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1PTI Science Service February 16 - 28, 2017Material reproduced should be credited to the PTI Science Service

Registration No.39337/81

ISSN 0970-6488

Vol 36 No. 04 (24 pages including cover)

CONTENTS

Rs. 275/-

NATIONAL SCIENCE BRIEFS:

*BRAILLE ATLAS TO GIVE NEW VISION TO STUDENTS TO STUDY MAPS* NO ABNORMAL TREND IN MELTINGOF HIMALAYAN GLACIERS: GOVT* RESEARCHERS DISCUSS BEACH EROSION IN VIZAG* RESEARCHERSINTERESTED IN WILD SPECIES FOUND IN COUNTRY*'ALMONDS MAY BOOST CARDIOVASCULAR HEALTH INDIABETIC INDIA* PREVENTABLE DEATHS ON THE RISE IN DELHI: STUDY* 'RAPIDLY GROWING INDIAN CITIESMAY FACE EXTREME RAINFALLS'* BREAKFAST IS THE UNHEALTHIEST MEAL IN INDIA: NEW STUDY* LITCHISBEHIND MYSTERIOUS CHILD DEATHS IN BIHAR: STUDY* 'MOST OVERUSED BUZZWORDS BY INDIANPROFESSIONALS UNVEILED'*

INTERNATIONAL SCIENCE BRIEFS:

*NEW HORIZONS PROBE HEALTHY AFTER MINOR GLITCH: NASA*GUT BACTERIA MAY ACCELERATEALZHEIMER'S DISEASE: STUDY* WHY MOSQUITOES ARE ATTRACTED TO PEOPLE WITH MALARIADECODED*WHITE DWARF STAR WITH 'INGREDIENTS FOR LIFE' DISCOVERED* THIN, LOW-COST MATERIALACTS AS AIR CONDITIONER* NASA MAY SEND ROBOTIC PROBE TO EUROPA IN SEARCH OF LIFE* FISH OIL MAYHELP FIGHT ASTHMA: STUDY*NASA PROBE BEGINS SEARCH FOR ELUSIVE EARTH-TROJAN ASTEROID* NEWHIGH-TECH LIQUID MATERIAL DEVELOPED* SOON, STICKY INSECT-SIZED DRONES TO POLLINATE CROPS*HEAT, MOVEMENT, SUNLIGHT MAY POWER YOUR SMARTPHONE* FIRST NUCLEAR EXPLOSION HELPS TESTMOON'S FORMATION THEORY* EARTH-SIZED PLANET PROXIMA B UNLIKELY TO HOST LIFE: NASA* WHY ROCKMUSICIANS PREFER VALVE AMPS DECODED* NEW SYSTEM MAKES IT HARDER TO TRACK BITCOINTRANSACTIONS* MYSTERIOUS WHITE DWARF PULSAR DISCOVERED*

GLOBE SCAN:

*BRIDGE OF STARS CONNECTS TWO LARGEST GALAXIES OF MILKY WAY* NOW, TINY 3D SPHERES TO HELPCOMBAT TUBERCULOSIS* MASSIVE BLACK HOLE SPOTTED BINGING ON STAR FOR A DECADE* MYSTERIOUSGALACTIC X-RAYS MAY POINT TO DARK MATTER*NEW SYSTEM PROVIDES 10 TIMES FASTER DATA SPEED THAN5G: STUDY* SWIRLING SPIRALS SPOTTED AT THE NORTH POLE OF MARS* SWIRLING SPIRALS SPOTTED AT THENORTH POLE OF MARS* EARTH'S WATER MAY HAVE FORMED DEEP WITHIN MANTLE: STUDY* HOW TO MAKEQUANTUM COMPUTERS HACKPROOF DECODED*

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2PTI Science Service February 16 - 28, 2017

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BRAILLE ATLAS TO GIVE NEW VISION TOSTUDENTS TO STUDY MAPS

In a first, the Ministry of Science and Technologyhas come up with a comprehensive Braille atlas for nearly50 lakh visually challenged people in the country, especiallystudents.

The atlas has 20 maps on different themes likephysical, socio-economic, river system, crops pattern,natural vegetation, cultural, metropolitan areas, roads andrailways, and crops.

Developed in Hindi and English by the NationalAtlas and Thematic Mapping Organisation (NATMO),Kolkata, an institute under the Ministry of Science andTechnology, the Braille atlas has been made usingindigenously developed silk-screen painting technology.

"This is for the first time that a comprehensiveatlas has been prepared for physically challenged with suchminute details," Director of NATMO, Tapti Banerjee, said.

The maps are well embossed with simple linesand point symbols to facilitate its users realise the location.The area coverage is easily distinguishable in terms ofshapes and textures.

Each atlas costs nearly Rs 600."But we intend to give a couple of free copies to

institutes teaching visually impaired students," UnionMinister for Science and Technology, Harsh Vardhan, said.

Aniruddha Bhattacharya, scientific officer withNATMO and Amitava Chakraborty and DevnathSengupta, research officers, played a key role in preparingthe atlas. Bhattarcharya passed away last month.

For its initiative, NATMO was awarded by PrimeMinister Narendra Modi in this year's Indian ScienceCongress held at Tirupati.

"This atlas is way better than the maps we currentlyuse. It is very reader friendly for visually impaired students,"said Amit Sharma, a geography teacher with the NationalInstitute for the Visually Handicapped (NIVH), Dehradun.

He, however, pointed out that there are someminor drawbacks in the maps, which have been conveyedto NATMO.

Saurabh Prasad (15), a Class X student at NIVH,said borders of the states need to be more clearer, butoverall he is happy as the atlas is more "reader friendly".

Although bulky and measuring a little more thanA3 size, the NATMO is also working to lessen the size.

"The development of atlas will be an on-goingprocess," Vardhan said.

"But something is better than nothing," quippedJagmohan Sahai, another 16-year old visually impairedstudent of NIHV.

NATMO has also prepared Braille maps for WestBengal and Meghalaya in Bengali and English respectively.They have also been asked by the governments of Assam,Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Gujarat to come up withstate maps in English and their regional languages.

The concept of Braille maps took root in thecountry in 1900s and the first such map was made in 1997.

NO ABNORMAL TREND IN MELTING OFHIMALAYAN GLACIERS: GOVT

The Himalayan glaciers are retreating but not at arapid pace and no abnormal trend in their melting wasdocumented in recent years, the government said today.

Union Earth Sciences Minister Harsh Vardhan ina written reply in Lok Sabha said the glaciers in the easternand central Himalayas are retreating "continuously", whilesome in the western part of the mountain range arereportedly advancing.

"The rate of melting/recession varies fromglacier to glacier and depends on the topography andclimatic variability of the region.

"Studies have revealed that the Himalayan glaciersare retreating in general, but not at a rapid pace. There isno abnormal trend in melting documented in recentyears," Vardhan said.

He said the Ministry of Earth Sciences monitorssix glaciers -- Sutri Dhaka, Batal, Bara Shigri, SamudraTapu, Gepang Gath and Kunjum of Chandra basin --for mass, energy and hydrological balance.

"The National Centre of Antarctica and OceanResearch (NCAOR) has established a high altitude researchstation in the Himalayas called Himansh at a remote regionin Lahaul-Spiti to study and quantify the Himalayan glaciers'response towards climate change.

"A number of glaciers have been taken up forlongterm measurement on glacier-climate interaction indifferent parts of the Himalayan region by some of theseagencies," Vardhan said.


RESEARCHERS DISCUSS BEACH EROSIONIN VIZAG

Researchers from across the country met inVisakhapatnam to deliberate on the recent advances andstudies conducted on beach erosion with special focus onAndhra Pradesh.

The workshop on 'Recent Advances and FutureStudies on the Coastal Processes and Beach Erosion', witha special emphasis on Andhra coast, was organised onWednesday in Visakhapatnam, a press released issued heresaid.

The experts discussed variability of coastal currentsat an offshore station off Visakhapatnam and their impacton the near-shore currents at the beaches, particularly theRama Krishna beach, impacting waterfront changes leadingto movement of sand and hence beach erosion.

"This appears to be the major factor besides theregular tides and wind waves. However, the requirementof long-term time series of nearshore currents is pointedout for further examining the beach erosion issue of theVisakhapatnam beaches," the release said.

The increase of air pollutants over Vizag city dueto the industrial activities, further enhanced due to theorography, the bowl shape of the mountains, leads tohigher residence time of the pollutants.

This increased concentration of air pollutantscauses acidification of coastal waters of Visakhapatnam,thus impacting biodiversity of these coastal waters. Thisin-turn may have an impact on the food web dynamics,the experts said.

Andhra University's Vice Chancellor Prof GNageswara Rao was the Chief Guest and Naval Scienceand Technological Laboratory (NSTL) Director Dr O RNandagopan was the guest of honour at the event.

Goa-based National Institute of Oceonography's(NIO) Director Dr S Prasanna Kumar chaired theworkshop. Experts from various research organisations,institutes and universities attended the event.

TECHNOLOGY BEING USED TO ADDRESSPROBLEMS ON EARTH:ISRO CHIEF

The Chairman of Indian Space ResearchOrganisation (ISRO) AS Kiran Kumar today said "we

are making use of technology to address the problemsfaced on earth."

Inaugurating a two-day 'mega science fair' at aschool here, Kiran Kumar said, "We are making use oftechnology to address the problems faced in augmentingeducational capability, enhancing tele-medicine facility forthe people in remote areas and islands."

He noted that the government is making use oflarge quantum of information generated by satellites andproviding capability for improved governance.

Kumar also pointed out that applied data wasbeing used to find water resources and drill bore wells,while satellite data was helpful for several other activities.

Calling on the younger generation to keepnurturing their curiosity, he said, "the youth should notrefrain from questioning and they should take their curiosityto the next level even if no answer was available to theirquestions."

