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Genetic variants that increase infectious diseases risk identified

May 20, 2010 By vani Leave a Comment

Washington, May 20 (ANI): Scientists have identified new genetic variants that increase susceptibility to several infectious diseases including tuberculosis and malaria.

With greater understanding of the role of the gene implicated, researchers from the Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics at the University of Oxford, Singapore”s Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) and National University Health System (NUHS) hope that the findings could one day lead to better therapies and vaccines.

Environmental factors such as malnutrition and poor hygiene can account for a large proportion of an individual person”s susceptibility to infectious diseases, but it”s clear that this is not the whole story. Studies of twins and adopted persons indicate that genetics also plays a role.

The team analysed genes from over 8,000 people at clinical sites in Malawi, Kenya, Vietnam, Hong Kong and The Gambia, over a period of 5 years. In particular, they were looking for genetic variants that might contribute to susceptibility to tuberculosis, malaria and serious bacterial infections of the blood, or bacteraemia.

Their findings reveal a striking association with a gene called CISH and increased risk of susceptibility to these infectious diseases.

CISH encodes a protein that is involved in the immune response to infectious diseases. It plays a role in dampening down messaging signals between cells of the immune system.

A panel of five different genetic variants was identified within the CISH gene. Within the population studied, having just one of these variants increased susceptibility to disease by 18 percent compared with somebody who does not have any ”risk” variants.

One variant in particular accounted for most of the genetic association with disease. Functional studies carried out in Singapore showed that blood cells from healthy Chinese volunteers carrying that variant had lower levels of the CISH protein overall than individuals with the normal variant.

This suggests that CISH exerts a significant genetic influence on our immune response.

Dr Chiea C. Khor from A*STAR”s Singapore Institute for Clinical Sciences (SICS), who co-led the studies in Singapore, commented: “It”s not clear from our study why having a reduced level of CISH associates with increased susceptibility to multiple infectious diseases, but it does suggest that CISH is a key regulator of the immune system. We hope that our findings will encourage clinical research to better understand the immunological processes that are going on, with a view to identifying targets for therapeutic intervention and the development of better therapies and vaccines.” (ANI)

Filed Under: International News Tagged With: bacterial infections, blood cells, cells of the immune system, chinese volunteers, environmental factors, Functional Studies, Genetic Association, genetic variants, human genetics, immune response, infectious diseases, Malawi Kenya, malnutrition, Oxford Singapore, poor hygiene, Risk Variants, susceptibility, university health system, university of oxford, wellcome trust centre

LHC to soon search for new sub-atomic particles, says physicist

May 18, 2010 By vani Leave a Comment

London, May 18 (ANI): The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) could start its search for new sub-atomic particles, says a leading physicist.

By the end of summer, the LHC could become sensitive enough to probe a hitherto unexplored domain in particle physics, if commissioning work goes well.

And the first candidates for discovery are two boson particles that have been predicted to exist, reports The BBC.

The 6bn pound collider is being used to smash together proton beams to shed light on the nature of Universe.

The machine has seen half a billion of these collisions since beams crossed for the first time in November 2009.

LHC is designed to search for the elusive Higgs boson and study new physics predicted to exist at the 1,000 gigaelectronvolt (GeV) scale (approximately 1,000 times larger than the mass of a proton).

One of the first prospects for new discoveries at this mass scale are particles known as W prime and Z prime bosons.

These are heavier versions of the W and Z bosons, which are responsible for weak interactions.

If all goes well, the machine could be sensitive enough to probe the 1,000 GeV scale within a few months, according to Dr Tony Weidberg, a particle physicist at the University of Oxford, UK.

Weidberg works on the LHC”s Atlas experiment, which is one of two enormous “multi-purpose” detectors looking for new phenomena in the particle collisions (the other is the Compact Muon Solenoid, or CMS).

Atlas has already identified what appear to be lower-mass W bosons from their “decay products” in collisions at the LHC.

Although the W boson was already known to physicists, identifying known particles is vital for calibration of the detectors like Atlas.

