Knowledge Update

Washington, April 29 (IANS) Using data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and other optical telescopes, astronomers have developed a powerful new method for investigating dark energy - the mysterious energy that is currently driving the accelerating expansion of the universe.

The technique takes advantage of the observation that the outer reaches of galaxy clusters, the largest structures in the universe held together by gravity, show similarity in their X-ray emission profiles and sizes.

More massive clusters are simply scaled up versions of less massive ones.

“In this sense, galaxy clusters are like 'Russian dolls', with smaller ones having a similar shape to the larger ones,” said Andrea Morandi from University of Alabama in Huntsville.

“Knowing this lets us compare them and accurately determine their distances across billions of light years,” he added.

By using these galaxy clusters as distance markers, astronomers can measure how quickly the universe was expanding at different times since the Big Bang.

According to Einstein’s theory of general relativity, the rate of expansion is determined by the properties of dark energy plus the amount of matter in the Universe, where the latter is mostly made up of unseen material called dark matter.

The latest results confirm earlier studies that the properties of dark energy have not changed over billions of years.

They also support the idea that dark energy is best explained by the “cosmological constant,” which Einstein first proposed and is equivalent to the energy of empty space.

“Although we’ve looked hard at other explanations, it still appears that dark energy behaves just like Einstein's cosmological constant,” added study co-author Ming Sun.

To reach this conclusion, the researchers studied 320 galaxy clusters with distances from Earth that ranged from about 760 million light years to about 8.7 billion light years.

“We think this new technique has the ability to provide a big leap forward in our understanding of dark energy,” the authors noted in a paper appeared in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society journal.​

​Washington, April 28 (IANS) The US economy grew at an annual rate of 0.5 percent in the first quarter of this year, pulled back by slowing consumption, the commerce department said on Thursday.

​New York, April 28 (IANS) Not just connecting you with friends, interaction with fellow students on social networking website can help you focus and study better, say researchers.

​Hong Kong, April 29 (IANS) Italian luxury fashion house Gucci has sent warning letters to Hong Kong shops not to sell paper versions of its branded products as offerings to the dead, a report said on Friday. Paper replicas of items like mansions, cars, iPads and luxury bags are burnt in the belief when people die so they can use them in the afterlife, BBC reported. "We fully respect the funeral context and we trust that the store owners did not have the intention to infringe Gucci's trademark," Gucci Hong Kong said in a statement. "Thus a letter was sent on an informational basis to let these stores know about the products they were carrying and by asking them to stop selling those items," the statement said. In Hong Kong, some shops that had reportedly received the letters have removed their Gucci wares. But other brands, including Louis Vuitton, Saint Laurent, Burberry and New Balance, are still on sale. Demand for these products is highest during the Qingming "tomb-sweeping" festival which took place last month.​

​New York, April 29 (IANS) Tiny doses of a cancer drug may stop the raging, uncontrollable immune response to infection that leads to sepsis, say researchers.

A small dose of topoisomerase I (Top 1) inhibitor can dampen an acute inflammatory reaction to infection while still allowing the body's protective defense to take place, showed the findings published in the journal Science.

The treatment may help control not only sepsis but also new and brutal assaults on human immunity such as novel influenza strains and pandemics of Ebola and other singular infections, said the study's senior investigator, Ivan Marazzi, assistant professor at Icahn School of medicine at Mount Sinai in New York.

Sepsis -- deadly infections often acquired in hospital by patients with a weak immune system -- is caused by an excessive host response to infection, which in turn leads to multiple organ failure and death. 

The team found that use of one to three doses of a Top 1 inhibitor that is one fiftieth the strength of normal chemotherapy was enough to rescue 70-90 percent of mice from an inflammatory storm death due to either acute bacterial infection, liver failure, or virus-bacteria co-infection. 

The treatment did not produce overt side effects.

They also tested the inhibitor in cells infected with influenza, Ebola, and other viral and bacterial microbes that over-stimulate the immune system, and found the drug blunted a dangerous immune reaction.

"Our results suggest that a therapy based on Top 1 inhibition could save millions of people affected by sepsis, pandemics, and many congenital deficiencies associated with acute inflammatory episodes -- what is known as a cytokine, or inflammatory, storm," Marazzi said.

