Knowledge Update

Toronto, April 21 (IANS) While planning a visual task, your brain initially reflects the visual goal accurately but errors accumulate during a memory delay and further escalate during the final action, say scientists from York University.

“Think of all the times you see something and plan to act on it but after only a short delay, you make a mistake," said professor Doug Crawford. 

“For example, before my morning coffee kicks in, I'm great at making silly mistakes like putting the honey away in the fridge instead of the peanut butter,” he added.

For the study, led by Amirsaman Sajad in Crawford's visuomotor neuroscience lab, researchers recorded signals in the frontal cortex area of the brain during the delay between target-related visual activity and intended gaze-related motor activity. 

The visual response and memory activity for the time in between was then analysed.

“We looked at what happens from vision to memory to action and how the spatial code changes through time in the frontal cortex,” said Sajad.

“In the Olympics tennis analogy, when a high degree of accuracy is required, a one-second delay in frontal cortex processing could make the difference between an Olympic gold and silver,” Crawford noted.

The findings, published in the journal eNeuro, are of particular significance to research in diseases affecting frontal cortex function “because if errors accumulate in healthy individuals, the accumulations would be much worse with diseases that affect frontal cortex function,” the authors noted.​

Sydney, April 21 (IANS) Do you feel sleepy during daytime at work? Blame it on your love for oily samosas and cheese-laden pizzas -- not to forget a poor night's sleep -- for this.

According to a study, men who consume diets high in fat and sleep less during night time are more likely to feel sleepy during the day.

"After adjusting for other demographic and lifestyle factors and chronic diseases, we found that those who consumed the highest fat intake were more likely to experience excessive daytime sleepiness," said lead author Yingting Cao, doctoral student at University of Adelaide in Australia.

Higher consumption of food items rich in fat was also strongly associated with sleep apnea, a sleep disorder.

"Poor sleep and feeling sleepy during the day means you have less energy, but this, in turn, is known to increase people's cravings for high-fat, high-carbohydrate foods associated with poor sleep outcomes. So the poor diet-and-sleep pattern can become a vicious cycle," Cao explained in the paper published in the journal Nutrients.

Daytime sleepiness may have significant implications for alertness and concentration, the researchers warned, adding that people need to pay more attention to eat better and have a good sleep.

"We hope our work could help to inform future intervention studies, enabling people to achieve healthy weight loss while also improving their quality of sleep," Cao added.

The results were based on data of more than 1800 Australian men aged 35-80 and included their dietary habits over a 12-month period.

Among those with available dietary and sleep data, 41 percent of the men surveyed had reported experiencing daytime sleepiness, while 47 percent of them had poor sleep quality at night.

About 54 percent had mild-to-moderate sleep apnea, and 25 percent had moderate-to-severe sleep apnea.​

​Washington, April 21 (IANS) The International Space Station (ISS) is providing researchers a unique opportunity to study muscle loss and to investigate means for muscle preservation for people on the Earth.

"Rodent Research-3", a study sponsored by US-based pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly and Company and the Centre for the Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS), focuses on assessing the ability of a novel compound to prevent skeletal muscle wasting and weakness in mice exposed to long-duration spaceflight.

The investigation was launched aboard the eighth SpaceX resupply mission to the space station this month.

The astronauts on the space station follow rigorous exercise programmes that apply forces to their musculoskeletal systems and help them stay strong throughout their missions.

Mice exposed to spaceflight have proved to be valuable research models to understand, target and treat causes of human muscle atrophy.

"This includes modelling serious diseases that involve muscle wasting such as muscular dystrophy, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, cancer cachexia and even ageing-related musculoskeletal frailty," said Rosamund Smith, research fellow at Eli Lilly and Company.

The ability to expose all muscles of an organism to conditions that induce muscle atrophy is not easily achieved on Earth.

"Lilly is excited to have the opportunity to conduct this investigation in space," Smith added in a NASA statement.

Loss of muscle function, rather than just a decrease in muscle size, is the critical aspect that leads to problems with physical performance in patients suffering from muscle-wasting conditions.

"The 'Rodent Research-3' study is unique not only in the experimental compound that will be tested but also because, for the first time, muscle function of the mice will be assessed during spaceflight," noted Janet Beegle, Rodent Research-3 project manager at NASA.

Although the primary research focus of "Rodent Research-3" is skeletal muscle, the investigators are studying other organ systems such as bone, both at the tissue and molecular levels.

The goal is to characterise tissue responses to spaceflight and observe how these changes vary with the length of time spent in microgravity.

"The findings will advance our understanding of the risks that long-term space exploration poses to astronauts, and can be applied towards the development of countermeasures to protect astronaut health," the researchers pointed out.

Results will be applied to ongoing discovery efforts at Eli Lilly and Company, seeking treatments for serious muscle-wasting diseases and conditions that may potentially help patients afflicted with degenerative diseases to stay strong.​

Washington, April 20 (IANS) Three solar observatories have captured the most comprehensive observations of an electromagnetic phenomenon called a "current sheet", strengthening the evidence that the understanding of solar flares is correct.