The discovery of higher-mass W and Z bosons would shed important new light on these interactions. (ANI)

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Personal political views shape our interpretation of political messages

April 28, 2010 By vani Leave a Comment

London, April 28 (ANI): People interpret a politician”s statement according to their personal political views, a new British research has revealed.

Martin McKee, from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and David Stuckler from the University of Oxford believe that “it is possible for two well-informed groups of people faced with the same evidence to reach completely different conclusions about what should be done.”

They highlight a recent American study where three groups who described themselves as either Democrats, Republicans or Independents were randomly given four versions of an authoritative news story about diabetes.

The stories were exactly the same apart from how they described the causes of diabetes – one said nothing while the other three alluded to genetic factors, individual lifestyle choices and social determinants such as economic status.

Interestingly, the Democrats and Independents were far more likely to agree with the social determinants explanation but this had no effect on the Republicans.

Moreover, the Democrats were significantly more likely than the Republicans to support action to tackle diabetes, such as restrictions on junk food.

The authors also refer to a study on brain activity in Democrat and Republican research participants who were exposed to contradicting messages from both parties.

They say: “Whereas those registered as Republicans clearly identified the contradictions voiced by Democrat politicians, they saw minimal contradiction in the statements by Republicans, and vice versa.”

They conclude: “Politicians are often criticised for being all things to all people and for making promises that they then fail to keep. However … the problem may be less what the politicians are actually saying but rather how their words are heard and interpreted.”

The study has appeared in the British Medical Journal. (ANI)

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Elephants make ”beware of the bees” alarm calls

April 27, 2010 By vani Leave a Comment

London, April 27 (ANI): A new study has shown that elephants utter a distinctive rumble in response to the sound of bees, signalling troop members to flee their attackers.

According to researchers, this is the first time elephants have been found to make specific sounds to warn of particular threats, although they have also been observed ‘roaring’ when threatened by lions.

“Six out of 10 elephant families fled from the loudspeaker when we played the ”bee rumble” compared to just two when we played a control rumble and one with the same call shifted to a different frequency,” New Scientist quoted Lucy King of the University of Oxford, who heads a team in Kenya investigating the meanings of elephant vocalisations, as saying.

The fleeing elephants also shook their heads violently, as if trying to deflect bees.

The new study opens up the possibility of using recordings of the ‘bee rumble’ as a deterrent as well, helping to prevent potential conflict between humans and elephants.

Elephants are terrified of bees because they can crawl into their trunk and sting them from inside it. They also sting around the animals” eyes, leaving painful welts that take weeks to disappear.

According to the researchers, the rumbles alert both the elephant”s family and neighbouring herds to the threat, and may teach young elephants that bees are dangerous.

The study has been published in the Journal PLoS ONE. (ANI)

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Scientists link low birth weight and diabetes

April 8, 2010 By vani Leave a Comment

British researchers have found two genetic variants that affect a baby’s size at birth and say one of them is also linked with developing diabetes in later life.

The finding, published in the journal Nature Genetics, is the first firm evidence of a genetic link between low birth weight and diabetes and helps explain why small babies have higher rates of diabetes when they grow up.

Professor Mark McCarthy, who leads the diabetes research group at the University of Oxford, says severe malnutrition and low birth weight has a big impact on infant survival.

“It’s become clear in the last 10 to 20 years that there’s a rather strange connection between birth weight and subsequent risk of diabetes and heart disease, for example,” he said.

“So that babies that are born smaller, in general, have higher rates of those diseases later in life.”

It has already been established that all manner of environmental factors can influence the birth weight of a baby.

Factors include birth order, whether the mother smokes or drinks, and how many weeks into the pregnancy the baby is delivered.

But Professor McCarthy says the new study suggests the baby’s genes may play a part as well.

“We actually found some strong genetic effects and were able to identify two specific genetic regions that were quite strongly associated with birth weight,” he said.

“I think these are all factors that go into the mix. These are not genetic effects that will say irrespective of everything else that you will end up with a small baby.

“[They say that] on average you tend to produce a baby that’s at least a little bit smaller than a baby that doesn’t have these genetic factors.”

Professor McCarthy say the genetic variants are quite common.

“[Among] European populations we think that about 10 per cent of the population have at least all four birth weight lowering variants,” he said.

