Knowledge Update

London, July 4 (IANS) Surviving all kinds of environmental changes, hedgehogs -- the 15 million years old species -- have adapted to city life more than the rural areas, says a new study.

The findings showed that cities have higher hedgehog numbers than rural areas.

Hedgehogs were also found to have adjusted their activity to levels of human disturbance with much smaller nightly ranging areas of five hectares than their rural counterparts with 50 hectares.

While the city hedgehogs mainly stayed in private gardens during the day but around midnight, when the number of humans and pets in local parks decreased, they came out to forage and look for mates.

This shows the importance of gardens or parks for them to remain undisturbed for the entire hibernation season as well as for their future survival, the researchers said.

"Gardens and public parks are very important for city hedgehogs. They need gardens with natural vegetation and public parks less immaculately pruned, with plenty of natural, bushy areas," said lead researcher Lisa Warnecke from University of Hamburg in Germany. 

Further, urban hedgehogs seemed to have similar pattern of hibernation to rural populations. 

During winter season, hedgehogs enter a physiological state called torpor, where their metabolic rate and body temperature decrease significantly in order to save energy. 

"This was despite city hedgehogs often nesting next to busy roads and having potential food sources available throughout winter - such as food scraps or cat food on private terraces," Warnecke added.

City dwellers should take care to avoid disturbing nesting hedgehogs and to keep their gardens free of anything that could do them harm, the researchers suggested. 

"Our work with the hedgehog care station showed that the main problems were injuries caused by fences, plant netting or gardening tools and sickness from ingesting rat poison," Warnecke noted.

For the study, the team fitted free-ranging hedgehogs with temperature-sensitive transmitters to investigate what physiological factors allow them to thrive in urban areas. 

The results were presented at the Society for Experimental Biology's Annual Meeting held at London, recently. ​

​Toronto, July 4 (IANS) Parents, especially fathers, play a vital role in developing healthy behaviours as well as help prevent obesity in young adults, say researchers.

The findings showed that among males, the quality of relationship with the father had a greater impact on their odds of being overweight or obese.

When it came to predicting whether a young male will become overweight or obese, the mother-son relationship mattered far less than the relationship between father and son, the researchers said.

"Our results highlight the importance of examining the influence fathers have on their children and to develop strategies to help fathers support the development of healthy behaviours among their children," said lead author Jess Haines, Professor at the University of Guelph in Canada. 

Further, young adults who grew up in stable families with quality parental relationships were more likely to have healthy diet, activity and sleep behaviours and were less likely to be obese.

Girls who were raised in stable families were also found to consume less fast food and thus less likely to be overweight or obese. 

"It appears the father-son parent relationship has a stronger influence on sons than the mother-daughter relationship has on young women," Haines added.

For the study, the team analysed more than 3,700 females and more than 2,600 males, all aged 14-24. 

Among both males and females, 80 per cent said they had high family function, defined by how well the family managed daily routines, and how family members fulfilled their roles and connected emotionally.

In all, six out of 10 females and half of males reported high quality relationships with their parents.

"In general, the findings show the importance of family behaviours and relationships on the health of young adults from an early age, which can be powerful determinants of weight and related behaviours," Haines noted.

On the other hand, a high level of family dysfunction may interfere with the development of health behaviours in young adults, said the paper published in the Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity.​

​London, July 4 (IANS) Researchers from the University of Leuven (KU Leuven) in Belgium have built a very sensitive electronic nose with metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) that can detect pesticides and nerve gas in very low concentrations.

"MOFs are like microscopic sponges. They can absorb quite a lot of gas into their minuscule pores,” said post-doctoral researcher Ivo Stassen.

The chemical sensor can easily be integrated into existing electronic devices.

“You can apply the MOF as a thin film over the surface of, for instance, an electric circuit. Therefore, it's fairly easy to equip a smartphone with a gas sensor for pesticides and nerve gas,” added professor Rob Ameloot.

The best known electronic nose is the breathalyser. As drivers breathe into the device, a chemical sensor measures the amount of alcohol in their breath. 

This chemical reaction is then converted into an electronic signal, allowing the police officer to read off the result. 