A "current sheet" is a very fast and flat flow of electrically-charged material, defined in part by its extreme thinness compared to its length and width.

"Current sheets" form when two oppositely-aligned magnetic fields come in close contact, creating very high magnetic pressure.

The multi-faceted view of the December 2013 flare was made possible by three solar-watching missions: NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO), NASA's Solar and Terrestrial Relations Observatory (STEREO) and Hinode, a collaboration between the space agencies of Japan, the US, Britain and Europe.

Solar flares are intense bursts of light from the sun. They are created when complicated magnetic fields suddenly and explosively rearrange themselves, converting magnetic energy into light.

"The existence of a 'current sheet' is crucial in all our models of solar flares," said James McAteer, astrophysicist at New Mexico State University.

"These observations make us much more comfortable that our models are good," he added.

The strongest solar flares can impact the Earth's atmosphere and interfere with our communications systems and also disrupt onboard satellite electronics.

Unlike other space weather events, solar flares travel at the speed of light, meaning we get no warning that they are coming.

Better models lead to better forecasting, said Michael Kirk, space scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

"These complementary observations allowed unprecedented measurements of magnetic reconnection in three dimensions. This will help refine how we model and predict the evolution of solar flares," Kirk added.

Because "current sheets" are so closely associated with magnetic reconnection, observing a "current sheet" in such detail backs up the idea that magnetic reconnection is the force behind solar flares.

"You have to be watching at the right time, at the right angle, with the right instruments to see a current sheet," said McAteer in the study published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters.

The new study is unique in that several measurements of the current sheet -- such as speed, temperature, density and size -- were observed from more than one angle or derived from more than method.​

​London, April 20 (IANS) As the world gets prepared to build smart cities, new research led by an Indian-origin scientist has highlighted the dangerous effects of indoor pollution on human health and has called for policies to ensure closer monitoring of air quality.

According to Prashant Kumar from the University of Surrey, the research offers insight into "Sick Building Syndrome" and how new smart cities could help combat air quality issues.

When we think of the term "air pollution", we tend to think of car exhausts or factory fumes expelling grey smoke.

"However, there are actually various sources of pollution that have a negative effect on air quality, many of which are found inside our homes and offices. From cooking residue to paints, varnishes and fungal spores the air we breathe indoors is often more polluted than that outside," explained Kumar.

In 2012, indoor air pollution was linked to 4.3 million deaths globally, compared with 3.7 million for outdoor air pollution.

Urban dwellers typically spend 90 percent of their time indoors and this has been linked to "Sick Building Syndrome" where people exhibit a range of ill-health effects related to breathing indoor air.

"It is essential that we are able to effectively monitor indoor air pollution so that we can better understand when and where levels are worst, and in turn offer solutions to make our air healthier," added Kumar in the journal Science of the Total Environment.

"Our work looks at the use of small, low-energy monitoring sensors that would be able to gather real-time data and tell families or workers when levels of pollutants are too high," he continued.

With this research, we are calling for greater importance to be placed on ensuring buildings are built with indoor pollution monitoring in mind. As we enter the age of smart cities this is one way in which technology will actively benefit health, the authors noted.

A collaborative effort of European, Australian and British researchers led by the University of Surrey, the study assesses the harmful effects of indoor pollution in order to make recommendations on how best to monitor and negate these outcomes.

In another paper published earlier in the journal Environmental Pollution, Kumar and PhD student Anju Goel also found that outdoor air pollution was at a high where buildings were located at traffic intersections.

Even where there was low traffic volume, traffic intersections with densely built up surroundings showed twice the concentration than at open junctions.

Exposure to these concentrations showed that ground floor dwellings in these areas were exposed to twice as many harmful particles.

"This has important implications for town planning and we should consider whether we really want schools, offices or hospitals to be built within these environments," Kumar noted.​

​New York, April 20 (IANS) Using the low-tech material coal, engineers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have built a simple electrical heating device that can be used for defrosting car windows or airplane wings or as part of a biomedical implant.

They have also for the first time characterised in detail the chemical, electrical and optical properties of thin films of four different kinds of coal - anthracite, lignite, and two bituminous types. 

“When you look at coal as a material and not just as something to burn, the chemistry is extremely rich," said lead researcher Jeffrey Grossman from the Department of Materials Science and Engineering (DMSE) at MIT. 

The question he wanted to ask is: "Could we leverage the wealth of chemistry in things like coal to make devices that have useful functionality?" 

The answer, he says, is a resounding yes.

Part of the challenge was to figure out how to process coal.

The researchers developed a series of steps to crush the material to a powder put it in solution then deposit it in thin uniform films on a substrate -- a necessary step in fabricating many electronic devices - from transistors to photovoltaics.

Even though coal has been one of the most widely used substances by human beings for centuries, its bulk electronic and optical properties had never really been studied for the purpose of advanced devices.

The simple heating device the team made provides an end-to-end demonstration of how to use the material - from grinding the coal to depositing it as a thin film and making it into a functional electronic device. 

The doors are now opened for a wide variety of potential applications through further research.

