Knowledge Update

​New York, April 12 (IANS) Children's exposure to higher levels of air pollution, including fine particulate matter also known as PM2.5, and impure carbon particles can most negatively impact their lung functioning, finds a new study.

The findings showed that by the time a child reaches the age of eight, his or her lungs are greatly affected by inhaling the PM2.5 that includes aerosols, smoke, fumes, dust, ash and pollen as well as black carbon. 

Also, children living the closest to major highways had the greatest reductions in their lung function.

The lung functioning of children living within 100 meters of a major roadway was on average 6 percent lower than that of children living 400 meters or more away, said the lead author Mary B. Rice, instructor at Harvard Medical School in US.

For the study, published in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care, the team studied 614 children born between 1999 and 2002.

They calculated the distance from the child's home to the nearest major highway, and estimated first year of life, lifetime and prior-year exposure to PM2.5, using satellite measurements​

London, April 13 (IANS) A team of British researchers has found that people with type 2 diabetes are at a greater risk of serious liver disease than those without the condition.

“We have shown for the first time that type 2 diabetes is an important novel risk factor that increases numbers of hospital admissions and deaths, in people with all common chronic liver diseases," said Chris Byrne, a professor at the University of Southampton. 

"Further research is now needed to determine whether all patients with type 2 diabetes should be screened for common chronic liver diseases,” he added.



The team, involving researchers from the universities of Southampton and Edinburgh, examined cases of liver diseases among people with diabetes from anonymised, securely linked hospital records and death records in Scotland over a 10-year period.

They found that most cases of liver disease in people with type 2 diabetes are not alcohol-related but caused by a build-up of fat within liver cells - a condition known as non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), according to a the study published recently in the Journal of Hepatology.

NAFLD is commonly linked to obesity, which is also a risk factor for type 2 diabetes.

Most people can avoid getting these conditions by following a healthy diet and taking regular exercise.

“Preventing non-alcoholic fatty liver disease by avoiding unhealthy lifestyles in both people with and without diabetes is important because it is difficult to treat the complications of this condition,” said Sarah Wild from the University of Edinburgh.

The research team found that men with type 2 diabetes are three times more likely to suffer from NAFLD than men without diabetes.

There are fewer cases of type 2 diabetes and liver disease amongst women but having type 2 diabetes increases the risk of NAFLD by five times, the study found.

People with NAFLD are more susceptible to the effects of alcohol on the liver and should avoid drinking to avoid further complications, the researchers said.​

​New York, April 13 (IANS) Sending a message out to the world about bridging the gender pay gap, social networking site Facebook and technology giant Microsoft have disclosed that they pay male and female employees equally.

The disclosure - that came on the "Equal Pay Day" on Tuesday - was announced after both the companies were pressed by Arjuna Capital, a Boston-based investment firm.

Arjuna Capital had filed shareholder proposals at each of the companies, asking these to close the gender wage gap and release salary information, Wall Street Journal reported.

Facebook and Microsoft are among nine technology firms like Amazon and Apple that have faced pressure from Arjuna Capital to share wage information.

"If tech companies want to attract and retain the best talent and are going to move women into leadership roles that will make the companies more competitive, they need to pay men and women the same, and they need to be transparent about how they are doing that," Natasha Lamb, a partner at Arjuna Capital, was quoted as saying.

Facebook and Microsoft have said they have been reviewing data about how much their employees are paid for a number of years.

Observing "Equal Pay Day," a study by San Francisco-based career marketplace startup Hired Inc. revealed that the gap in salaries between male and female software engineers at major corporations is 7 percent.

The data in this report was pulled from an analysis of more than 100,000 job offers across 15,000 candidates and 3,000 companies on Hired's platform.

"In fact, our data a" which spans technology, sales and marketing roles a" shows that 69 percent of the time, men receive higher salary offers than women for the same job title at the same company," said Dr Jessica Kirkpatrick, Hired's lead product data scientist.

