Comment

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on December 7, 2024 at 11:20am

When police make 500 arrests using facial recognition tech, can we say "our privacy and freedom are being infringed upon"?

London's Metropolitan Police force said this week that it had used facial recognition technology to make more than 500 arrests in 2024 for offenses ranging from shoplifting to rape.

The force uses live facial recognition in specific areas of the UK capital, positioning a van equipped with cameras in a pre-agreed location.

The cameras capture live footage of passers-by and compare their faces against a pre-approved watchlist, generating an alert if a match is detected.

Civil liberties campaigners have criticized the use of such technology, and advocacy group Big Brother Watch has launched legal action to stop its expansion.

"The technology works by creating a 'faceprint' of everyone who passes in front of camera—processing biometric data as sensitive as a fingerprint, often without our knowledge or consent," the group says on its website.

"This dangerously authoritarian surveillance is a threat to our privacy and freedoms—it has no place on the streets of Britain," it adds.

The Met says it is a "forerunner" in using the technology, adding that it helps "make London safer" by helping detect "offenders who pose significant risks to our communities".

Of the 540 arrests, more then 50 were for serious offenses involving violence against women and girls, including offenses such as strangulation, stalking, domestic abuse and rape

( My questions : don't these crimes severely  infringe upon our freedom and privacy? Don't they put all the women in dangerous situations?).

More than 400 of those arrested have already been charged or cautioned.

"This technology is helping us protect our communities from harm", say the police. Can you argue against it?

This tech is a powerful tool that supports officers to identify and focus on people who present the highest risk that may otherwise have gone undetected. 

Responding to privacy fears, police said that the biometric data of any passer-by not on a watchlist is "immediately and permanently deleted".

Can you get an assurance better than that?

I am okay with this tech. Because I am not a criminal and don't do anything against the law, ever. Then why should I be afraid of it?

It is much better than 500 criminals roaming around the streets.

Police, keep it coming. I am all game for it.

Source: News agencies 

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on December 7, 2024 at 11:02am

AI infiltrates the rat world: New robot can interact socially with real lab rats

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on December 7, 2024 at 10:55am

Scientists make cooking oil biofuel as efficient as diesel

A new way to produce fuels made from leftover fat can create biofuel as effective as diesel and 1000-times more efficiently than current methods, a new study has suggested.

Published in Green Chemistry, researchers  used enzymes to break down fatty acids in cooking oil into alkenes, the building block of fuels like petrol and diesel.  The scientists hope that the new renewable fuel, which can be made using leftover food waste, can cut fossil fuel usage.

Biofuels are a wide variety of energy sources made from renewable organic material that comes from plants or animals, like vegetable oil. Those that can directly replace petrol or diesel in conventional combustion engines have been touted as a sustainable alternative to fossil fuels, with fuels derived from food waste cutting greenhouse gases by up to 94%.

Typically, these fuels contain a lot of oxygen molecules which burn inefficiently. This low fuel efficiency has previously prevented widespread usage with the energy produced by burning fatty acid derived biofuels being 90% of that produced by diesel. To compensate and create diesel equivalents more raw materials are needed, pushing up costs to two times that of fossil fuels.

To create a more efficient fuel with more active alkene in, the researchers modified an enzyme called P450 decarboxylase to break down fatty acids found in food waste and extract the oxygen found within.
The enzyme typically requires water to work, meaning that it produces a low yield of alkene. To overcome this, the modified enzyme was placed in a liquid salt while a UV light was shone on it as it mixed with fatty acids to activate the reaction. This resulted in a yield of alkenes that was far greater than what is possible in water. The improved efficiency means that the production of the fuel requires less energy and lower amounts of raw materials, dramatically improving sustainability.

Moreover, as the enzyme is a biological catalyst, the process removes the need for conventional catalysts like platinum, which avoids any environmental damage caused by mining. The use of UV light also prevents the use of toxic chemicals like hydrogen peroxide to push the reaction forward.