You should learn from others` mistakes and buildup your capability, he advised the young boys who hadgathered at the venue.

Stating that communication through satellites hadbeen benefiting farmers, fishermen and others, he said,presently there were 38 satellites developed and launchedby "our own launch vehicle and they are furnishinginformation relating to various areas including makingavailable advance information about cyclones andsometimes super cyclone."

"Satellite has no boundaries, either national orinternational and collects information on surface of earth,vegetation, clouds and even pollution," he said highlightingthe quantum of work that had gone into the Mars Missionand Chandrayaan-I.

Kumar interacted with the students and visitedvarious stalls.

RESEARCHERS INTERESTED IN WILDSPECIES FOUND IN COUNTRY

Leading scientists from different countries haveshown interest in collaborations with the premiumresearch institute Rajiv Gandhi Centre for Biotechnology(RGCB) here, to enable better understanding of geneticproperties of native Indian plant species and incorporatethe findings to improve crop productivity.


"We are already working in a detailed manner ona number of spices and are open to collaborations withthese foreign scientists who can lend us their know-howto create value additions to our native spices like gingerand pepper," said E V Soniya, Scientist, RGCB.

Molecular plant biologists from nearly 20countries including Canada, Belgium, Germany,Israel, Spain and Australia participated at a recentlyconcluded four-day conference organised here jointly byRGCB and the European Molecular Biology Organisation(EMBO).

Dr Takayuki Tohge, a Japanese scientist whoworks with Germany's Max Plant Institute and with aninterest in folk medicines, expressed his interest inexpanding his research into the spices found in Kerala.

"My interest is in polyphenonyls and I haveworked on tomato, a little bit of maize, potatoes andbeans among other crops, testing to identify the beneficialcompounds that can be used to cross breed and engineerdisease resistant and stable crops.

"I am interested in extending it to spices likeginger and pepper among others as well," said Tohge.

According to Jennifer Ann Harikrishna, Professor,Institute Of Biological Sciences, Malaysia, global climatechange and various fungal diseases adversely affect thecultivation of banana crop in the world and researchersare now looking into native species of bananas.

"India, like Malayasia, has a lot of native varietiesof bananas and various plant scientists around the worldare looking at the wild genetic varieties to understand howto better protect the crop from fungus es and virusattacks," Harikrishna said.

"We don't have any ongoing collaborations, butwill be interested for future.

Our current research is on how to growsaline tolerant bananas because while coconut and palmtrees can grow in salt water, bananas cannot and peopleboth in India and Malaysia are fond of their bananas,"she said. "India has got a good potential for cultivation ofsoybean. We need more genetic sequencing research toget maximum yield," said Prof Babu Valliyodan fromUniversity of Missouri, who is exploring collaborationswith different institutes in India, a release said.

'ALMONDS MAY BOOSTCARDIOVASCULAR HEALTH IN DIABETIC

INDIA

Including almonds in the diet may significantlyreduce the risk of cardiovascular diseases in Indians withtype 2 diabetes and improve their general health, a first-of-its-kind study released claims.

Almond consumption as part of a healthy dietmay help improve glycemic and cardiovascular measuresand lead to better health in type 2 diabetes patients,researchers said.

"India is known as the diabetes capital of theworld, with incidence of type 2 diabetes currently reachingepidemic proportions," researchers wrote in the studypublished in the journal Metabolic Syndrome and RelatedDisorders.

Once deemed a disease of the affluent, theprevalence of type 2 diabetes now cuts across all social,demographic and age groups, they said.

They attribute this higher and earlier incidence oftype 2 diabetes in part to the "South Asian phenotype," agenetic predisposition that makes Indians more susceptibleto insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes.

Dr Anoop Misra, Director, Diabetes andMetabolic Diseases, Diabetes Foundation India (DFI) andDr Seema Gulati, Chief Project Officer (Nutrition) at DFIanalysed if including almonds, already a familiar food inthe Indian diet, may help improve glycemic control andcardiovascular risk factors associated with type 2 diabeteswithin an Indian population.

"This is the first free-living study to demonstratethe health benefits of including almonds in the diet amongAsian Indians with type 2 diabetes," said Gulati, leadresearcher for the study.

"Our findings add to the body of researchshowing the value of almonds, particularly among Indianswho already believe in the goodness of almonds," Gulatisaid.

"Almonds are traditional snack for Indians;however, for the first time we have been able to prove itsscientific allround benefits in patients with diabetes. Wenow have confidence in prescribing it to all patients asmid-meal healthy snacks," Misra added.


The researchers recruited adults in Delhi, aged 25to 70, all of whom had type 2 diabetes and elevatedcholesterol levels, to participate in the study.

During a three-week run-in period, participantsate a standard diet compliant with the dietary guidelinesfor Asian Indians and appropriate for diabetes.

During this period, participants were also askedto walk for 45 minutes at least five days a week tostandardise their physical activity and were instructed tomaintain the same level of activity for the rest of the study.

There were 50 participants who completed thestudy commissioned by the Almond Board of Californiai collaboration with DFI.

Following the run-in period, participants wereinstructed to substitute 20 per cent of their total caloricintake with whole, raw almonds (unblanched almonds withtheir brown skin intact).

Almonds were substituted for fat (such as cookingoil and butter) and some carbohydrate in this interventiondiet which was followed for six months.

Researchers found a significant decrease in anumber of critical risk factors associated with type 2diabetes, including waist circumference, waist-to-heightratio, total cholesterol, serum triglycerides, LDLcholesterol, HbA1c (a measure of long-term blood sugarregulation) and C-reactive protein (a marker forinflammation in the body).

A wealth of research investigating almondconsumption has shown cardiometabolic benefits likethose found in this study.

Almonds add protein, fibre, "good"monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats, vitamin E,potassium and magnesium to the diet, and are low on theglycemic index.

Previous studies have shown the benefits ofalmonds in improving the quality of the diet withoutincreasing caloric intake, as well, researchers said.

PREVENTABLE DEATHS ON THE RISE INDELHI: STUDY

Deaths due to preventable illness such astuberculosis has been on the rise in Delhi, warns a newstudy which shows that government efforts to improvehealth care has been insufficient to combat the impact ofpoverty and inequalities in India's capital city.

Researchers from Rutgers School of PublicHealth, New York University and Columbia University inthe US found that between 2004 and 2013 amenablemortality increased by about 25 per cent in Delhi.

Compared to similar large middle-income nations,India has failed to achieve minimal sanitation and publichealth standards, resulting in a climbing rate of amenablemortality - premature deaths due to causes which aretreatable.

Delhi was selected for the study because itsstatistics are medically certified and more complete thanthose of India as a whole.

Delhi's rates of amenable mortality werecompared against those of Moscow, Sao Paulo andShanghai, mega cities in similar large, middle-incomecountries with booming economies that likewise have beenstriving toward a goal of universal health coverage.

The researchers found that between 2004 and2013 - when the economy of India was growing rapidly- amenable mortality increased by about 25 per cent inDelhi, while the comparison cities experienced a decreasein amenable mortality of at least 25 per cent.

"Despite having the world's largest generic drugindustry, thriving medical tourism, significant innovationsin the delivery, financing and manufacturing of health careservices and products, there is a basic failure to assureminimal standards of sanitation and public health," saidMichael K Gusmano researchers at Rutgers.

Though a part of the country's wealthiest territory,half of Delhi's 16 million inhabitants live in slums andother substandard housing, researchers said.

With more than half of India's households lackingtoilets and more than 200 million people with no accessto safe drinking water, the World Health Organisation(WHO) estimates that 900,000 Indians die annually fromdrinking contaminated water and breathing polluted air,researchers said.

"The living conditions contribute to the higherrates of illness, while the relatively low rates of investmentin the primary care infrastructure and drug availability andaffordability make it harder to treat people once theybecome sick," said Gusmano.

Using data that could be routinely and reliablymonitored over time to assess amenable mortality -population estimates and vital statistics, including medicallycertified death records and hospital records for people


ages one to 69 - the researchers found a disparity incare.

"There is very high quality of care, which thewealthy receive. The vast majority of the people living inpoverty or just above the poverty line do not have accessto that system, but to public and private systems that areinadequate to meet the population's health care needs anddeliver care of dubious quality," said Gusmano.

On average, two medical officers are responsiblefor providing care to as many as 400 patients a day inpublic facilities, and with the exception of a few specialtyhospitals, most public hospitals and other clinical facilitiesare in poor condition, researchers said.

During the years included in the study, Delhi'shealth care expenditures increased from seven to 12 percent of its budget, the availability of hospital beds nearlydoubled and new primary care clinics were built to alleviatepressure on the public and private systems.

"However, the increasing number of residentswho die prematurely each year due to preventableconditions point to the fact that more needs to be done,"said Gusmano.

"Delhi needs to substantially increase public healthspending, monitor health system performance andimplement programs that address the causes of extremedeprivation," Gusmano added.

The study highlights the need for India to improveits data collection from health care institutions so that thegovernment can realise where it is falling short.

Gusmano said there were signs that progress isbeing made, such as a decline in maternal death and aninitiative to found neighbourhood clinics to help alleviateovercrowding in public clinics and expand access to carefor the poor and middle class.

"By pushing resources down to the communitylevel, practitioners can be more responsive to the needsof residents on the most local level. This makes usoptimistic," he said.

'RAPIDLY GROWING INDIAN CITIES MAYFACE EXTREME RAINFALLS'

Rapidly urbanising regions in India, such asNashik, Kanpur and Durgapur, may be more likely thanestablished cities to experience extreme rainfall eventsduring summer monsoons, scientists have warned.

The findings, from Purdue University in the USand Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay, mayhave a particularly significant impact in India, where thereis a strong push underway for development of "smartcities" and modern infrastructure.

The research may be important for shapingstorm water system design, water resource policyand urban flood management in these regions, researcherssaid.

