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Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on March 26, 2014 at 9:57am

A study of patients with chronic headaches suggests that pain is linked with the brain’s ability to change with use.
New insights into how the human brain responds to chronic pain could eventually lead to improved treatments for patients, according to University of Adelaide researchers.

Neuroplasticity is the term used to describe the brain’s ability to change structurally and functionally with experience and use.
http://www.adelaide.edu.au/

The Brain’s Inability To Change Linked To Chronic Pain

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on March 26, 2014 at 9:55am

Scientists have developed nanoparticle-based colors that could be used to make paint and electronic displays that never fade.
Nanoparticles Give Color Without Pigments
Most of the colors we see around us arise from paints and dyes that absorb certain wavelengths of light and reflect the remainder. In contrast, structural color is created when an object’s very nanostructure amplifies a specific wavelength.

Although examples of structural color have been found in nature, producing structural color in the lab is difficult as it requires a material’s molecules to be in a very specific crystalline pattern.

Taking a different approach inspired by the feathers of the cotinga bird, researchers have devised a system to obtain structural color using microcapsules filled with a disordered solution of nanoparticles suspended in water. When the microcapsule is partly dried out, it shrinks, bringing the particles closer and closer together. Eventually the average distance between all the particles will give rise to a specific reflected color from the capsule.
Full-Spectrum Photonic Pigments with Non-iridescent Structural Colors through Colloidal Assembly
Structurally colored materials could potentially replace dyes and pigments in many applications, but it is challenging to fabricate structural colors that mimic the appearance of absorbing pigments. We demonstrate the microfluidic fabrication of “photonic pigments” consisting of microcapsules containing dense amorphous packings of core–shell colloidal particles. These microcapsules show non-iridescent structural colors that are independent of viewing angle, a critical requirement for applications such as displays or coatings. We show that the design of the microcapsules facilitates the suppression of incoherent and multiple scattering, enabling the fabrication of photonic pigments with colors spanning the visible spectrum. Our findings should provide new insights into the design and synthesis of materials with structural colors.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/anie.201309306/abstract;...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on March 26, 2014 at 9:52am

Nanowire ‘Fingerprints’ To Fight Counterfeiting
Nanowire fingerprints are cheap to produce and extremely difficult to replicate, making them useful in anti-counterfeiting measures, scientists say.
Researchers from South Korea have utilized the unique patterns made from tiny, randomly scattered silver nanowires to authenticate goods and tackle the growing problem of counterfeiting.

The nanoscale ‘fingerprints’ are made by randomly dumping 20 to 30 individual nanowires, each with an average length of 10 to 50 µm, onto a thin plastic film, and could be used to tag a variety of goods from electronics and drugs to credit cards and bank notes.

According to the researchers, the fingerprints are almost impossible to replicate because of the natural randomness of their creation and the difficulty associated with manipulating such small materials.
Anti-counterfeit nanoscale fingerprints based on randomly distributed nanowires
http://iopscience.iop.org/0957-4484/25/15/155303/

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on March 26, 2014 at 9:50am

The loss of biodiversity is closely linked to outbreaks of diseases in the Asia-Pacific region, according to a study which points at biodiversity’s potential role as A buffer against disease outbreaks.

Despite increasing health control measures, parasitic and infectious diseases have been emerging and recurring in South-East Asia — which the study calls “a recognized hotspot for biodiversity” and “which is suffering from rapid and extensive erosion of that diversity.”

The two trends may be linked, finds the study published in PLOS One, saying that “that although biodiversity is a source of pathogens, well-preserved biodiversity could act an insurance against outbreaks.”

Infectious Diseases and Their Outbreaks in Asia-Pacific: Biodiversity and Its Regulation Loss Matter
http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone....

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on March 26, 2014 at 9:47am

The Unconscious Mind Can Detect a Liar — Even When the Conscious Mind Fails
When it comes to detecting deceit, your unconscious mind may be more accurate than conscious thought in pegging truth-tellers and liars, according to a new research.

The findings suggest that conscious awareness may hinder our ability to detect whether someone is lying, perhaps because we tend to seek out behaviours that are supposedly stereotypical of liars, like averted eyes or fidgeting.

However, those behaviours may not be all that indicative of an untrustworthy person, researchers said.
http://www.psychologicalscience.org/index.php/news/releases/the-unc...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on March 26, 2014 at 7:23am

MIT Engineers Use Bacterial Biofilms To Create Lifelike Materials
drawing inspiration from the way in which minerals, living cells and other substances combine to form bone, a team of MIT engineers have created a type of “living material” out of bacterial cells, according to research appearing in Sunday’s edition of the journal Nature Materials.