Jake H. Nicholson et al, Enhancing the reactivity of a P450 decarboxylase with ionic liquids, Green Chemistry (2024). DOI: 10.1039/D4GC05292G

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on December 7, 2024 at 10:16am

In this new effort, researchers found 485 papers that involved the study of a species and its ability to survive changes to its environment. They then compared this data with estimates of future warming and determined what sort of changes might occur and in which areas. They then made estimates about the likely survivability of a given species based on where it lives and its ability to migrate or to adapt.

The researchers found that if global temperatures rise approximately 5.4°C by the end of this century (the worst-case scenario), it would likely lead to the extinction of approximately one-third of all species alive today. They note that some cases of chain-reaction extinctions could occur, in which a small animal goes extinct and then a larger animal that feeds on it consequently goes extinct. They also note that some species groups or types are at much higher risk than others, such as amphibians.

Mark C. Urban, Climate change extinctions, Science (2024). DOI: 10.1126/science.adp4461

Part 2

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on December 7, 2024 at 10:14am

Meta-analysis of current global warming impacts suggests a third of all species could be extinct by 2100

Biologists found evidence that up to a third of all species alive today could go extinct by 2100 if greenhouse gas emissions are not slowed or stopped. In his study published in the journal Science, they conducted an analysis of 485 studies carried out over the past 30 years on the ability of species to adapt to climate change.

Manmade greenhouse gas emissions are causing atmospheric and seawater warming, and these temperature increases will lead to unpredictable weather changes—besides growing warmer, it is expected that some places will grow wetter and others drier. It is also likely that the world will see more extreme weather, such as droughts, hurricanes and typhoons, in addition to thunderstorms or snow storms. Such changes will put pressure on species that are not able to control their environment the way humans do, putting many at risk.

Part 1

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on December 7, 2024 at 9:20am

Quality of parent-child relationships predicts adulthood well-being

The link between early life experiences and mental health has been widely explored by psychology researchers. One key aspect of human early life experiences is the relationship that people develop with their parental figures, which is at the center of attachment theory and various other psychological models.

Past studies suggest that the quality of relationships between parents and their children plays a role in the subjective well-being of these children when they reach adulthood. While this finding is well-documented, many past studies were conducted on relatively small samples of participants residing in a single country.

The countries included in this study were selected carefully, to maximize religious and ethnic diversity in the sample. The objective was to include people living in all the broader geographical regions on Earth.

Now two researchers at Gallup, recently carried out a study aimed at exploring the link between parent-child relationships and an adult's self-reported well-being in a larger and more varied sample that spanned across 21 countries.

Their paper, published in Communications Psychology, suggests that the quality of parent-child relationships predicts the well-being of adults residing in all of the countries they studied.

The researchers  found a substantial effect of parent-child relationships on both flourishing and mental health. The effect was larger than any other variable they tested, including parental socio-economic status, current education level, current household income, gender, and financial security.

The relationship was positive in every country, and it reached conventional levels of significance in all but one. Even that exception seemed to be explained by the relatively young population in the survey. When the researchers re-weighted the data to make the ages similar across countries, they found a significant effect in every country.

Overall, the findings of this research study suggest that there is a universal link between parent-child relationships and lifelong well-being, which applies to all people, irrespective of where they were raised.

 Jonathan T. Rothwell et al, Parent-child relationship quality predicts higher subjective well-being in adulthood across a diverse group of countries, Communications Psychology (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s44271-024-00161-x.

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on December 6, 2024 at 11:49am

Does CPR help both the conditions of cardiac arrest and heart attacks?

CPR is primarily used to treat cardiac arrest, not a heart attack; while chest compressions might be used in some situations during a heart attack, full CPR is typically not recommended unless the heart attack progresses to cardiac arrest, where the heart stops beating completely, meaning CPR is used to keep blood circulating until further medical intervention is available. 

Cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) plays an important role in the early treatment of a heart attack if the heart stops beating.

CPR is an emergency treatment. It helps keep blood moving throughout a person’s body when their heart stops beating, which healthcare professionals refer to as cardiac arrest. CPR helps extend the opportunity for successful resuscitation.

Not everyone who has a heart attack needs CPR. It is only necessary if a person goes into cardiac arrest.