Dev Niyogi, professor at Purdue, said results ofpast studies of rainfall patterns might no longer besufficient to predict future precipitation events.

The researchers found the frequency of extremerainfall events in rapidly developing regions, includingNashik, Kanpur, Durgapur and Mangalore, exceeded thosein established cities such as Mumbai, New Delhi, Kolkataand Chennai.

"Rainfall patterns are changing throughout India.We found that there is a need to look at both global andlocal conditions, such as urbanisation, and how thoseinfluence climatic patterns such as rainfall," said Niyogi.

Using a data-driven method, researchers found alink between the extent of urbanisation and changingextreme rainfall patterns.

"The possible reasons for this rainfall variabilitymight be that since development activities in urbanisedareas have already been stabilised, changes in landscapecharacteristics are minimal and thus local circulationpatterns are not significantly altered," said Niyogi.

"However, in areas undergoing rapiddevelopment, changes in extreme rainfall patterns aresignificant," said Niyogi.

Deforestation and land transformation could betwo of the main causes of increased climate stress inurbanising areas, he said.

The study used daily rainfall data from 1901 to2004 taken during the Indian summer monsoons season,which runs from June to September.

The rainfall totals were collected by the IndiaMeteorological Department from a network of 1,800stations located throughout the country.

The study was published in the journal GeophysicalResearch Letters.


BREAKFAST IS THE UNHEALTHIEST MEALIN INDIA: NEW STUDY

Dismissing the old adage of breakfast being thehealthiest meal of the day, a new study noted that it is infact the unhealthiest meal in India.

According to the study conducted byHealthifyMe, a mobile health and fitness company, snacksconsumed during evening and morning hours make forthe most unhealthy eating habits of Indians.

"Breakfast has the highest amount ofcarbohydrates and fat across all the meals in a day," thestudy, which factored in 43 million food records of 1million urban Indians across 200,000 locations, said.

The survey revealed that lunch and dinner havethe highest intake of vegetables, making them the healthiestmeals.

"Dinner is the most protein-heavy food of theday," it noted.

Data also suggested that snacks are majorcontributors to ailments like diabetes, hypertension andobesity in the country.

Over 70 per cent people of the sample groupof the study were found either to be overweight or obese,and one-third of them were diagnosed with diabetes orhypertension or both.

"One interesting trend we found is that thesmallest foods are the biggest culprits! It is not so muchof what we eat during lunch and dinner but what wesnack on in between and after, that is causingIndian waistlines, diabetes and hypertension to skyrocket,"Tushar Vashisht, CEO and co-founder of the applicationsaid.

LITCHIS BEHIND MYSTERIOUS CHILDDEATHS IN BIHAR: STUDY

Eating litchi fruit may be behind the mysteriousbrain disease that has caused hundreds of unexplaineddeaths among children in recent years in Bihar, a new studypublished in the Lancet journal has claimed.

Outbreaks of an acute neurological illness withhigh mortality among children occur annually in Bihar'sMuzaffarpur, the country's largest litchi cultivationregion.

Heat, humidity, malnourishment, the monsoonand pesticides have all been considered at one stage to becontributing factors to the illness.

"We aimed to investigate the cause and risk factorsfor this illness," researchers said.

In a hospital-based surveillance, researchers fromthe National Centre for Disease Control in New Delhiand the US Centres for Disease Control and Preventionundertook laboratory investigations to assess potentialinfectious and non-infectious causes of this acuteneurological illness.

Children aged 15 years or younger who wereadmitted to two hospitals in Muzaffarpur in 2014 withnew-onset seizures or altered sensorium were included inthe study.

They were age-matched against residents ofMuzaffarpur who were admitted to the same twohospitals for a non-neurologic illness within seven daysof the date of admission of the case. This group servedas the control.

Specimens of blood, cerebrospinal fluid and urineas well as litchis were tested for evidence of infectiouspathogens, pesticides, toxic metals.

Scientists also looked for other non-infectiouscauses, l ike presence of hypoglycin A ormethylenecyclopropylglycine (MCPG), naturally-occurringfruit-based toxins that cause hypoglycaemia and metabolicderangement.

Between May 26 and July 17 in 2014, 390 patientsmeeting the case definition were admitted to the twohospitals in Muzaffarpur, of whom 122 (31 per cent) died,researchers said.

On admission, 204 (62 per cent) of 327 hadblood glucose concentration of 70 miligrammes perdecilitre or less. 104 cases were compared with 104 age-matched hospital controls.

Litchi consumption and absence of an eveningmeal in the 24 hours preceding illness onset were associatedwith illness.

The absence of an evening meal significantlyincreased the effect of eating litchis on illness. Tests forinfectious agents and pesticides were negative.

Metabolites of hypoglycin A, MCPG, or bothwere detected in 48 (66 per cent) of 73 urine specimensfrom case-patients and none from 15 controls.

"Our investigation suggests an outbreak of acute


encephalopathy in Muzaffarpur associated with bothhypoglycin A and MCPG toxicity," the researchers said.

"To prevent illness and reduce mortality in theregion, we recommended minimising litchi consumption,ensuring receipt of an evening meal and implementingrapid glucose correction for suspected illness," they said.

'MOST OVERUSED BUZZWORDS BYINDIAN PROFESSIONALS UNVEILED'

'Specialised', 'leadership' and 'expert' are the mostoverused career buzzwords in India, according to a latestreport by professional networking website LinkedIn whichanalysed the profile summaries of 39 million members inthe country.

LinkedIn announced the top 10 most overusedbuzzwords and phrases by Indian professionals in theirLinkedIn profiles.

Running for the sixth year in a row, the campaignencourages professionals to sharpen their profiles usinglanguage that is simple yet effective in describing theirprofessional journey.

The company analysed the profile summaries of39 million members in India and compiled the Buzzwords2017 list.

The top ten India buzzwords are: specialised (1),leadership (2), expert (3), strategic (4), passionate (5),certified (6), responsible (7), excellent (8), experienced (9)and focused (10).

A new addition to the top 10 list, 'specialised' isthis year's most overused buzzword both globally and inIndia, the company said.

'Leadership' has moved up two notches fromlast year, while 'passionate' which was in the top three in2016 closes the top five list for 2017.

Some new additions to the list include words suchas 'certified' and 'excellent', while 'organisation' which wasthe most overused buzzword in 2016 is off the chartsthis year.

"With over one million people entering theworkforce every month, the Indian job marketcontinues to get more competitive," said DeepaSapatnekar, Head of Communications, LinkedIn Indiaand Hong Kong.

"So, it's essential for professionals to show updifferently and create a compelling professional brand.Our data shows that historically, this is the busiest monthof the year for LinkedIn profile updates," said Sapatnekar.

The company said those looking to improve theirLinkedIn profile this year should "mind their language"as profile summary is one of the first things people lookat, so it is important to get it right.

They also advised people to take a professionaltone and be assertive and direct when they are talkingabout their achievements. They should list out all theirrelevant previous roles and describe what they did ineveryday language.

This will help people understand the breadth ofyour 'work story' - a complete profile reflects a well-rounded person, the company added.


NEW HORIZONS PROBE HEALTHY AFTERMINOR GLITCH: NASA

NASA's New Horizons spacecraft is healthy andoperating normally after spending over 24 hours in aprotective "safe mode" - the result of a command-loadingerror that occurred this week, the US space agency said.

New Horizons is healthy and continues to speedalong towards its next target - the Kuiper Belt object 2014MU69 - while its operations team works to restore it tofull operations and resume scientific data collection, NASAsaid.

Due to the 10.5-hour round trip communicationsdelay that results from operating a spacecraft more than5.7 billion kilometres from Earth, the team expects NewHorizons to be back on its activities timeline early Sunday.

The spacecraft is designed to automaticallytransition to safe mode under certain anomalous conditionsto protect itself from harm.

In safe mode, the spacecraft suspends its timelineof activities and keeps its antenna pointed toward Earthto listen for instructions from the Mission OperationsCentre at the Johns Hopkins University Applied PhysicsLaboratory (APL) in the US.

"Our rapid recovery was supported by otherNASA missions that provided New Horizons with someof their valuable Deep Space Network (DSN) antennatime," said Alice Bowman, New Horizons missionoperations manager at APL.

The New Horizons mission, launched on January19, 2006, is helping researchers understand worlds at theedge of our solar system by making the first reconnaissanceof the dwarf planet Pluto and by venturing deeper intothe distant, mysterious Kuiper Belt - a relic of solar systemformation.

GUT BACTERIA MAY ACCELERATEALZHEIMER'S DISEASE: STUDY

Your gut bacteria may accelerate the developmentof Alzheimer's disease, according to a new study that maypave the way for therapies to prevent and treat theneurocognitive disorder.

Since our gut bacteria have a major impact onhow we feel through the interaction between the immune

system, the intestinal mucosa and our diet, the compositionof the gut microbiota is of great interest to research ondiseases such as Alzheimer's.

Exactly how our gut microbiota composition iscomposed depends on which bacteria we receive at birth,our genes and our diet, researchers said.

By studying both healthy and diseased mice,researchers from Lund University in Sweden found thatmice suffering from Alzheimer's have a differentcomposition of gut bacteria compared to mice that arehealthy.

They also studied Alzheimer's disease in mice thatcompletely lacked bacteria to further test the relationshipbetween intestinal bacteria and the disease.

Mice without bacteria had a significantly smalleramount of beta-amyloid plaque in the brain. Beta-amyloidplaques are the lumps that form at the nerve fibres incases of Alzheimer's disease.

To clarify the link between intestinal flora and theoccurrence of the disease, the researchers transferredintestinal bacteria from diseased mice to germ-free mice,and discovered that the mice developed more beta-amyloidplaques in the brain compared to if they had receivedbacteria from healthy mice.