“These particular variants together explain about a difference of about 100 grams, so about four ounces.

“So on their own they’re clearly not explaining why some children are massively larger than others.

“But that equates, for example, the effects on birth weight of a mother smoking about five cigarettes a day in the third trimester of pregnancy, so it’s on a par with some of the environmental exposures that we know. They influence both ways.”

Professor McCarthy says it is likely there will be more than two genetic variants at play in determining birth weight.

And he says that once they are all identified, the finding may lead to new discoveries about how to treat diabetes.

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Brit Muslim leaders ‘failing to tackle extremism’: Oxford academic

March 31, 2010 By vani Leave a Comment

London, Mar 31(ANI): A University of Oxford academic has criticized Muslim leaders in Britain for not doing enough to tackle extremism.

Nick Chatrath, a researcher at Oxford’s Faculty of Oriental Studies, claims in a paper to be published this week that in the face of growing radicalization in Britain, Muslim leaders are sweeping extremists’ points of views under the carpet instead of facing up to them.

Based on interviews with radical Islamic preacher Anjem Choudary and Dr. Musharraf Hussain, an adviser to the Muslim Council of Britain, Chatrath said: “Moderate Muslim leaders are doing a poor job of tackling extremism in Britain.”

“This attitude must change, as the best way to extinguish extremist arguments is to deal with them out in the open, not just sweep them under the carpet and hope for the best.”

“Some recent polls suggest ordinary British Muslims are becoming more sympathetic to extremists, and this could be related to the way moderate Muslims are ignoring the extremist threat,” The Times quoted Chatrath, as saying in his paper.

Chatrath’s paper came as a committee of British MPs said that the programme set up by the Gordon Brown Government to stop radicalization and reduce support for terrorism had undermined community relations. (ANI)

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Fifth of spouses spy on partner’s emails, texts

March 29, 2010 By vani Leave a Comment

Mon, Mar 29 05:17 PM

A fifth of spouses confessed to spying on their partner’s emails or text messages in a new British study.

Researchers from the London School of Economics, the University of Oxford and Nottingham Trent University, quizzed nearly 1,000 UK couples and found that in a fifth of relationships, at least one partner had checked their spouse’s browser history on the computer.

The study, entitled “Netiquette within married couples”, showed eight per cent of men and 14 per cent of women had read their spouses emails, seven per cent of men and 13 per cent of women said they had done the same with text messages, The Telegraph reported.

Lead author Ellen Helsper said: “Our findings showed that there are surprisingly high levels of surveillance. One of the surprising findings was that surveillance was undertaken more often by wives than husbands.

“This contrasts with research that suggests that women are less technologically skilled than men. It seems that they are able to overcome these barriers when they feel their relationship is at stake.””

She added: “It is clear that internet users do not shy from taking action when they think their partner might be undertaking activities that they are not comfortable with.

“Whatever the reason for the monitoring, partner surveillance was wider spread than we initially assumed, with one out of every three couples having at least one partner who monitored the other partner’s behaviour using some kind of technological tool.”

The findings were published in the journal Computers in Human Behavior.
ANI

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Fifth of spouses spy on partner’s emails, texts: UK study

March 29, 2010 By vani Leave a Comment

London, March 29 (ANI): A fifth of spouses confessed to spying on their partner”s emails or text messages in a new British study.

She added: “It is clear that internet users do not shy from taking action when they think their partner might be undertaking activities that they are not comfortable with.

“Whatever the reason for the monitoring, partner surveillance was wider spread than we initially assumed, with one out of every three couples having at least one partner who monitored the other partner”s behaviour using some kind of technological tool.””

The findings were published in the journal Computers in Human Behavior. (ANI)

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Scientists identify autism susceptibility genes

March 26, 2010 By vani Leave a Comment

Washington, Mar 26 (ANI): A group of researchers has identified two genes associated with autistic spectrum disorders (ASD) in a study of 661 families.

Writing in BioMed Central”s newly launched journal Molecular Autism, boffins found that variations in the genes for two brain proteins, LRRN3 and LRRTM3, were significantly associated with susceptibility to ASD.

