Knowledge Update

New York, March 4 (IANS) US tech giant Google will release a new Pixel smartphone later this year. The device, with the built-in personal Google Assistant, will directly competes with the Apple iPhone 7 and 7 Plus. "The device will remain 'premium' in its next iteration and the company is not interested in offering a low-cost version, preferring instead to let that segment be addressed by its external hardware partners," techcrunch.com quoted Rick Osterloh, Google SVP of Hardware as saying. Launched last year, Pixel is the first smartphone that works as an intelligent personal assistant and knowledge navigator. The 5-inch smartphone is equipped with Qualcomm Snapdragon 821 chipset, 4GB of RAM and runs on Android Nougat 7.0 operating system. The device also has Pixel Imprint -- a fingerprint scanner on the back of the smartphone for quick access to all apps, texts and e-mails.

​Lhasa, March 4 (IANS) The Mount Everest base camp received more than 113,000 tourists last year, with a year-on-year increase of 91 per cent, the local tourist administration said on Saturday.

Among them were more than 5,100 foreign visitors, Xinhua news agency reported.

The Tingri county government has been making efforts to offer a better travel experience to visitors in recent years. 

The government has repaired roads from the county to the base camp and ensured the power supply for the camp.

The base camp, which sits at an altitude of 5,200 metres, is suitable for year-round travel.

London, March 4 (IANS) Eating foods rich in omega-3 fatty acids could significantly reduce damage caused by air pollution, suggests new research.

Omega-3 fatty acids (OFAs), found in a variety of foods including in oily fish, soy beans and spinach, could reduce inflammation and oxidative stress caused by air pollution by up to half, according to the study conducted in mice.

However, the research also shows air pollution particles can penetrate through the lungs of lab animals into many major organs, including the brain and testicles. This raises the possibility that the health damage caused by toxic air is even greater than currently known, The Guardian reported on Friday.

"I would definitely recommend taking OFAs to counter air pollution problems," lead researcher Jing Kang, at Massachusetts General Hospital, part of Harvard Medical School in the US, was quoted as saying.

"OFAs are well known to have many other healthy benefits and the key thing is they are not like a drug, but a nutrient with so many benefits," Kang said.

Two to four grammes per day would be the equivalent dose in humans to that given to the mice, Kang said.

The research suggests that omega-3 fatty acids could provide an immediate, practical solution for reducing the disease burden of air pollution.

London, March 4 (IANS) Researchers have discovered a new way of developing painkillers that act only on inflamed tissues, while keeping healthy ones unaffected, suggesting that the severe side effects currently associated with these medicines might be avoided.

When used in an animal model, their prototype of a morphine-like molecule was able to produce substantial pain relief in inflamed tissues without severe side effects, according to a study published in the journal Science.

The team of researchers used computational simulation to analyse interactions at opioid receptors -- the cell's docking sites for painkillers. 

"By analysing drug-opioid receptor interactions in damaged tissues, as opposed to healthy tissues, we were hoping to provide useful information for the design of new painkillers without harmful side effects," said Christoph Stein from Charite - Universitatsmedizin Berlin in Germany.

Opioids are a class of strong pain killers and are mainly used to treat pain associated with tissue damage and inflammation, such as that caused by surgery, nerve damage, arthritis or cancer. 

Common side effects associated with their use include drowsiness, nausea, constipation and dependency and, in some cases, respiratory arrest. 

In this study, the the researchers showed that they were able to analyse morphine-like molecules and their interactions with opioid receptors. 

They were able to successfully identify a new mechanism of action, which is capable of producing pain relief only in the desired target tissues -- those affected by inflammation.

The new findings could lead to treating postoperative and chronic inflammatory pain without causing side effects. 

Doing so would substantially improve patient quality of life.

​Moscow, March 3 (IANS) Last year saw a near-threefold rise in mobile malware detections as compared to 2015, with 8.5 million malicious installations being identified and advertising Trojans leading the way, a new report said on Friday.

​New Delhi, March 3 (IANS) At a time when cyber attacks are on the rise, nearly three quarters of global organisations (73 per cent) cannot identify these and protect their corporate assets and processes, a new report said on Friday.

​Taipei, March 3 (IANS) Taiwan is seeking a Free Trade Agreement (FTA)-like bilateral agreement with India to boost trade and investments even as its companies are looking to relocate some of their manufacturing facilities from mainland China to India and Southeast Asia.

Yangon, March 3 (IANS) Myanmar has formed a high-level committee and task force to restart the Dawei Special Economic Zone (SEZ) in Tanintharyi region which was once suspended for years, the media reported on Friday.

​New York, March 3 (IANS) To stream tournaments and other e-sports events live, Twitter has announced its partnership with ESL and Dreamhack -- two of the biggest organisations in the pro-gaming world.

​New York, March 3 (IANS) US tech giant Microsoft will start shipping the "Mixed Reality" headset later this month in a bid to make Wndows 10 the most complete platform across the broadest range of devices. Mixed Reality (MR) is a combination of virtual and augmented reality to produce new environments and visualisations where physical and digital objects co-exist and interact in real time. "When we begin the phased rollout of the developer kits this month, the kits will include the Acer headset, along with documentation and access to Windows 10 Insider preview builds and the software development kit (SDK) to enable developers to build mixed reality applications," said Alex Kipman, Technical Fellow, Microsoft. Acer Windows Mixed Reality Development Edition headset include two high-resolution liquid crystal displays at 1440 x 1440 resolution, display refresh rate up to 90 Hz (native), built-in audio out and microphone support through 3.5mm jack, single cable with HDMI 2.0 (display) and USB 3.0 (data) for connectivity. Microsoft plans to bring mixed reality content to the Xbox One family of devices, including Project Scorpio, in 2018. To empower even more developers to create in mixed reality, we gave a "golden ticket" to game developers who attended our Windows Mixed Reality session at Game Developers Conference, and those developers will receive the Acer developer edition headset in the coming months, added Kipman.