Scientists observe evolution in real time!

In research with a population of guppies, the scientists observed male colour patterns impacting their ability to make babies and survive longer. Working in a river in Trinidad, the researchers determined which male guppies would contribute more offspring to the population as well as which would live longer and which would have a shorter lifespan.

"We are detailing how evolution happens," said David Reznick, professor of biology at University of California, Riverside."Usually people look at evolution as change over time but they do not know the details of how it changes," Reznick noted. http://post.jagran.com/scientists-observe-evolution-in-real-time-1442316739

Source:Lifestyle News

Some tips to look fabulous on this Raksha Bandhan

An expert has shared tips to look fabulous on the occasion of Raksha Bandhan.

Watermelon Juice: Watermelon juice is a good skin toner and relieves dryness too. It cools, refreshes and softens the skin. Apply on the face and wash off with plain water after 20 minutes of application.

Fruit Mask: Fruits like banana, apple, papaya and orange can be mixed together and applied on the face. Keep it on your face for 20-30 minutes. Then wash off with water. It cools the skin, cleanses dead cells and removes tan. http://post.jagran.com/some-tips-to-look-fabulous-on-this-raksha-bandhan-1440501583

Source: Lifestyle News 

NASA's Curiosity Rover finds iron meteorites on Mars

The Mars meteorites were found on May 25 and NASA released a detailed photo of the Lebanon meteorites on Tuesday. Curiosity took detailed pictures of the main Lebanon meteorite using its high-resolution Chem-Cam and Remote Micro-Imager cameras.

 

The images revealed strange angular cavities in the surface of the rock."That 'Lebanon' is huge, almost 7 feet," NASA spokesman Guy Webster from the agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California was quoted by Space.com as saying.Webster said Curiosity also found a third meteorite at the same time it spotted the Lebanon rocks. In a raw photo from Curiosity, the third meteorite which is also about 7 feet wide can be seen just beyond the closer Lebanon meteorites."Heavy Metal! I found an iron meteorite on Mars," Curiosity's handlers wrote on the mission's Twitter page. 

 

The three meteorites are the first space rocks on Mars discovered by the Curiosity rover since it landed on the Red Planet in August 2012, Webster added."One possible explanation is that they resulted from preferential erosion along crystalline boundaries within the metal of the rock," NASA officials wrote in a statement."Another possibility is that these cavities once contained olivine crystals, which can be found in a rare type of stony-iron meteorites called pallasites, thought to have been formed near the core-mantle boundary within an asteroid."

 

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Safer, cheaper building blocks for future drugs

A team of researchers from KU Leuven, in Belgium, has developed a chemical reaction that yields fully functional 1,2,3-triazoles.

  

Triazoles are chemical compounds that can be used as building blocks for more complex chemical compounds, including pharmaceutical drugs.

  

Leveraging the compound's surprisingly stable structure, drug developers have successfully used 1,2,3-triazoles as building blocks in various anti-HIV, anti-cancer and anti-bacterial drugs.

  

But efforts to synthesise the compound have been hampered by one serious hurdle: they depend on harmful heavy metals to work, and this severely limits their biological applications.

In new experiments, a research team at KU Leuven's Molecular Design and Synthesis lab confirm for the first time that 1,2,3-triazoles can be synthesised through a metal-free, three-component reaction using readily available ingredients.

"We were able to develop a reaction that provided a good yield, high regioselectivity and easy access to diversely functionalised 1,2,3-triazoles," said corresponding author Wim Dehaen.

  

"In other words, the reaction produces plenty of the compounds we're looking for, does so reliably without unwanted or unexpected outcomes, and does this in a way that makes it easy for us to isolate the compound. This makes our method highly desirable," said Dehaen.

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Less sleep may age your brain faster

The findings could have important implications for the rise of dementia among the elderly, researchers said.

Past research has examined the impact of sleep duration on cognitive functions in older adults.

Though faster brain ventricle enlargement is a marker for cognitive decline and the development of neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's, the effects of sleep on this marker have never been measured.

Researchers at Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School Singapore (Duke-NUS) examined the data of 66 older Chinese adults, from the Singapore-Longitudinal Ageing Brain Study.

The study started in 2005 and followed a cohort of healthy adults of Chinese ethnicity aged 55 years and above.

Participants underwent structural MRI brain scans measuring brain volume and neuropsychological assessments testing cognitive function every two years.