Anthony Monaco from the Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics, University of Oxford, UK, worked with an international team of researchers to study four candidate genes in families from the UK, the Netherlands, Italy and Germany.

He said, “To our knowledge, this is one of the most comprehensive genetic analyses of association between these important genes in brain connections and ASD risk”.

The proteins encoded by these two genes have been implicated in brain development, which is often impaired in autistic individuals. In particular, LRRN3 is thought to play a role in the development and maintenance of the nervous system, while LRRTM3 is part of a family of proteins thought to organize synaptic connections.

According to Monaco, ” A focused candidate gene study was carried out using association approaches to identify common variants in the UK cohort and in additional European populations. This study covered four brain-enriched leucine-rich repeat candidates and taken together, there is converging evidence that common genetic variants in LRRTM3 and LRRN3 confer susceptibility to ASD. Future studies of these genes and their function will provide valuable insights into their role in ASD pathogenesis”. (ANI)

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”Doublesex” gene determines fruit fly gender

March 22, 2010 By vani Leave a Comment

London, Mar 22 (ANI): ”Doublesex” (dsx) gene in fruit fly, not only determines the shape and structure of the male and female body, but also moulds the architecture of their brain and nervous system, resulting in sex-specific behaviours, according to a study from the Glasgow University and Oxford.

For a long time, the courtship behaviour of the fruit fly has long been used to study the relationship between genes and behaviour— it is innate, manifesting in a series of stereotypical behaviours largely performed by the male.

And until recently, the gene ”fruitless” (fru), which is specific to the adult male fruit fly, was thought to be the key to male behaviour and the development of male specific neural circuitry of flies.

However, the researchers have shown that fru does not explain the complete repertoire of male behaviours in the fly: female flies in which the fru gene has been activated demonstrate some, but not all, of the characteristics usually associated with courtship behaviour in males.

The researchers have also shown that dsx plays an important role in shaping the neural circuitry involved in this behaviour.

“The dogma was that dsx made fruit flies look the way they did and fru made them behave the way they did. We now know that this is not true. dsx and fru act together to form the neuronal networks – the wiring – for sexual behaviour,” Nature quoted Dr Stephen Goodwin from the University of Oxford, who led the research, as saying.

While fru has so far been found only in insects; dsx is found throughout the animal kingdom, where it plays a fundamental role in sex determination, and so is of particular interest to researchers.

The researchers used a transgenic tool generated in his lab and could map dsx throughout the fly”s development using a fluorescent protein marker that illuminates areas where DSX is active.

This highlighted profound differences in neural architecture between the sexes.

In males, the researchers were able to show that dsx complements fru activity to create a ”shared” male-specific neural circuit; in females (where fru is inactive), dsx forms a female-specific circuit.

Importantly the researchers could to manipulate these cells, impinging their ability to function, and show that these circuits are responsible for behaviours unique to the individual sexes.

“It has been suggested that there are only minor trivial differences between the neural circuits that underlie behaviour in males and females. We have shown that in fact there is quite a bit of difference in the number of neurons and how these neurons connect, or ”talk”, to each other. These differences can have big consequences on the structure and function of the nervous system,” explained Goodwin.

In addition, while dsx was known to establish the gender of the adult fly, the pattern of dsx activity in the adult was unknown.

The researchers have shown that this pattern is not ubiquitous, but rather is restricted in a specific and telling manner.

The study has been published in the journal Nature Neuroscience. (ANI)

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Soon, gel that could change lives of babies born with cleft palates for good

March 19, 2010 By vani Leave a Comment

Washington, March 19 (ANI): Scientists have broken new ground in a treatment for babies born with severe cleft palates.

Clefts are quite common in newborns and in severe cases surgery is required to correct the problem. Moreover, future complications can occur as the child grows into an adult.

But now the preliminary results on a hydrogel material studied using the Science and Technology Facilities Council”s ISIS neutron source show treatment for severe cleft palates could be carried out without the need for complex surgery.

