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Study reveals direct link between loneliness, disease causing proteins

Among socially isolated and lonely people, researchers have found higher levels of proteins, including those produced in response to stress and those related with higher cholesterol, suggesting a possible "direct consequence of loneliness". While social isolation and loneliness are known to be linked to poor health, the study, published in the journal Nature Human Behaviour, provides evidence of biological processes by which social relationships impact health. Loneliness is one's perception of how disconnected they feel from society. Researchers at the University of Cambridge, UK, and Fudan University, China, therefore suggested that interactions with friends and family could keep us healthy by boosting our immune system and reducing risk of diseases such as heart disease, stroke and type 2 diabetes. "These findings drive home the importance of social contact in keeping us well. More and more people of all ages are reporting feeling lonely. That's why the World Health Organization h

Recent study reveals that earth had Saturn-like rings for ten million years

The ring could have blocked sunlight on earth by casting a shadow on the surface of the planet, contributing to a significant global cooling event

Gastro problems could heighten Parkinson's disease risk by 76%: Study

Digestive problems, including ulcers in one's food pipe or stomach, could increase the risk of Parkinson's disease by 76 per cent, according to a new study. Analysing endoscopy reports of 9,350 patients, the authors found that people having upper gastrointestinal conditions -- specifically, ulcers or other types of damage to the lining of the oesophagus, stomach, or upper part of the small intestine -- were far more likely to develop Parkinson's disease later in life. These findings, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association Network Open Researchers add to a growing body of evidence that ageing-related or neurodegenerative disease, long thought to originate in the brain, could begin in the gut. Gastrointestinal problems are known to be common in patients suffering from neurodegenerative disorders, the authors said. The researchers at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, US, said that gastrointestinal troubles experienced by patients of Parkinson's disease of

New study reveals that the Universe may had 'secret life' before Big Bang

If the latest study turns out to be true, it will challenge our traditional understanding of the universe, especially concerning black holes and dark matter

Feeling lack of purpose, personal growth could be signal of dementia: Study

The feeling that one's life lacks purpose and that there are fewer opportunities for personal growth could be a very early sign of dementia, according to a study. Researchers found that among older adults, these aspects of psychological wellbeing noticeably declined three to six years before a diagnosis of mild cognitive impairment, in which one's memory and thinking is affected, yet not to the extent that it interferes with their daily functioning. Mild cognitive impairment is often seen to precede dementia, in which the symptoms become severe enough to interfere with daily activities. The researchers, including those at China Agricultural University's Department of Nutrition and Health, said that while there is mounting evidence linking psychological well-being to brain ageing and related disorders, such as dementia, much of it focuses on the aspect of one's sense of purpose and not others, including personal growth. For the study, published in the Journal of Neurology Neurosurge

Nitrous oxide emissions grew 40% in 40 yrs, China largest emitter: Study

Planet-warming nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions grew by 40 per cent between 1980 and 2020, with China being the largest emitter, followed by India and the US, according to a new report. The study by the Global Carbon Project, a network of climate scientists, also said that 74 per cent of the nitrous oxide emissions in the past decade came from the use of nitrogen fertilizers and animal manure in agriculture. The top 10 emitters are China, India, the US, Brazil, Russia, Pakistan, Australia, Indonesia, Turkey, and Canada, it said. Nitrous oxide is the third most significant greenhouse gas after carbon dioxide and methane and is 273 times more potent than CO2 over 100 years. The increase in greenhouse gases has already raised the Earth's average surface temperature by 1.15 degrees Celsius compared to the 1850-1900 average. Anthropogenic nitrous oxide emissions contribute to about 0.1 degrees of this warming. In 2022, the concentration of nitrous oxide in the atmosphere reached 336 parts

More women join workforce, but leadership gaps remain, shows study

The report, based on LinkedIn's economic graph data, offers insights into gender representation across industries and job functions in India

India's solar waste could reach 600 kilotonnes by 2030, shows study

India's solar waste could reach a staggering 600 kilotonnes by 2030 equivalent to filling up 720 Olympic-size swimming pools according to a new study released on Wednesday. The study by the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy and independent think tank Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW) said around 67 per cent of this waste will come from five states: Rajasthan, Gujarat, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, and Tamil Nadu. India's current installed 66.7 GW capacity (as of FY23) has already generated about 100 kilotonnes of waste, which will increase to 340 kilotonnes by 2030. This will include about 10 kilotonnes of silicon, 12-18 tonnes of silver, and 16 tonnes of cadmium and tellurium the majority of which are critical minerals for India, the study titled "Enabling a Circular Economy in India's Solar Industry: Assessing the Solar Waste Quantum" said. Recycling solar waste to recover these materials will reduce import dependency and enhance India's mineral security. The stu

