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Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on June 17, 2016 at 7:17am

Correction: Drinking very hot beverages can cause cancer of oesophagus says WHO
Researchers from the World Health Organisation (WHO) recently announced that coffee and herbal tea consumed at normal serving temperatures do not cause cancer and should not be labelled as carcinogenic.

The findings have knocked the cancer risk of these drinks down to zero, some 25 years after the WHO classified coffee as a possible carcinogen that could lead to bladder cancer. But the scientists still say that drinking extremely hot beverages might cause cancer of the oesophagus.
The conclusion was drawn after 23 scientists from the WHO's International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) reviewed more than 1,000 studies on coffee’s link to cancer. They report that, "there was inadequate evidence for the carcinogenicity of coffee drinking overall".
While the team didn’t go into detail about what "extremely hot" actually means, they do say that coffee consumed at "serving temperature" is fine. That means somewhere around 65 degrees Celsius (150 degrees Fahrenheit).

It’s not that the coffee suddenly becomes a carcinogen when heated to a high temperature, though. The researchers instead think that repeated scalding of the throat might lead to the formation of tumours, though evidence of this is currently limited.

These results suggest that drinking very hot beverages is one probable cause of oesophagal cancer and that it is the temperature, rather than the drinks themselves, that appears to be responsible.
To make a good cup of coffee, the water temperature while brewing should be somewhere between 90.5 degrees Celsius (195 degrees Fahrenheit) and 96 degrees Celsius (205 degrees Fahrenheit). When served, that temperature drops rather quickly. If it didn’t, the coffee would be too hot to comfortably drink, which is what you should avoid.

The basic rule of thumb here is that if the coffee burns you, wait a few minutes. Not only will this possibly reduce your risk of oesophageal cancer, it will make for a better coffee drinking experience, because who wants a side of pain with their morning cup of coffee?
The American Institute for Cancer Research says:

"Coffee’s possible link to cancer is a well-studied one, with over 1,000 studies on the topic. Early in the research, some studies hinted that coffee might increase cancer risk. Larger and more well-designed studies now suggest the opposite: it may be protective for some cancers."

Cancer isn’t the only disease that coffee could reduce. Earlier this year, researchers from the University of Southampton in the UK found positive results with liver disease, concluding that "having two cups of coffee a day appears to reduce the chances of developing the disease by 44 percent, based on data from 430,000 individuals spread over nine studies.
Let's be clear though - despite the wealth of research into the potential health benefits of coffee, nothing definitive has yet been found. It could be that we're trying really hard to find something beneficial in drinking coffee, because that would be very convenient, given how many of us do it. So we have to remain skeptical for now.

As the research continues, we might find real health benefits in our coffee drinking, but we really don’t need more of an excuse other than it tastes delicious and we're all really, really tired.

A summary of the IARC's findings was published in The Lancet Oncology.
http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanonc/article/PIIS1470-2045(16)30239-X/fulltext

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on June 17, 2016 at 6:20am

Life-forming molecule found in interstellar space!
For the first time ever, scientists have detected a complex organic molecule called a chiral molecule in the reaches of interstellar space, and the discovery could greatly enhance our understanding of how biological life came to be on Earth – and maybe even life's prospects for evolving elsewhere in the galaxy.

The molecule in question, propylene oxide, was discovered in a gigantic gas cloud called Sagittarius B2, located about 390 light-years from the centre of the Milky Way. Sagittarius B2 has a mass around 3 million times the mass of the Sun, and now we know that this huge conglomeration contains chiral molecules in its midst, which had never previously been detected outside our Solar System.
This is the first molecule detected in interstellar space that has the property of chirality, making it a pioneering leap forward in our understanding of how prebiotic molecules are made in the Universe and the effects they may have on the origins of life.
Chirality is a geometric property of molecules, where asymmetric molecules display an almost identical chemical composition, but in an altered configuration – much like a mirror image – in what are called left-handed or right-handed versions.

It's a key chemical property of life on Earth, where every molecule that helps to form living things – such as amino acids, proteins, enzymes, and sugars – appears in only the left- or right-handed version of itself. This is called homochirality, and while it gives a biological benefit – as the matching molecules can fit better with one another to make larger organic structures – nobody knows how this 'chiral bias' came about.