Cleft palates are currently repaired by surgically repositioning the available palatal mucosa, the tissue structure at the roof of the mouth, so as to cover the gap in the palate. However, if the cleft defect is too wide there may be insufficient local tissue available to close the gap without undertaking quite radical surgery. It is these severe cases that can cause future complications for infants as they develop into adults – particularly with speech and facial growth problems.

Scientists at the University of Oxford, the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxfordshire, and the Georgia Institute of Technology in the United States used ISIS to look at hydrogel on the molecular level to try and gather enough information to develop materials that could be used for a potential new treatment.

Professor David Bucknall from the Georgia Institute of Technology said: “ISIS provided us with the high level of structural detail we needed to assess the new material. It gives unique and accurate results that we can”t get with any other technique.”

The new potential treatment for these severe cases involves inserting a small plate made of an anisotropic hydrogel material (similar to that used in contact lenses) under the mucosa of the roof of the mouth of the patient.

The hydrogel slowly expands, as fluid is absorbed, encouraging skin growth over and around the plate – a process known as ”tissue expansion”. When sufficient skin has been generated to repair the palatal cleft, the plate is removed and the cleft is repaired by using this additional tissue.

Marc Swan, a plastic surgeon at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford, and the instigator of the study, said: “Babies born with cleft palates usually have problems feeding, and may have speech difficulties in later life, as well as issues with their hearing, dentition and facial growth.

“The severest cases often have the least favourable outcomes and unfortunately these are the most challenging children to treat surgically.”

Andrew Taylor, ISIS Director said: “This study shows how fundamental knowledge about the structure of materials can be used to develop new technology. The instruments at the new ISIS second target station build on 25 years of expertise developed in the UK. They are designed to allow new areas of research to flourish – particularly in soft matter and bioscience – and make it easy for research teams to get the important results that they need. We”re pleased that at ISIS we can continue to contribute to research affecting everyday lives.”

The clinical trials in this area are expected to take place early next year. (ANI)

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Solar wind strips off water from Venus

September 17, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, September 16 (ANI): Observations by the European Space Agency’s (ESA’s) Venus Express mission have provided strong new evidence that the solar wind has stripped away significant quantities of water from Earth’s twin planet Venus.

The SPICAV and VIRTIS instruments carried by the spacecraft have been used to measure concentrations of water vapor in the Venusian atmosphere at altitudes ranging from the lowest 10 km up to 110 km, high above the cloud tops.

Studies led by scientists from Belgium and Russia have found that the ratio of heavy water, which contains the isotope deuterium instead of hydrogen, to normal water is nearly twice as high above the clouds compared to its value in the lower atmosphere.

According to Dr. Emmanuel Marcq of the LATMOS laboratory in France, “Water vapor is a very rare species in the Venusian atmosphere: if it were in liquid form now, it would cover the surface of Venus with just a few centimeters of water. However, we believe Venus once had large volumes of water that have since escaped into space or stripped away by the solar wind.”

“These results from Venus Express demonstrate that the heavier water containing deuterium has not been able to escape Venus’s gravity as easily as normal H2O. This enrichment of heavy water provides strong evidence that water loss is occurring in the upper atmosphere and that Venus was probably more humid and Earth-like in the distant past,” he said.

Other studies by groups at the LESIA laboratory and the University of Oxford show that concentrations of water vapor decline from around 44 parts per million in the hot lower atmosphere to 25 parts per million at an altitude of 30-40 km.

At this level, the amounts of water vapor vary according to the overlying sulfuric acid cloud cover, with regions of thicker cloud containing less water vapor. (ANI)

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Four giant stone-age axes found in African lake basin

September 14, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, September 13 (ANI): A team of archaeologists has found four giant stone hand axes from the dry basin of Lake Makgadikgadi in the Kalahari Desert in Africa, dating back to the Stone Age, which suggests that the region was once much drier and wetter than it is today.

The discovery of the axes is part of the finding of thousands of stone tools on the lake bed, which sheds new light on how humans in Africa adapted to several substantial climate change events during the period that coincided with the last Ice Age in Europe.

Researchers from the School of Geography and the Environment at the University of Oxford are surveying the now-dry basin of Lake Makgadikgadi.

Their research was prompted by the discovery of the first of what are believed to be the world’s largest stone tools on the bed of the lake.

