Knowledge Update

​London, Dec 8 (IANS) Repeatedly hearing fake events of the past such as taking a hot air balloon ride, playing a prank on a teacher or creating havoc at a family wedding during childhood, may push people into imagining them and believing that which never happened, researchers say.

In a study conducted on false memories, more than 400 participants were suggested fictitious autobiographical events, nearly 50 per cent believed, to some degree, that they had experienced those events.

Thirty per cent of participants appeared to 'remember' the event, they accepted the suggested event, elaborated on how the event occurred, and even described images of what the event was like.

Another 23 per cent showed signs that they accepted the suggested event to some degree and believed it really happened.

It can be very difficult to determine when a person is recollecting actual past events, as opposed to false memories, even in a controlled research environment and more so in real life situations, said Kimberley Wade from University of Warwick in Britain. 

The study may have significance in many areas such as raising questions around the authenticity of memories used in forensic investigations, court rooms and therapy treatments.

However, misinformation in the news can create incorrect collective memories that can affect behaviour and attitudes of society, the researchers explained.

"The finding that a large portion of people are prone to developing false beliefs is important. We know from other research that distorted beliefs can influence people's behaviours, intentions and attitudes," Wade said.

The study was published in the journal Memory.

New York, Dec 8 (IANS) A team of University of Illinois researchers has discovered the existence of hot atomic hydrogen (H) atoms in an upper layer of Earth's atmosphere known as thermosphere.

This finding significantly changes current understanding of the H distribution and its interaction with other atmospheric constituents.

Because H atoms are very light, they can easily overcome a planet's gravitational force and permanently escape into interplanetary space.

The ongoing atmospheric escape of H atoms is one reason why Earth's sister planet, Mars, has lost the majority of its water.

In addition, H atoms play a critical role in the physics governing the Earth's upper atmosphere and also serve as an important shield for satellites in low-earth orbit against the harsh space environment.

"Hot H atoms had been theorized to exist at very high altitudes, above several thousand km, but our discovery that they exist as low as 250 km was truly surprising," said Lara Waldrop, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering and principle investigator of the project.

The result suggests that current atmospheric models are missing some key physics that impacts many different studies, ranging from atmospheric escape to the thermal structure of the upper atmosphere.

The results also show that the presence of such hot H atoms in the thermosphere significantly affects the distribution of the H atoms throughout the entire atmosphere.

The origin of such hot H atoms, previously thought not to be able to exist in the thermosphere, is still a mystery.

"We know that there must be a source of hot H atoms, either in the local thermosphere or in more distant layers of the atmosphere, but we do not have a solid answer yet," said Waldrop in a paper published in the journal Nature Communications.

​New York, Dec 8 (IANS) Want to live longer? Try to maintain an optimistic outlook towards life -- a general expectation that good things will happen.

In the study, the researchers have found that women who were optimistic had a significantly reduced risk of dying from several major causes of death -- including cancer, heart disease, stroke, respiratory disease and infection, compared with women who were less optimistic.

"While most medical and public health efforts today focus on reducing risk factors for diseases, evidence has been mounting that enhancing psychological resilience may also make a difference," said Eric Kim, research student at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, US.

"Our new findings suggest that we should make efforts to boost optimism, which has been shown to be associated with healthier behaviours and healthier ways of coping with life challenges," Kim added.

The study also found that healthy behaviours only partially explain the link between optimism and reduced mortality risk. 

One other possibility is that higher optimism directly impacts our biological systems, Kim said.

For the study, the team analysed 70,000 women's levels of optimism and other factors that might play a role in how optimism may affect mortality risk, such as race, high blood pressure, diet and physical activity.

The results showed that most optimistic women had a nearly 30 per cent lower risk of dying from any of the diseases analysed in the study compared with the least optimistic women.

Previous studies have shown that optimism can be altered with relatively uncomplicated and low-cost interventions, even something as simple as having people write down and think about the best possible outcomes for various areas of their lives, such as careers or friendships, the researchers said, adding that encouraging the use of such interventions could be an innovative way to enhance health in the future.

The study appeared online in the American Journal of Epidemiology.

​New York, Dec 8 (IANS) Not just pizzas or groceries, drones can one day transport blood for transfusion to hospitals in rural areas -- while keeping it safe and intact -- in less time.

In what is believed to be the first proof-of-concept study of its kind, researchers from Johns Hopkins University have determined that large bags of blood products, such as those transfused into patients every day, can maintain temperature and cellular integrity while transported by drones.

Remotely-piloted drones are an effective, safe and timely way to quickly get blood products to remote accident or natural catastrophe sites, or other time-sensitive destinations.

"For rural areas that lack access to nearby clinics, or that may lack the infrastructure for collecting blood products or transporting them on their own, drones can provide that access," says Timothy Amukele, assistant professor of pathology and the paper's first author.

The new study examined the effects of drone transportation on larger amounts of blood products used for transfusion, which have significantly more complex handling, transport and storage requirements compared to blood samples for laboratory testing.

The team purchased six units of red blood cells, six units of platelets and six units of unthawed plasma from the American Red Cross, and then packed the units into a 5-quart cooler two to three units at a time.

The cooler was then attached to a commercial S900-model drone.

This particular drone model comes equipped with a camera mount, which the team removed and replaced with the cooler.

For each test, the drone was flown by remote control a distance of approximately 13 to 20 km while 328 feet above ground. This flight took up to 26.5 minutes.