"Our study is unique as it shows a direct causallink between gut bacteria and Alzheimer's disease. It wasstriking that the mice which completely lacked bacteriadeveloped much less plaque in the brain," said Frida FakHallenius, at the Food for Health Science Centre.

"The results mean that we can now beginresearching ways to prevent the disease and delay the onset.We consider this to be a major breakthrough as we usedto only be able to give symptom-relieving antiretroviraldrugs," she said.

WHY MOSQUITOES ARE ATTRACTED TOPEOPLE WITH MALARIA DECODED

Researchers have found the reason whymosquitoes prefer to feed on blood from people infectedwith malaria, an advance that can lead to new ways tofight the deadly disease without using poisonous chemicals.

"The malaria parasite produces a molecule,HMBPP, which stimulates the human red blood cells torelease more carbon dioxide and volatile compounds withan irresistible smell to malaria mosquitoes. The mosquito


also eats more blood," said Ingrid Faye from StockholmUniversity in Sweden.

Faye and her colleagues from the SwedishUniversity of Agricultural Sciences and KTH Royal Instituteof Technology in Sweden discovered that most malariamosquitoes, were attracted by HMBPP-blood, even atvery low concentrations.

The mosquitoes are also attracted more quicklyand drink more blood.

Moreover, these mosquitoes acquire a more severemalaria infection - higher numbers of parasites areproduced.

This indicates that the extra nutrients from thelarger meal of blood are used to produce more parasites,researchers said.

Neither humans nor mosquitoes use HMBPPthemselves, but the parasite needs the substance to be ableto grow.

"HMBPP is a way for the malaria parasite to haila cab, a mosquito, and successfully transfer to the nexthost," said Noushin Emami from Stockholm University.

"This seems to be a well-functioning system,developed over millions of years, which means that themalaria parasite can survive and spread to more peoplewithout killing the hosts," said Faye.

These results may be useful in combating malaria.Today the most efficient way is to use mosquito nets andinsecticides to prevent people being bitten.

Resistance against the insecticides require newcontrol methods to be developed to tackle the mosquitoes.

In addition, medicines, even the drug awardedwith the 2015 Nobel Prize, become progressively inefficientwhen the parasite becomes resistant to them and new drugsmust be developed constantly, researchers said.

A vaccine seems far away, said Faye. A majorstep forward in the fight against malaria would be to createa trap that uses the parasite's own system for attractingmalaria mosquitoes.

The study was published in the journal Science.

WHITE DWARF STAR WITH 'INGREDIENTSFOR LIFE' DISCOVERED

Scientists, using NASA's Hubble space telescope,have discovered a white dwarf star about 200 light-yearsfrom the Earth, whose atmosphere is rich in the building

blocks for life - carbon, nitrogen, oxygen and hydrogen,the components of water.

Researchers from the University of California, LosAngeles (UCLA) in the US said that a minor planet in theplanetary system was orbiting around the white dwarfand its trajectory was somehow altered, perhaps by thegravitational pull of a planet in the same system.

That change caused the minor planet to travel veryclose to the white dwarf, where the star's stronggravitational field ripped the minor planet apart into gasand dust.

Those remnants went into orbit around the whitedwarf — much like the rings around Saturn, saidBenjamin Zuckerman from UCLA - before eventuallyspiraling onto the star itself, bringing with them the buildingblocks for life.

Zuckerman said the study presents evidence thatthe planetary system associated with the white dwarfcontains materials that are the basic building blocks forlife.

Although the study focused on this particular star- known as WD 1425+540 - the fact that its planetarysystem shares characteristics with our solar system stronglysuggests that other planetary systems would also.

"The findings indicate that some of life'simportant preconditions are common in the universe," saidZuckerman.

The researchers think these events occurredrelatively recently, perhaps in the past 100,000 years or so,said Edward Young from UCLA.

They estimate that about 30 per cent of the minorplanet's mass was water and other ices, and approximately70 per cent was rocky material.

The research suggests that the minor planet is thefirst of what are likely many such analogs to objects in oursolar system's Kuiper belt.

The Kuiper belt is an enormous cluster of smallbodies like comets and minor planets located in the outerreaches of our solar system, beyond Neptune.

Astronomers have long wondered whether otherplanetary systems have bodies with properties similar tothose in the Kuiper belt, and the new study appears toconfirm for the first time that one such body exists.

White dwarf stars are dense, burned-out remnantsof normal stars. Their strong gravitational pull causeselements like carbon, oxygen and nitrogen to sink out of


their atmospheres and into their interiors, where they cannotbe detected by telescopes.

The research describes how WD 1425+540 cameto obtain carbon, nitrogen, oxygen and hydrogen.

This is the first time a white dwarf with nitrogenhas been discovered and one of only a few knownexamples of white dwarfs that have been impacted by arocky body that was rich in water ice.

"If there is water in Kuiper belt-like objects aroundother stars, as there now appears to be, then when rockyplanets form they need not contain life's ingredients," saidSiyi Xu from UCLA.

The study was published in the AstrophysicalJournal Letters.

THIN, LOW-COST MATERIAL ACTS AS AIRCONDITIONER

Scientists have developed a thin, inexpensivematerial with extraordinary properties not found in nature- to act as a kind of air conditioning system for structureswith the ability to cool objects even under direct sunlightwith zero energy and water consumption.

When applied to a surface, the metamaterial filmcools the object underneath by efficiently reflectingincoming solar energy back into the space whilesimultaneously allowing the surface to shed its own heat inthe form of infrared thermal radiation.

The new material could provide an eco-friendlymeans of supplementary cooling for thermoelectric powerplants, which currently require large amounts of water andelectricity to maintain the operating temperatures of theirmachinery.

The glass-polymer hybrid material measures just50 micrometres thick - slightly thicker than the aluminiumfoil found in a kitchen - and can be manufacturedeconomically on rolls, making it a potentially viable large-scale technology for both residential and commercialapplications.

"We feel that this low-cost manufacturing processwill be transformative for real-world applications of thisradiative cooling technology," said Xiaobo Yin, assistantprofessor at University of Colorado Boulder in the US.

The material takes advantage of passive radiativecooling, the process by which objects naturally shed heatin the form of infrared radiation, without consuming

energy.Thermal radiation provides some natural

nighttime cooling and is used for residential cooling insome areas, but daytime cooling has historically been moreof a challenge.

For a structure exposed to sunlight, even a smallamount of directly-absorbed solar energy is enough tonegate passive radiation.

The challenge for the researchers was to create amaterial that could provide a one-two punch: reflect anyincoming solar rays back into the atmosphere while stillproviding a means of escape for infrared radiation.

To solve this, they embedded visibly-scattering butinfrared-radiant glass microspheres into a polymer film.They then added a thin silver coating underneath in orderto achieve maximum spectral reflectance.

"Both the glass-polymer metamaterial formationand the silver coating are manufactured at scale on roll-to-roll processes," said Ronggui Yang, a professor at CUBoulder.

"Just 10 to 20 square meters of this material onthe rooftop could nicely cool down a single-family housein summer," said Gang Tan, an associate professor atUniversity of Wyoming.

In addition to being useful for cooling ofbuildings and power plants, the material could also helpimprove theefficiency and lifetime of solar panels. In direct sunlight,panels can overheat to temperatures that hamper theirability to convert solar rays into electricity.

"Just by applying this material to the surface of asolar panel, we can cool the panel and recover an additionalone to two per cent of solar efficiency," Yin added.

The research was published in the journal Science.

NASA MAY SEND ROBOTIC PROBE TOEUROPA IN SEARCH OF LIFE

NASA is planning to send a robotic lander toJupiter's icy moon Europa to explore if alien life isswimming in the gigantic saltwater ocean locked beneathits frozen surface.

In early 2016, NASA's Planetary Science Divisionbegan apre-Phase A study to assess the science value andengineering design of a future Europa lander mission.

NASA routinely conducts such studies - known


as Science Definition Team (SDT) reports - long beforethe beginning of any mission to gain an understanding ofthe challenges, feasibility and science value of the potentialmission.

Since June last year, NASA has deliberated todefine a workable and worthy set of science objectivesand measurements for the mission concept, submitting areport to NASA on February 7.

The report lists three science goals for the mission.The primary goal is to search for evidence of life onEuropa.

The other goals are to assess the habitability ofEuropa by directly analysing material from the surface,and to characterise the surface and subsurface to supportfuture robotic exploration of Europa and its ocean, NASAsaid.

Scientists agree that the evidence is quite strongthat Europa, which is slightly smaller than Earth's moon,has a global saltwater ocean beneath its icy crust.

This ocean has at least twice as much water asEarth's oceans. While recent discoveries have shown thatmany bodies in the solar system either have subsurfaceoceans now, or may have in the past, Europa is one ofonly two places where the ocean is understood to be incontact with a rocky seafloor (the other being Saturn'smoon Enceladus).

This rare circumstance makes Europa one of thehighest priority targets in the search for present-day lifebeyond Earth, NASA said.

The SDT was tasked with developing a life-detection strategy, a first for a NASA mission since theMars Viking mission era more than four decades ago.

The report makes recommendations on thenumber and type of science instruments that would berequired to confirm if signs of life are present in samplescollected from the icy moon's surface.

The team also worked closely with engineers todesign a system capable of landing on a surface aboutwhich very little is known.

Given that Europa has no atmosphere, the teamdeveloped a concept that could deliver its science payloadto the icy surface without the benefit of technologies likea heat shield or parachutes.

The concept lander is separate from the solar-powered Europa multiple flyby mission, now indevelopment for launch in the early 2020s.

The spacecraft will arrive at Jupiter after a multi-year journey, orbiting the gas giant every two weeks for aseries of 45 close flybys of Europa.

The multiple flyby mission will investigate Europa'shabitability by mapping its composition, determining thecharacteristics of the ocean and ice shell, and increasingour understanding of its geology.