One of the most noteworthy findings in the report relates to what's known as the "expectation gap."

Overall, Hired's data shows that the average woman on its platform sets her expected salary at $14,000 less per year than the average man on its platform.

"When we break the expectation gap down by role -- comparing women and men in the same job category -- we found as the ratio of men to women in the role increases, so does the gap," Kirkpatrick noted.

Hired Inc hopes the findings will address this issue in two ways.

"First, by providing insight into the issue of gender bias in the workforce, we want to encourage companies to investigate their compensation policies to ensure that they don't perpetuate patterns of inequality," the report said.

"Second, we want to arm women with information about this phenomenon to empower them to ask for their market worth. This issue certainly won't be solved overnight, but with both sides working together, we'll all be on a path to a more equitable future," it added.​

Moscow, April 6 (IANS) A new study by an international team of scientists has revealed conditions under which a body produces more superoxide -- a dangerous form of oxygen with the capability to destruct DNA.

Human mutations in a gene encoding the DHTKD1 protein result in a range of neurological disturbances. On molecular level, the mutations cause accumulation of the reactive oxygen species (ROS) and degradation products of lysine and tryptophan, said the study published recently in the journal Free Radical Biology and Medicine. 

The structure of the DHTKD1 protein is similar to an enzyme, 2-oxoglutarate dehydrogenase, which is able to produce superoxide. 

According to the researcher, a cell combats the "poisonous" forms of oxygen with a help of antioxidants, and antioxidant defence system proteins.

But disturbed metabolism may cause a shortage of amino acids (the bricks for building proteins) lysine and tryptophan which may result into physical, neurologic and mental malfunctions, and even lead to death. 

Those amino acids belong to irreplaceable and cannot be produced from other substances in human body, so they should come from food, the researchers noted.

According to the study, 2-aminoadipate and 2-oxoadipate are the degradation products of lysine, tryptophan and hydroxylysine.

Scientists found the connection between aciduria (increased acidity of urine, showing serious malfunction in metabolism) in patients with increased content of 2-aminoadipate and 2-oxoadipate and gene mutations in the DHTKD1 protein. 

That confirmed an earlier hypothesis that an enzyme, encoded by DHTKD1, oxidises 2-oxoadipate.

The DHTKD1 protein does not belong to central metabolism and is produced in higher quantities in liver and kidney cells where lysine and tryptophan are more actively degraded. In humans it is degraded in skeletal muscles. 

The study found that both the down- and up-regulation of the DHTKD1 expression increased the level of reactive and dangerous forms of oxygen.​

​New York, April 6 (IANS) Chronic lack of sleep and irregular sleep-wake cycles that disturb the biological cycle are likely to risk the onset of Parkinson's disease as well as worsen the disease, warns a new study.

The animals-based study showed that the disturbances in the circadian rhythm -- the roughly 24-hour biological cycle of humans daily exposure to long periods of light with brief exposure to dark may also dramatically worsen the motor and learning deficits brought on by the disease.

"Many think that sleep disturbances are secondary to Parkinson's disease. But circadian rhythm disturbances are increasingly reported before the onset of Parkinson's, suggesting that they could be risk factors," said Domenico Pratico, professor at LKSOM in the US.

Further, the researchers observed significant reductions in neurons in substantia nigra -- a brain region that produce dopamine, the loss of which is a major molecular feature of Parkinson's disease. 

"Cells normally die in that region of the brain, but our study shows that circadian rhythm disturbance accelerates cell death there," Pratico added.

In addition, cells known as microglia, which normally protect neurons, were superactive in circadian-disrupted MPTP-treated mice. 

The overactivation of microglia can actually worsen neuroinflammation and potentially speed the progression of Parkinson's disease.

The findings are detailed online in the journal Molecular Psychiatry.

The team investigated the role of altered circadian rhythm using a well-established mouse model of Parkinson's disease, in which treatment with MPTP, a neurotoxin that reproduces aspects of the disease in mice. 