The team designed the test to maintain temperature for the red blood cells, platelets and plasma units. They used wet ice, pre-calibrated thermal packs and dry ice for each type of blood product, respectively.

Following flight, all samples were transported to The Johns Hopkins Hospital where the team used the institution's laboratories to check for any damage.

The team plans larger studies in the US and overseas and hopes to test methods of active cooling, such as programming a cooler to maintain a specific temperature.

The findings are forthcoming in the journal Transfusion.

New York, Dec 8 (IANS) Saturn's moons may be younger than previously thought, says a study based on freshly-harvested data from NASA's Cassini mission.

"All of these Cassini mission measurements are changing our view of the Saturnian system, as it turns our old theories upside down," said Radwan Tajeddine from Cornell University in the US.

Tajeddine is a member of the European-based Encelade scientific team that pored over the Cassini data.

The Encelade team provided two key measurements in the research -- the rigidity of the tidal bulge, or the Love number - named for Augustus E.H. Love, a famed British mathematician who studied elasticity - and the dissipation factor, which controls the speed at which moons move away.

While Saturn is mostly a gigantic shroud of liquid hydrogen and liquid helium, it contains a rocky core -- about 18 times the size of Earth, which responds to tidal forces from all of Saturn's major moons by bulging. 

The forces of the bulging core, in turn, push the moons slightly away.

The team detected and examined the orbits of four tiny moons associated with the larger moons Tethys (Telesto and Calypso) and Dione (Helene and Polydeuces). 

While these tiny moons do not affect the tidal forces on Saturn, their orbits are disturbed by Saturn's core tidal bulges.

"By monitoring these disturbances, we managed to obtain the first measurement of Saturn's Love number and distinguish it from the planet's dissipation factor," Tajeddine said. 

"The moons are migrating away much faster than expected," Tajeddine said.

If Saturn moons actually formed 4.5 billion years ago, as currently believed, their current distances from the home planet should be greater, Tajeddine explained.

Thus, this new research -- published in the astronomy journal Icarus -- suggests, the moons are younger than 4.5 billion years, favouring a theory that the moons formed from Saturn's rings.

"What we believe about Saturn's moons history might still change in the coming years with the finale of the Cassini mission," lead researcher Valery Lainey of the Paris Observatory said.

"The more we learn about Saturn, the more we learn about exoplanets," Lainey noted.

San Francisco, Dec 7 (IANS) The European Commission has cleared the $26 billion LinkedIn acquisition by Microsoft and the deal will close in coming days, Microsoft said on Wednesday.

​Brussels Dec 7 (IANS) NATO foreign ministers on Tuesday agreed on over 40 proposals to deepen NATO-European Union (EU) cooperation, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told media following the meeting.

​London, Dec 6 (IANS) Continuous usage of caesarean sections or c-section may be impacting human evolution as more mothers now need surgery to deliver a baby due to their narrow pelvis size, scientists say.

C-section is the delivery of a baby through a surgical incision in the mother's abdomen and uterus. 

"Women with a very narrow pelvis pass on their genes encoding for a narrow pelvis to their daughters," Philipp Mitteroecker from the University of Vienna in Austria, was quoted as saying to bbc.com.

Historically, these genes would not have been passed from mother to child as both would have died in labour.

However, today the global rate of cases where the baby could not fit through the maternal birth canal have increased from 30 in 1,000 in the 1960s to 36 in 1,000 births.

That is about a 10-20 per cent increase of the original rate, due to the evolutionary effect.

Although, the trend is likely to continue, but not to the extent that non-surgical births will become obsolete, the researchers noted.

The research was published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

San Francisco, Dec 6 (IANS) While the overall wearables market grew 3.1 per cent year-over-year in the third quarter of 2016, Apple Watch share took a downturn owing to an ageing lineup and an unintuitive user interface, market research firm International Data Corporation (IDC) has said. Apple's decision to launch its second-generation watches in mid-September, towards the end of the quarter, did contribute to its year-over-year decline in the third quarter and the company stood fourth with 4.9 per cent share. According to IDC's 'Worldwide Quarterly Wearable Device Tracker' report, total wearables shipments reached 23 million in the third quarter. "Where smartwatches were once expected to take the lead, basic wearables now reign supreme. Simplicity is a driving factor and this is well reflected in the top vendor list as four out of five offer a simple, dedicated fitness device," said Jitesh Ubrani, Senior Research Analyst, IDC Mobile Device Trackers. Basic wearables, primarily comprised of fitness bands, accounted for 85 per cent of the market and experienced double-digit growth. Fitbit, with a 23 per cent share, was once again the market leader in the third quarter as the vendor released a long-awaited refresh for the "Charge HR" wireless activity wristband with "Charge 2". Xiaomi stood second with 16.5 per cent market share. "The company across all business lines continues to struggle to gain any significant traction outside China," the report added. With a market share of 5.7 per cent, Garmin stood third as the company with one of the widest portfolios among all the vendors. "The company managed to expand its channel presence over the past year, focusing on numerous sports equipment chains and independent retailers," the report noted. Samsung, with 4.5 per cent market share, stood fifth and the company was able to sustain shipments of its Gear S2, particularly the cellular-enabled versions, through various wireless service providers, the findings showed. IDC expects the momentum for basic wearables to continue for the remainder of 2016. However, smart wearables capable of running third-party apps will likely continue to struggle in the near term.

​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.