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on December 6, 2024 at 11:38am

Researchers reprogram immune cells to decrease rejection of medical implants

Researchers have discovered that using a drug that is a metabolic inhibitor  makes the body more receptive to medical devices such as pacemakers, replacement joints and dental implants.

When doctors surgically place an implant into a human, there will always be an immune response and there's a chance the implant will be rejected.

Scientists used a drug that signals the body to boost or inhibit a particular reaction, called a metabolic modulator. This drug was incorporated into an amorphous polylactide—a biomaterial used to make medical implants—and then the material was implanted in mice.

Using intravital microscopy—a technique that allows us to look inside a living subject under a microscope—the researchers imaged different kinds of immune cells around the implant site for up to 10 weeks.

Their paper is published in the journal Nature Biomedical Engineering.

These findings have significant implications for improving patient recovery times, reducing postsurgical complications like chronic inflammation and implant rejection and potentially saving costs. And they may eventually affect the way medical device manufacturers and pharmaceutical scientists approach medical implants.

Chima V. Maduka et al, Immunometabolic cues recompose and reprogram the microenvironment around implanted biomaterials, Nature Biomedical Engineering (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41551-024-01260-0

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on December 6, 2024 at 11:33am

Researchers studied the flocculus and paraflocculus' role in the brain to better understand how their malformation could influence behavior. They found that the neural circuits within the flocculus and paraflocculus are dysfunctional.
The regions also control a reflex that ensures stable vision during head movements and is crucial for face recognition. The researchers found that this reflex is impaired in 22q. This may be a valuable lead for schizophrenia research because patients with schizophrenia have a deficit in face recognition.
The paraflocculus is also connected to the auditory cortex.

Tae-Yeon Eom et al, Tbx1 haploinsufficiency leads to local skull deformity, paraflocculus and flocculus dysplasia, and motor-learning deficit in 22q11.2 deletion syndrome, Nature Communications (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-54837-3

Part 2

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on December 6, 2024 at 11:31am

Genetic risk for schizophrenia linked to a malformed skull

The chromosomal disorder 22q11.2 deletion syndrome (22q) has emerged as one of the strongest risks for schizophrenia. Scientists at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital identified malformed regions of the cerebellum in laboratory models and patients with 22q and found that these malformations were caused by improper skull formation. Further, the researchers linked the skull malformation to the loss of one gene: Tbx1.

The research shows that neurological disorders can stem from sources beyond the nervous system, such as improper skull development. The findings were published today in Nature Communications.

Gene removal blocks skull pocket from forming.

Previous work from scientists found that the deletion of only one 22q gene, Dgcr8, disrupts the flow of auditory information from a lower brain region called the thalamus to the auditory cortex, where sounds are interpreted. This region of the brain is also associated with auditory hallucinations, which are a hallmark symptom of schizophrenia. The researchers called this breakdown in information flow "thalamocortical disruption."

Although thalamocortical disruption occurs late in development, which is consistent with the onset of schizophrenia symptoms, it stays and doesn't go away. However, hallucinations are transient in nature—they come and go.

It seemed that this was just one of the hits that triggered symptoms.

The researchers noticed a part of the brain, the cerebellum, malformed in 22q animal models, specifically, the cerebellum's small lobules called the flocculus and paraflocculus. Most neurodevelopmental disorders arise from defects in genes that play a role in the brain, but the 22q gene the researchers linked to this malformation, Tbx1, was unexpected.

What is interesting about Tbx1 is that it is not very well expressed in the brain, especially the adolescent or adult brain. Rather, it's expressed in the surrounding tissues, namely bone, cartilage and vasculature tissues. It is very unlikely that Tbx1 directly affects the brain at all.

Instead, removing Tbx1 has an indirect but significant effect on brain development. Bone formation relies on immature osteoblast cells correctly growing into mature osteocytes. Tbx1 removal disrupted this cycle, resulting in an underdeveloped pocket in the skull which normally houses the flocculus and paraflocculus.

For a neurological syndrome, the findings are strikingly unusual—with no pocket in the skull for these structures to develop, they appear substantially smaller than normal. The reduction of the flocculus and paraflocculus was validated through magnetic resonance imaging studies of dozens of patients with 22q and a comparative control group.

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