Although the first find was made in the 1990s, the discovery of four giant axes has not been scientifically reported until now.

Four giant stone hand axes, measuring over 30 cm long and of uncertain age, were recovered from the lake basin.

Equally remarkable is that the dry lake floor where they were found is also littered with tens of thousands of other smaller stone-age tools and flakes, according to the researchers.

According to Professor David Thomas, Head of the School of Geography and the Environment at the University of Oxford, “Many of the tools were found on the dry lake floor, not around its edge, which challenges the view that big lakes were only attractive to humans when they were full of water.”

“As water levels in the lake went down, or during times when they fluctuated seasonally, wild animals would have congregated round the resulting watering holes on the lake bed,” he said.

“It’s likely that early human populations would have seen this area as a prolific hunting ground when food resources in the region were more concentrated than at times when the regional climate was wetter and food was more plentiful and the lake was full of water,” he added.

The research team has investigated islands on the floor of the lake – remnants of former sand dunes – which suggest the region’s climate has also been both windier and markedly drier than it is today.

“The interior of southern Africa has usually been seen as being devoid of significant archaeology. Surprisingly, we have found and logged incredibly extensive Middle Stone Age artefacts spread over a vast area of the lake basin,” Professor Thomas said. (ANI)

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Song birds have to deal with cover artists too

September 10, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, Sep 9 (ANI): Just like great singers among humans, birds too have to deal with cover artists who copy songs.

A new research has revealed that some bird species have evolved to sing the same tune as their rivals, in order to compete effectively.

Led by Dr. Joseph Tobias and Dr Nathalie Seddon from the Edward Grey Institute, University of Oxford, the research team analysed the calls and songs of two antbird species that were living side-by-side in the Amazon rainforest- the Peruvian warbling-antbird and the yellow-breasted warbling-antbird.

The study was aimed at investigating their similar songs, and, in particular, at testing the theory that the birds’ songs could become increasingly similar to enable effective communication between competing species.

The above notion has attracted controversy as many scientists have argued that convergence in territorial or mating signals results in needless confrontation or crossbreeding and the creation of hybrids.

“Biologists have long been fascinated by convergence in ecological traits as it offers tangible evidence of evolution and the forces of selection by which it operates, but until now there is no clear evidence that social competition between animal species can produce convergent signals. We examined this idea by analysing the structure and function of songs in two birds which we knew to be strong social competitors,” said Tobias.

The researchers studied the species in Peru and Bolivia at one site where they lived together, and two sites where they lived in isolation.

Firstly, they recorded three sets of signals-songs, calls, and plumage colour of both species (including a total of 504 songs from 150 individuals).

Later, they played them back to individuals of each species to test the significance of songs of both types.

The results showed that territorial songs of both species were extremely similar particularly where they lived together, such that territorial birds treated songs of both species as equally threatening.

In the meantime, they discovered that non-territorial signals like calls and plumage were highly divergent.

“In effect, the territorial songs of these birds are more or less interchangeable in design and function. Given that they last shared a common ancestor more than 3 million years ago, it is almost equivalent to humans and chimpanzees – which diverged around 5 million years ago – using the same language to settle disputes over resources” said Tobias.

“Our results provide the first compelling evidence that social interaction can cause convergent evolution in species competing for space and resources.

They also suggest that while competition drives convergence in territorial songs, this is offset by divergence in non-competitive signals such as plumage colour to promote species recognition and reduce the chance of interbreeding,” he added.

The study has been published in Evolution.(ANI)

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Eyes alert us to approaching objects before brain notices

September 7, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

London, September 7 (ANI): Swiss scientists have discovered a kind of eye cells that can alert people to any objects drawing near, without taking the brain’s help.

Botond Roska and his colleagues at the Friedrich Miescher Institute for Biomedical Research in Basel believe that this ability may have evolved to speed escape from predators.

As to the significance of this finding, the researchers say that scientists have thus far known that the only cells that are sensitive to approaching objects exist in the brain.

While investigating mouse eye cells, the researchers noticed that one type behaved unusually in response to movement.

