Knowledge Update

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

Comb jellies were the earliest animals: Study

New York, April 11 (IANS) The delicate marine predators called comb jellies were the earliest animals -- not sponges as had long been thought, claims a new genetic analysis.

One of the longest-running controversies in evolutionary biology has been: 'What was the oldest branch of the animal family tree? Was it the sponges or was it the comb jellies?'

The new study, published in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution, suggests that comb jellies were the first branch of the animal family tree.

With their analysis involving hundreds to thousands of genes, the researchers determined that comb jellies have considerably more genes which support their "first to diverge" status in the animal lineage than do sponges.

The researchers believe that the findings could have a major impact on scientists' thinking about how the nervous system, digestive tract and other basic organs in modern animals evolved.

For nearly a century, scientists organised the animal family tree based in large part on their judgement of the relative complexity of various organisms.

Because of their comparative simplicity, sponges were considered to be the earliest members of the animal lineage.

This paradigm began to shift when the revolution in genomics began providing vast quantities of information about the DNA of an increasing number of species.

Evolutionary biologists started to apply this wealth of information to refine and redefine evolutionary relationships, creating a new field called phylogenomics.

In most cases, the DNA data helped clarify these relationships. In a number of instances, however, it gave rise to controversies that intensified as more and more data accumulated.

The researchers decided to focus on 18 of these controversial relationships (seven from animals, five from plants and six from fungi) in an attempt to figure out why the studies have produced such strongly contradictory results.

To do so, they got down into the weeds, genetically speaking, and began comparing the individual genes of the leading contenders in each relationship.

"In these analyses, we only use genes that are shared across all organisms," said one of the researchers Antonis Rokas, Professor at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, US.

"The trick is to examine the gene sequences from different organisms to figure out who they identify as their closest relatives. When you look at a particular gene in an organism, let's call it A, we ask if it is most closely related to its counterpart in organism B? Or to its counterpart in organism C? And by how much," Rokas added.

Their analysis showed that comb jellies have considerably more genes which support their "first to diverge" status in the animal lineage than do sponges.

Super User From Different Corners

Your kid may be noticing things that you miss

New York, April 11 (IANS) Although children are thought of being deficient in many skills when compared to adults, a new study has shown that this limitation in kids can actually be their strength as they can see what adults tend to miss.

"We often think of children as deficient in many skills when compared to adults. But some times what seems like a deficiency can actually be an advantage," said Vladimir Sloutsky, Professor at the Ohio State University in the US.

The findings revealed that while adults are very good at remembering information they are told to focus on, they tend to ignore the rest.

Conversely, 4- to 5-year-olds tend to pay attention to all the information that was presented to them -- even when they were told to focus on one particular item.

Thus, children noticed things that adults did not catch because of the grownups' selective attention.

Children are extremely curious and they tend to explore everything, which means their attention is spread out and they end up noticing and remembering more than the adults, Sloutsky noted, in the paper published in the journal Psychological Science.

However, the ability of adults to focus their attention helps them to sit in two-hour meetings and maintain long conversations, while ignoring distractions.

"But young children's use of distributed attention allows them to learn more in new and unfamiliar settings by taking in a lot of information," Sloutsky explained.

The fact that children don't always do as well at focusing attention also shows the importance of designing the right learning environment in classrooms.

"Children can't handle a lot of distractions. They are always taking in information, even if it is not what you're trying to teach them. We need to make sure that we are aware of that and design our classrooms, textbooks and educational materials to help students succeed," Sloutsky said.

Super User From Different Corners

Acquire life skills for good health in old age

London, April 11 (IANS) People with higher scores on life skills -- such as emotional stability, determination, control, optimism and conscientiousness -- are more likely to experience a broad range of health benefits and positive social outcomes in their old age, a study suggests.

The findings showed that people who have more life skills enjoy a range of benefits, including greater financial stability, less depression, low social isolation, better health and fewer chronic diseases.

"No single attribute was more important than others. Rather, the effects depended on the accumulation of life skills," said Andrew Steptoe, Professor at the University College London.

In the study, published in the journal PNAS, the academics looked at the impact of these attributes in over 8,000 men and women aged 52 and older.

People with more life skills benefitted from favourable objective biomarkers in the blood, including lower levels of cholesterol and of C-reactive protein -- a marker of inflammation relevant to a number of different diseases.

They had smaller waistlines, where fat accumulation is particularly relevant to metabolic and cardiovascular diseases, than people with a few life skills.

People with more skills also walked significantly faster than those with fewer -- walking speed is an objective measure predicting future mortality in older population samples, the researchers said.

"We were surprised by the range of processes -- economic, social, psychological, biological, and health and disability related -- that seem to be related to these life skills. Our research suggests that fostering and maintaining these skills in adult life may be relevant to health and well-being at older ages," Steptoe said.