Introduction & Purpose
Knowledge update and Industry update at Skyline University College (SUC) is an online platform for communicating knowledge with SUC stakeholders, industry, and the outside world about the current trends of business development, technology, and social changes. The platform helps in branding SUC as a leading institution of updated knowledge base and in encouraging faculties, students, and others to create and contribute under different streams of domain and application. The platform also acts as a catalyst for learning and sharing knowledge in various areas.
Super User
From Different Corners
New York, April 6 (IANS) If early Mars was as barren and cold as it is today then the bombardment of the Red Planet some four billion years ago by comets and asteroids may have made its climate more conducive to life, according to a study.
The impacts would have produced regional hydrothermal systems on Mars similar to those in Yellowstone National Park, which today harbour chemically powered microbes, some of which can survive boiling in hot springs or inhabiting water acidic enough to dissolve iron nails, said study co-author Stephen Mojzsis from the University of Colorado at Boulder.
Scientists have long known there was once running water on Mars, as evidenced by ancient river valleys, deltas and parts of lake beds, Mojzsis added.
In addition to producing hydrothermal regions in portions of Mars' fractured and melted crust, a massive impact could have temporarily increased the planet's atmospheric pressure, periodically heating Mars up enough to "re-start" a dormant water cycle.
Published recently in the journal Earth and Planetary Science Letters, the study took into consideration temperatures beneath millions of individual craters on Mars.
The researchers used computer simulations to assess heating and cooling, as well as the effects of impacts on the planet from different angles and velocities.
They found the heating of ancient Mars caused by individual asteroid collisions would likely have lasted only a few million years before the Red Planet -- about one and one-half times the distance to the sun than Earth -- defaulted to today's cold and inhospitable conditions.
"None of the models we ran could keep Mars consistently warm over long periods," Mojzsis said.
While Mars is believed to have spent most of its history in a cold state, Earth was likely habitable over almost its entire existence.
"What really saved the day for Earth was its oceans," Mojzsis said. "In order to wipe out life here, the oceans would have had to have been boiled away. Those extreme conditions in that time period are beyond the realm of scientific possibility," he added.
Mojzsis said the next step would be to model similar bombardment on Mercury as well as Venus to better understand the evolution of the inner solar system and apply that knowledge to studies of planets around other stars.
Super User
Lifestyle and Trends
London, April 5 (IANS) Daily consumption of walnuts can help in healthy ageing, while also improving the blood cholesterol levels and maintaining good gut health, finds a new study.
The findings showed that intake of walnuts, especially by the elderly, can boost the good fats and other nutrients as well as lower obesity and blood cholesterol levels.
Initially found to increase body weight, the study's preliminary results demonstrated that daily consumption of walnuts for one year by a sizable cohort of older adults had no adverse effects on their body weight.
"Given that walnuts are a high-energy food, a prevailing concern has been that their long-term consumption might be associated with weight gain," said Emilio Ros, director of the Lipid Clinic, Endocrinology and Nutrition Service at the Hospital Clinic of Barcelona, Spain.
For the study, the team instructed 707 healthy older adults to add daily doses of walnuts (approximately 15 percent of caloric intake) to their typical diet or to consume their usual diet without nuts.
The participants were not given advice on total calorie and macronutrient intake or food substitution for walnuts.
After a year, both groups showed similar results for weight gain, triglycerides and HDL (or 'good') cholesterol, but those eating walnuts experienced significant LDL (or 'bad') cholesterol reductions.
"We will further assess how walnut consumption may affect, among other outcomes, cognitive decline and age-related macular degeneration, conditions that were major public health concerns," Ros added.
The findings from the Walnuts and Healthy Aging (WAHA) study were presented at the ongoing Experimental Biology 2016 in San Deigo, US.
Super User
From Different Corners
London, April 6 (IANS) The death of a spouse is linked to increased risk of developing an irregular heartbeat up to a year after the bereavement, says a study adding that the risk is prevalent among those below 60.
The condition known as atrial fibrillation -- itself a risk factor for stroke and heart failure -- can also flare up in cases when the loss was least expected.
According to Danish researchers, acute stress may directly disrupt normal heart rhythms and prompt the production of chemicals involved in inflammation.
"The elevated risk was especially high for those who were young and those who lost a relatively healthy partner," said Simon Graff of Aarhus University in Denmark.
The team collected information on 88,612 people newly diagnosed with atrial fibrillation and 886,120 healthy people.
They looked at several factors that might influence atrial fibrillation risk which included time since the bereavement, age and sex, heart disease and diabetes, the health of the partner a month before death, and whether they were single.
The results, published in the online journal Open Heart, indicated that the risk of developing an irregular heartbeat was 41 percent higher among those who had been bereaved than it was among those who had not experienced such a loss.
The risk seemed to be greater during eight to 14 days following a death, after which it gradually subsided until after a year the risk was similar to that of someone who had not been bereaved.
The highest risk was seen among people under the age of 60: they were more than twice as likely to develop atrial fibrillation if they had been bereaved and the risk also seemed to be greater where the partner's death had been unexpected.
Those whose partners were relatively healthy in the month before death were 57 percent more likely to develop atrial fibrillation.
"In addition, patients with atrial fibrillation often claim that emotional stress is a common triggering factor and increasing levels of perceived stress are associated with prevalent atrial fibrillation," the researchers explained.
SUC Editing Team
Information Systems
New Delhi, April 6 (IANS) Data security company WinMagic on Wednesday introduced a security software that encrypts virtual machines running on Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) platforms in India.
Super User
Retail and Marketing
Tokyo, April 4 (IANS) A Japanese ice cream company has apologised to consumers for hiking the price of its popsicles for the first time in 25 years.