"We created a MOF that absorbs the phosphonates found in pesticides and nerve gases. This means you can use it to find traces of chemical weapons such as sarin or to identify the residue of pesticides on food,” added Stassen. 

This MOF is the most sensitive gas sensor to date for these dangerous substances. 

“Further research will allow us to examine other applications as well," Professor Ameloot noted in a university statement. 

“MOFs can measure very low concentrations, so we could use them to screen someone's breath for diseases such as lung cancer and multiple sclerosis (MS) in an early stage,” he added. ​

Sydney, July 4 (IANS) Researchers, including one of Indian origin, are developing a new flying technique for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) or drones that will help the machines visually coordinate their flight and navigation just like birds and flying insects do.

The drones will be able to do their work without human input, radar or even GPS satellite navigation, said the team from University of Queensland.

“We study how small airborne creatures such as bees and birds use their vision to avoid collisions with obstacles, fly safely through narrow passages, control their height above the ground and more,” said lead researcher and Professor Mandyam Srinivasan.

“We then use biologically-inspired principles to design novel vision systems and algorithms for the guidance of UAVs,” he added in a university statement.

At first glance, insects and birds have very different brains in terms of size and architecture, yet the visual processing in both animals is very effective at guiding their flight. 

"Bees' brains weigh a 10th of a milligram and carry far fewer neurones than our own brains; yet the insects are capable of navigating accurately to food sources over 10 km away from their hive," said Srinivasan.

The team compares the flight of bees and budgies in particular because they are easy animals to study.

“The study of their behaviour could also reveal some of the basic principles of visual guidance in a number of organisms including humans,” he noted.

Comparing the flight behaviours of these animals using high-speed cameras will lead to drastically improved UAV guidance systems. 

“These UAVs could be incredibly useful for applications like surveillance, rescue operations, defence, and planetary exploration,” Srinivasan explained.​

Toronto, July 6 (IANS) It is time to say goodbye to tactile keys. Canadian mobile maker BlackBerry has parted ways with its most successful device of its times -- BlackBerry Classic. According to Ralph Pini, chief operating officer and general manager for devices at BlackBerry, the company will no longer manufacture BlackBerry Classic. "For many years, Classic (and its BBOS predecessors) has been in our portfolio. It has been an incredible workhorse device for customers, exceeding all expectations. But, the Classic has long surpassed the average lifespan for a smartphone in today's market," Pini wrote in a blog post on Tuesday. "We are ready for this change so we can give our customers something better -- entrenched in our legacy in security and pedigree in making the most productive smartphones," he added. The BlackBerry Classic was launched in late 2014 as a replacement of sorts to the BBOS-powered Q20, sporting the classic BlackBerry design with built-in QWERTY keyboard and a touchscreen. "We are committed to the success of both BlackBerry 10 and Android devices. To keep innovating and advancing our portfolio, we are updating our smartphone lineup with state of the art devices," Pini wrote. "For now, if the Classic is still your device of choice, please check with your carriers for device availability or purchase Classic unlocked online," he suggested. BlackBerry sold just 5 lakh phones globally in the first fiscal quarter this year -- down from six lakh in the previous quarter - reporting a $670 million loss which is its biggest loss in over two years. Although much of the loss was down to restructuring charges, sales also fell to $400 million, down 39 per cent on a year earlier. "We continue to actively support BlackBerry 10 with software updates and are on track to deliver version 10.3.3 next month with a second update to follow next year," Pini said. Last year, BlackBerry tried to revive its handset business by launching Priv smartphone running Google's Android operating system (OS). However, early sales figures have been disappointing. It is not just WhatsApp that decided to end support for BlackBerry OS 10 services by the end of 2016, Facebook too is leaving the BlackBerry platform after announcing recently to discontinue support of its application programming interfaces (APIs) for BlackBerry.​

​New York, July 5 (IANS) Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have developed a new type of easily customisable vaccine that can be manufactured in one week, allowing it to be rapidly deployed in response to disease outbreaks.

So far, they have designed vaccines against Ebola, H1N1 influenza, and Toxoplasma gondii (a relative of the parasite that causes malaria), which were 100 per cent effective in tests in mice, said a paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The vaccine consists of strands of genetic material known as messenger RNA, which can be designed to code for any viral, bacterial, or parasitic protein. 