The big potential advantage of the new material, Grossman says, is its low cost stemming from the inherently cheap base material, combined with simple solution processing that enables low fabrication costs. 

The findings were reported in the journal Nano Letters.​

​London, April 20 (IANS) Savouring positive memories and images is likely to generate positive emotions in the human mind and can prove to be effective in treating individuals with anxiety or depression, reveals a new research.

A team of researchers from University of Liverpool investigated individuals' emotional reactions using a social technique called social broad-minded affective coping (BMAC) technique -- an intervention that aims to elicit positive affect or emotion through the use of mental imagery of a positive memory. 

"The findings suggest that the BMAC has the potential to be a practical and effective method for boosting mood amongst individuals with specific mental health problems such as anxiety or depression," said lead researcher Peter Taylor from University of Liverpool in Britain.

The findings showed that following the social BMAC, the participants showed an increase in feelings of social safeness, warm positive affect and relaxed positive affect, whilst the negativity decreased.

The results, which provide preliminary support for the effectiveness of the social BMAC in activating specific types of emotion, have been detailed in the journal Psychology and Psychotherapy: Theory, Research and Practice.

As part of the study 123 participants, recruited online, completed self-report measures of self-attacking (thinking mean, diminishing, insulting, and shaming thoughts about oneself), social safeness (feelings of warmth and connectedness) and pleasure.

The participants were encouraged to engage all the senses, think about the meaning of the memory to them, savour the positive feelings they experienced, and consider the positive feelings in the mind of another before reflecting upon the feelings they experience as well as what this means to them. 

Participants completed state measures of positive and negative affect and social safeness/pleasure before and after the intervention.​

​New York, April 20 (IANS) Using the Oculus Rift virtual reality (VR) headset, a eam of researchers has discovered that a simple technique borrowed from ophthalmology dating back to the Victorian Age can improve user performance in VR environments.

London, April 20 (IANS) Human limbs share a genetic programme with the respiratory organs of fishes such as sharks and skates, reveals a new research, providing evidence to support a century-old, widely discounted theory on the origin of limbs.

German anatomist Karl Gegenbaur, in 1878, first proposed the theory that human limbs were evolved from gills -- respiratory organs of sharks and skates. 

These fishes have a series of skin flaps -- that protect their gills -- and are supported by arches of cartilage -- a connective tissue found joints between bones -- with finger-like appendages called branchial rays attached to them.Investigation into the embryos of the little skates -- cartilaginous fishes -- revealed striking similarities between the genetic mechanisms used in the development of its gill arches and those in human limbs.

The researchers found 'sonic hedgehog' -- a critical gene in limb development -- performing the same two functions in the development of gill arches and branchial rays in skate embryos as it does in the development of limbs in mammal embryos.In mammal embryos, the Sonic hedgehog gene sets up the axis of the limb in the early stages of development. 

In human limb development, it dictates the identity of each finger and maintains the growth of the limb skeleton.In the later stages of development, Sonic hedgehog maintains outgrowth so that the limb grows to its full size."In a hand, for instance, Sonic hedgehog tells the limb which side will be the thumb and which side will be the pinky finger," said Andrew Gillis from the University of Cambridge in Britain. 

The study, detailed in the journal Development, provides greater understanding of the origin of jawed vertebrates -- the group of animals that includes humans.

"Gegenbaur looked at the way that these branchial rays connect to the gill arches and noticed that it looks very similar to the way that the fin and limb skeleton articulates with the shoulder," Gillis explained.​

Washington, April 20 (IANS) March was the 11th consecutive month a monthly global temperature record was broken, the longest such streak since record-keeping began in 1880, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has said.

"At the risk of sounding like a broken record, March set another heat record for the globe," Xinhua quoted the NOAA as saying in a statement on Tuesday.

"As Earth continues to warm and is influenced by phenomena such as El Nino, global temperature records are piling up."

For March, the average temperature across global land and ocean surfaces was 1.22 degrees Celsius above the 20th century average of 12.7 degrees Celsius, according to the NOAA monthly report.

This was not only the highest for the month of March in the 1880-2016 record, but also the highest monthly temperature departure among all months on record, surpassing the previous all-time record set last month by 0.01 degrees Celsius.

Most of the Earth's land surfaces were warmer or much warmer than average in March, said the report, with record warmth notable across eastern Brazil, most of eastern and central Africa, much of southeastern Asia, and large portions of northern and eastern Australia.

Most of northwestern Canada and Alaska, along with vast regions of northern and western Asia, observed temperatures at least three degrees Celsius above their 1981-2010 average.

The weather phenomenon called El Nino continued to weaken in the central and eastern Pacific Ocean during March, but the month globally averaged sea surface temperature remained 0.81 degrees Celsius above the 20th century monthly average, also a record high.

In total, "the six highest monthly global ocean temperature departures have all occurred in the past six months," the report said.

For the first three months in 2016, the average temperature for the globe was 1.50 degrees Celsius above the 20th-century average.

This was also the highest temperature for this period in the 1880-2016 record, surpassing the previous record set in 2015 by 0.28 degrees Celsius.​