Knowledge Update

New York, June 8 (IANS) Formed in the early stages of universe, carbon planets consisting of graphite, carbides and diamonds might have been the first potentially habitable worlds, suggests a new research.

"This work shows that even stars with a tiny fraction of the carbon in our solar system can host planets," said lead author and Harvard University student Natalie Mashian.

"We have good reason to believe that alien life will be carbon-based, like life on the Earth, so this also bodes well for the possibility of life in the early universe," she added.

The early universe consisted mostly of hydrogen and helium, and lacked chemical elements like carbon and oxygen necessary for life as we know it.

Only after the first stars exploded as supernovae and seeded the second generation did planet formation and life become possible.

The study, published recently in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, examined a particular class of old stars known as carbon-enhanced metal-poor stars (CEMP).

"These stars are fossils from the young universe," said Mashian's PhD thesis advisor Avi Loeb from Harvard-Smithsonian Centre for Astrophysics. 

"By studying them, we can look at how planets, and possibly life in the universe, got started," he added.

Although lacking in iron and other heavy elements compared to Sun, CEMP stars have more carbon than expected given their age. 

According to the researchers, a dedicated search for planets around CEMP stars would help in finding out "how early planets may have formed in the infant universe". 

"We'll never know if they exist unless we look," Mashian said.​

New York, June 8 (IANS) An international team of astronomers has discovered a “hot Jupiter” exoplanet that is so massive and close to its parent star that it influences the star's rotation with its gravity, media reported.

The planet, called HATS-18b, is about 2,100 light years away, Popular Mechanics reported on Tuesday.

Hot Jupiters are giant exoplanets that orbit close to their parent stars. Also known as roaster planets, they orbit their stars in a short time and can be easily observed in transit. 

The newly discovered exoplanet orbits its star in just 0.84 days, has a radius about 1.34 times that of Jupiter, and has twice the mass of the Jovian gas giant in our solar system, the report said.

The research team was led by Kaloyan Penev of Princeton University. 

"The high planet mass, combined with its short orbital period, implies strong tidal coupling between the planetary orbit and the star," said the researchers.

"In fact, given its inferred age, [the star] HATS-18 shows evidence of significant tidal spin up," the authors said.

The new findings were presented in a paper published online on arXiv.org.

“The HATS-18 system is among the best systems (and often the best system) for testing a multitude of star--planet interactions, be they gravitational, magnetic or radiative, as well as planet formation and migration theories,” the authors noted.​

​Sydney, June 11 (IANS) Regular exercise of any type in middle age - from walking the dog to mountain climbing -- is the best lifestyle change you can make to prevent memory loss in the later years, suggest results of a 20-year study.

"The message from our study is very simple. Do more physical activity, it doesn’t matter what, just move more and more often. It helps your heart, your body and prevents obesity and diabetes and now we know it can help your brain,” said study author Cassandra Szoeke, associate professor at the University of Melbourne in Australia.

"It could even be something as simple as going for a walk, we weren’t restrictive in our study about what type,” Szoeke noted.

For the study, the researchers followed 387 Australian women from the Women’s Healthy Ageing Project for two decades. 

The women were aged 45 to 55-years-old when the study began in 1992.

The research team made notes of their lifestyle factors, including exercise and diet.

They were also asked to learn a list of 10 unrelated words and attempt to recall them half an hour later, known as an Episodic Verbal Memory test.

When measuring the amount of memory loss over 20 years, frequent physical activity, normal blood pressure and high good cholesterol were all strongly associated with better recall of the words.

In the study more weekly exercise was associated with better memory.

The findings suggest that regular exercise could protect people from dementia typically characterised by memory impairment.

"We now know that brain changes associated with dementia take 20 to 30 years to develop,” Szoeke said in a University of Melbourne media release.

"The evolution of cognitive decline is slow and steady, so we needed to study people over a long time period. We used a verbal memory test because that’s one of the first things to decline when you develop Alzheimer’s Disease,” Szoeke explained.

