Knowledge Update

​London, May 27 (IANS) Have you ever wondered why any talk of giving money to the unemployed often triggers a political storm whereas increase in healthcare costs often earn laurels? The answer, say researchers, can be found deep in our psychology, where powerful intuitions lead us to view illness as the result of bad luck and worthy of help.

People intuitively believe that those who fall ill are unlucky, while unemployed people have brought it on themselves, the study found.

Using techniques to uncover people's implicit intuitions, the researchers explored the fundamental differences behind our attitudes towards unemployment benefits and healthcare.

According to the researchers, the differences may be found in the evolutionary history of our species.

Unemployment came about as a result of the industrialisation, while illness is something the human species has faced for millions of years. 

"For millions of years, a need for health care reflected accidents such as broken legs or random infections. Evolution could therefore have built our psychology to think about illnesses in this way, as something we have no control over,” said one of the researchers Michael Bang Petersen, professor in political science at Aarhus University in Denmark.

“People everywhere seem to have this deep-seated intuition that ill people are unfortunate and deserve to be helped," he noted.

The researchers did research in Denmark, the US and Japan and found that everywhere people intuitively believed that people who fall ill are unlucky, while unemployed people have brought it on themselves.

"When it comes to healthcare, everyone seem united in the belief that people who are ill are unlucky and need help,” he said.

The findings appeared in the American Journal of Political Science.

“This means that the policies in the areas of health care and unemployment are very different, as we all more or less agree on the goal in healthcare, while we deeply disagree on whether or not unemployed people deserve help," the researcher said.​

​New York, May 27 (IANS) A team of students has developed an early version of a foot that enables women adjusting to life with a prosthetic limb to wear heels up to four inches high.

"High heels have become an integral part of the female lifestyle in modern society, permeating through all aspects of life -- professional and social," said the authors from Johns Hopkins University who made the prosthetic foot as part of their final senior project in mechanical engineering. 

"For female veterans of the US armed services with lower limb amputations, that seemingly innocuous but so pervasive and decidedly feminine part of their lives is gone," they added.

So, they took up the challenge of creating a foot that adjusts without a separate tool to a range of heel heights, holds position without slipping, supports up to 250 pounds or 114 kg, weighs less than three pounds or 1.3 kg and, of course, is slender enough to accommodate a woman's shoe.

They tried a balloon in the heel to give it spring or "energy return", as engineers say. That didn't work. 

They tried a mousetrap spring but that didn't work either. Then they tried a sideways sandwich of 23 slender titanium plates to form the foot itself but that was too heavy and not springy. 

A 20-layer carbon fibre footplate failed a stress test, but a 28-layer version worked, forming the base of the foot which the team now calls the "Prominence".

They built a heel-adjustment mechanism with two interlocking aluminum disks. It opens and closes with an attached lever at the ankle. 

For the ankle, they used an off-the-shelf hydraulic unit that enables a smooth gait and flexing at the sole.

Alexandra Capellini, a Johns Hopkins University junior who lost her right leg to bone cancer as a child, tried the foot with a flat shoe and liked it.

The design is still in progress. It will take time to assess the commercial appeal and potential of the "Prominence", including the question of whether anything the team created could qualify for a patent.​

​New York, May 28 (IANS) People have always wondered why many birds lay bright blue eggs. Researchers have now shown that the colour could protect the embryo from harmful sunlight, including dangerous ultraviolet (UV) radiation.

David Lahti of the City University of New York and Dan Ardia of Franklin & Marshall College tested the hypothesis that pigmentation might help an egg strike a balance between two opposing and potentially damaging effects of the sun - light transmission into light-coloured eggs, and heating up of dark-coloured eggs. 

As predicted, more intensely blue eggshells shielded the interior from light, including dangerous UV radiation, but more intense colour also caused eggs to absorb more light and heat up, which can be even more dangerous in brighter environments. 

These two patterns - termed by the authors "pigment as parasol" and the "dark car effect" --combined with a knowledge of the nesting behaviour and habitats of birds, can lead to predictions as to why the eggs of some birds vary across species from blue to white. 

Darker eggs are predicted in moderate light to shield the embryo, but in brighter nests the dangers of egg heating predict lighter coloured eggs. 

Whereas camouflage from predators is still probably the single most important factor governing the evolution of dull and mottled egg colours, for the brighter colours the biophysical evidence points to the sun, the study said.

The findings appeared in the journal The American Naturalist.​

​Beijing, May 29 (IANS) China will launch its first experimental quantum communication satellite in July, according to the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) on Friday.

This will be the first quantum communication through a satellite in the world, Xinhua news agency quoted Pan Jianwei, professor with University of Science and Technology of China as saying.

Quantum communication boasts ultra-high security as a quantum photon can neither be separated nor duplicated. It is hence impossible to wiretap, intercept or crack the information transmitted through it, said Pan.