FISH OIL MAY HELP FIGHT ASTHMA:STUDY

Fish oil and other products with omega-3 fattyacids can reduce the production of antibodies that causeallergic reactions and asthma symptoms, a new study hasclaimed.

Researchers form University of RochesterMedical Centre (URMC) in the US found that for patientswith severe asthma who use high doses of oral steroids,the omega-3 fatty acids are less effective because thecorticosteroids block the beneficial effects.

Richard P Phipps from Rochester and his lab hadpreviously shown that certain fatty acids contained in fishoil regulate the function of immune cells (B cells). Theywanted to further investigate the effects on asthma.

People with asthma have an imbalance betweenmolecules that dampen inflammation and those thatincrease inflammation.

Using steroids as treatment controls theinflammation and relieves symptoms, but does not curethe underlying disease.

Researchers collected blood from 17 patients andisolated their B immune cells in the laboratory to explorethe impact of pure omega-3-derived products onImmunoglobulin E (IgE) - the antibodies that cause allergicreactions and asthma symptoms in people with mildercases of asthma - and other molecules that fuel the disease.

They compared the results of the 17 patients todonors of healthy blood cells.

Most of the patients who volunteered for thestudy were taking corticosteroids in either pill form or byinhaler, depending upon severity of their asthma.

The study showed that all responded to theomega-3 fatty acids to some degree, as evidenced by areduction in the levels of IgE antibodies.

However, unexpectedly, Phipps said, the cells froma small subset of patients who were taking oral steroids


were less sensitive to the omega-3 treatment. Steroids areusually a very effective treatment for asthma.

However, although the science is in the early stages,it appears that when corticosteroids are used steadily, insome cases the steroids reduce some of the body's naturalability to fight asthma-related inflammation, Phipps said.

Omega 3 polyunsaturated fatty acids have beenshown to have many health benefits.

Once ingested, they convert to special pro-resolving mediators that halt inflammation without alsosuppressing the immune system.

They can be found in foods such as flax seed oil,salmon, tuna, anchovies, and walnuts.

The study was published in the Journal of ClinicalInvestigation.

NASA PROBE BEGINS SEARCH FORELUSIVE EARTH-TROJAN ASTEROID

A NASA spacecraft has started searching for anenigmatic class of near-Earth objects known as Earth-Trojan asteroids, which may be lurking in the solar systemin places difficult to observe from our planet.

OSIRIS-REx, currently on a two-year outboundjourney to the asteroid Bennu, will spend almost two weekssearching for evidence of these small bodies, NASA said.

Trojan asteroids are trapped in stable gravity wells,called Lagrange points, which precede or follow a planet.

OSIRIS-REx is currently travelling through Earth'sfourth Lagrange point, which is located 60 degrees aheadin Earth's orbit around the Sun, about 150 millionkilometres from our planet.

The mission team will use this opportunity to takemultiple images of the area with the spacecraft's MapCamcamera in the hope of identifying Earth-Trojan asteroidsin the region.

Although scientists have discovered thousands ofTrojan asteroids accompanying other planets, only oneEarth-Trojan has been identified to date, asteroid 2010TK7.

Scientists predict that there should be more Trojanssharing Earth's orbit, but they are difficult to detect fromEarth as they appear near the Sun on the Earth's horizon.

"Because the Earth's fourth Lagrange point isrelatively stable, it is possible that remnants of the materialthat built Earth are trapped within it," said principal

investigator Dante Lauretta of the University of Arizona,Tucson.

"So this search gives us a unique opportunity toexplore the primordial building blocks of Earth," Laurettasaid. On each observation day, the spacecraft'sMapCam camera will take 135 survey images that will beprocessed and examined by the mission's imaging scientists.

The study plan also includes opportunities forMapCam to image Jupiter, several galaxies, and the mainbelt asteroids 55 Pandora, 47 Aglaja and 12 Victoria, NASAsaid.

Whether or not the team discovers any newasteroids, the search is a beneficial exercise, researchers said.

The operations involved in searching for Earth-Trojan asteroids closely resemble those required to searchfor natural satellites and other potential hazards aroundBennu when the spacecraft approaches its target in 2018.

Being able to practice these mission-criticaloperations in advance will help the OSIRIS-REx teamreduce mission risk once the spacecraft arrives at Bennu.

NEW HIGH-TECH LIQUID MATERIALDEVELOPED

Scientists have developed previously unimaginableliquid materials for new technological innovations -including techniques to manipulate microorganisms - whichare more dynamic and flexible than solids solid materials.

Researchers controlled wave-generated currentsto make the dynamic material that could be revolutionary,similar to those created in recent decades that have beenused for invisibility cloaking, superlenses and high-efficiencyantennae.

Professor Michael Shats from The AustralianNational University (ANU) said the currents made a liquidbehave like materials with regular structures such as crystals.

"It is an incredibly powerful new tool that willwork at the surface of almost any liquid," said Shats.

"By changing waves, we can change the flowpatterns. This allows us to remote-control the nature ofthe material," said Shats.

The flow patterns can be changed at will, so theliquid-based materials are more dynamic and flexible thansolid materials.

"These flow patterns are effectively two-dimensional materials at the interface between the liquid


and the gas above it," said Shats.Nicolas Francois from the ANU said each current

was like a Lego brick."Now we have created the brick, people will be

able to make complex structures we cannot imagine now,"he said.

"If you use conducting liquids you can create aninterface with designed electrical properties. Or with bio-compatible substances you can guide micro-organisms ortrap them," he added.

The team observed the flow patterns in a tankof water by generating a wave pattern with two oscillatorsand tracking fluid particles. They also modelled the flowwith computer simulations and theoretical calculations.

The study was published in the journal NatureCommunications.

SOON, STICKY INSECT-SIZED DRONES TOPOLLINATE CROPS

Japanese scientists have developed tiny insect-sizeddrones coated with horse hair and a sticky gel that mayhelp pollinate crops in future and offset the costly declineof bee populations worldwide.

The undersides of these artificial pollinators arecoated with horse hairs and an ionic gel just sticky enoughto pick up pollen from one flower and deposit it ontoanother.

The researchers are hopeful that their inventioncould someday help carry the burden that modernagricultural demand has put on colonies and in turn benefitfarmers.

"The findings, which will have applications foragriculture and robotics, could lead to the developmentof artificial pollinators and help counter the problemscaused by declining honeybee populations," said EijiroMiyako, a chemist at the National Institute of AdvancedIndustrial Science and Technology (AIST) NanomaterialResearch Institute in Japan.

"We believe that robotic pollinators could betrained to learn pollination paths using global positioningsystems and artificial intelligence," said Miyako

In 2007, Miyako was working to make liquidsthat could be used as electrical conductors. One of hisattempts generated a gel as sticky as hair wax, which heconsidered a failure.

Inspired by concerns over honeybees and newsreports on robotic insects, Miyako began to explore, byusing houseflies and ants, whether the gel could work topick up pollen.

"This project is the result of serendipity," saidMiyako, who worked with postdoctoral fellow SvetlanaChechetka.

To determine whether the gel could grasp ontopollen, Miyako collected ants, put the ionic goop dropleton their bodies, and left them to roam free in a box oftulips.

Compared with ants that did not have the materialapplied, the ants with the gel were more likely to havepollen attached to their bodies.

In separate experiments using houseflies, the gelwas also found to have a camouflage effect - changingcolour in response to different sources of light - whichcould help artificial pollinators avoid predation.

Miyako next needed a flying machine that wassmall enough to manoeuvre across a field of flowers, likea bee.

He settled on a four-propeller drone, costing USD100, but simply placing the gel on its smooth, plastic surfacewould not be enough for it to effectively pick up pollen.

Researchers used horse hair to mimic the fuzzyexterior of a bee. The bristles create more surface areafor pollen to adhere to and generate electric charge tokeep the grains in place.

Miyako's team flew the remote-controlled drones,with hairs and gel attached, over the flowers of pink-leavedJapanese lilies (Lilium japonicum).

The robots absorbed the pollen and then couldbe flown to a second flower, where the grains weredeposited, artificially pollinating the plants and causing themto begin the process of producing seeds. Drones withoutthe gel and hair components did not have this effect.

The research was published in the journal Chem.

HEAT, MOVEMENT, SUNLIGHT MAYPOWER YOUR SMARTPHONE

Sunlight, heat in a room and even movementsmay soon power your portable and wearable gadgets suchas smartphones, thanks to a material identified by scientiststhat can extract energy from multiple sources at the sametime.


Researchers from the University of Oulu inFinland have found that a mineral with the perovskite crystalstructure has the right properties to extract energy frommany forms of energy that surround us and is normallywasted.

Perovskites are a family of minerals, many ofwhich have shown promise for harvesting one or twotypes of energy at a time - but not simultaneously.

One member may be good for solar cells, whileother my be good at harnessing energy from changes intemperature and pressure.

Yang Bai and his colleagues studied a specific typeof perovskite called KBNNO, which may be able toharness many forms of energy.

Like all perovskites, KBNNO is a ferroelectricmaterial, filled with tiny electric dipoles analogous to tinycompass needles in a magnet.

When ferroelectric materials like KBNNOundergo changes in temperature, their dipoles misalign,which induces an electric current.

Electric charge also accumulates according to thedirection the dipoles point. Deforming the material causescertain regions to attract or repel charges, again generatinga current.

Previous researchers have studied KBNNO'sphotovoltaic and general ferroelectric properties, but theydid so at temperatures a couple hundred degrees belowfreezing, and they did not focus on properties related totemperature or pressure.

The new study represents the first time anyonehas evaluated all of these properties at once above roomtemperature, said Bai.

The experiments showed that while KBNNO isreasonably good at generating electricity from heat andpressure, it is not quite as good as other perovskites.

Perhaps the most promising finding, however, isthat the researchers can modify the composition ofKBNNO to improve its pyroelectric and piezoelectricproperties.

