Knowledge Update

​New York, June 15 (IANS) While a conclusive answer to why women have a longer lifespan as compared to men still eludes scientists, a host of factors - from differences in hormones to immune system variations - could be at work, suggests new research.

In a perspective piece published in the journal Cell Metabolism, researchers from the University of Alabama at Birmingham explored what gives women the survival advantage.

"Humans are the only species in which one sex is known to have a ubiquitous survival advantage," the authors wrote in their research review covering a multitude of species. 

"Indeed, the sex difference in longevity may be one of the most robust features of human biology," the researchers said.

Though other species, from roundworms and fruit flies to a spectrum of mammals, show lifespan differences that may favour one sex in certain studies, contradictory studies with different diets, mating patterns or environmental conditions often flip that advantage to the other sex. 

With humans, however, it appears to be all females all the time.

The differences may be due to hormones, perhaps as early as the surge in testosterone during male sexual differentiation in the uterus. 

Longevity may also relate to immune system differences, responses to oxidative stress, mitochondrial fitness or even the fact that men have one X chromosome (and one Y), while women have two X chromosomes, the researchers said.

Evidence of the longer lifespans for women includes the Human Mortality Database, which has complete lifespan tables for men and women from 38 countries that go back as far as 1751 for Sweden and 1816 for France. 

"Given this high data quality, it is impressive that for all 38 countries for every year in the database, female life expectancy at birth exceeds male life expectancy," authors Steven Austad and Kathleen Fischer wrote.

Longer female survival expectancy is seen across the lifespan, at early life (birth to five years old) and at age 50. 

It is also seen at the end of life, where Gerontology Research Group data for the oldest of the old show that women make up 90 percent of the supercentenarians, those who live to 110 years of age or longer, the study pointed out.​

Washington, June 16 (IANS) For the second time in history, an international team of scientists and engineers have detected gravitational waves -- ripples in the fabric of space-time -- and a pair of colliding black holes.

Using the twin, US-based Advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) detectors, the second detection occurred on December 26 last year and is named as the "Boxing Day event" (after the holiday celebrated in Britain).

LIGO's first detection of gravitational waves and merging black holes occurred on September 14, 2015 -- an event that made headlines worldwide, confirming a major prediction of Albert Einstein's 1915 general theory of relativity.

"Scientifically, these black holes are important because it shows binary black holes exist as a population, with a range of masses, forming from a range of different stars," said Vicky Kalogera, director of Northwestern University's centre for interdisciplinary exploration and research in astrophysics (CIERA).

Gravitational waves carry information about the origins of black holes and about the nature of gravity that cannot otherwise be obtained.

Physicists have concluded that these gravitational waves were produced during the final moments of the merger of two black holes -- 14 and eight times the mass of the sun -- to produce a single, more massive spinning black hole 21 times the mass of the sun.

In comparison, the black holes detected on September 14, 2015, were 36 and 29 times the sun's mass, merging into a black hole of 62 solar masses.

This time, the gravitational waves released by the violent black hole merger resulted in a longer signal, or chirp, providing more data.

The new chirp lasted one second; the September 14 chirp lasted just one-fifth of a second. The higher-frequency gravitational waves from the lower-mass black holes better spread across the LIGO detectors' sweet spot of sensitivity.

Gravitational waves are not sound waves, but researchers have converted the gravitational wave's oscillation and frequency to a sound wave with the same frequency, producing a "chirp" people can hear.

The discovery, accepted for publication in the journal Physical Review Letters, was made by the international LIGO Scientific Collaboration (which includes the GEO Collaboration and the Australian Consortium for Interferometric Gravitational Astronomy) and the Virgo Collaboration using data from the two LIGO detectors.

Northwestern alumnus David Reitze, now at Caltech and the executive director of the LIGO Laboratory, was one of three scientific leaders to announce the discovery at the summer meeting of the American Astronomical Society (AAS) in San Diego.

Scientists now have a small population of black holes from which to learn more about the universe.

As Advanced LIGO becomes more and more sensitive, the number of detected black holes will only grow, producing a broad mass spectrum of black holes in nature.

"We expect black holes with a range of masses, which we now are seeing, showing us that black holes form ubiquitously in the universe," Kalogera added.

This second detection also proves the first was not a fluke -- the gravitational waves truly came from cosmic sources.

"It is very significant that these black holes were much less massive than those in the first detection," said Gabriela Gonzalez, spokesperson of the LIGO Scientific Collaboration.

Because of their lighter mass, they spent more time -- about one second -- in the sensitive band of the detectors.

