Knowledge Update

New York, June 24 (IANS) A team of researchers has developed the first scalable method to identify different subtypes of neurons in the human brain.

The research lays the groundwork for "mapping" the gene activity in the human brain and could help provide a better understanding of brain functions and disorders, including Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, schizophrenia and depression.

By isolating and analysing individual human brain cells, researchers identified 16 neuronal subtypes in the cerebral cortex -- the brain's outer layer of neural tissue responsible for cognitive functions including memory, attention and decision making. 

"We are providing a unified framework to look at and compare individual neurons, which can help us find out how many unique types of neurons exist," said Kun Zhang, bioengineering professor at University of California-San Diego.

Researchers can use these different neuronal subtypes to build what Zhang calls a "reference map" of the human brain -- a foundation to understand the differences between a healthy brain and a diseased brain.

"In the future, patients with brain disorders or abnormalities could be diagnosed and treated based on how they differ from the reference map. This is analogous to what's being done with the reference human genome map," Zhang noted.

The team, led by University of California-San Diego, The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) and US-based life science research company Illumina, published their findings in the journal Science.​

​New York, June 25 (IANS) The US space agency is planning to drive the Curiosity Rover towards water sites on the Martian surface to further investigate the long, seasonally changing dark streaks briny water in the hope of finding evidence of life.

"It is not as simple as driving a rover to a potential site and taking a scoop of soil," said Jim Green, NASA's director of planetary science.

"Not only are these on steep slopes, we need to ensure that planetary protection concerns are met. In other words, how can we search for evidence of life without contaminating the sites with bugs from Earth?," he added in a NASA statement.

After approval of mission extension, NASA's Curiosity Mars rover would continue to climb to higher and younger strata on Mount Sharp -- mountain in Gale crater -- to investigate how the ancient, water-rich environments found till now persisted as the red planet dried out. 

A stroll on these destinations would help the one-tonne rover closer to locations where dark streaks are present on slopes and allow it to capture images of the potential water sites from miles away and see if any are the seasonally changing type.

NASA's High-Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) has observed many features of interest. They appear as dark lines that appear to ebb and flow over time. 

"Planetary scientists think these gullies or recurring slope lineae (RSLs) may appear seasonally as a form of briny water at or near the surface of the Red Planet under warmer conditions," NASA said.

NASA is also worried about how close could the rover safely get to an RSL? 

"In terms of coming much closer, we need to understand well in advance the potential for Earth organisms to come off the rover and that will tell us how far away the rover should stay," said Catharine Conley, NASA's planetary protection officer.

The darkish streaks are considered "special regions" on Mars, where extra precautions must be taken to prevent contamination because of the suspected presence of liquid water, considered a prerequisite for life.​

​London, June 25 (IANS) Researchers have found that high-tech scans can spare patients suffering from cancer of the lymphatic system of the serious side effects of chemotherapy as well as predict the outcome of treatment.

In the study, using positron emission tomography (PET) -- a type of imaging test that uses a tiny amount of radioactive glucose to look for disease in the body -- the doctors scanned more than 1,200 patients with advanced Hodgkin lymphoma after they had been given two cycles of standard chemotherapy.

Hodgkin lymphoma is a cancer that starts in white blood cells called lymphocytes. 

“Personalising treatment based on how well it works is a major development for patients with Hodgkin lymphoma and sets a new standard of care,” said Peter Johnson, Professor at University of Southampton in Britain.

The patients were divided into two groups - the first group that continued chemotherapy with bleomycin -- an important drug used to treat Hodgkin lymphoma -- and the second group had chemotherapy without the drug.

Bleomycin comes with potential risks of severely affecting the lungs leading to serious breathing problems.

The results showed that patients who stopped having bleomycin had the same survival rates as those who continued it. But, importantly, they were spared of the side effects.

"The good news is that the majority of people diagnosed with Hodgkin lymphoma can be cured - in this trial more than 95 per cent of patients are alive after three years,” Johnson added.

Three year progression-free survival was seen in patients who underwent chemotherapy without bleomycin was 84.4 per cent.

Further, 85.7 per cent patients who underwent chemotherapy with bleomycin had three-year progression-free survival

For patients with a good outlook stopping bleomycin did not have any negative effects.

However, patients who had a more resistant form of the disease were given more intense chemotherapy treatment, the study said.