These molecules are then packaged into a molecule that delivers the RNA into cells, where it is translated into proteins that provoke an immune response from the host.

"This nanoformulation approach allows us to make vaccines against new diseases in only seven days, allowing the potential to deal with sudden outbreaks or make rapid modifications and improvements," said Daniel Anderson, Associate Professor at MIT's Department of Chemical Engineering and senior author of the study.

The ability to rapidly design and manufacture these vaccines could be especially beneficial for fighting influenza, because the most common flu vaccine manufacturing method, which requires the viruses to be grown inside chicken eggs, takes months. 

This means that when an unexpected flu strain appears, such as the 2009 pandemic-causing H1N1 virus, there is no way to rapidly produce a vaccine against it.

"Typically a vaccine becomes available long after the outbreak is over," one of the lead researchers Jasdave Chahal explained.

"We think we can become interventional over the course of a real outbreak," Chahal noted.

The vaccine is designed to be delivered by intramuscular injection, making it easy to administer. 

Once the particles get into cells, the RNA is translated into proteins that are released and stimulate the immune system. 

Significantly, the vaccines were able to stimulate both arms of the immune system -- a T cell response and an antibody response.

In tests in mice, animals that received a single dose of one of the vaccines showed no symptoms following exposure to the real pathogen -- Ebola, H1N1 influenza, or Toxoplasma gondii.

"No matter what antigen we picked, we were able to drive the full antibody and T cell responses," one of the first authors Omar Khan said.

In addition to targeting infectious diseases, the researchers are using this approach to create cancer vaccines that would teach the immune system to recognise and destroy tumours.​

​New York, July 6 (IANS) Replacing animal fats in your diet with a variety of liquid vegetable oils can help you live longer as researchers have confirmed that higher consumption of saturated and trans fats is linked with higher mortality.

In a large study population that included 126,233 participants who were followed for more than three decades, researchers found that replacing saturated fats with unsaturated fats conferred substantial health benefits.

The study suggests that replacing saturated fats like butter, lard, and fat in red meat with unsaturated fats from plant-based foods like olive oil, canola oil, and soybean oil can confer substantial health benefits.

"There has been widespread confusion in the biomedical community and the general public in the last couple of years about the health effects of specific types of fat in the diet," said Dong Wang, doctoral candidate at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and lead author of the study.

Trans fats had the most significant adverse impact on health. Every two per cent higher intake of trans fat was associated with a 16 per cent higher chance of premature death during the study period. Higher consumption of saturated fats was also linked with greater mortality risk.

Conversely, intake of high amounts of unsaturated fats, both polyunsaturated and monounsaturated, was associated with between 11 per cent and 19 per cent lower overall mortality compared with the same number of calories from carbohydrates.

The study was published online in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine.

The health effects of specific types of fats depended on what people were replacing them with, the researchers found.

People who replaced saturated fats with carbohydrates had only slightly lower mortality risk.

Among the polyunsaturated fats, both omega-6 -- found in most plant oils -- and omega-3 fatty acids found in fish and soy and canola oils, were associated with lower risk of premature death.

"Our study shows the importance of eliminating trans fat and replacing saturated fat with unsaturated fats, including both omega-6 and omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids. In practice, this can be achieved by replacing animal fats with a variety of liquid vegetable oils," Frank Hu, Professor at Harvard Medical School, said.​

​New York, July 5 (IANS) Influencing kids to make the right food choice could be a lot easier for parents as researchers have found that children exposed to animated cartoon characters that take the shapes of healthy vegetables such as carrots or cucumber are more likely to eat salad on their own.

Marketing vegetables in school lunchrooms using the Super Sprowtz -- a team of fun-loving characters with super powers -- almost tripled the percentage of elementary school students choosing items from the salad bar,the findings showed.

"If we put the time and good resources into marketing healthy choices to kids, it can work," said lead researcher Andrew Hanks, Assistant Professor at The Ohio State University in the US.

Further, such interventions were found to improve nutrition, behaviour as well as performance in school.

