Knowledge Update

​New York, April 12 (IANS) Individuals' different social etworking profile on sites like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn stem from a desire to fit within the distinctive culture or etiquette of each site, say researchers, including one of Indian-origin.

The findings showed that users are not explicitly modifying their profile, but rather subconsciously adapting the behaviour modelled to fit in.

"Despite our best efforts, we do still fit stereotypes of gender and age in the way we tailor our persona," said Nishanth Sastry, Senior Lecturer at King's College London.

For instance, a photo of someone's colourful Starbucks drink may be popular on Instagram, but the same image post to LinkedIn would be frowned upon. 

"The users tend to portray themselves differently in these different worlds," added Dongwon Lee, Associate Professor at the Pennsylvania State University.

The findings will be presented at the International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media (ICWSM) in Canada.

For the research, the team compiled information on over 100,000 social media users by utilising About.me -- a site that acts as a social media directory -- where users volunteer their own profiles, making it an extremely reliable dataset.

Upon analysing the profile pictures and biography information provided by these users, the team also found some surprising differences in how different demographics portray themselves. 

The results showed that women were less likely to wear corrective eyewear, like reading glasses, in their profile pictures and users under the age of 25 were less likely to be smiling in their profile picture.

"Social media consumes an increasingly large portion of our lives. Therefore, understanding how we interact with each other on social media is important to understanding who we are in the online world, and how we relate to each other in virtual but still meaningful ways," Sastry added. 

New York, April 11 (IANS) Astronomers have discovered a faint, incredibly distant galaxy, about 13.1 billion years in the past, just about 700 million years after the Big Bang.

The new object, named MACS1423-z7p64, was detailed in a study published in the journal Nature Astronomy.

The researchers used the Hubble space telescope to find the galaxy and confirmed its age and distance with instruments at the Keck Observatory in Hawaii.

"Other most distant objects are extremely bright and probably rare compared to other galaxies," said lead author Austin Hoag from University of California, Davis in the US. 

"We think this is much more representative of galaxies of the time," Hoag said.

These ultra-distant galaxies, seen as they were close to the beginning of the universe, are interesting because they fall within the "Epoch of Reionisation," a period about a billion years after the Big Bang when the universe became transparent.

After the Big Bang, the universe was a cloud of cold atomic hydrogen, which blocks light. 

The first stars and galaxies condensed out of the cloud and started to emit light and ionising radiation. 

This radiation melted away the atomic hydrogen like a hot sun clearing fog, and the first galaxies spread their light through the universe. But much remains lost in the fog of reionisation.

To find the faint faint, distant object, the astronomers took advantage of a giant lens in the sky.

As light passes by a massive object such as a galaxy cluster, its path gets bent by gravity, just as light gets bent passing through a lens. 

When the object is big enough, it can act as a lens that magnifies the image of objects behind it.

While it is similar to millions of other galaxies of its time, z7p64 just happened to fall into the "sweet spot" behind a giant galaxy cluster that magnified its brightness ten-fold and made it visible to the team, using the Hubble space telescope. 

They were then able to confirm its distance by analysing its spectrum with the Keck Observatory telescopes in Hawaii.

The team plans to continue their survey of candidate galaxies with the Hubble and Keck telescopes, and later with James Webb space telescope, set for launch in 2018.

It is expected that the Webb telescope, which is bigger than Hubble, will allow astronomers to look at even more distant parts of the universe, which will help astronomers answer the question of where did we come from.

​New York, April 11 (IANS) Scientists have found a way to create an HIV-resistant cell population which can quickly replace diseased cells, thereby potentially curing the disease in an infected person.

"This protection would be long-term," said Jia Xie, senior staff scientist at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) in the US and first author of the study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The researchers found a way to tether HIV-fighting antibodies to immune cells, thereby creating a cell population resistant to the virus. 

Their experiments under lab conditions showed that these resistant cells can replace diseased cells.

The new technique offers a significant advantage over therapies where antibodies float freely in the bloodstream at a relatively low concentration, the researchers said.

Instead, antibodies in the new study hang on to a cell's surface, blocking HIV from accessing a crucial cell receptor and spreading infection.

The researchers said they plan to collaborate with investigators at City of Hope -- an independent research and treatment centre for cancer, diabetes and other life-threatening diseases in the US -- to evaluate this new therapy in efficacy and safety tests, as required by federal regulations, prior to testing in patients.

​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.

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.

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.

Sydney, April 10 (IANS) A pioneering anaesthesia technique that makes surgery safer for patients with obstructed airways has helped save at least one life already, doctors in Australia said on Monday.

"An adult patient with an infected epiglottis was in danger of having his airway blocked by rapid swelling, and this technique enabled us to safely control his airway without surgery," said Anton Booth, Senior Lecturer at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia.

"It is also making a difference to quality of life for those people who may previously have been unsuitable for surgery," Booth said in a university news release.

In a study conducted at Australia's Princess Alexandra Hospital, the team combined two relatively new techniques.

"Traditionally with anaesthesia we expect patients to stop breathing, as we are putting them into a state resembling a medically-induced coma," Booth said.

"Our job as anaesthetists is to take over breathing for the patient to keep them oxygenated, often through intubation. In patients undergoing surgery for narrowed airways we can't insert a tube into the trachea where the surgeons are trying to operate," he said.