Chinese scientists have taken five years to develop and manufacture the first quantum satellite. It will be transported to Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in June, according to the CAS. ​

​London, May 29 (IANS) Harry Potter undergoes two magical biological transformations in the popular eight-film series based on the stories and characters created by British author J.K. Rowling.

Natural sciences students have now put these 'mysterious' powers to the test to find out whether these are actually scientifically feasible.

In "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire", Harry passes the second 'Triwizard' task by consuming 'Gillyweed', which allows him to breathe underwater by causing gills to grow on his neck.

To check the feasibility of Harry surviving with home-grown gills, University of Leicester students Rowan Reynolds and Chris Ringrose estimated the gills to be approximately 60cm2 in surface area based on their appearance in the film.

Taking into account the oxygen content of the 'Black Lake' and the maximum oxygen use of swimming, they then examined Harry's weight, suggesting that if he had a normal BMI and the average height of a 14-year-old boy, he would need to process 443 litres of water at 100 percent efficiency per minute for every minute he was underwater.

This would mean the water would have to flow at 2.46 metres per second -- twice the velocity of normal airflow and therefore far faster than he could inhale and exhale, causing him to suffocate, the students said in a paper for the Journal for Interdisciplinary Science Topics.

Moreover, Harry is seen swimming with his mouth closed, which is not how gills work -- the students suggest that if Harry were to open his mouth to allow water into his throat and out through the gills, it may be plausible he could breathe underwater.

By keeping his mouth shut, however, he would not be able to extract sufficient oxygen for survival, and as a result would lose his title as 'The Boy Who Lived' quite quickly after suffocating, the study concluded.

In a separate study, students Leah Ashley, Chris Ringrose and Robbie Roe set out to test the feasibility of Skele-Gro, a potion which repair broken bones.

In "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets", Harry's tense Quidditch match against Slytherin results in one of his arms being broken by a rogue bludger.

After his broken bones are removed, Harry is given a dose of Skele-Gro to grow bones that are missing.

The team calculated how the rate of normal bone growth compares to this accelerated growth, and how much energy Skele-Gro would need to provide in order to rebuild Harry's broken arm.

The students calculated the time taken for Harry to regrow all the bones in his arm with Skele-Gro as being at least 90 times quicker than is possible in real-world bone regeneration.

As Harry's recovery with Skele-Gro takes approximately 24 hours and there is no mention of him eating during recovery, Skele-Gro has the capacity to supply the additional 133,050 kcal worth of energy required by the body to regenerate bones without causing any negative side effects, a power output of 6,443 W.

The students concluded that Skele-Gro must therefore contain unexplained magical properties that allow it to hold such a vast amount of energy and be able to apply it in a short period of time.

Both the studies reveal that a little magic might indeed be required in both situations to make them scientifically feasible​

​London, May 29 (IANS) Minor irregularities in the heartbeat are indicative of a healthy body, scientists said at Technical University of Munich. They have developed a new method of correlating heartbeat with life expectancy.

While in the majority of earlier studies the full breathing cycle was correlated to the heart rate, the team now focused on exhaling and specifically on the moment when the heart rate would normally be reduced again.

"With our approach, you might say we are surgically selecting the moment when the decisive events take place," one of the researchers, Georg Schmidt, said.

"Our method produces a far more specific picture of the functional condition of the body," said Daniel Sinnecker, primary author of the study.

Within the framework of the study, published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, breathing cycles and heart beat rhythms of close on 950 heart attack patients were measured shortly after a heart attack.

The data was analysed to find respiratory sinus arrhythmia, which may be translated as a "breathing-induced irregularity in the sinus node, the bundle of nerve fibers controlling the heart beat".

The test persons were re-examined every six months over a five-year period.

They found that heart attack patients with less pronounced arrhythmia had a higher risk of dying within the period of observation.

Examined persons with only minor arrhythmia were five times more at risk of dying over the five-year period than people with higher breathing-related fluctuations.

The researchers are confident that the new method may soon be widely applied in medical practice.

"We are quite close to everyday application since, by and large, the development of the method is complete," Schmidt said.

The technical hurdles are few since it is no longer necessary these days to measure breathing rate in addition to heart beat, a modern ECG unit would basically suffice, the researchers explained.

"Even the general practitioner could therefore within ten minutes record sinus arrhythmic activity," Schmidt said.

The method may be fruitfully applied in more than 80 percent of the cases, Schmidt noted.

Irrespective whether the examined patients had recently suffered a heart attack, it could be used in combination with other indicators to assess the health risk, the researchers said.​

​New York, May 26 (IANS) Vampires are real -- at least the amoebae variety -- and they have been around for millions of years, say researchers who found evidence of predation in ancient microbial ecosystems dating back more than 740 million years.

Using a scanning electron microscope to examine minute fossils, the researchers found perfectly circular drill holes that may have been formed by an ancient relation of Vampyrellidae amoebae. 

