MITRA-MANDAL(Science-News)

Thursday, December 21, 2017

Scientists have told, what product slows down aging of a brain

MOSCOW, Dec 21 - RIA Novosti. Daily consumption of green salad can strengthen brain health and prevent the onset of senile dementia, according to Medical Xpress .

The structure of the neuron of the brain

The main reason for dementia is named

The study was conducted by scientists from the Medical Center of the University of Rush in Chicago. They analyzed the diet and the results of cognitive tests of 960 people. The average age of participants was 81 years, the observation period was ten years. For comparison, they were divided into five equal groups, depending on the frequency of consumption of greens - spinach, cabbage, lettuce.

In general, the test scores were reduced for all participants at a rate of 0.08 standard units per year. In this case, the brain of those who regularly eat salad (about 1.3 servings per day), grew by 0.05 points slower than those who almost did not use it (0.1 servings). According to the author of the study, Martha Claire Morris, the difference in annual terms was 11 years.

The researchers emphasize that the results of the study indicate a link between the consumption of greenery and a decrease in the rate of aging of the brain, but do not exclude the possibility that the effect can be achieved by influencing other factors, for example, whether a person smoked or not, how often he used alcohol and whether he did sports .

Season's micro-greetings: Scientists claim smallest Christmas card

(Reuters) - British scientists have created what they believe is the world’s smallest Christmas card, a seasonal greeting so tiny that over 200 million of them could fit into a standard postage stamp.

The card, created by the National Physical Laboratory (NPL), the U.K.’s national measurement standards laboratory, measures 15 x 20 micrometers. A micrometer is one millionth of a metre.

It is made from platinum-coated silicon nitride, and was illustrated using a focused ion beam. The card’s cover features an etching of a snowman, above the words “seasons greetings,” as well as a seasonal message inside.

One of the card’s inventors, NPL’s Dr David Cox, who created the card along with his colleague Dr Kin Mingard, said the technology used in its making had more practical uses.

“We are using the tools that created the card to accurately measure the thickness of extremely small features in materials, helping to unlock new battery and semiconductor technologies. It’s a genuinely exciting development.”

The NPL said that the previous smallest Christmas card measured 200 x 209 micrometers, making their effort over 100 times smaller

3D printed Buddhist statues displayed in east China

TAIYUAN, Dec. 17 (Xinhua) -- Thanks to 3D printing technology, three reproductions of Buddhist statues in the Yungang Grottoes, a 1,500-year-old UNESCO World Heritage site, are being displayed in the eastern coastal city of Qingdao.

The Yungang Grottoes art gallery, which opened to the public Saturday, displayed three full-size replicas of Buddhist statues from the caves in northern China's Shanxi Province.

The middle one stands 10 meters high, while those beside it are 6 meters high.

"It's hard to believe that they are reproduced. They look so real," said Zhang Zhuo, head of the Yungang Grottoes Research Institute.

The two-year program was jointly launched by Yungang Grottoes Research Institute, Qingdao Publishing Group and Zhejiang University.

Researchers built 3D models for the three statues, then used 3D printers to reproduce them.

"The color was first painted automatically by machines. Then artists from Yungang added color in detail," said Diao Changyu, assistant to the dean of the cultural heritage institute at Zhejiang University.

"It's amazing to see the Buddha figures of Yungang. I plan to visit the grottoes next year," said visitor Cai Meijiao.

The Yungang Buddhist Grottoes in Datong City boast 51,000 Buddhist images in caves stretching for 1 kilometer along a cliff. It was listed as a UNESCO World Cultural Heritage site in 2001.

According to Zhang, the reproduction programs of two other caves, supported by 3D printing technology, are underway.

Chinese scientists say penguins date back 14,600 years

BEIJING, Dec. 21 (Xinhua) -- A study by Chinese scientists in East Antarctica has shown that penguins existed in the region 14,600 years ago, 6,000 years earlier than previously thought.

The study was conducted by a research team from a laboratory co-founded by the State Oceanic Administration and the University of Science and Technology of China.

The research in the Vestfold Hills in East Antarctica found deglacial sediment dating back 15,600 years, and sediment of penguin excrement and dirt dating back 14,600 years. This shows that penguins immigrated there around 1,000 years after the ice sheet melted, and the population kept growing.

