Technology

In a breakthrough, scientists have found a gene key for the development of our brain.

The study shows how mutations in the gene called USP9X are linked to intellectual disability.

These mutations – inheritable from one generation to the next – are believed to cause disruptions to normal brain cell functioning.

By looking at patients with severe learning and memory problems, scientists discovered this particular gene that is involved in creating this base network of nerve cells.

The Indian space agency Saturday raised further the orbit of its second navigation satellite by around 4,200 km by firing the space craft’s onboard motor for around seven minutes, said a senior official.

“The satellite’s motor was fired for around seven minutes today (Saturday) evening. Post raising the satellite’s elliptical orbit is 292.7 x 24,830 km,” an official of the space agency told IANS preferring anonymity.

Another orbit raising activity is slated for Sunday evening.

The hills of Himachal Pradesh Saturday saw a rise in the temperatures due to prevailing dry weather, but the Met Office forecast rain and more snowfall in the next three days.

“There are chances of more rainfall and snowfall in the state from April 6 to 8,” a meteorological office statement said.

It said the western disturbances – storm systems originating from Caspian Sea and moving across the Afghanistan-Pakistan region – would start active in the region from April 6.

A new study has found the two new genes that influence the risk of women developing breast and ovarian cancer.

Scientists at the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO) are currently conducting a study that will contribute towards spreading awareness about the genes when they carry BCRA1 and BCRA2 mutations.

The researchers have said that these genes could explain why some women with high-risk mutations suffer from cancer while others do not.

Tiny medical robots could one day operate inside an astronaut’s body during an emergency in space.

A fist-sized robot is scheduled for its first zero-gravity test in the next several months-one small step toward enabling robotic medical attention for humans stuck on deep-space missions lasting for months.

The compact robot is the product of Virtual Incision and researchers from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, New Scientist reported.

Scientists suggest that the world’s banana crop, worth 26 billion pounds and a crucial part of the diet of more than 400 million people, is facing “disaster” from virulent diseases immune to pesticides or other forms of control.

Alarm at the most potent threat – a fungus known as Panama disease tropical race 4 (TR4) – has risen dramatically after it was announced in recent weeks that it has jumped from South-east Asia, where it has already devastated export crops, to Mozambique and Jordan.

The Indian space agency is developing Astrosat – an astronomical satellite to study stars and other celestial bodies and expects to launch it in 2015, said a senior official here Friday.

Speaking to reporters here after the successful launch of India’s second navigation satellite Space Application Centre director A.S.Kiran Kumar said: “The Astrosat is getting ready. It will be unique.”

He said the satellite will cover spectral bands like UV rays, visible and X-rays which the Hubble Space Telescope does not have.

Soon, you can check your sugar levels or ovulation changes with bacteria-generated fuel technology powered by your spit!

According to an international team of engineers, saliva-powered, micro-sized microbial fuel cells can produce minute amounts of energy sufficient to run on-chip applications.
Microbial fuel cells create energy when bacteria break down organic material producing a charge that is transferred to the anode.

“There is a lot of organic stuff in saliva,” said Bruce E. Logan, a professor of environmental engineering at Pennsylvania State University.

U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has launched a new atomic clock, called NIST-F2, which will serve as the new US time standard, and will neither gain nor lose one second in about 300 million years.

The new quality makes the atomic clock makes it about three times as accurate as NIST-F1, which has served as the standard since 1999. Both clocks use a “fountain” of cesium atoms to determine the exact length of a second.

Researchers have revealed that the centimeter-sized fragments and smaller particles that make up the regolith – the layer of loose, unconsolidated rock and dust – of small asteroids is formed by temperature cycling that breaks down rock in a process called thermal fatigue.

Previous studies suggested that the regolith of asteroids one kilometer wide and smaller was made from material falling to the surface after impacts and from boulders that were pulverized by micrometeoroid impacts.

Throwing fresh light on how much water once existed on the Red Planet, the rover Curiosity has taken pictures of over 120,000 measurements of surface rocks and soil on Mars.

Scientists have found that the weight of the dust they have sampled is two to four percent water.

For the first time, they have also confirmed that the common element fluorine exists on Mars.

“Curiosity has travelled nearly 6.5 km ever since the rover landed on Mars in 2012 and is more than halfway to its destination, Mount Sharp,” said Celia Arnaud, a senior editor at Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN).

The long-held belief that a glass of champagne has around 15 million bubbles is in for a refill.

A scientist has now closely examined the factors that affect these bubbles – and the new number is 1 million bubbles at best.

Effervescence plays an important role in the look, taste, aroma and mouth feel of champagne and other sparkling wines, French scientist Gerard Liger-Belair said.

Wine journalists and bloggers often cite 15 million as the average number of bubbles fizzing in a single glass of champagne, based on some simple mathematics.

Scientists have found the Moon was formed nearly 100 million years after the start of the solar system, suggesting that the Earth’s natural satellite is about 4.5 billion years old.

This conclusion is based on measurements from the interior of the Earth combined with computer simulations of the protoplanetary disk from which the Earth and other terrestrial planets formed.

Researchers simulated the growth of the terrestrial planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars) from a disk of thousands of planetary building blocks orbiting the Sun.

Men who are less sensitive to the negative effects of alcohol drink more heavily and are more likely to become problem drinkers later in life and part of a brain plays a crucial role in deciding this.

A team of neuroscientists from University of Utah have find that a particular brain region controls sensitivity to the negative effects of drinking alcohol – a discovery that has implications for understanding behaviours that drive alcohol addiction.