As such, the discovery that chirality exists well outside our Solar System – with the detection of a 'handed' molecule in Sagittarius B2 – is a pretty big deal. Why? Because it could help explain why life essentially picks one molecular orientation over another.

"Propylene oxide is among the most complex and structurally intricate molecules detected so far in space."
Detecting this molecule opens the door for further experiments determining how and where molecular handedness emerges, and why one form may be slightly more abundant than the other."

The researchers identified the molecular signature of propylene oxide using the Green Bank Telescope (GBT) in West Virginia, with supporting observations coming from the CSIRO's Parkes radio telescope in Australia.
The team thinks complex molecules like this could form in the gas cloud from thin mantles of ice that develop on extremely tiny dust grains floating in space. These ice mantles would enable the molecules to form larger molecular structures, and help produce other chemical reactions within the cloud should the ice evaporate.

It sounds like a glacial process, but the fact that chiral molecules are doing this at all in deep space could help explain how they later make their way onto asteroids and comets – which might end up seeding the molecules on the surface of planets in the event of an impact.
In other words, these molecules – and the chance we now have to study them in isolation – could tell us a lot about where life comes from and how it evolves the way it does, including why it's so choosey about being a lefty or a righty.
The findings are published in Science.
http://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2016/06/13/science.aae0328

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on June 15, 2016 at 9:28am

A nanomaterial-based, wide-color-varying fluorescent test paper much like classical pH test paper, has been developed to detect arsenic in water. The paper describing it was published in Analytical Chemistry.
To develop this test paper, the team used modified red quantum dots to obtain super-sensitivity to arsenic(III), or As(III). A small amount of cyan carbon dots with spectral blue-green components were added to produce a composited red fluorescence. The sensory solution was then printed onto a piece of filter paper.

In the presence of As(III), a range of colors is displayed—from red to cyan—clearly detecting a dosage scale as low as 5 parts per billion (ppb). According to World Health Organization’s guidelines, 10 ppb of As(III) in drinking water is considered safe.

http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acs.analchem.6b01248

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on June 15, 2016 at 8:47am

Laser-Scanning Tech Reveals Hidden Cities in Cambodia
Archaeologists in Cambodia say they uncovered previously unknown hidden cities near the Temples of Angkor Wat, which is part of one of the most important archaeological sites in Southeast Asia.

Using airborne laser scanning technology and covering an area of more than 734 square miles, experts revealed multiple cities that are around 900 to 1,400 years old. Some are so large that they rival the size of Cambodia’s capital, Phnom Penh.

“We have entire cities discovered beneath the forest that no one knew were there,” said Dr. Damian Evans, an Australian archaeologist with the Cambodian Archaeological Lidar (light detection and ranging) Initiative (CALI), which has been mapping the country.

This study, one of the largest of its kind, was an extension of a previous survey in 2012 that uncovered a large, interconnected system between cities. The results of the 2015 study, were released in full on 13th June, 2016, in the Journal of Archaeological Science, show the full scale of the city and subsequently the Khmer Empire, which at its peak in the 12th century, may have been the largest empire on Earth.

The discoveries not only expand on the collective history of the region, but also might give researchers clues into the empire’s collapse around the 15th century.

“There’s an idea that somehow the Thais invaded and everyone fled down south–that didn’t happen, there are no cities [revealed by the aerial survey] that they fled to,” Evans said. “It calls into question the whole notion of an Angkorian collapse.”

                                                          ------

Air Pollution Gives Storm Clouds a Stronger, Longer Life

More particulate matter in the air can build stronger, longer-lasting thunderstorms over the tropics, leading to more extreme storms. 

Clouds are built of tiny aerosol particles of dust or pollution from fossil fuel burning that suck up water vapor. Now these cloud particles with time they combine with each other, and become big. And when they become big, due to gravity, they fall out, and we call it rain.

When more aerosols seed the air, like in places with lots of industrial or agricultural pollution, the same amount of water vapor gets absorbed by a larger number of aerosols… meaning tinier-than-usual cloud particle size.

