Knowledge Update

Moscow, Oct 22 (IANS) Treating photodetectors -- used in systems and devices from smartphones to space stations -- with ultraviolet light can improve the efficiency of cameras, researchers say.

​New York, Oct 22 (IANS) Household dysfunction or any adverse event in childhood may have a short-term affect on a child's health and weight in early days as well, finds a study.

The study suggested that children exposed to early adversity also have increased risk for asthma, infection, somatic complaints, and sleep disruption. 

Maternal mental health issues are associated with elevated cortisol levels, and maltreatment is associated with a lower cortisol profile.

For the study, the researchers examined 39 cohort studies to determine the effect that adverse childhood experiences have on health and biological outcomes in children.

"The majority of research on early adversity has looked at long-term adult outcomes. While this research has helped identify the problem, we must also deepen our understanding of what is happening in the brains and bodies of our children as they experience adversity," said Debby Oh, Researcher at the Center for Youth Wellness, US in a statement.

The researchers suggested that with appropriate intervention, children are able to recover from some of these negative health effects, making early detection a powerful tool to protect the health and well-being of children before long-term adult outcomes occur.

​Ottawa, Oct 22 (IANS) Choosing smaller portions of food does not hamper the enjoyment of eating, finds a study.

"In fact, focusing on the pleasure of eating, rather than value for money, health, or hunger, makes people happier to pay more for less food," said Pierre Chandon, the L'Oréal Chaired Professor of Marketing, Innovation and Creativity at INSEAD Business School for the World, in France.

In their article, published in the Journal of Marketing Research, the researchers said the findings showed that people will choose smaller portions of chocolate cake when they are asked to vividly imagine the multisensory pleasure (taste, smell, texture) of similar desserts.

The researchers showed that unlike health warnings, this multisensory imagery does not reduce expected eating enjoyment or willingness to pay for the food. 

They conducted five different experiments where 42 schoolchildren were asked to imagine -- incorporating their five senses -- the pleasure of eating, familiar desserts and were then asked to choose portions of brownies.

They naturally chose portions of brownies that were two sizes smaller than the portions chosen by children in a control condition.

In another experiment, they imitated high-end restaurants by describing a regular chocolate cake as smelling of roasted coffee with aromas of honey and vanilla with an aftertaste of blackberry. 

This vivid description made 190 participants choose a smaller portion compared to a control condition where the cake was simply described as "chocolate cake". 

The study also had a third condition, in which people were told about the calorie and fat content of each cake portion. This nutrition information also led people to choose a smaller portion. 

However, it reduced the amount that people were willing to pay for the cake compared to the multisensory condition.

A third study showed that people underestimated how much they will enjoy eating small portions of chocolate brownies. They expected to enjoy small portions less than larger ones, when actually both were enjoyed equally. 

This mistake was eliminated by multisensory imagery, which made people better forecasters of their own future eating enjoyment.

"Having more descriptive menus or product labels that encourage customers to use their senses can lead to positive outcomes for consumer satisfaction and health, but also for profits. This could make for a more sustainable food industry, which struggles to grow in the face of today's obesity epidemic," said Yann Cornil, Assistant Professor at the University of British Columbia, Canada.

​New York, Oct 22 (IANS) What if clothes and other wearable items can sense your illness and transmit data to a doctor in a distant clinic for monitoring your health and prescribing drugs? This could be possible, thanks to new research by an Indian-origin scientist at University of Rhode Island.

Kunal Mankodiya, Director of the university's Wearable Biosensing Laboratory is researching how to transform gloves, socks, clothing and even shoes into high-tech items that will make people healthier -- and improve their lives.

"We are in the era of game-changing technology, especially in health care," Mankodiya said.

Mankodiya's research focuses on smart textiles -- wearable items embedded with sensors, electronics and software that can collect data from patients, even though they are at home, and deliver it to doctors. 

Mankodiya's team is working on smart gloves that are embedded with sensors on the fingers and thumb that measure tremors and rigidity -- common symptoms of Parkinson's.