The public apology was made through an online video, in which the company's president Hideki Inoue and employees bow to viewers in an expression of remorse.
The clip, posted on YouTube and played on national television, has now gone viral, with over 700,000 views as of Monday, EFE news reported.
The company, Akagi Nyugyo, made the video after raising the price of its iconic Gari Gari Kun popsicles from ten yen to 70 yen after maintaining the same price for a quarter of a century.
The company explained the price increase of the product, which has been wildly popular since it went on sale in 1981, due to higher production and packaging costs.
Gari Gari, a name that in Japanese resembles the crunchy sound made from chewing ice, is beloved in Japan due both to its availability at most convenience shops and also its unique flavours alongside the traditional soda and fruit tastes, including potato stew, neapolitan spaghetti and corn potage.
SUC Editing Team
Information Systems
New York, April 4 (IANS) In a first, a team of US researchers used 3D printing technique to create a handheld sponge-like structure that could help in mitigating pollution.
Led by chemistry professor Matthew Hartings from American University, the researchers demonstrated how to use commercial 3D printers to create a structure with active
SUC Editing Team
International Business
Tokyo, April 4 (IANS/WAM) Kuwait's crude oil exports to Japan jumped 12.2 percent in February from a year earlier to 8.13 million barrels, or 280,000 barrels per day (bpd) -- up for the second month in a row, government data showed.
Super User
From Different Corners
New York, April 4 (IANS) A single dose of oxytocin nasal spray, known to cut food intake, can lower impulsive behaviour in overweight and obese men, say researchers.
Oxytocin nasal spray is a synthetic version of the hormone oxytocin which is important for controlling food intake and weight.
"Our preliminary results in men are promising. Oxytocin nasal spray showed no strong side effects and is not as invasive as obesity surgery," said Franziska Plessow, an instructor in medicine at Harvard Medical School.
Results of their new pilot study in 10 overweight and obese men suggest that one way oxytocin lowers food intake might be by improving self-control.
"Knowing the mechanisms of action of intranasal oxytocin is important to investigating oxytocin as a novel treatment strategy for obesity," Plessow added.
Participants took a psychology research test on two occasions 15 minutes after they self-administered a dose of nasal spray in each nostril.
In a randomly assigned order, one day they received oxytocin and another they received a placebo or dummy drug.
After receiving oxytocin, participants were acting less impulsively and exerting more control over their behaviour after receiving oxytocin.
More study is necessary to determine how oxytocin alters self-control and how important this mechanism is in regulating food intake since not all overeating relates to poor self-control.
The information may allow scientists to move forward to large clinical trials, identify who can benefit from the drug, and help optimise the treatment. They also will need to test the drug in women.
The preliminary study was presented at the Endocrine Society's 98th annual meeting in Boston last weekend.
Super User
From Different Corners
New York, April 4 (IANS) A person's age and gender can affect the prevalence of certain types of peripheral vascular diseases (PVD), which can lead to heart attack, stroke and even amputation of the limbs.
PVD is a circulation disorder that affects blood vessels outside of the heart and brain, particularly the veins and arteries that supply blood to the arms and legs.
The results revealed that women, especially younger women, have a significantly higher prevalence of peripheral artery disease than men.
"These findings point to very important differences between women and men, and older and younger individuals, when it comes to PVD," said one of the researchers, Jeffrey S. Berger, associate professor at NYU Langone Medical Centre in New York, US.
"Sex-specific guidelines for PVD are important, and we are starting to realise that women and men need to be approached differently," Berger added.
In addition, diabetes was found to be a major risk factor for developing PVD, even in patients without heart disease.
The team used data collected from more than 3.6 million individuals and found that people with both diabetes and coronary heart disease the risk of developing PVD increases.
However, the researchers cautioned that the findings might not represent PVD prevalence in all men and women, or disease risk in people with diabetes.
The findings were presented at the American College of Cardiology's 65th Annual Scientific Session in Chicago, US.
Super User
From Different Corners
New York, April 5 (IANS) El Nino - the climate cycle that develops along the tropical west coast of South America every three to seven years - can have huge impact on the marine food chain with rippling effect on fisheries and the livelihoods of fishermen, says a new NASA study.
El Nino's mass of warm water puts a lid on the normal currents of cold, deep water that typically rise to the surface along the Equator and off the coast of Chile and Peru, said Stephanie Uz, from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Centre in Greenbelt, Maryland.
In a process called upwelling, those cold waters normally bring up the nutrients that feed the tiny organisms, which form the base of the food chain.
These tiny plants, called phytoplankton, are fish food -- without them, fish populations drop, and the fishing industries that many coastal regions depend on can collapse.
"An El Nino basically stops the normal upwelling," Uz said, adding that "there's a lot of starvation that happens to the marine food web".
Uz's team used NASA satellite data and ocean colour software called SeaDAS to find out El Nino's impact on phytoplankton.
From shades of blue and green, scientists calculated the amount of green chlorophyll -- and therefore the amount of phytoplankton present.
They found that in December 2015, at the peak of the current El Nino event, there was more blue -- and less green chlorophyll -- in the Pacific Ocean off of Peru and Chile, compared to the previous year.
After analysing data from the large 1997-1998 El Nino event, the researchers said the green chlorophyll virtually disappeared from the coast of Chile.
In 1997-1998, the biggest ocean temperature abnormalities were in the eastern Pacific Ocean. But this year's event caused a drop in chlorophyll primarily along the equator, the study said.
"We know how important phytoplankton are for the marine food web, and we're trying to understand their role as a carbon pump," Uz said.
Other scientists at Goddard are investigating ways to forecast the ebbs and flows of nutrients using the centre's supercomputers, incorporating data like winds, sea surface temperatures, air pressures and more.