"It is possible that all these properties can be tunedto a maximum point," said Bai, who, with his colleagues,is already exploring such an improved material bypreparing KBNNO with sodium.

Within the next year, Bai said, he hopes to build aprototype multi-energy-harvesting device. The fabricationprocess is straightforward, so commercialisation could

come in just a few years once researchers identify the bestmaterial.

"This will push the development of the Internetof Things and smart cities, where power-consumingsensors and devices can be energy sustainable," he said.

This kind of material would likely supplementthe batteries on your devices, improving energy efficiencyand reducing how often you need to recharge.

The research was published in the journal AppliedPhysics Letters.

FIRST NUCLEAR EXPLOSION HELPS TESTMOON'S FORMATION THEORY

Scientists have used decades-old radioactive glass,found blanketing the ground after the first nuclear testbomb explosion, to examine theories about the Moon'sformation about 4.5 billion years ago.

Researchers from University of California SanDiego in the US examined the chemical composition ofzinc and other volatile elements contained in the green-coloured glass, called trinitite, which were radioactivematerials formed under the extreme temperatures thatresulted from the 1945 plutonium bomb explosion.

The test samples analysed were collected between10 meters and 250 meters from ground zero at theTrinity test site in New Mexico.

When compared with samples collected fartheraway, the glass closest to the detonation site was depletedin volatile elements such as zinc.

The zinc that was present was enriched in theheavier and less-reactive isotopes, which are forms of theseelements with different atomic mass but the same chemicalproperties.

Zinc and other volatile elements, which vaporiseunder high temperature, were "dried out" close to theexplosion than those further away from the blast.

"The results show that evaporation at hightemperatures, similar to those at the beginning of planetformation, leads to the loss of volatile elements and toenrichment in heavy isotopes in the left over materials fromthe event," said Professor James Day, from ScrippsInstitution of Oceanography at the University of California.

"This has been conventional wisdom, but nowwe have experimental evidence to show it," said Day.

Scientists have long suggested that similar chemical


reactions took place when a collision between Earth anda Mars-sized planetary body produced debris thatultimately formed the Moon.

The analysis by Day and colleagues foundsimilarities between the trinitite and lunar rocks in that theyare both highly depleted in volatile elements and containlittle to no water.

Day's study provides new evidence to supportthe "giant impact theory" of the Moon's formation.

The thin sheet of trinitite at the New Mexico deserttest site, which extended roughly 350 meters out fromground zero, formed from the heat, as the nuclear reactionstook place.

The study's findings showed that volatile elementsundergo the same chemical reactions during extremetemperature and pressure events whether taking place onEarth or in outer space.

"We used what was a history-changing event toscientific benefit, obtaining new and important scientificinformation from an event over 70 years ago that changedhuman history forever," said Day.

The findings were published in the journal ScienceAdvances.

EARTH-SIZED PLANET PROXIMA BUNLIKELY TO HOST LIFE: NASA

The newly discovered Earth-sized planet Proximab is unlikely to support life despite being in the 'habitablezone' of its host star, due to the exposure to frequentstellar eruptions, NASA scientists have found.

The search for life beyond Earth starts in habitablezones, the regions around stars where conditions couldpotentially allow liquid water to pool on a planet's surface.

The study suggests that some of these zones mightnot actually be able to support life due to frequent stellareruptions – which spew huge amounts of stellar materialand radiation out into space - from young red dwarfstars.

"If we want to find an exoplanet that can developand sustain life, we must figure out which stars make thebest parents," said Vladimir Airapetian, a solar scientist atNASA's Goddard Space Flight Centre in the US.

To determine a star's habitable zone, scientistshave traditionally considered how much heat and light itemits.

Stars more massive than our sun produce moreheat and light, so the habitable zone must be farther out.Smaller, cooler stars yield close-in habitable zones.

However, along with heat and visible light, starsemit X-ray and ultraviolet radiation, and produce stellareruptions such as flares and coronal mass ejections -collectively called space weather.

One possible effect of this radiation isatmospheric erosion, in which high-energy particles dragatmospheric molecules - such as hydrogen and oxygen,the two ingredients for water - out into space.

The new model for habitable zones now takesthis effect into account.

The research has implications for the recentlydiscovered planet orbiting the red dwarf Proxima Centauri,our nearest stellar neighbour.

Researchers applied their model to the roughlyEarth-sized planet, dubbed Proxima b, which orbitsProxima Centauri 20 times closer than Earth is to the Sun.

Considering the host star's age and the planet'sproximity to its host star, scientists expect that Proxima bis subjected to torrents of X-ray and extreme ultravioletradiation from superflares occurring roughly every twohours.

They estimate oxygen would escape Proxima b'satmosphere in 10 million years. Additionally, intensemagnetic activity and stellar wind – the continuous flowof charged particles from a star – exacerbate the harshspace weather conditions.

The scientists concluded that it is quite unlikelyProxima b is habitable.

"We have pessimistic results for planets aroundyoung red dwarfs in this study, but we also have a betterunderstanding of which stars have good prospects forhabitability," Airapetian said.

"As we learn more about what we need from ahost star, it seems more and more that our sun is just oneof those perfect parent stars, to have supported life onEarth," he added

WHY ROCK MUSICIANS PREFER VALVEAMPS DECODED

Scientists have looked at the science of valve ampsto explain why their rich, warm sound is more pleasant tothe ears of so many rock musicians than cheaper transistors.


For many guitarists, the sound of an overdrivenvalve amp - think AC/DC's crunchy Marshall rhythm tonesor Carlos Santana's singing Mesa Boogie-fuelled leads -can not be beaten, researchers said.

David Keeports, a physics professor from MillsCollege, California in the US, looked at the science ofvalve amps to explain why their sound is 'better' to theears of so many guitarists.

"Although solid state diodes and transistors arecheaper, more practical, and technologically more advancedthan glass valves, valves survive because so many guitaristsare exacting about their tone, and prefer the sound a valveamp gives them," Keeports said.

"At its most fundamental level, this is because amoderately overdriven valve amp produces strong evenharmonics, which add a sweetening complexity to a sound.An overdriven transistor amp, on the other hand createsstrong odd harmonics, which can cause dissonance," hesaid.

Keeports explored the physics of why evenharmonics enrich a sound, and why the timbre of thesound from a valve amp changes when a guitar is playedmore loudly.

He ran a 200 hertz (Hz) sine wave - a pure wavewith a single frequency - through a small Bugera hybridamplifier, featuring a valve preamp and a solid state poweramp.

He then tested both 'sides' of the amp; firstturning up the gain knob, which controls the valve preampwhile the master volume knob (controlling the solid statepower amp) was set low. He repeated the process withthe preamp set low and the master turned up.

Using Logic Pro X music production software,he examined the resulting sound waves in both frequencyand time domains.

"The output from the amp showed that amoderately overdriven valve preamp produced prominent2nd and 4th harmonics at 400 and 800 Hz, and only avery weak 3rd harmonic at 600 Hz," Keeports said.

"For the solid state power amp, this pattern wasreversed. All of this behaviour is consistent with thecommon claim about the harmonics that valve and solidstate amplifiers produce. But the story is not quite so simple.Overdriving the valve preamp harder produces strong oddharmonics," he said.

"The shift towards odd harmonics at increasing

gain is a characteristic of valve amplifiers that furtherexplains their appeal.

"An electric guitar player can overdrive an amptwo ways: by turning up the amp's gain control, and byattacking guitar strings more strongly," Keeports added.

The research was published in the journal PhysicsEducation.

NEW SYSTEM MAKES IT HARDER TOTRACK BITCOIN TRANSACTIONS

Researchers have developed a Bitcoin-compatiblesystem that could make it significantly more difficult forobservers to identify or track the parties involved in anygiven transaction of the cryptocurrency.

Bitcoin was initially conceived as a way for peopleto exchange money anonymously. However, it wasdiscovered that anyone could track all Bitcoin transactionsand often identify the parties involved, researchers said.

Bitcoin operates by giving each user a uniquepublic key, which is a string of numbers. Users can transmitmoney in the form of digital bitcoins from one publickey to another.

This is made possible by a system that ensures auser has enough bitcoins in their account to make thetransfer.

The use of the public keys gave users a sense ofanonymity, even though all of the transactions were visibleon the public Bitcoin blockchain which lists all transactions.

Over time, experts and private companies havedeveloped highly effective methods of de-anonymisingthose public keys.

Now, researchers from North Carolina StateUniversity, Boston University and George Mason Universityin the US have developed a system called TumbleBit, whichis a computer protocol that runs on top of Bitcoin.

TumbleBit takes advantage of an existing conceptcalled "mixing service."

In the concept, instead of Party A paying Party Bdirectly, many different Parties A pay an intermdiary"tumbler," which then pays the Parties B.

The more parties are involved, the harder it is todetermine which Party A paid which Party B.

"However, this still has a security flaw. Namely, ifan outside observer can compromise the tumbler, it couldfigure out who was paying whom," said Alessandra


Scafuro, an assistant professor at NC State.To address this, TumbleBit takes a three-phased

approach. In the first phase, called escrow, the Parties Anotify the tumbler that they would like to make a payment,and the Parties B notify the tumbler that they would liketo be paid. This is all done on the public blockchain.

For the second phase, the researchers have putcryptographic tools into place that allow the tumbler topay the correct parties without actually knowing whichparties are involved. Phase two does not appear on theblockchain.

In the third phase, called cashout, all of thetransactions are conducted simultaneously, making it moredifficult to identify which parties are involved in any specifictransaction. Phase three does appear in the publicblockchain.

"We tested TumbleBit with 800 Bitcoin users, andfound that the second phase only took seconds tocomplete," Scafuro said.