For the study, published in the journal Pediatrics, the team analysed the behaviour of children from 10 public elementary schools in urban New York State.

In some schools, they wrapped the bottom portion of the salad bar with a vinyl banner depicting the cartoon characters as super veggies.

In others, they played cartoon videos in the lunch room. And in others, they tried both tactics.

According to researchers, in schools with the salad bar banners, 24 per cent of kids took vegetables from the salad bars.

In those schools that had characters on the salad bar and video, the vegetable selection jumped from 10 per cent to almost 35 per cent.

"If we can encourage kids to take vegetables of their own accord, rather than have someone put it there for them, they're much more likely to eat them," Hanks noted.

No significant improvement was found in schools with videos alone.

However, the researchers said that it is unlikely such a technique would work with older students.

"It's important to be strategic. If you use these characters in a middle or high school I doubt they will have much of an impact," Hanks said adding, "our study is best generalised to an urban elementary school setting."​

London, July 5 (IANS) If you cannot resist pasta, go order another red-sauced one as contrary to popular belief, eating pasta does not add fat but actually help shed extra kilos.

According to researchers, eating pasta -- the fundamental component of Italian Mediterranean tradition -- can lead to a decrease in the body mass index (BMI) as well as decrease the likelihood of both general and abdominal obesity.

"Our data show that enjoying pasta according to individuals' needs contributes to a healthy body mass index, lower waist circumference and better waist-hip ratio," said lead author George Pounis from IRCCS Neuromed Institute in Italy.

Mediterranean diets have always been known as one of the healthiest nutritional regimes.

Hhowever, in recent years, pasta gained a bad reputation and was shunned from diets on the grounds that it leads to obesity.

"Mediterranean diet, consumed in moderation and respecting the variety of all its elements (pasta in the first place), is good to your health," added Licia Iacoviello from Neuromed Institute.

Pasta consumption is associated with better weight management in part because it often occurs as part of a healthy Mediterranean diet, said the paper published in the journal Nutrition and Diabetes.

For the study, the team examined over 23,000 people recruited in two large epidemiological studies.

"By analysing data of the participants and their eating habits, we have seen that consumption of pasta, contrary to what many think, is not associated with an increase in body weight, rather the opposite," explained Pounis.​

​Washington, July 5 (IANS) Cheers erupted at NASA's California-based Jet Propulsion Laboratory on Tuesday as its solar-powered Juno spacecraft entered the orbit around Jupiter -- ending its nearly five-year journey to study the gas giant like never before.

According to Scott Bolton, principal investigator of Juno from the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, the spacecraft is now in orbit around Jupiter.

“You’re the best team ever! We just did the hardest thing NASA has ever done,” shouted Bolton as scientists hugged each other after the successful completion of a seemingly tough mission.

“Success! Engine burn complete. #Juno is now orbiting #Jupiter, poised to unlock the planet's secrets,” NASA tweeted.

At 8.48 am on Tuesday (India time), Juno fired its main engine to begin a 35-minute burn to get into orbit around Jupiter. The burn time was within one second of the predicted time, placing it in the orbit it needed.

Juno’s main engine has now been switched off and will be turned on in couple of days.

Once in Jupiter's orbit, the 1,600 kg spacecraft will circle the Jovian world 37 times during 20 months, skimming to within 5,000 km above the cloud tops.

This is the first time a spacecraft will orbit the poles of Jupiter, providing new answers to ongoing mysteries about the planet's core, composition and magnetic fields.

"As Juno barrels down on Jupiter, the scientists are busy looking at the amazing approach science the spacecraft has already returned to Earth. Jupiter is spectacular from afar and will be absolutely breathtaking from close up," Bolton earlier said in a NASA statement.

During the flybys, Juno will probe beneath the obscuring cloud cover of Jupiter and study its auroras to learn more about the planet's origins, structure, atmosphere and magnetosphere.

Juno's name comes from Greek and Roman mythology. The mythical god Jupiter drew a veil of clouds around himself to hide his mischief, and his wife -- the goddess Juno -- was able to peer through the clouds and reveal Jupiter's true nature.

The four largest moons of Jupiter are named the Galilean moons because they were discovered by Galileo Galilei in 1609.​