That's important, because it makes the cloud bigger and larger and stronger and live longer. Three to 24 hours longer. And it can produce more extreme storms when the rain finally comes. The study is in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. [Sudip Chakraborty et al., Relative influence of meteorological conditions and aerosols on the...]

A silver lining:  longer-lasting clouds also reflect more light back into space, which could end up somewhat cooling the planet!

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on June 15, 2016 at 8:42am

Tiny fossils show how environment affects species
Fossils resembling miniaturised popcorn that date back millions of years provide the first statistical evidence that number of species on Earth depends on how the environment changes, according to a new study.
By analysing the fossil record of microscopic aquatic creatures called planktonic foraminifera, the research from University of Southampton in the UK shows that environmental changes put a cap on species richness.
A changing environment alters how many species we see - the spatial gradient of more species in the tropics than at the poles is pervasive evidence for its large-scale impact.
Analyses of how species numbers have changed over time have assumed that any limit has always been the same, even through periods of massive climate upheaval.
New data reject this idea of fixed rules for competition among species and instead show that the limit to the number of species that can co-exist on Earth is much more dynamic. Climate and geology are always changing, and the limit changes with them.
While previous research typically focused individually on either biological, climate change or geological explanations, this new research examined the co-dependence of these factors on how species interact.
Looking at the fossil history of 210 evolutionary species of macroperforate planktonic foraminifera in the Cenozoic Era from 65 million years ago to the present, the study found that the number of species was almost certainly controlled by competition among themselves and probably kept within a finite upper limit.
Scientists used mathematical models to reveal how environmental changes influence both the rate of diversification among species and how many species can co-exist at once.
New results suggest that the world is full of species, but that the precise fullness varies through time as environmental changes alter the outcome of competition among species.
Scientists have long argued that environmental changes are likely to impact the number of species that can co-exist on Earth, but the fossil record is usually too incomplete for powerful statistical testing.
"Microfossils - especially planktonic foraminifera - give us a record with almost no gaps".
The study was published in the journal Ecology Letters.

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on June 15, 2016 at 6:00am

When we watch and listen to someone speak, our brain combines the visual information of the movement of the speaker’s mouth with the speech sounds that are produced by this movement.
A part of the continuous speech stream called the envelope, which is the slow rising and falling in the amplitude of the speech, was tracked in auditory areas of the brain. Conversely, the visual cortex tracked mouth movements. So what role does tracking the lip movements of a speaker play in speech perception?
Two areas of the brain actively track lip movements during speech. The first area was the visual cortex. This presumably tracks the lips as a visual signal. The second area was the left motor cortex. The ability of the motor cortex to track lip movements is important for understanding audiovisual speech. Some scientists suggest that the motor system helps to predict the upcoming sound signal by simulating the speaker’s intended mouth movement.
- eLifesciences

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on June 15, 2016 at 5:51am

Now honeybees have to fight another adversity! Climate change.

Spring's bloom may not smell so sweet anymore, as pollutants from power plants and automobiles destroy flowers' aromas, a new study suggests. The finding could help explain why some pollinators, particularly bees, are declining in certain parts of the world. 

Researchers at the University of Virginia created a mathematical model of how the scents of flowers travel with the wind. The scent molecules produced by the flowers readily bond with pollutants such as ozone, which destroys the aromas they produce.

So instead of wafting for long distances with the wind, the flowery scents are chemically altered. Essentially, the flowers no longer smell like flowers.

"The scent molecules produced by flowers in a less polluted environment, such as in the 1800s, could travel for roughly 1,000 to 1,200 meters [3,300 to 4,000 feet]; but in today's polluted environment downwind of major cities, they may travel only 200 to 300 meters [650 to 980 feet]," said study team member Jose D. Fuentes.

With flowers no longer advertising their presence over as large an area, pollinators are forced to search farther and longer to pick up the hint of their scent. They may also have to rely more on their sight than what they smell.

Bees depend on flower nectar for food, and if they have a hard time finding the flowers, they can't sustain their populations. Other studies, along with the experiences of farmers, have indicated that bee populations are dropping in places such as California and the Netherlands. Fuentes and his team think air pollution may be the reason.

The research, funded by the National Science Foundation, is detailed online in the journal Atmospheric Environment.