MYSTERIOUS WHITE DWARF PULSARDISCOVERED

Astronomers have identified an Earth-sizedelusive white dwarf pulsar - the first of its kind ever to bediscovered in the universe - housed in an exotic binarystar system 380 light years away from our planet.

Researchers, including those from University ofWarwick in the UK, identified the star AR Scorpii (ARSco) as the first white dwarf version of a pulsar - objectsfound in the 1960s and associated with very different objectscalled neutron stars.

The white dwarf pulsar has eluded astronomersfor over half a century.

AR Sco contains a rapidly spinning, burnt-outstellar remnant called a white dwarf, which lashes itsneighbour - a red dwarf - with powerful beams ofelectrical particles and radiation, causing the entire systemto brighten and fade dramatically twice every two minutes.

The research establishes that the lash of energyfrom AR Sco is a focused 'beam', emitting concentratedradiation in a single direction - much like a particleaccelerator - something which is totally unique in the knownuniverse.

AR Sco lies in the constellation Scorpius, 380 light-years from Earth, a close neighbour in astronomical terms.

The white dwarf in AR Sco is the size of Earthbut 200,000 times more massive, and is in a 3.6 hour orbitwith a cool star one third the mass of the Sun.

With an electromagnetic field 100 million timesmore powerful than Earth and spinning on a period justshy of two minutes, AR Sco produces lighthouse-likebeams of radiation and particles, which lash across theface of the cool star, a red dwarf.

As the researchers previously discovered, thispowerful light house effect accelerates electrons in theatmosphere of the red dwarf to close to the speed oflight, an effect never observed before in similar types ofbinary stars.

The red dwarf is thus powered by the kineticenergy of its spinning neighbour.

The distance between the two stars is around 1.4million kilometres - which is three times the distancebetween the Moon and the Earth.

"The new data show that AR Sco's light is highlypolarised, showing that the magnetic field controls theemission of the entire system and a dead ringer for similarbehaviour seen from the more traditional neutron starpulsars," said Professor Tom Marsh from Warwick'sAstrophysics Group.

"AR Sco is like a gigantic dynamo: a magnet, sizeof the Earth, with a field that is about 10.000 strongerthan any field we can produce in a laboratory, and it isrotating every two minutes. This generates an enormouselectric current in the companion star, which then producesthe variations in the light we detect," said Professor BorisGänsicke added.

The study was published in the journal NatureAstronomy.


BRIDGE OF STARS CONNECTS TWOLARGEST GALAXIES OF MILKY WAY

The two largest satellite galaxies of the Milky Way- known as the Magellanic Clouds - appear to beconnected by a bridge stretching across 43,000 light years,scientists have discovered.

Researchers from the University of Cambridgein the UK concentrated on the area around the MagellanicClouds and picked out pulsating stars of a particular type:the RR Lyrae, very old and chemically un-evolved.

As these stars have been around since the earliestdays of the Clouds' existence, they offer an insight intothe pair's history.

Studying the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds(LMC and SMC respectively) has always been difficult asthey sprawl out over a large area.

Around the Milky Way, the clouds are thebrightest, and largest, examples of dwarf satellite galaxies.

Known to humanity since the dawn of historythe Magellanic Clouds have remained an enigma to date.Even though the clouds have been a constant fixture ofthe heavens, astronomers have only recently had the chanceto study them in any detail.

Whether the clouds fit the conventional theory ofgalaxy formation or not depends critically on their massand the time of their first approach to the Milky Way.

The researchers clues that could help answer bothof these questions.

The RR Lyrae stars were used to trace the extentof the Large Magellanic Cloud. The LMC was found topossess a fuzzy low-luminosity 'halo' stretching as far as20 degrees from its centre.

The LMC would only be able to hold on to thestars at such large distances if it was substantially biggerthan previously thought, totalling perhaps as much as atenth of the mass of the entire Milky Way.

"Having marked the locations of the RR Lyraeon the sky, we were surprised to see a narrow bridge-likestructure connecting the two clouds," said Vasily Belokurov,from Cambridge.

"We believe that at least in part this 'bridge' iscomposed of stars stripped from the Small Cloud by theLarge. The rest may actually be the LMC stars pulled fromit by the Milky Way," said Belokurov.

The researchers believe the RR Lyrae bridge willhelp to clarify the history of the interaction between theclouds and our galaxy.

"We have compared the shape and the exactposition of the stellar bridge to the computer simulationsof the Magellanic Clouds as they approach the Milky Way,"said Denis Erkal, from Cambridge.

"Many of the stars in the bridge appear to havebeen removed from the SMC in the most recentinteraction, some 200 million years ago, when the dwarfgalaxies passed relatively close by each other," Erkal said.

The research was published in the journal MonthlyNotices of the Royal Astronomical Society (MNRAS).

NOW, TINY 3D SPHERES TO HELPCOMBAT TUBERCULOSIS

Scientists have developed a new 3D system toinvestigate what happens in a human body whentuberculosis develops, that may help identify new antibiotictreatments and vaccines against the infection.

The team, including researchers from Universityof Southampton and University College London in theUK, used an electrostatic encapsulation technique to maketiny 3D spheres within which human cells are infected withtuberculosis (TB) bacteria to generate conditions that moreclosely reflect events in patients.

The model allows the researchers to furtherinvestigate what happens in a human body when TBdevelops, with a long term aim of identifying new antibiotictreatments and vaccines, researchers said.

"We believe this is a really exciting developmentfor the field of tuberculosis research. The 3D sphere canbe created with a collagen matrix so it is more like a humanlung," said Professor Paul Elkington, who leads theSouthampton TB research group.

"This produces an environment which allowsparticular antibiotics that are important in treating patients,to kill the infection, which they cannot do in other 2Dmodel systems.

"This system will help us speed up the process offinding treatments and vaccines for human tuberculosis,an infection that kills 1.8 million people per year," saidElkington.

Additionally the 3D spheres are able to prolongexperiments for up to three weeks, more than four times


longer than standard 2D model systems.This gives researchers more information about

how the infection develops and the effect of differentinterventions over time.

"We will use our 3D model to integrate engineeringand biological approaches with clinical specimens to createan entirely new system of studying infection," saidElkington.

MASSIVE BLACK HOLE SPOTTEDBINGING ON STAR FOR A DECADE

A giant black hole ripped apart a star and thenbinged on its remains for about a decade, setting a recordfor the longest such episode, say scientists who made thediscovery using data from NASA's Chandra X-rayObservatory and other space telescopes.

A trio of orbiting X-ray telescopes, including Swiftsatellite as well as ESA's XMM-Newton, found evidencefor a "tidal disruption event" (TDE), wherein the tidalforces due to the intense gravity from a black hole candestroy an object - such as a star - that wanders too close.

During a TDE, some of the stellar debris is flungoutward at high speeds, while the rest falls toward theblack hole.

As it travels inwards to be ingested by the blackhole, the material heats up to millions of degrees andgenerates a distinct X-ray flare.

"We have witnessed a star's spectacular andprolonged demise," said Dacheng Lin from the Universityof New Hampshire in the UK.

"Dozens of tidal disruption events have beendetected since the 1990s, but none that remained brightfor nearly as long as this one," said Lin, who led the study.

The extraordinary long bright phase of this eventspanning over ten years means that among observed TDEsthis was eithe the most massive star ever to be completelytorn apart during one of these events, or the first where asmaller star was completely torn apart.

The X-ray source containing this force-fed blackhole, known by its abbreviated name of XJ1500+0154, islocated in a small galaxy about 1.8 billion light years fromEarth.

The source was detected in an XMM-Newtonobservation on July 23rd in 2005, and reached peakbrightness in a Chandra observation on June 5 in 2008.

These observations show that the source becameat least 100 times brighter in X-rays. Since then, Chandra,Swift, and XMM-Newton have observed it multiple times.

The sharp X-ray vision of Chandra data showsthat XJ1500+0154 is located at the center of its host galaxy,the expected location for a supermassive black hole.

"For most of the time we've been looking at thisobject, it has been growing rapidly," said James Guillochonof the Harvard-Smithsonian Centre for Astrophysics inthe US.

"This tells us something unusual – like a star twiceas heavy as our Sun – is being fed into the black hole,"said Guillochon.

The conclusion that supermassive black holes cangrow so rapidly may help explain how supermassive blackholes were able to reach masses about a billion times higherthan the Sun when the universe was only about a billionyears old.

"This event shows that black holes really can growat extraordinarily high rates. This may help understand howprecocious black holes came to be," said Stefanie Komossaof QianNan Normal University for Nationalities in China.

The findigs were published in the journal NatureAstronomy.

MYSTERIOUS GALACTIC X-RAYS MAYPOINT TO DARK MATTER

A small but distinctive X-ray signal detected fromthe Milky Way galaxy by NASA's Chandra satellite mayhelp prove the existence of dark matter, scientists haveclaimed.

Researchers, including those from MassachusettsInstitute of Technology (MIT) and Yale Centre forAstronomy and Astrophysics in the US, analysed the energyspectrum of X-rays.

They found more X-ray photons with a particularenergy than would be expected if they were producedonly by familiar processes.

Those photons could in fact have been generatedby the decay of dark matter particles, say the researchers.

This is not the first time that scientists have seenextra photons with an energy of about 3,500 electronvoltsin the spectra recorded by X-ray satellites.

However, previously it was not clear whether thebump, or line, created by the photons in the otherwise


smooth spectrum was merely an instrumental artefact, saidKevork Abazajian, from the University of California,Irvine.

Scientists reckon that dark matter makes up morethan 80 per cent of all the mass in the universe.

As its name suggests, it gives off no light, butreveals its presence through the gravitational tug it exertson stars within galaxies.

For years, physicists have been trying to detectparticles of dark matter directly by intercepting them usinginstruments on Earth.

The latest research, carried out by Nico Cappellutiat Yale, targets relatively light particles of dark matter, 'BBCNews' reported.