Additionally, their sleep duration was recorded through a questionnaire. Those who slept fewer hours showed evidence of faster ventricle enlargement and decline in cognitive performance.

"Our findings relate short sleep to a marker of brain ageing," said Dr June Lo, the lead author and a Duke-NUS Research fellow.

"Work done elsewhere suggests that seven hours a day for adults seems to be the sweet spot for optimal performance on computer based cognitive tests. In coming years we hope to determine what's good for cardio-metabolic and long term brain health too," added Professor Michael Chee, senior author and Director of the Centre for Cognitive Neuroscience at Duke-NUS.

The research was published in the journal SLEEP.

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App to measure breathing rate inside 10 seconds

Developed by researchers at British Columbia Children's Hospital and University of British Columbia, "RRate" can reliably measure respiratory rate in an average of 9.9 seconds.

Currently, physicians typically measure respiratory rate by counting a patient's breaths for 60 seconds using a stop watch.

"With this app, we can give health care workers with few resources faster and more accurate measurements, help them make better decisions, and give them more time with their patients," said Walter Karlen, who co-led the study with Heng Gan.

This simple, but innovative piece of technology is a big step towards better diagnoses for children with pneumonia and other respiratory illnesses.

"RRate" allow workers to measure respiratory rate by tapping the touch screen every time the child inhales.

In addition to calculating the rate of inhalations during a given time frame, the app also provides an animation of a breathing baby, allowing for a direct comparison with the breathing patient, said the study published in the journal PLOS One.

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Red lipstick favoured at work in bid for promotion: Survey

Nearly half of British women wear red lipstick to work to impress their boss, according to the survey.

The research, done by Escentual.com a premier beauty destination, found that 40 percent of women regularly arrive at the office sporting an alluring scarlet shade of lipstick in an attempt to attract the attention of their male bosses, reports femalefirst.co.uk.

Even more women, nearly two thirds, would wear heavy eye make-up in order to be noticed by their male superiors.

Perhaps the reason for this bold and sexy make-up is that 40 percent of women believe that flirting with the boss is more likely to gain them promotion at work.

And the clothing choices appear to be a lot more provocative than before as well, with almost half of women admitting that they would defy conservative office dress codes and wear low-cut blouses and high heels in the work place.

Surprisingly most women said they would team their pillar-box red pout with heavy eye make-up, including dark eye-shadow, eyeliner and mascara.

"A red lip is no longer a look reserved for a date or a night out," said Emma Leslie, beauty editor of Escentual.com.

"For whatever reasons, more and more women are introducing red lipstick into their office make-up routine, but it's important to make sure you don't go overboard. I always recommend keeping the rest of your make-up fairly muted if you plan on sporting a bold lip in the daytime. If you don't feel brave enough for a full-on red lip in the office, a sheerer formula or more coral tone allows you to work the look in a less dramatic way," added Leslie.

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Being bilingual can slow brain ageing

Bilingualism has a positive effect on cognition later in life, even for those who acquired the second language in adulthood, researchers found.

While prior research has investigated the impact of learning more than one language, ruling out ‘reverse causality’ has proven difficult.
    
The crucial question is whether people improve their cognitive functions through learning new languages or whether those with better baseline cognitive functions are more likely to become bilingual, researchers said.
    
"Our study is the first to examine whether learning a second language impacts cognitive performance later in life while controlling for childhood intelligence," said lead author Dr Thomas Bak from the Centre for Cognitive Aging and Cognitive Epidemiology at the University of Edinburgh.

For the study, researchers relied on data from the Lothian Birth Cohort 1936, comprising 835 native speakers of English who were born and living in the area of Edinburgh,
Scotland.

The participants were given an intelligence test in 1947 at age 11 years and retested in their early 70s, between 2008 and 2010.

Of the participants reported to be able to communicate in at least one language other than English, 195 learned the second language before age 18, and 65 learned it thereafter.

Findings indicated that those who spoke two or more languages had significantly better cognitive abilities compared to what would be expected from their baseline.

The strongest effects were seen in general intelligence and reading. The effects were present in those who acquired their second language early as well as late.

"These findings are of considerable practical relevance. Millions of people around the world acquire their second language later in life. Our study shows that bilingualism, even when acquired in adulthood, may benefit the ageing brain," said Bak.

The findings are published in Annals of Neurology, a journal of the American Neurological Association and Child Neurology Society.

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