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on June 14, 2016 at 5:34am

According to a new study, the primate brain is "pre-adapted" to face any situation!

A new neuroscience study has shown how the brain anticipates all of the new situations that it may encounter in a lifetime by creating a special kind of neural network that is "pre-adapted" to face any eventuality.

Enel et al at the INSERM in France investigate one of the most noteworthy properties of primate behavior, its diversity and adaptability. Human and non-human primates can learn an astonishing variety of novel behaviors that could not have been directly anticipated by evolution - we now understand that this ability to cope with new situations is due to the "pre-adapted" nature of the primate brain.

This study shows that this seemingly miraculous pre-adaptation comes from connections between neurons that form recurrent loops where inputs can rebound and mix in the network, like waves in a pond, thus called "reservoir" computing. This mix of the inputs allows a potentially universal representation of combinations of the inputs that can then be used to learn the right behaviour for a new situation.

The authors demonstrate this by training a reservoir network to perform a novel problem solving task. They then compared the activity of neurons in the model with activity of neurons in the prefrontal cortex of a research primate that was trained to perform the same task. Remarkably, there were striking similarities in the activation of neurons in both the reservoir model and the primate.

This breakthrough shows that we have taken big step towards understanding the local recurrent connectivity in the brain that prepares primates to face unlimited situations. This research shows that by allowing essentially unlimited combinations of internal representations in the network of the brain, one of them is always on hand for the given situation.

The study is published in PLOS Computational Biology.

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on June 11, 2016 at 8:38am

4 New Elements Get Names
The proposed names for elements 113, 115, 117 and 118 are nihonium, moscovium, tennessine and oganesson respectively, the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (Iupac) has announced.
The criteria states an element may be named after a mythological figure or concept, geological place, scientist, elemental property, or mineral.
Nihonium (elemental symbol Nh) is the proposed name for element-113. The element was synthesised by Kosuke Morita’s group at RIKEN in Japan after they bombarded a bismuth target with zinc-70 nuclei in 2004 and 2012. Named after Japan, the element will be the first East Asian name to appear on the periodic table if ratified.
Scientists based in Russia and the US who discovered elements 115 and 117 have put forward the names moscovium (Mc) and tennessine (Ts), respectively. A collaboration between the Joint Institute of Nuclear Research in Russia and the Oak Ridge and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories, US, elements 115 and 117 were both created in 2010. Both element names take their cues from geographical regions. Moscovium is named after Moscow, where the Joint Institute of Nuclear Research is based. Named after Tennessee, tennessine is a tribute to the region where a large amount of superheavy element research is conducted in the US.
The same group has also named element-118 oganesson (Og), in honour of the Russian nuclear physicist Yuri Oganessian who led the team that synthesised element-117.

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on June 11, 2016 at 8:21am

Excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere? How do you tackle it? Scientists found a new and very promising solution!

Carbon dioxide emissions from an electric power plant have been captured, pumped underground and solidified—the first step toward safe carbon capture and storage, according to a paper published on 9th June, 2016, in the journal Science.

( Rapid carbon mineralization for permanent disposal of anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions

http://science.sciencemag.org/content/352/6291/1312 )

Scientists working at the Hellisheidi geothermal power plant near Reykjavik, Iceland, were able to pump the plant’s carbon dioxide-rich volcanic gases into deep underground basalt formations, mix them with water and chemically solidify the carbon dioxide.

When basalt—a volcanic rock that makes up roughly 70 percent of the earth’s surface—is exposed to carbon dioxide and water, a chemical reaction occurs, converting the gas to a chalk-like solid material. Scientists previously thought it wasn’t possible to capture and store carbon this way because earlier studies suggested it could take thousands of years for large amounts of carbon dioxide to be converted to chalk.

But Scientists, working on a project called CarbFix, were able to do it in two years.

Turning Carbon Emissions to Stone from Earth Institute on Vimeo.

Risks that carbon dioxide will escape into the atmosphere while it is being stored underground are greatly diminished because the solidification process occurs so quickly.

In the future, we could think of using this for power plants in places where there’s a lot of basalt—and there are many such places.

Scientists need to do more research into how different kinds of basalt affect the way carbon dioxide solidifies before the CarbFix process can be used worldwide.

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