The results are important for research into the evolution of seabird breeding grounds in polar regions, the positioning of penguin shelters during the last deglaciation and penguin migration in Antarctica.

8,000 year old village site discovered in Inner Mongolia

HOHHOT, Dec. 21 (Xinhua) -- Archaeologists recently discovered ruins of an 8,000-year old village in Huade County, northern China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.

The Simagou site covers an area of 30,000 square meters and consists of 13 round or rounded rectangular pit houses. More than 1,300 objects, mostly stone axes and stone shovels, were also unearthed.

"Most objects were chipped stone tools, meaning stoneware production was the main activity at that time. And the large quantity of animal bones and stoneware show that people made their living by hunting and collecting food," said Hu Xiaonong, head of the archaeological team.

Experts say the site has distinctive features of Yumin culture but is more advanced than similar relics discovered earlier.

Yumin culture, a civilization between the Paleolithic Age and Neolithic Age, was first found in 2014 in the middle part of Inner Mongolia.

Japanese scientists discover self-healing glass by accident

TOKYO, Dec. 20 (Xinhua) -- Researchers from the University of Tokyo in Japan accidentally discovered a new type of glass that can heal itself from breaks when pressed by hand at room temperature.

A graduate student found the material during an experiment, when he intended to use it as glue, but finally got a sheet of glass that could be healed after being pressed together by hand without heat to melt it.

The researchers said the new material is the first hard substance of its kind that can be healed at room temperature.

"I hope the repairable glass becomes a new environment-friendly material that avoids the need to be thrown away if broken," the graduate student Yu Yanagisawa told local media.

It was also found via further experimentation that the new polymer glass could regain its original strength after a couple of hours.

This is not the first time a polymer has been suggested as a healable screen for devices such as smartphones. If this new type of glass goes into production for smartphones, bearing a shattered phone would be a thing of the past.

Sunday, July 2, 2017

Tower of human skulls found in Mexico City dig casts light on Aztec sacrifices

A tower of human skulls unearthed beneath the heart of Mexico City has raised new questions about the culture of sacrifice in the Aztec empire, after crania of women and children surfaced among the hundreds embedded in the forbidding structure.

Archaeologists have found more than 650 skulls caked in lime and thousands of fragments in the cylindrical edifice near the site of the Templo Mayor, one of the main temples in the Aztec capital Tenochtitlan, which later became Mexico City.

The tower is believed to form part of the Huey Tzompantli, a massive array of skulls that struck fear into the Spanish conquistadores when they captured the city under Hernan Cortes. The structure was mentioned in contemporary accounts.

Historians relate how the severed heads of captured warriors adorned tzompantli, or skull racks, found in a number of Mesoamerican cultures before the Spanish conquest. But the archaeological dig in the bowels of old Mexico City that began in 2015 suggests that picture was not complete.

“We were expecting just men, obviously young men, as warriors would be, and the thing about the women and children is that you’d think they wouldn’t be going to war,” said Rodrigo Bolanos, a biological anthropologist investigating the find.

Lorena Vazquez, an archaeologist, works at the site near Templo Mayor. Photograph: Henry Romero/Reuters

“Something is happening that we have no record of, and this is really new, a first in the Huey Tzompantli.”

Raul Barrera, one of the archaeologists working at the site alongside the huge Metropolitan Cathedral built over the Templo Mayor, said the skulls would have been set in the tower after they had stood on public display on the tzompantli.

Roughly six meters in diameter, the tower stood on the corner of the chapel of Huitzilopochtli, Aztec god of the sun, war and human sacrifice. Its base has yet to be unearthed.

Abel Guzman, Rodrigo Bolanos and Miriam Castaneda, biological anthropologists, examine skulls. Photograph: Henry Romero/Reuters

There was no doubt that the tower was one of the skull edifices mentioned by Andres de Tapia, a Spanish soldier who accompanied Cortes in the 1521 conquest of Mexico, Barrera said.

In his account of the campaign, de Tapia said he counted tens of thousands of skulls at what became known as the Huey Tzompantli. Barrera said 676 skulls had been found, and that the number would rise as excavations went on.

The Aztecs and other Mesoamerican peoples performed ritualistic human sacrifices as offerings to the sun.

Source-The Guardian