"It is a promising start to mapping the populations of black holes in our universe," she noted.

During the merger, which occurred approximately 1.4 billion years ago, a quantity of energy roughly equivalent to the mass of the sun was converted into gravitational waves.

The detected signal comes from the last 27 orbits of the black holes before their merger.

Scientists from Rochester Institute of Technology and University of Maryland physicists also contributed to the identification of second gravitational wave event.​

​New York, June 16 (IANS) The same behavioural skills that are commonly taught to fight depression can also help unemployed people land a job, new research has found.

These skills included identifying negative thoughts and countering them with more positive responses and planning enjoyable activities to improve the mood.

This study is the first to show that cognitive behavioural (CB) skills not only predict changes in depression symptoms, but also real life functioning, said co-author of the study Daniel Strunk, associate professor of psychology at The Ohio State University in the US.

"Searching for a job is difficult in any circumstance, but it may be even more difficult for people who are depressed," Strunk said.

"But we found that there are specific skills that can help not only manage the symptoms of depression but also make it more likely that a person will receive a job offer," Strunk noted.

The study involved 75 unemployed people, aged 20 to 67, who participated in two online surveys taken three months apart.

About a third of the sample reported symptoms that would put them in the moderately to seriously depressed category, although they were not formally diagnosed. 

The remaining two-thirds had scores that ranged from mild depression to no symptoms.

The results showed that participants who reported more use of cognitive behavioural skills were more likely to show an improvement in depressive symptoms in the three months between the surveys -- and were more likely to report they had received a job offer.

The findings appeared in the Journal of Clinical Psychology.

"The people who got jobs in our study were more likely to be putting into practice the skills that we try to teach people in cognitive therapy," Strunk explained.​

New York, June 16 (IANS) Wearing a specifically designed compression collar around the neck may prevent or reduce the devastating effects of head collisions in sports, researchers have found.

Inspired by woodpeckers and bighorn sheep, the neck device, called a Q-Collar, is designed to press gently on the jugular vein to slow blood outflow increasing the brain's blood volume.

The resulting effect of the increased blood volume helps the brain fit tighter within the skull cavity, reducing the energy absorbed by the brain during collisions.

The analysis of neurophysiological and neuroanatomical data from the brain showed athletes in the non-collar wearing group had significant functional and structural changes to white matter regions of the brain but these changes were not evident in those who did wear the Q-Collar during play, findings from two studies showed.

"White matter of the brain essentially connects all the pathways including structure and function,” explained lead author of both studies Greg Myer, director of sports medicine research at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center in Ohio, US.

In the preliminary study published in Frontiers in Neurology, 15 high school hockey players took part. 

Half wore the collar for the hockey season and the other half did not. 

Each of the helmets for the athletes was outfitted with an accelerometer to measure every head impact. 

Results from the imaging and electrophysiological testing indicated that athletes in the non-collar wearing group had a disruption of microstructure and functional performance of the brain. 

Athletes wearing the collar did not show a significant difference despite similar head impacts.

In a follow-up study published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, 42 football players from two Greater Cincinnati high schools participated. 

While half of the participants wore the collar, the other half did not. 

The results of this larger study showed similar protective effects of collar wear during the football season.

"The results of the studies demonstrate a potential approach to protecting the brain from changes sustained within a competitive football and hockey season, as evidenced by brain imaging," Myer said. ​

​New York, June 16 (IANS) Wearing a specifically designed compression collar around the neck may prevent or reduce the devastating effects of head collisions in sports, researchers have found.

Inspired by woodpeckers and bighorn sheep, the neck device, called a Q-Collar, is designed to press gently on the jugular vein to slow blood outflow increasing the brain's blood volume.

The resulting effect of the increased blood volume helps the brain fit tighter within the skull cavity, reducing the energy absorbed by the brain during collisions.

The analysis of neurophysiological and neuroanatomical data from the brain showed athletes in the non-collar wearing group had significant functional and structural changes to white matter regions of the brain but these changes were not evident in those who did wear the Q-Collar during play, findings from two studies showed.

"White matter of the brain essentially connects all the pathways including structure and function,” explained lead author of both studies Greg Myer, director of sports medicine research at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center in Ohio, US.

In the preliminary study published in Frontiers in Neurology, 15 high school hockey players took part. 

Half wore the collar for the hockey season and the other half did not. 

Each of the helmets for the athletes was outfitted with an accelerometer to measure every head impact. 

Results from the imaging and electrophysiological testing indicated that athletes in the non-collar wearing group had a disruption of microstructure and functional performance of the brain. 