“Getting to know the patients that have a more difficult form of the disease means we can select those who need stronger chemotherapy, while sparing everyone else the severe side effects such as infertility,” Johnson said in the study published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

“This approach, along with a reduction in the need for radiotherapy, should substantially reduce damage to healthy tissues and the risk of second cancers caused by treatments,” he concluded.​

Panama City, June 26 (IANS) The Panama Canal is getting ready for expansion that will take traffic through the inter-oceanic passage to a new level, officials said.

With the expansion of the canal's width and depth, the volume of traffic will double, as Panamax-class vessels will now be able to pass through, carrying up to 14,000 cargo containers, Xinhua news agency reported.

Jorge Luis Quijano, administrator of the Panama Canal, said at a press conference on Saturday that this expansion, which will be inaugurated on Sunday, will open up new opportunities in sectors such as logistics and ship repairs.

The main contractor for the expansion was the consortium Grupo Unidos por el Canal.

Espino de Marotta said the project had gone very smoothly, considering the complexity of the works involved. "The expansion of the Panama Canal is one of those projects that happens once every 100 years," he said.​

​Washington, June 24 (IANS) Technology giant Microsoft recently launched a prototype trap for detecting mosquito-borne illnesses like dengue and Zika, says a report.

The prototype trap is being developed as part of the Microsoft's Project Premonition -- a novel autonomous system for monitoring, detecting and preventing emerging infectious

Sydney, June 24 (IANS) A 30-minute walk in the woods each week can help reduce depression and high blood pressure while enhancing mental health, a study has found.

The findings showed that people who made long visits to green spaces had lower rates of depression and high blood pressure and those who visited more frequently had greater social cohesion. 

Visits to outdoor green spaces of 30 minutes or more during the course of a week could reduce the prevalence of depression by up to 7 per cent and high blood pressure by 9 per cent. 

Further, spending more time outdoors may especially benefit children. 

"Kids who grow up experiencing natural environments may benefit developmentally and have a heightened environmental awareness as adults than those who don't," said lead researcher Danielle Shanahan from University of Queensland in Australia.

Visiting parks has been long known to be good for our health, but there has been almost no guidance on how much or how frequently people need to engage with nature, and what types or characteristics of nature need to be incorporated in cities for the best health outcomes. 

"The study finds specific evidence that we need regular visits of at least half an hour to ensure we get these benefits," added Richard Fuller, Associate Professor at the University of Queensland.

More support and encouragement of community activities in natural spaces would encourage people to spend more time in green space, the paper suggested. 

The study, published in the journal Nature Scientific Reports, examines the associations between the duration, frequency and intensity of exposure to nature and health in an urban population. ​

​New York, June 24 (IANS) A long-term exercise regimen may help boost memory as it triggers a protein that enhances brain cell growth, a new study has found.

The findings showed that the production of cathepsin B -- a protein that can be directly traced from the muscles to the brain in mice -- noticeably increased in muscle cells after exercise.

"In the study, we did a screen for proteins that could be secreted by muscle tissue and transported to the brain and among the most interesting candidates was cathepsin B," said Henriette van Praag, Neuroscientist at the National Institute on Aging in the US.

The more time the mice spent on exercise wheels, the level of protein increased in the blood and muscle tissue.

“In humans who exercise consistently for four months, better performance on complex recall tasks, such as drawing from memory, is correlated with increased cathepsin B levels," van Praag added.

Additionally, when cathepsin B was applied to brain cells, it spurred the production of molecules related to neurogenesis.

"We also have converging evidence from our study that cathepsin B is unregulated in blood by exercise for three species -- mice, Rhesus monkeys and humans,” van Praag noted. 

For the study, published in the journal Cell Metabolism, the team compared memory recall in normal mice with that in mice lacking the ability to produce cathepsin B under both sedentary and running conditions. 

Over the course of a week, both sets of mice were given a daily swim test in the Morris water maze, in which a mouse is placed in a small pool and must learn to swim to a platform that is hidden just below the surface of the water. 

After doing this task for a few days, normal mice eventually learn where to find the platform. 

However, when both groups ran before their daily swim test, the normal mice were better able to recall the location of the platform, while the mice unable to make cathepsin B could not remember its location, suggesting the potential of the protein in spatial learning.​

​Lisbon, June 24 (IANS) Portugal's stock market fell to 20-year-lows in early trading Friday as a reaction to the UK's referendum decision to leave the European Union (EU).

The PSI-20 principal index fell close to 11 per cent to 4.17 points in early trading, its lowest level since January 1996, EFE news reported.

​London, June 24 (IANS) BlackBerry, the Canadian mobile company sold just 5 lakh phones globally in the first fiscal quarter - down from six lakh in the previous quarter - reporting a $670 million loss which is its biggest loss in over two years.