Upon further analysis, they observed that this one kind of retinal cell fired only when an object approached.

Based on that observation, the researchers came to the conclusion that people might have similar cells, which alert them to approaching objects faster than the brain cells do.

“It’s an alarm system that’s as close to the front end of the organism as possible. If you left it to the brain to respond, it might be too late,” New Scientist magazine quoted Roska as saying.

He has revealed that his next step will be to find out how the approach-sensitive cells evoke a reaction in the brain.

Russell Foster, a neuroscientist at the University of Oxford, said: “This is exciting work. How the nerve cells of the visual system work out that an object is approaching represents a very old question in neuroscience.”

A research article on this study has been published in the journal Nature Neuroscience. (ANI)

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Men and women smokers equally face risk of death from tobacco

September 1, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, Sep 1 (ANI): With the number of women smokers rising day-by-day, researchers have warned that about a quarter of both men and women, who smoke throughout adult life, may die due to tobacco before getting old.

They said that smoking still kills more men than women, as men started smoking substantial numbers of cigarettes long before women did.

However, as a large number of men have now quit, male death rates from smoking are decreasing in many European countries, where female death rates from smoking are still increasing.

Taking men and women together, smoking causes about 0.7 million deaths per year in the 27 countries of the present European Union, including 0.3 million deaths per year before age 70 (more than one of five of all deaths before age 70).

Those killed by tobacco before age 70 lose, on average, about 23 years of life (and those killed by tobacco at older ages lose, on average, about 8 years).

“In Western Europe tobacco causes more premature deaths than anything else does, and among both men and women about a quarter of those who smoke throughout adult life will be killed by tobacco before they are old, unless they can manage to stop smoking,” said Sir Richard Peto, professor of medical statistics at the University of Oxford, UK. (ANI)

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Fashion may have emerged 80,000 years ago in form of shell beads

August 28, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

London, August 28 (ANI): A new study by an international team of researchers from France, South Africa, Germany, Israel and the UK has confirmed that 80,000-year-old shell beads found in caves in North Africa represent some of the earliest evidence of the use of personal ornamentation, which also points to the dawn of modern human behaviour.

According to a report carried out by the Planet Earth Online, the beads provide evidence that the people alive at the time were acting much like modern humans.

“There is a problem with linking anatomically modern humans with behaviourally modern humans,” said Professor Nick Barton of the University of Oxford UK, and one of the authors of the study. “These people may have looked like us, but were they behaving the same?” he added.

The presence of the beads suggests the people who made and wore them behaved in ways we would recognize.

Using symbolic items like shell beads to communicate ideas about the wearer requires skills found only in modern humans, including a well-developed language and the ability to use abstract concepts.

The researchers analyzed 25 beads from four sites in North Africa from the Middle Palaeolithic period.

The beads, consisting of the shells of sea snails called Nassarius, had been transported some distance from the marine environment in which they’re usually found, and showed evidence of deliberate alterations.

“We found evidence they had been strung together as in a necklace or bracelet,” said Barton.

The shells had been deliberately perforated using stone tools and the researchers found distinctive wear patterns which suggested they had been rubbing together.

Wear marks around the perforations indicated the shells had been threaded on a string.

Several had also been covered with a pigment called red ochre and one shell showed evidence of heating, possibly to alter its colour.

As to what purpose the coloured beads served, Barton said, “What they were signalling, we’re not entirely sure. Possibly, they were an insurance policy, if you had shared access to certain resources and wanted to identify yourself to members of another group.”

The beads may also have let wearers identify members of the same social group, preventing unnecessary conflicts.

Alternatively, the beads might have provided personal information about the wearer, such as the wearer’s position in the social hierarchy, or that they had passed through puberty and into adulthood.

These beads might have also represented the origins of today’s fashions. (ANI)

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Fashion may have emerged 80,000 years ago in form of shell beads

August 26, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

London, August 26 (ANI): A new study by an international team of researchers from France, South Africa, Germany, Israel and the UK has confirmed that 80,000-year-old shell beads found in caves in North Africa represent some of the earliest evidence of the use of personal ornamentation, which also points to the dawn of modern human behaviour.