The gloves, in turn, are connected to cell phones, which process the data and deliver it to neurologists in their offices. 

This way, doctors can manage the treatment plan of the patient on a day-to-day basis, ensuring that medication is working properly and eliminating the need for patients to make stressful clinical visits.

"Patients with Parkinson's face many mobility issues -- driving and even walking long distances," Mankodiya, an alumnus of Saurashtra University in Rajkot, Gujarat, said. 

"The glove will give patients the option of receiving health care while remaining at home, and it also reduces the risk of falls and other accidents," he added.

Mankodiya is also working on high-tech socks for people who have suffered strokes. Again, sensors and software woven into the fabric relay information about a patient's gait to doctors and physical therapists so they can tailor rehabilitation therapy to each patient.

"The socks examine the walking stride," Mankodiya said in University of Rhode Island statement. 

"They can quantify movements of the knee and ankle joints to find subtle irregularities that require therapy. The socks also monitor a patient's progress," he added.

Other projects of his team focus on developing tools to image, sense and record brain function to treat Parkinson's, as well as other neurological diseases, like epilepsy. 

​Washington, Oct 22 (IANS) Astronomers believe they have found the oldest known planet-forming disk -- a 45-million-year-old ring of gas and dust that orbits around a young star.

Circumstellar disks around red dwarfs like this one are rare to begin with, but this star, called AWI0005x3s, appears to have sustained its disk for an exceptionally long time, according to the study published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

"Most disks of this kind fade away in less than 30 million years," said lead researcher Steven Silverberg from University of Oklahoma in the US.

"This particular red dwarf is a candidate member of the Carina stellar association, which would make it around 45 million years old (like the rest of the stars in that group). It's the oldest red dwarf system with a disk we've seen in one of these associations," Silverberg noted.

The discovery relied on citizen scientists from Disk Detective, a project led by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center's Marc Kuchner that is designed to find new circumstellar disks. 

"Without the help of the citizen scientists examining these objects and finding the good ones, we might never have spotted this object," Kuchner said. 

"It is surprising to see a circumstellar disk around a star that may be 45 million years old, because we normally expect these disks to dissipate within a few million years," one of the researchers Jonathan Gagne from Carnegie Institution for Science said.

"More observations will be needed to determine whether the star is really as old as we suspect, and if it turns out to be, it will certainly become a benchmark system to understand the lifetime of disks," Gagne noted.

This star and its disk are also interesting because of the possibility that it could host extrasolar planets, the study said.

Kathmandu, Oct 21 (IANS) The Asian Development Bank has shown concern over low disbursement of its committed aid to Nepal. Only 66 per cent of its total pledged aid has been disbursed as of September 30.

Sydney, Oct 21 (IANS) Researchers have discovered a new species of long-necked dinosaurs in northeastern Australia that could have arrived from South America 105 million years ago, officials said on Friday.

The Savannasaurus elliottorum were between 12-15 metres long with a long neck, a relatively short tail and hips around 1.5 metres wide, EFE news reported.

The Savannasaurus belong to a branch of the sauropods known as titanosaurs, the largest land animals to have inhabited the Earth, Stephen Poropat, of the Australian Age of Dinosaurs Museum of Natural History (AAOD), said.

The paleontologist, whose study was published in the journal Scientific Reports, said they could recover only 20-25 per cent of the Savannasaurus, mostly parts belonging to its torso, limbs and the pelvis.

"Because they are very large animals it would take a fair bit of sediment to bury it before predators come along," Poropat said.

He added that teeth of carnivorous dinosaurs were also found at the site, which suggests there might have been scavenging of the remains of the Savannasaurus.

The first fossils of these titanosaurs were found in 2005 by grazier David Elliot, the chairman of AAOD in Winston in Queensland state.

Shortly after the AAOD and the Queensland Museum began excavating the fossil site, but it was nearly a decade till they could remove the bones from the rocks in which they were encrusted.