The best effects came from cumulative exercise, that is, how much you do and how often over the course of your life, she said.​

New York, June 12 (IANS) Scientists have identified for the first time a tiny liver protein that when disrupted can lead to cardiovascular disease as well as fatty liver disease -- a precursor to cancer.

Lipoproteins (VLDL) are crucial for healthy liver function. Normal VLDL secretion must be kept in a delicate balance as too little VLDL secretion causes fatty liver and, potentially, liver cancer. 

Lipoproteins are also known to increase cholesterol levels, a risk factor for plaque buildup in the arteries. 

In a study, published recently in the Journal of Biological Chemistry, Shadab Siddiqi from University of Central Florida found a tiny protein -- called a Small Valosin-Containing Protein Interacting Protein (SVIP) -- that regulates how much VLDL is secreted into the blood. 

"SVIP in the liver must be regulated properly to ensure optimum health," Siddiqi said.

He equates the operation of the tiny protein to a manually operated car. "To run smoothly, the driver must synchronise the gas pedal and the clutch. If the two aren't synchronised, the car doesn't move easily; it has fits and starts and ultimately stalls," he said.

The study also suggests that high levels of myristic acid in the diet -- through animal and dairy fats -- keep SVIP from properly regulating the liver's secretion of VLDL.

"These findings suggest that our diet modulates the complex molecular processes that have profound effects on our health and lifespan," Siddiqi explained. 

"The challenge will be in creating a therapy that does not impact the liver's many other functions," he added.​

London, June 12 (IANS) An analysis of microscopic aquatic creatures called planktonic foraminifera, whose fossil remains now resemble miniaturised popcorn, has provided the first statistical evidence that the number of species that can exist on the Earth depends on how the environment changes.

"While the idea of infinite species on a finite Earth is clearly fanciful, the relevance of upper limits to diversity is still a fractious debate amongst evolutionary biologists, ecologists and palaeontologists," said study lead author Thomas Ezard from the University of Southampton.

"We are the first to show statistically that this upper limit is environmentally dependent. It's intuitive that a changing environment alters how many species we see -- the spatial gradient of more species in the tropics than at the poles is pervasive evidence for its large-scale impact," Ezard added.

While previous research typically focused individually on either biological, climate change or geological explanations, this new study -- published recently in the journal Ecology Letters -- examined the co-dependence of these factors on how species interact.

Looking at the fossil history of 210 evolutionary species of macroperforate planktonic foraminifera in the Cenozoic Era from 65 million years ago to the present, the researchers found that the number of species was almost certainly controlled by competition among themselves and probably kept within a finite upper limit.

"We used mathematical models to reveal how environmental changes influence both the rate of diversification among species and how many species can co-exist at once. Our results suggest that the world is full of species, but that the precise fullness varies through time as environmental changes alter the outcome of competition among species," Ezard said. ​

​New York, June 10 (IANS) While people might think that stopping to take photographs during their vacation could make it less pleasurable, a new study suggests that people who take photos of their experiences usually enjoy the events more than people who do not.

Conducted by a joint team of psychologists from the University of Southern California, Yale University and the University of Pennsylvania, the research is the first extensive investigation examining how taking photos affects people's enjoyment of their experiences.

"We show that, relative to not taking photos, photography can heighten enjoyment of positive experiences by increasing engagement," wrote study co-authors Kristin Diehl, Gal Zauberman and Alixandra Barasch in an article published recently in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 

The researchers outlined a series of nine experiments involving over 2,000 participants in the field and the lab designed to examine the effect of taking photographs of an experience on people's enjoyment of an activity.

In each experiment, individuals were asked to participate in an activity and were either instructed to take photos during the activity or not. 

Afterward, participants completed a survey designed to measure not only their enjoyment but their engagement in the experience. In almost every case, people who took photographs reported higher levels of enjoyment.

"One critical factor that has been shown to affect enjoyment is the extent to which people are engaged with the experience," the authors wrote. Photo-taking naturally draws people more into the experience, they found.