Esra Bulbul of the Kavli Institute for Astrophysicsand Space Research at the MIT was the first scientist tospot an anomalous line at 3.5 keV, when looking at the X-ray spectra of large numbers of galaxy clusters in 2014.

NEW SYSTEM PROVIDES 10 TIMES FASTERDATA SPEED THAN 5G: STUDY

Scientists have developed a next generation systemwhich can transmit digital data over 10 times faster than5G mobile networks, an advance that will pave the wayfor faster downloads and improve in-flight networkconnection speeds.

Researchers from Hiroshima University andNational Institute of Information and CommunicationsTechnology in Japan have announced the developmentof a terahertz (THz) transmitter capable of transmittingdigital data at a rate exceeding 100 gigabits per secondover a single channel using the 300-gigahertz band.

The THz band is a new and vast frequencyresource expected to be used for future ultrahigh-speedwireless communications.

The research group has developed a transmitterthat achieves a communication speed of 105 gigabits persecond using the frequency range from 290 GHz to 315GHz.

This range of frequencies are currently unallocatedbut fall within the frequency range from 275 GHz to 450GHz.

Last year, the group demonstrated that the speedof a wireless link in the 300-GHz band could be greatlyenhanced by using quadrature amplitude modulation

(QAM).This year, they showed six times higher per-

channel data rate, exceeding 100 gigabits per second forthe first time as an integrated-circuit-based transmitter.

At this data rate, the whole content on a DVD(digital versatile disk) can be transferred in a fraction of asecond.

"This year, we developed a transmitter with 10times higher transmission power than the previousversion's. This made the per-channel data rate above 100Gbit per second at 300 GHz possible," said MinoruFujishima from Hiroshima University.

"We usually talk about wireless data rates inmegabits per second or gigabits per second. But we arenow approaching terabits per second using a plain simplesingle communication channel," said Fujishima.

"Fibre optics realised ultrahigh-speed wired links,and wireless links have been left far behind," he said.

"Terahertz could offer ultrahigh-speed links tosatellites as well, which can only be wireless. That could,in turn, significantly boost in-flight network connectionspeeds, for example," Fujishima added.

"Other possible applications include fastdownload from contents servers to mobile devices andultrafast wireless links between base stations," he added.

"Another, completely new possibility offered byterahertz wireless is high-data-rate minimum-latencycommunications," said Fujishima.

"Optical fibres are made of glass and the speedof light slows down in fibres. That makes fibre opticsinadequate for applications requiring real-time responses,"he said.

SWIRLING SPIRALS SPOTTED AT THENORTH POLE OF MARS

European Space Agency's Mars Express hasbeamed back images that show distinctive dark spirallingtroughs on the red planet's north polar ice cap.

The mosaic generated from 32 individual orbit'strips' captured between 2004 and 2010, and covers anarea of around a million square kilometres.

The ice cap is a permanent fixture, but in the winterseason – as it is now in early 2017 – temperatures are coldenough for around 30 percent of the carbon dioxide inthe planet's atmosphere to precipitate onto the cap, adding


a seasonal layer up to a metre thick.During the warmer summer months most of the

carbon dioxide ice turns directly into gas and escapes intothe atmosphere, leaving behind the water-ice layers.

Strong winds are thought to have played animportant role in shaping the ice cap over time, blowingfrom the elevated centre towards its lower edges andtwisted by the same Coriolis force that causes hurricanesto spiral on Earth.

One particularly prominent feature is a 500kilometre-long, two kilometre-deep trench that almost

cuts the cap in two.The plunging canyon, known as Chasma Boreale,

is thought to be a relatively old feature, forming beforethe ice–dust spiral features, and seemingly growing deeperas new ice deposits built up around it.

Subsurface investigations by radar instrumentsonboard Mars Express and NASA's Mars ReconnaissanceOrbiter revealed that the ice cap is made up of manyindividual layers of ice and dust extending to a depth ofaround two kilometres.

This presents a valuable record for the nature ofhow the planet's climate has changed as its tilt and orbitvaried over hundreds of thousands of years.

SWIRLING SPIRALS SPOTTED AT THENORTH POLE OF MARS

European Space Agency's Mars Express hasbeamed back images that show distinctive dark spirallingtroughs on the red planet's north polar ice cap.

The mosaic generated from 32 individual orbit'strips' captured between 2004 and 2010, and covers anarea of around a million square kilometres.

The ice cap is a permanent fixture, but in thewinter season – as it is now in early 2017 – temperaturesare cold enough for around 30 percent of the carbondioxide in the planet's atmosphere to precipitate onto thecap, adding a seasonal layer up to a metre thick.

During the warmer summer months most of thecarbon dioxide ice turns directly into gas and escapes intothe atmosphere, leaving behind the water-ice layers.

Strong winds are thought to have played animportant role in shaping the ice cap over time, blowingfrom the elevated centre towards its lower edges andtwisted by the same Coriolis force that causes hurricanes

to spiral on Earth.One particularly prominent feature is a 500

kilometre-long, two kilometre-deep trench that almost cutsthe cap in two.

The plunging canyon, known as Chasma Boreale,is thought to be a relatively old feature, forming beforethe ice–dust spiral features, and seemingly growing deeperas new ice deposits built up around it.

Subsurface investigations by radar instrumentsonboard Mars Express and NASA's Mars ReconnaissanceOrbiter revealed that the ice cap is made up of manyindividual layers of ice and dust extending to a depth ofaround two kilometres.

This presents a valuable record for the nature ofhow the planet's climate has changed as its tilt and orbitvaried over hundreds of thousands of years.

EARTH'S WATER MAY HAVE FORMEDDEEP WITHIN MANTLE: STUDY

Earth's water may have originally been formedby chemical reactions deep within our planet's mantle,according to new research.

The new theory offers an alternative explanationas to howthe life-giving liquid may have originated onEarth.

Previously, scientists have suggested that cometsthat collided with the planet could have deposited largeamounts of ice on the Earth which later melted, formingwater.

Researchers led by University College Dublin(UCD) in Ireland carried out computer simulations whichfound that reactions between high-pressure and high-temperature fluid hydrogen and silicon dioxide in quartz,found in Earth's upper mantle, can form liquid water underthe right conditions.

The exercise tested the reaction at differenttemperatures and pressures typically found in the uppermantle 40 to 400km below the surface of the Earth.

The simulations revealed that the silica and fluidhydrogen could form water when exposed to temperaturesof just over 1400 degrees Celsius and at pressure 20,000times higher than Earth's atmospheric pressure.

Silica is found in abundance above and below thesurface of the Earth in the form of the mineral quartz –the Earth's crust is 59 per cent silica.


Edited, printed and published by M. R. MISHRA on behalf of the PRESS TRUST OF INDIA, at 4, Parliament Street,New Delhi -110001, Printed at AVION Printer, Aram Nagar, New Delh-110 005 Phone No.23619350 .

The scientists had expected that the water wouldform on the surface of the silica, but instead, they weresurprised to find that the water remained trapped insidethe silica, leading to a massive build up of pressure.

They also believe the release of this pressure couldbe responsible for triggering earthquakes hundreds ofkilometres below the Earth's surface.

The new findings support the experiments on thesame reaction between silicon dioxide and liquid hydrogencarried out by Japanese scientists in 2014.

"We were initially surprised to see in-rock reactions,but we then realised that we had explained the puzzlingmechanism at the base of earlier Japanese experimentalwork finding water formation," said Professor NiallEnglish from UCD School of Chemical and BioprocessEngineering.

"We concluded that these findings help torationalise, in vivid detail, the in-mantle genesis of water.This is very exciting and in accord with very recent findingsof an 'ocean's worth' of water in the Earth's mantle,"English added.

The findings were published in the journal Earthand Planetary Science Letters.

HOW TO MAKE QUANTUM COMPUTERSHACKPROOF DECODED

Scientists have built the first high-dimensionalquantum cloning machine that can intercept a securemessage, an advance that helped uncover clues to protectnext-generation computers from hacking attacks.

Protecting traditional computer systems, which usezeros and ones, from hackers is not a perfect science.

In the complex world of quantum computing,where bits of information can simultaneously hold multiplestates beyond zero and one, potential threats become eventrickier to tackle.

"Our team has built the first high-dimensionalquantum cloning machine capable of performing quantumhacking to intercept a secure quantum message," saidEbrahim Karimi, a professor at the University of Ottawain Canada.

"Once we were able to analyse the results, wediscovered some very important clues to help protectquantum computing networks against potential hackingthreats," said Karimi.

Quantum systems were believed to provideperfectly secure data transmission because until now,attempts to copy the transmitted information resulted inan altered or deteriorated version of the originalinformation, thereby defeating the purpose of the initialhack.

Traditional computing allows a hacker to simplycopy and paste information and replicate it exactly, butthis does not hold true in the quantum computing world,where attempts to copy quantum information - or qudits- result in what Karimi refers to as "bad" copies.

For the first time, the team was able to clone thephotons that transmit information, namely the singlecarriers of light known as qubits, as well as quantum theoryallows, meaning that the clones were almost exact replicasof the original information.

However, in addition to undermining what waspreviously thought to be a perfect way of securelytransmitting information, the researchers' analyses revealedpromising clues into how to protect against such hacking.

"What we found was that when larger amountsof quantum information are encoded on a single photon,the copies will get worse and hacking even simpler todetect," said Frederic Bouchard, doctoral student atUniversity of Ottawa.

"We were also able to show that cloning attacksintroduce specific, observable noises in a secure quantumcommunication channel," said Bouchard.

"Ensuring photons contain the largest amount ofinformation possible and monitoring these noises in a securechannel should help strengthen quantum computingnetworks against potential hacking threats," he said.

The quantum hacking efforts could be used tostudy quantum communication systems, or more generallyto study how quantum information travels across quantumcomputer networks.

The research was published in the journal ScienceAdvances.

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