Besides the Savannasaurus, Poropat also described another dinosaur in his study that was discovered in Australia in 2009, Diamantinasaurus matildae, whose excavation enabled the discovery of the first skull of a sauropod in the country.

The discovery of the Savannasaurus and the Diamantinasaurus have sparked a controversy over the origin of the titanosaurs in Australia.

Earlier studies on megafauna suggested they were similar to dinosaurs from Laurasia, the ancient supercontinental landmass in the Northern Hemisphere.

However, Poropat argued against that theory explaining that Laurasia and Gondwana - which gave rise to the continental masses of the Southern Hemisphere: South America, Africa, Australia and Antarctica - were separated.

According to the expert, the discovery shows the Savannasaurus and the Diamantinasaurus arrived from South America 105 million years ago through the Antarctica during an era of warmer temperatures and when the three continents were connected.

​New York, Oct 21 (IANS) Social hierarchy affects our health and uncertainty of staying at top in this hierarchy may increase the risk of chronic diseases, suggests new research.

According to the study, the findings apply to those uncertain at the top of the social hierarchy as also to those uncertain of their status in lower ranking, though the latter may have opportunities for upward mobility and this may be associated with better health. 

"Low social status is generally thought to lead to poorer health, yet so many exceptions undermine this apparent association that it is difficult to draw a direct relationship between status and health," said one of the researchers, Jessica Vandeleest from University of California Davis School of Veterinary Medicine in the US.

Although the experiment was carried out in monkeys, the researchers believe that the findings could one day help doctors learn more about the way that social hierarchy affects the health of humans.

For the study, the researchers measured the level of certainty or uncertainty of social status in captive rhesus monkey groups. 

They did this by observing how the monkeys interacted with each other -- in cases where the monkeys were not interacting directly with other monkeys, their relationships were inferred through mutual social connections. 

The team used these indirect connections to decipher the social rank of the animals and how well they fit in the hierarchy.

The researchers discovered that high ranking monkeys with low certainty of their social status showed higher markers of inflammation, which can be a sign of a chronic disease state such as diabetes, than those with very certain status.

So high-ranking monkeys may experience some health risks, but only when their position is questionable and they are consequently at risk of losing their status.

The opposite pattern was found for low ranking monkeys - high dominance certainty was associated with higher markers of inflammation, whereas low certainty was associated with lower levels of inflammatory proteins. 

The study, published in the journal PeerJ suggests that uncertainty alone may be a risk factor for acute diseases, and that uncertainty in status over longer periods in relationship to rank are related to chronic disease states as well.

New York, Oct 21 (IANS) Researchers at University of Wisconsin-Madison have developed an inexpensive, simple method that allows them to convert footsteps into usable electricity.

The method puts to good use a common waste material -- wood pulp. 

The pulp, which is already a common component of flooring, is partly made of cellulose nanofibers. 

They are tiny fibers that, when chemically treated, produce an electrical charge when they come in contact with untreated nanofibers.

When the nanofibers are embedded within flooring, they are able to produce electricity that can be harnessed to power lights or charge batteries. 

And because wood pulp is a cheap, abundant and renewable waste product of several industries, flooring that incorporates the new technology could be as affordable as conventional materials.

While there are existing similar materials for harnessing footstep energy, they are costly, nonrecyclable, and impractical at a large scale.

"We've been working a lot on harvesting energy from human activities. One way is to build something to put on people, and another way is to build something that has constant access to people. The ground is the most-used place," said Xudong Wang, Associate Professor at University of Wisconsin-Madison.

The team's method published in the journal Nano Energy is the latest in a green energy research field called "roadside energy harvesting" that could, in some settings, rival solar power -- and it does not depend on fair weather. 

Researchers like Wang who study roadside energy harvesting methods see the ground as holding great renewable energy potential well beyond its limited fossil fuel reserves.

New York, Oct 20 (IANS) Whole grain diet may help to significantly lower the risk of heart disease in overweight and obese adults who are under the age of 50, finds a new study.