Assessments of movement and behaviour showed that all mice treated with MPTP developed Parkinson's disease, but animals with altered circadian rhythm experienced significant learning impairments. 

They also exhibited severe motor deficits, with drastic reductions in motor coordination and motor learning skills - far worse than the deficits observed in MPTP-treated mice with normal circadian rhythm.​

​London, April 6 (IANS) The salt levels of oceans on distant Earth-like planets could have a major effect on their climates and may provide more habitable conditions for alien life, says a study involving an Indian-origin scientist.

"The number of planets being discovered outside our solar system is rapidly increasing. Our research helps to answer whether or not these planets could sustain alien life," said David Stevens from Britain's University of East Anglia (UEA). 

"Oceans play a vital role in sustaining life and also have an immense capacity to control climate. But previous studies on ocean circulation on other planets have made the assumption that fundamental ocean properties - such as the salinity and depth of water - would be similar to that on Earth," he added.

Stevens' team used computer models of ocean circulation on exoplanets to see what would happen when their oceans had different salinity levels to Earth. 

The study, published recently in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, considered oceans with very low salinity (similar to freshwater), salinity similar to the average value of Earth's oceans, and high salinity (similar levels to the Dead Sea).

"On Earth, we have a circulation where warm water moves towards the poles at the surface, before being cooled, then sinking at high latitudes and travelling towards the equator at depth," said Manoj Joshi from UEA's School of Environmental Sciences.

"Our research shows that oceans on other planets with a much higher salinity could circulate in the opposite direction - with polar water flowing towards the equator at the surface, sinking in the tropics and travelling back towards the poles at depth. We also found a similar pattern emerging for freshwater oceans," Joshi added.

"These circulation patterns are the opposite of what happens on Earth, and would result in a dramatic warming in the polar regions. Such a circulation scenario might extend the planet's range of habitability," he noted.

The study assumes significance as until recently computer simulations of habitable climates on Earth-like planets have mainly focused on their atmospheres. But studying their oceans is vital for understanding climate stability and habitability -- as on our own Earth.​

New York, March 31 (IANS) Do you become the "grammar police?" when reading emails? If yes, you could be an introvert, suggests new research that established a link between personality traits and reaction of typos and grammatical errors in emails.

Extroverted people are likely to overlook typos and grammatical errors that would cause introverted people to judge the person who makes such errors more negatively, said the study published in the journal PLOS ONE.

"This is the first study to show that the personality traits of listeners/readers have an effect on the interpretation of language," said the study's lead author Julie Boland, professor of linguistics and psychology at the University of Michigan in the US.

"In this experiment, we examined the social judgments that readers made about the writers," Boland noted. 

Eighty three participants read email responses to an ad for a housemate that either contained no errors or had been altered to include either typos, such as mkae (make) or abuot (about), or grammar errors, such as to/too, it's/its or your/you're. 

They rated the email writers in terms of perceived intelligence, friendliness and other attributes, as well as provided information about themselves.

At the end of the experiment, participants were asked if they noticed any grammatical errors in the responses. If they answered "yes," they indicated how much the errors bothered them.

As expected, participants who reported grammar being important at the beginning of the experiment were more likely to be bothered by grammatical errors at the end, study co-author Robin Queen from the University of Michigan said..

In addition, less agreeable people are more sensitive to grammatical errors, while more conscientious and less open people are sensitive to typos, the researchers said.​

London, April 5 (IANS) In older adults, especially women, higher dietary calcium intake may lower the risk of cardiovascular disease, but not of stroke and fracture, new research suggests.

"The role of dietary calcium intake in cardiovascular disease, stroke and fracture is controversial. We aimed to evaluate whether high dietary calcium intake increases the risk of CVD, stroke and fracture in a population with low calcium intake," said lead study author Sung Hye Kong from Seoul National University Hospital in Seoul, South Korea.