These single-celled creatures perforate the walls of their prey and reach inside to consume its cell contents. 

"To my knowledge these holes are the earliest direct evidence of predation on eukaryotes," said Susannah Porter, associate professor at University of California, Santa Barbara in the US.

Eukaryotes are organisms whose cells contain a nucleus and other organelles such as mitochondria.

"We have a great record of predation on animals going back 550 million years starting with the very first mineralized shells, which show evidence of drillholes. We had nothing like that for early life -- for the time before animals appear. These holes potentially provide a way of looking at predator-prey interactions in very deep time in ancient microbial ecosystems," she said.

The findings appeared in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

For the study, Porter examined fossils from the Chuar Group in the Grand Canyon -- once an ancient seabed -- that are between 782 and 742 million years old. 

The holes are about one micrometre (one thousandth of a millimeter) in diameter and occur in seven of the species she identified. 

The holes are not common in any single one species. In fact, they appear in not more than 10 percent of the specimens, the findings showed.

"I also found evidence of specificity in hole sizes, so different species show different characteristic hole sizes, which is consistent with what we know about modern vampire amoebae and their food preferences," Porter said. ​

New York, May 26 (IANS) Scientists have found that one of the most widely prescribed pain and anti-inflammation drugs has potential to slow the growth of cancer.

The study, focused on celecoxib (Pfizer's Celebrex), showed that the drug slows the growth rate of a specific kind of cancer in animal models and suggests the medication could have the same effect on other types of tumours.

The drug targets an enzyme called "cyclooxygenase-2" (COX-2), which is linked to pain and inflammation. 

"Our study shows that COX2 inhibitors do have an effect on the tumor cells," said the study's first author William Guerrant from the Florida campus of The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) in the US.

"They also have an impact on inflammatory responses that play a role in tumour growth,” Guerrant noted.

The researchers conducted animal studies tracking the effects of celecoxib on the growth of cancer cells from a tumour type known as neurofibromatosis type II (NF2). 

In humans, NF2 is a relatively rare inherited form of cancer caused by mutations in the anti-tumour gene NF2, which leads to benign tumours of the auditory nerve.

Animals received a daily dose of the drug, and tumour growth was followed by imaging.

Analysis of the results showed a significantly slower tumour growth rate in celecoxib-treated models than in controls.

"It's possible that in other cancers these effects might actually be stronger because of the drug's impact on inflammation," Guerrant noted.​

​New York, May 26 (IANS) Strong tidal encounters may be responsible for the cracks on icy moons such as Pluto's Charon, Saturn's Dione and Tethys, and Uranus's Ariel, says a study.

Until now, it was thought that the cracks were the result of geodynamical processes, such as plate tectonics, but the new computer model developed by University of Rochester researchers suggests that a close encounter with another body might have been the cause.

By devising and running the model, professor Alice Quillen showed that the tidal pull exerted by another, similar object could be strong enough to crack the surface of such icy moons. 

The key factor in determining if a crack is going to occur is the strain rate, the rate of pull from another body that would have caused the moons to deform at a rate that the top, icy layer could not sustain - leading to cracks, said the study.

The findings will be published in a forthcoming issue of the journal Icarus.

Astronomers have long known that the craters visible on moons were caused by the impact of other bodies, billions of years ago. 

But for every crash and graze, there would have been many more close encounters. 

Quillen also thinks that "it might even offer a possible explanation for the crack on Mars, but that's much harder to model".​

New York, May 26 (IANS) Scientists have discovered that hot interstellar winds powered by supermassive black holes in certain galaxies are fuelling a kind of “galactic warming” that is sapping the ability of these galaxies to form stars.

Over the last few billion years, a mysterious kind of galactic warming has caused many galaxies to change from a lively place where new stars formed every now and then to a quiet place devoid of fresh young stars. 

But the mechanism that produces this dramatic transformation and keeps galaxies quiet has been one of the biggest unsolved mysteries in galaxy evolution.

"These galaxies have the necessary ingredients for forming new stars but they are not doing it -- why," wondered Renbin Yan, assistant professor of physics and astronomy at University of Kentucky in the US.

The researchers named these galaxies "red geysers". They host low-energy supermassive black holes which drive intense interstellar winds. 

These winds suppress star formation by heating up the ambient gas found in galaxies and preventing it from cooling and condensing into stars, the researchers explained.

The study, published in the journal Nature, described the discovery of a red geyser galaxy called “Akira” which has a companion galaxy called "Tetsuo." 

Akira's gravity pulls Tetsuo's gas into its central supermassive black hole, fuelling winds that have the power to heat Akira's gas. 

But because of the action of the black hole winds, Tetsuo's donated gas is rendered inert, preventing a new cycle of star formation in Akira, the researchers explained.

The findings suggest that as with global warming on Earth, galactic warming has long-term consequences for red geyser galaxies -- their gas can no longer form new stars.​