"These storms occur because the body does not know how to adjust the appropriate level of inflammation that is good enough to suppress an infection but doesn't harm the body itself," he said. 

"This drug appears to offer that life-saving correction," Marazzi explained​

Beijing, April 29 (IANS) China's migrant workforce reached 277.5 million in 2015, an annual rise of 1.3 percent, but the year-on-year growth rate has been decreasing since 2011, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.

​Dhaka, April 28 (IANS) A UN body on Thursday expressed its optimism about Bangladesh's potential though it trimmed its growth forecast for 2015-16 fiscal (July 2015-June 2016) at 6.8 percent.

Tokyo, April 27 (IANS) Japanese videogame company Nintendo will release its new console globally in March 2017, the company announced on Wednesday. "Nintendo is currently developing a gaming platform codenamed 'NX' with a brand-new concept... NX will be launched in March 2017 globally," the company said in its report, without giving any more details. The Kyoto-based company decided to halt production of its Wii U game console, after scanty sales till December 2015 that pushed it to focus on the Nintendo NX, EFE news reported citing the Nikkei daily. The launch of the new console could, however, result in a greater dip in Wii U sales, which dropped 8.4 percent in 2015.​

​London, April 27 (IANS) People need not check their cholesterol levels on an empty stomach, suggests new research involving more than 300,000 individuals from Denmark, Canada and the US.

So far, fasting has been required before cholesterol and triglyceride measurement in all countries except Denmark, where non-fasting blood sampling has been used since 2009, the study pointed out.

Fasting is a problem for many patients, and the latest research shows that cholesterol and triglyceride levels are similar whether you fast or not. 

"This will improve patients compliance to preventive treatment aimed at reducing number of heart attacks and strokes, the main killers in the world," said one of the researchers Borge Nordestgaard from Herlev Hospital, University of Copenhagen.

The research was published in the European Heart Journal.

In Denmark, the use of random, non-fasting cholesterol testing at any time of the day irrespective of food intake has been used successfully since 2009. 

Patients, doctors and laboratories have all benefitted from this simplified procedure. For people at work, children, patients with diabetes and the elderly it is particularly beneficial not to have to fast before blood sampling for cholesterol and triglyceride testing.

This is the first international recommendation that fasting is no longer necessary before cholesterol and triglyceride testing. 

These recommendations represent a joint consensus statement from the European Atherosclerosis Society and European Federation of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine involving 21 medical experts from Europe, Australia and the US.

"We hope that non-fasting cholesterol testing will make more patients together with their doctors implement lifestyle changes and if necessary statin treatment to reduce the global burden of cardiovascular disease and premature death," Nordestgaard added.​

​New York, April 27 (IANS) Old age brings with it many health problems including the loss of vision, hearing and taste, and a new study says that the ability to smell the food through the mouth decreases with age.

Human beings not only pick up aromas through the nose, but also through the mouth while chewing the food. Retronasal smell, which is smelling from behind the nose comes into play when food is chewed and volatile molecules are released in the process.

These then drift through the mouth to the back of the nose where the odour is detected.

But, unfortunately, for some, this ability decreases with age, said Tyler Flaherty from Oregon State University in the US.

This might be, among other reasons, because of the prolonged use of medication or physical and mental changes associated with older age, the researchers noted in the study published in the journal Chemosensory Perception. 

One's ability to pick up smells through the mouth could also be influenced by, for instance, the use of dentures.

The results revealed that many of the older participants found it difficult to pick out specific odours.

However, younger participants fared better when individual smells where presented to them in combination with other tastes.

"Generally, large individual differences in odour responsiveness become even greater when ageing is considered as a factor," Flaherty said.

The team studied how people experience odours via their mouths, and whether age or gender has an influence on it. 

They included 102 non-smoking healthy people between the ages of 18 and 72 years old participants in the study.

The researchers then rated how intensely they pick up on two tastes (sweet and salty) and four odours (strawberry, vanilla, chicken and soy sauce) put to them. 

Participants were also exposed to these in combinations that go well together, such as sweet and vanilla, or salty and chicken.

Significantly, only three percent of the participants had trouble picking up any traces of the sweet or salty tastes, whereas up to 23 percent of them found it difficult to detect some of the sampled odours.