Researchers conducted their study among individuals in Korea's ongoing prospective community-based Ansung and Ansan Cohort Study that began in 2001.

The authors performed their analyses in 2,199 men and 2,704 women over 50 years of age without previous cardiovascular disease and stroke.

The participants in the study reported their dietary food intake in periodic food frequency questionnaires.

Cardiovascular disease, stroke and fractures were recorded during interviews and examinations every two years.

The findings suggest, in older women in this population with low dietary calcium intake, higher dietary calcium intake was significantly associated with decreased risk of cardiovascular disease, but not significantly associated with risk of stroke and fracture.​

​New York, April 5 (IANS) Depression is a known risk factor for cardiovascular disease. However, a team of US researchers has found that effectively treating depression can reduce a person's risk of cardiovascular problems - stroke, heart failure, heart attack or death.

The researchers found effective treatment for depression can reduce a patient's heart risks to the same level as those who never had short-term depression.

"Our study shows that prompt, effective treatment of depression appears to improve the risk of poor heart health," said Heidi May from Intermountain Medical Center Heart Institute in US.

"With the help of past research, we know depression affects long-term cardiovascular risks, but knowing that alleviating the symptoms of depression reduces a person's risk of heart disease in the short term, too, can help care providers and patients commit more fully to treating the symptoms of depression," she added.

"The key conclusion of our study is: If depression isn't treated, the risk of cardiovascular complications increases significantly," May stated.

The team compiled information from 7,550 participants, who completed at least two depression questionnaires over the course of one to two years.

They were categorised based on the results of their survey as never depressed, no longer depressed, remained depressed, or became depressed.

Following each patient's completion of the last questionnaire, patients were followed to see if they had any major cardiovascular problems.

The findings suggested that 4.6 percent of patients who were no longer depressed had a similar occurrence of major cardiovascular complications as those who had no depression at all (4.8 percent).

The results indicated that changes in depression symptoms may also cause immediate physiological changes in the body, which in turn cause major cardiovascular problems to occur in the short term, but future studies are needed to further answer these questions.​

​London, April 5 (IANS) The North Atlantic Ocean played a key role in the last climate transition, says a study providing valuable insights into why large continental ice-sheets first grew in North America and Scandinavia some 2.7 million years ago.

An international team of researchers measured the composition of isotopes of the chemical element neodymium that can be found in fish teeth preserved in a North Atlantic marine core to track the origin of deep waters bathing the bottom of the ocean during the climate transition that took place in the late Pliocene Epoch era.

Contrary to previous assertions, they found that the first of these glacial events in the northern hemisphere was associated with major expansions of carbon-rich southern-sourced deep waters into the northwestern Atlantic abyss, over one million years earlier than previously thought.

The study, published recently in the journal Nature Geoscience, said that three of the largest glacial cycles between 2.5 and 2.7 million years ago appear to be associated with southern-sourced water incursions into the deep Atlantic that were as significant as those documented for the last glacial maximum.

"We could not have made these new findings with confidence using only a classic method for tracing watermass origin such as carbon isotopes," said Ian Bailey from the University of Exeter in Britain.

"But when we combined such data with an alternative novel proxy such as neodymium isotopes, we were able to reveal a dramatically new picture of watermass mixing in the deep North Atlantic during late Pliocene glacial intensification," Bailey added.

It has long been argued that changes in North Atlantic circulation played a leading role in driving late Pliocene northern hemisphere glaciation because of its capacity to modulate the transfer of heat and moisture from the tropics to the poles.

"Our findings suggest, though, that the North Atlantic Ocean was not a driving factor in this transition, but, through storage of atmospheric carbon dioxide in the deep Atlantic, it operated as a positive feedback that helped to usher in glaciation at this time," Bailey said.

"What we've done is document a process which is thought to be special to the largest and longest glacial cycles of the past one million years, but we have shown that it has been occurring ever since large continental ice-sheets formed in the Northern Hemisphere," he added.​