into a motion. 

However, the motor cortex is not connected to the spinal cord from the beginning. In fact, even before the earliest indications of hand preference appear, the spinal cord has not yet formed a connection with the brain, stated researchers in the paper appearing in the journal eLife.

In addition, environmental factors were found to be controlling whether spinal cord activity was greater on the left or right side.

For the study, the team analysed the gene expression in the spinal cord during the eighth to 12th week of pregnancy and detected marked right-left differences in the eighth week -- in precisely those spinal cord segments that control the movements of arms and legs. 

​New York, Feb 19 (IANS) Adult stem cells collected directly from human fat are more stable than other cells -- such as fibroblasts from the skin -- and have the potential for use in anti-ageing treatment, says a study.

Stem cells collected directly from human fat -- called adipose-derived stem cells (ASCs) -- can make more proteins than originally thought, showed the findings published in the journal Stem Cells.

"Our study shows these cells are very robust, even when they are collected from older patients," said the study's lead author Ivona Percec from Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.

"It also shows these cells can be potentially used safely in the future, because they require minimal manipulation and maintenance," Percec said.

The researchers made the discovery after developing a new model to study chronological ageing of these cells.

Stem cells are currently used in a variety of anti-ageing treatments and are commonly collected from a variety of tissues.

But Percec's team specifically found ASCs to be more stable than other cells, a finding that can potentially open the door to new therapies for the prevention and treatment of aging-related diseases.

"Unlike other adult human stem cells, the rate at which these ASCs multiply stays consistent with age," Percec said.

"That means these cells could be far more stable and helpful as we continue to study natural aging," Percec noted.