In one experiment, individuals were instructed to take a self-guided tour of a museum exhibit while wearing glasses that tracked their eye movements. 

The researchers found that those who took photos spent more time examining the artefacts in the exhibit than those who simply observed.

There were some conditions, though, where picture-taking did not have a positive effect, such as when the participant was already actively engaged in the experience. 

For example, in one experiment, individuals were asked either to participate in an arts and crafts project or to observe one. While taking photos increased the enjoyment of observers, it did not affect enjoyment of those actively taking part in the experience.

Another instance where photo-taking did not appear to increase enjoyment was when taking photos interfered with the experience itself, such as having to handle bulky and unwieldy camera equipment.​

​Beijing, June 11 (IANS) Beijing has recorded the highest ever number of requests for electric vehicle (EV) registration in a third round of applications that ended on June 8.

A total of 17,600 individual and company applicants submitted applications for EVs, about 5,000 more than the previous round, according to bjhjyd.gov.cn, which announces

​Toronto, June 11 (IANS) A Canadian researcher has created an app that uses a method that essentially "scrambles" one's thoughts and keeps the mind off issues that may prevent sleep.

"A racing mind, worries and uncontrollable thoughts are common bedtime complaints among poor sleepers," said Luc Beaudoin of Canada's Simon Fraser University, who has created the mySleepButton app that uses what Beaudoin calls a "cognitive shuffle," or Serial Diverse Imagining (SDI) method.

It was tested among 154 university students who complained of excessive cognitive pre-sleep arousal. The study employed SDI tasks, which occur at bedtime, and also used a standard treatment of structured problem solving (SP), which is done prior to bedtime and takes about 15 minutes. 

According to the study to be presented on June 14 at SLEEP 2016 -- a joint meeting of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine and the Sleep Research Society, in Denver, Colorado -- SDI was found to be effective in reducing pre-sleep arousal, sleep effort and poor sleep quality with the added advantage of being done while in bed.

However SDI is not without its challenges. "The human brain is a 'meaning maker' or a sense-making machine," said Beaudoin. 

"It is actually very difficult for people to conjure up random images unaided. However according to my theory, while it may be difficult to engage in SDI, it is not only a consequence of sleep onset; SDI facilitates it," he added.

Beaudoin has also invented a "do-it-yourself" version of SDI. The technique provides a sequence of letters that cue a series of relatively unrelated words, which could potentially be customised to individuals.

"My hope is that popular culture will absorb the notion that counting sheep is not effective, whereas SDI is," Beaudoin said.​

​New York, June 9 (IANS) In a major shake-up, technology giants Google and Apple have reportedly been testing a new revenue sharing model for developers that would give them more money when users subscribe to a service via their apps.

​London, June 8 (IANS) An experiment by the European Space Agency (ESA) has passed a series of crucial tests with flying colours -- paving the way for gravitational wave observatory scheduled for launch in 2034.

A crucial component of the experiment is a two-kg cube made up of a high-purity gold and platinum alloy, which is currently sailing through space almost completely free of any force other than gravity. 

The project has proved in principle that a formation of such cubes flown in space will be able to function as a space-based gravitational wave observatory, which will be able to detect signals from supermassive black hole collisions and other violent events that would be impossible to see on Earth. 

Details of the experiment -- Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) Pathfinder mission -- was recently published in the journal Physical Review Letters. 

The free-falling test mass, as the gold and platinum cube is known, is nestled inside the shell-like LISA Pathfinder spacecraft, and has been orbiting a location in space called Lagrangian Point 1 (L1) since February 2016. 

At L1, the gravitational pull of the Earth and Sun are such that objects near the point execute orbits around L1 in much the same way that a satellite orbits the Earth.

The LISA Pathfinder mission is a crucial test of systems that will be incorporated in three spacecraft that will comprise the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) gravitational wave observatory scheduled to commence in 2034. 

Each LISA spacecraft will contain two test masses like the one currently in the LISA Pathfinder spacecraft. The LISA Pathfinder mission's extraordinary success is a crucial step on the way to launching the LISA observatory.​