Lead author Allen Chen, an MIT-Harvard MD-PhD student, and his colleagues coaxed those cells to produce biofilms capable of incorporating nonliving materials such as gold nanoparticles and quantum dots. They combined the ability of living cells to respond to their environments and produce complex biological molecules with the benefits of nonliving materials, such as adding functions like electrical conductivity or light emissions.

- Nature

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on March 26, 2014 at 7:20am

Scientists Working On Facial Reconstruction Method Using Genetic Material
Modeling 3D Facial Shape from DNA
Human facial diversity is substantial, complex, and largely scientifically unexplained. We used spatially dense quasi-landmarks to measure face shape in population samples with mixed West African and European ancestry from three locations (United States, Brazil, and Cape Verde). Using bootstrapped response-based imputation modeling (BRIM), we uncover the relationships between facial variation and the effects of sex, genomic ancestry, and a subset of craniofacial candidate genes. The facial effects of these variables are summarized as response-based imputed predictor (RIP) variables, which are validated using self-reported sex, genomic ancestry, and observer-based facial ratings (femininity and proportional ancestry) and judgments (sex and population group). By jointly modeling sex, genomic ancestry, and genotype, the independent effects of particular alleles on facial features can be uncovered. Results on a set of 20 genes showing significant effects on facial features provide support for this approach as a novel means to identify genes affecting normal-range facial features and for approximating the appearance of a face from genetic markers.
http://www.plosgenetics.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal....

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on March 25, 2014 at 7:23am

Children born to older fathers are not just at an increased risk of autism and some other diseases but are also more likely to be ugly, scientists say. Previous studies have shown that extra-genetic mutations that build up in older men's genes can raise their children's risk of autism, schizophrenia and other diseases. Now researchers say the impact is so strong that it also affects the appearance of those who have older fathers.

"We found a significant negative effect between paternal age and people's facial attractiveness," said Martin Fieder, an anthropologist at Vienna University and one of the research team leaders. "The age of the father at conception is not only a determinant of the risk for certain diseases but also predicts facial attractiveness," Fieder said.

In the study, a group of six men and six women was shown photographs of 4,018 men and 4,416 women, mostly aged 18-20, and asked to rate their attractiveness. The researchers found that subjects with older fathers tended to be consistently rated less attractive than those with younger fathers.
Older dads more likely to have uglier children
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/science/Older-dads-more-lik...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on March 25, 2014 at 7:12am

Stick filters out ‘99 per cent’ of bacteria from water

Scientists are developing a system to filter out bacteria using plant sticks

A small stick cleans water at a rate sufficient for one person’s drinking needs

Others say the system still needs to pass WHO standards for drinking water
Scientists from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the United States are working with their counterparts in developing countries to produce an “economical and efficient” means of filtering out bacteria from water using plant xylem that normally transports water and nutrients from the soil.

The novel technology could provide a solution to the burden of water-borne diseases in East Asia and the Pacific where about 180 million people lack access to safe water supply, according to the UNICEF (UN Children’s Fund).
Water Filtration Using Plant Xylem
http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone....

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on March 24, 2014 at 6:13am

DNA left at a crime scene could in future be used to build up a picture of an offender’s face, scientists believe.
Researches are now saying the day is not very far away when they will be able to create a "photo" of the perpetrator from the DNA that he leaves behind. Researchers are already able to tell what a crime suspect might look like from looking at his DNA, including his racial ancestry and the colour of his hair.
That started in 2012, when Manfred Kayser from the Erasmus University Medical Centre in Rotterdam, Holland, began looking for genes that affected the relative positions of nine facial "landmarks", including the tip of the nose and the middle of each eyeball. He found five genetic variants which had discernable effects on facial shape.

Furthering Kayser's work, population geneticist Mark Shriver of Pennsylvania State University and imaging specialist Peter Claes of the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium used a stereoscopic camera to take 3D pictures of almost 600 volunteers with mixed European and West African ancestry. The scientists reasoned that because people from Europe and Africa tend to have differently shaped faces, studying people with mixed ancestry pushed up their chances of finding genetic variants that affected facial structure.

Shriver and Claes found 24 variants in 20 genes that seemed to predict what a face would look like.

The researches however say their reconstructions are not yet ready for routine use by crime labs. But that said, Shriver is already working with police to see if he can help find the man believed to be responsible for two cases of serial rape in Pennsylvania.
- Agencies

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