ECE GYAN

Dark matter, which researchers believe make up about 80% of the universe's mass, is one of the most elusive mysteries in modern physics. What exactly it is and how it came to be is a mystery, but a new Johns Hopkins University study now suggests that dark matter may have existed before the Big Bang. The study, published August 7 in  Physical Review Letters , presents a new idea of how dark matter was born and how to identify it with astronomical observations. "The study revealed a new connection between particle physics and astronomy. If dark matter consists of new particles that were born before the Big Bang, they affect the way galaxies are distributed in the sky in a unique way. This connection may be used to reveal their identity and make conclusions about the times before the Big Bang too," says Tommi Tenkanen, a postdoctoral fellow in Physics and Astronomy at the Johns Hopkins University and the study's author. While not much is known about its origins,...

Industry figures show the global rate of solar energy installations grew by 30 percent in one recent year, and the average cost of installing solar has fallen from $7 per watt to $2.8 per watt, making rooftop solar attractive to many more homeowners. But the progress of rooftop installations is often slowed by a shortage of trained professionals who must use expensive tools to conduct labor-intensive structure assessments one by one, say scientists at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. To automate the process at present, say UMass Amherst College of Information and Computer Sciences (CICS) researchers led by Prashant Shenoy and Subhransu Maji, requires expensive three-dimensional aerial maps using LIDAR technology not available for many areas. Now their team is proposing a new, data-driven approach that uses machine learning techniques and widely available satellite images to identify roofs that have the most potential to produce cost-effective solar power. Shenoy, Maji an...

For decades, biomedical researchers have used mouse behavior to study pain, but some researchers have questioned the accuracy of the interpretations of how mice experience pain. Now, Rutgers University-Camden neuroscientist Nathan Fried and colleagues from the University of Pennsylvania have developed a method that can more accurately gauge pain in mice, which could lead researchers to discover new ways to treat pain in human patients. "When I touch the paw of a mouse, it withdraws the paw. That withdrawal movement is the behavior we've relied on for decades to determine if a pain reliever is working. But that withdrawal is seemingly the same no matter if it's a soft brush or a sharp needle," describes Fried. "So if a mouse moves its paw, how can we be sure it's because the mouse is in pain?" Using slow-motion video, modern neuroscience techniques, and artificial intelligence, Fried and his fellow researchers could zoom in and perform a more det...

Good cardiovascular health at age 50 is associated with a lower risk of dementia later in life, finds a study of British adults published by  The BMJ  today. The researchers say their findings support public health policies to improve cardiovascular health in middle age to promote later brain health. Dementia is a progressive disease that can start to develop 15-20 years before any symptoms appear, so identifying factors that might prevent its onset is important. The American Heart Association's "Life Simple 7" cardiovascular health score, initially designed for cardiovascular disease, has been put forward as a potential tool for preventing dementia. Designed for "primordial" prevention, where the aim is to prevent the development of risk factors themselves in order to affect risk of disease, it is the sum of four behavioural (smoking, diet, physical activity, body mass index) and three biological (fasting glucose, blood cholesterol, blood pressure) m...

New research led by Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Rochester Medical Center indicates that concussions aren't the sole cause of damage to the brain in contact sports. A study of college football players found that typical hits sustained from playing just one season cause structural changes to the brain. The researchers studied 38 University of Rochester players, putting accelerometers -- devices that measures accelerative force -- in their helmets for every practice and game. The players' brains were scanned in an MRI machine before and after a season of play. While only two players suffered clinically diagnosed concussions during the time they were followed in the study, the comparison of the post- and pre-season MRIs showed greater than two-thirds of the players experienced a decrease in the structural integrity of their brain. Specifically, the researchers found reduced white matter integrity in the midbrain after the season compared to before the se...

Researchers at Stanford University have found that spraying a gel on the internal tissues of animals after cardiac surgery greatly reduces adhesions, fibrous bands that form between internal organs and tissues. Adhesions can cause serious, even fatal, complications. The gel, developed at Stanford to deliver medications, was far more effective than adhesion prevention materials currently on the market, the researchers said. It appeared to be safe in the animal study. "The difference between what we saw after using the gel and what we normally see after surgery was drastic," said Joseph Woo, MD, professor and chair of cardiothoracic surgery and the Norman E. Shumway Professor. A paper describing the research published August 7 in  Nature Biomedical Engineering . Woo and Eric Appel, PhD, an assistant professor of materials science and engineering, are the senior authors. Lyndsay Stapleton, a graduate student in bioengineering, is the lead author. Adhesions form after ...