"Instead we implemented a way to keep the patient breathing spontaneously during anaesthesia," Booth added.

The team supplemented that approach by adding high-flow nasal oxygen supply, previously used in intensive care and respiratory units.

"Through this combination we have been able to manage anaesthesia for patients with very challenging airway narrowing," he said.

"We have been able to achieve quite spectacular improvements in oxygen levels while patients are in deep anaesthesia. This is a modern alternative to traditional techniques and has great potential to be used in many other scenarios," Booth said.

The technique, known as STRIVE Hi, was detailed in the British Journal of Anaesthesia.

New York, April 10 (IANS) Just by looking at images of winter scenery and imagining yourself in such a setting can help you have increased cognitive control, say researchers.

Cognitive control is the ability to deliberately inhibit responses or make choices that maximise the long-term best interests of the individual. For example, when a person is very hungry and sees a sandwich but does not eat it, he/she is exhibiting cognitive control.

"Metaphorical phrases like 'coldly calculating', 'heated response' and 'cool-headed' actually have some scientific validity, which we demonstrate in our study," said lead researcher Idit Shalev from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) in Israel. 

The findings, published in the journal Psychological Research, demonstrated that the perception of cold temperatures elicits greater cognitive control, even from a photo.

"Previous research focused on the actual effect of temperature on the psychological phenomenon known as 'cognitive control'," Shalev said. 

"But this is the first time we were able to measure the effects of perceived temperature," Shalev added.

In one of the experiments conducted for the study, 28 students were shown images of winter scenery, a temperature-neutral concrete street and a sunny landscape, and told to picture themselves in those settings.

The researchers then measured how the participants performed on an "anti-saccade task", an established cognitive control measure which requires looking in the direction opposite to which an object is moving.

"The result indicated that those viewing the cold landscape did better and that even without a physical trigger, cognitive control can be activated through conceptual processes alone," Shalev said.

The researchers said there is a possible explanation for the relation of temperature and cognitive control with social proximity. 

"While signals of warmth induce a relaxed attitude, cool signals trigger alertness and a possible need for greater cognitive control," Shalev explained.

​New York, April 8 (IANS) Researchers have discovered a protein that could help make vaccinations more effective and also provide protection from other diseases such as cancer.

The researchers purified a protein found on the exterior of bacteria (neisseria meningidis) and used it as an accessory to provide a better vaccination response. 

Typically, vaccines can either increase the amount of antibody production or they can stimulate cells (called cytotoxic T cells) to directly kill the offending agent. 

The protein, called PorB, is unique in that it can do both, the researchers said. 

The study, published online in the journal Scientific Reports, may lead to greater understanding of how vaccine enhancers work and can best be used.

"This study has wide implications as it could not only be used to help the body identify and fight off bacterial infections, but it could also potentially help the body use its own machinery to fight off other diseases like cancer, HIV, and influenza before they have a chance to establish within the body," explained corresponding author Lee Wetzler, Professor of Medicine and Microbiology at Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) in the US.

In this study, the researchers used two experimental models. The first model was given a vaccination with antigen and mixed PorB, while the second model was given the antigen alone. 

The model that received the PorB had an increase in the response to the vaccine antigen, evidenced by an increased number of activated cells in the lymph nodes and a gain in the production of cytotoxic T cells, as compared to the vaccination with the antigen alone.

"Our study deepens the general understanding of how vaccine adjuvants modulate immune responses," Wetzler said.

"The antigen formulation with PorB triggers a sequence of cellular events at the periphery and in lymphoid tissue that are critical for the establishment of protection to a broad array of infectious diseases, and maybe for other diseases like cancer," Wetzler added.

​Washington, April 7 (IANS) NASA is preparing to launch on Saturday a super-pressure balloon about the size of a football stadium to carry a pioneering telescope designed to detect ultra-high-energy cosmic rays from near space.

The super pressure balloon (SPB) test flight is set to be launched from Wanaka Airport in New Zealand, on a potential 100-day journey.

If weather is conducive for launch, lift-off is scheduled between 8 and 11.30 a.m. locally, NASA said in a statement on Friday.

"At this time, the weather at the ground and lower levels looks very good for a Saturday launch attempt," said Gabe Garde, mission manager for the 2017 Wanaka Balloon Campaign.

"However, we continue to evaluate the forecast stratospheric winds and predicted flight trajectory to ensure conditions are acceptable before launch," Garde added.

The purpose of the flight is to test and validate the SPB technology with the goal of long-duration flight at mid-latitudes. 

In addition, the University of Chicago's Extreme Universe Space Observatory on a Super Pressure Balloon (EUSO-SPB) is a mission of opportunity flying on the 2017 SPB test flight.

EUSO-SPB is designed to detect high-energy cosmic rays originating from outside our galaxy as they penetrate the Earth's atmosphere. 

As these high-energy particles enter the atmosphere, they interact with nitrogen molecules in the air and create a UV fluorescence light. 

EUSO-SPB will be looking downward at a broad swathe of the Earth's atmosphere to detect the UV fluorescence from these deep space cosmic rays coming in from above.

Once launched, the 532,000-cubic-metre balloon will ascend to an operational float altitude of 33.5 kilometres. 

NASA estimates the balloon will circumnavigate the globe about the southern hemisphere's mid-latitudes once every one to three weeks, depending on wind speeds in the stratosphere.