Athletes wearing the collar did not show a significant difference despite similar head impacts.

In a follow-up study published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, 42 football players from two Greater Cincinnati high schools participated. 

While half of the participants wore the collar, the other half did not. 

The results of this larger study showed similar protective effects of collar wear during the football season.

"The results of the studies demonstrate a potential approach to protecting the brain from changes sustained within a competitive football and hockey season, as evidenced by brain imaging," Myer said. 

​New York, June 15 (IANS) Researchers have found that injecting a hormone secreted by bones can help the ageing muscles become youthful as well as increase the capacity of exercise in the elderly, finds a new study.

Osteocalcin, a bone hormone produced during exercise, tends to decline with age in women at the age of 30 and in men at age 50.

The findings showed that during exercise in mice and humans, the level of osteocalcin in the blood increases depending on how old the organism is.

Osteocalcin increased the capacity of exercise in the older mice. 

Also, the bone-derived hormone was found powerful enough to reconstitute, in older animals, the muscle function of young animals. 

"Our bones are making a hormone called osteocalcin that provides an explanation for why we can exercise," said Gerard Karsenty, Geneticist at the Columbia University Medical Center in the US.

For the study, published in the journal Cell Metabolism, the team tested mice that were genetically engineered to investigate whether osteocalcin levels were affecting exercise performance. 

In three-month-old adult mice, osteocalcin levels spiked approximately four times the amount that the levels in 12-month-old mice did when the rodents ran for 40 minutes on a treadmill. 

The three-month-old mice could run for about 1,200 meters before becoming exhausted, while the 12-month-old mice could only run half of that distance.

However, when old mice whose osteocalcin levels had naturally decreased with age were injected with osteocalcin, their running performance matched that of the healthy three-month-old mice. 

The older mice were able to run about 1,200 meters before becoming exhausted. 

"Osteocalcin is the only known bone-derived hormone that increases exercise capacity. This may be one way to treat age-related decline in muscle function in humans," Karsenty noted.​

​Washington, June 15 (IANS) Drinking coffee at “normal” temperature would not increase your risk of contracting cancer, says a new report by the World Health Organisation's cancer research arm.

The WHO classified coffee as a possible carcinogen in 1991, for its potential link to bladder cancer.

Based on a review of more than 1,000 studies, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), part of the WHO, said on Wednesday that coffee cannot be classified as a carcinogen.

But the agency cautioned that drinking “very hot” drinks could probably cause cancer.

Though consuming coffee at "normal serving temperatures" carries no cancer risk, drinking very hot beverages likely causes cancer of the esophagus, according to the agency, The Verge reported.

The IARC brought together 23 scientists to review studies on the cancer-related properties of both coffee and maté herbal tea, and determined that there is "inadequate evidence" that either are a carcinogen, the report said.

But the WHO cancer research arm said there is evidence to suggest that drinks consumed at temperatures above 65 degree Celsius can cause cancer of the esophagus, classifying them as "probably carcinogenic to humans." ​

​London, June 15 (IANS) The answer to the question is both yes and no as researchers have found that listening to sad music is associated with three types of experiences - pleasure, comfort and pain.

For the study, the musicologists looked at the emotional experiences associated with sad music of 2,436 people across three large-scale surveys in Britain and Finland.

The researchers said that the majority of people surveyed highlighted the enjoyable nature of such experiences, which in general lead to clear improvement of mood.

Listening to sad music led to feelings of pleasure related to enjoyment of the music in some people, or feelings of comfort where sad music evoked memories in others, the findings showed.

However, a significant portion of people also reported painful experiences associated with listening to sad music, which invariably related to personal loss such as the death of a loved one, divorce, breakup, or other significant adversity in life.

"Previous research in music psychology and film studies has emphasised the puzzling pleasure that people experience when engaging with tragic art,” said lead researcher Tuomas Eerola, Professor at Durham University in England. 

"However, there are people who absolutely hate sad-sounding music and avoid listening to it. In our research, we wanted to investigate this wide spectrum of experiences that people have with sad music, and find reasons for both listening to and avoiding that kind of music,” he said.

The findings were detailed in the journal PLOS ONE.

"The results help us to pinpoint the ways people regulate their mood with the help of music, as well as how music rehabilitation and music therapy might tap into these processes of comfort, relief, and enjoyment,” Eerola noted.​

Paris, June 15 (IANS) Prices in France rose 0.4 per cent in May, mainly because of fresh food and oil prices that contributed to getting inflation out of negative territory and reaching zero per cent, the National Statistics Institute announced on Wednesday.