A large international study led by McMaster University shows that low risk pregnant women who intend to give birth at home have no increased chance of the baby's perinatal or neonatal death compared to other low risk women who intend to give birth in a hospital. The results have been published by  The Lancet 's  EClinicalMedicine  journal. "More women in well-resourced countries are choosing birth at home, but concerns have persisted about their safety," said Eileen Hutton, professor emeritus of obstetrics and gynecology at McMaster, founding director of the McMaster Midwifery Research Centre and first author of the paper. "This research clearly demonstrates the risk is no different when the birth is intended to be at home or in hospital." The study examined the safety of place of birth by reporting on the risk of death at the time of birth or within the first four weeks, and found no clinically important or statistically different risk between home...

In a study of commuting workers, the number of different types of food stores available near residences and commute routes -- but not near workplaces -- had a significant association with body mass index (BMI). Adriana Dornelles of Arizona State University, U.S. presents these findings in the open access journal  PLOS ONE  on August 7, 2019. Previous research has revealed links between the food stores available in residential neighborhoods and residents' health outcomes, including BMI. However, few prior studies have also included food stores near workplaces, and none have examined food options along commute routes. The new study addresses the relationship between these three food environments and BMI. Dornelles analyzed data from 710 elementary school employees in New Orleans, Louisiana. Drawing on existing databases, she determined the number of supermarkets, grocery stores, full-service restaurants, and fast-food restaurants within 1 kilometer of the employees' resid...

Major surgery is associated with a small long-term decline in cognitive functioning -- equivalent, on average, to less than five months of natural brain ageing, finds a study in  The BMJ  today. But the odds of substantial cognitive decline also increase after surgery -- approximately doubling -- although the likelihood of this is much lower than after admission to hospital for a medical condition, the findings show. Cognitive decline is the gradual loss of brain functioning that occurs with ageing. It often starts decades before the conventional definition of old age and accelerates with ageing and the presence of an increasing number of underlying health conditions. Certain health issues, such as stroke, can lead to a large "step change" in cognitive decline, and there have been concerns that surgery might also do this, with some patients refusing beneficial surgical procedures as a result, say the researchers. Few previous studies have looked at the potential im...

Earth's magnetic field seems steady and true -- reliable enough to navigate by. Yet, largely hidden from daily life, the field drifts, waxes and wanes. The magnetic North Pole is currently careening toward Siberia, which recently forced the Global Positioning System that underlies modern navigation to update its software sooner than expected to account for the shift. And every several hundred thousand years or so, the magnetic field dramatically shifts and reverses its polarity: Magnetic north shifts to the geographic South Pole and, eventually, back again. This reversal has happened countless times over the Earth's history, but scientists have only a limited understanding of why the field reverses and how it happens. New work from University of Wisconsin-Madison geologist Brad Singer and his colleagues finds that the most recent field reversal, some 770,000 years ago, took at least 22,000 years to complete. That's several times longer than previously thought, and ...

Astronomers are planning to hunt for cores of exoplanets around white dwarf stars by 'tuning in' to the radio waves that they emit. Planetary nebula with white dwarf illustration In new research led by the University of Warwick, scientists have determined the best candidate white dwarfs to start their search, based upon their likelihood of hosting surviving planetary cores and the strength of the radio signal that we can 'tune in' to. Published in the  Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society , the research led by Dr Dimitri Veras from the Department of Physics assesses the survivability of planets that orbit stars which have burnt all of their fuel and shed their outer layers, destroying nearby objects and removing the outer layers of planets. They have determined that the cores which result from this destruction may be detectable and could survive for long enough to be found from Earth. The first exoplanet confirmed to exist was discovered orbiti...

A team of scientists in Korea and the United States have invented a device that can control neural circuits using a tiny brain implant controlled by a smartphone. Researchers, publishing in  Nature Biomedical Engineering , believe the device can speed up efforts to uncover brain diseases such as Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, addiction, depression, and pain. The device, using Lego-like replaceable drug cartridges and powerful bluetooth low-energy, can target specific neurons of interest using drug and light for prolonged periods. "The wireless neural device enables chronic chemical and optical neuromodulation that has never been achieved before," said lead author Raza Qazi, a researcher with the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) and University of Colorado Boulder. Qazi said this technology significantly overshadows conventional methods used by neuroscientists, which usually involve rigid metal tubes and optical fibers to deliver drugs an...