Covid disruptions linked to rise in underweight children in India: Study

The disruption of India's food systems during the COVID-19 pandemic was associated with a steep rise in malnutrition among children as the lockdown impacted their nutritional status, according to a study. Researchers from the Tata-Cornell Institute for Agriculture and Nutrition (TCI) in New Delhi analysed pre- and post-pandemic survey data on children's health and nutrition. The study, published in the journal Economic and Political Weekly, found that the number of children deemed underweight increased by 14 per cent as a result of disruptions caused by the pandemic. These included supply chain disruptions, price inflation, loss of work and the interruption of government food safety net programme. Previous TCI research on the impact of COVID-19 has found that supply chain disruptions caused food prices to increase and that women's dietary diversity worsened during the pandemic. "Researchers long suspected that pandemic-related disruptions to India's food systems reduced access to .

Cutting pollution to Covid level may stop glaciers from disappearing: Study

Reducing air pollution to levels similar to those during the COVID-19 pandemic could protect the Himalayan glaciers and prevent them from disappearing by the end of the century, a study by an international research team from India, Germany and the UK has found. Analysing the situation during the COVID-19 lockdown in 2020, the team found that cleaner air during the period ensured that less soot was deposited on the glaciers, resulting in 0.5 to 1.5 milimeter (mm) less snow melting per day. The rapid retreat of glaciers and the loss of snow cover already pose a threat to the sustainable water supply of billions of people in Asia who live in the catchment areas of rivers such as the Indus, Ganges and Yangtze, according the researchers. If emissions of air pollutants such as soot could be reduced to at least the level of the lockdowns, snowmelt could be reduced by up to half, they said. The study, published in the journal Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, found that a switch to clean

Delivering Covid vax to respiratory tract may give better protection: Study

Delivering the COVID-19 vaccine directly to the respiratory tract -- the primary site of entry inS-CoV-2 infection -- may lead to improved protection against the disease, a study in monkeys has found. The global COVID-19 vaccination campaign saved an estimated 20 million lives, researchers said. However, while current COVID-19 vaccines provide protection against developing severe disease, they do little to prevent infection and transmission, they said. "The failure of the current generation ofS-CoV-2 vaccines delivered by the intramuscular (IM) route to block infection likely relates to their inability to induce robust mucosal immune responses at the portal of entry," said study corresponding author Dan H. Barouch, from Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC), US. "In this study, we demonstrated that novel immunisation strategies can markedly increase mucosal immunity in non-human primates and improve protective efficacy against a mucosal virus challenge," Barouch said. The .

Global marine life on the move due to rising sea temperatures: Study

Rising sea temperatures due to climate change are causing tropical marine species to move from the equator towards the poles, according to a study. The research, published in the journal Trends in Ecology and Evolution, also shows that temperate species are receding as it gets too warm, they face increased competition for habitat, and new predators arrive on the scene. This mass movement of marine life, termed tropicalisation, is changing the ecological landscape of our oceans and leading to a cascade of consequences for ecosystems, biodiversity, and potentially the global economy, the researchers said. The publication of the study coincides with the start of COP28 in Dubai, where global policymakers congregate and make pledges to tackle the impact of global warming. In recent years, climate change has altered the physical factors that affect species dispersal, such as ocean currents in areas that separate tropical/subtropical and temperate regions, the researchers said. These ...

Rising heat stress poses grave health risk for workers in Tamil Nadu: Study

Rising heat stress due to soaring global temperatures poses a grave occupational health risk to the salt pan workers in Tamil Nadu, according to a study. The research, published in the journal Kidney International Reports, reveals the urgent need for adaptation strategies and improved health care access to protect vulnerable individuals. Between 2017 and 2020, 352 workers were studied in seven salt pans in Tamil Nadu. The workload for different job roles and classified heat stress levels were evaluated. Key indicators such as pre- and post-shift heart rates, core body temperatures, urine characteristics, sweat rates, and kidney function parameters were measured. The study led by researchers at Sri Ramchandra Institute of Higher Education and Research, Chennai, found that every participant had either a heavy or moderate workload, and an alarmingly close to 90 per cent of workers were found to be working above the recommended limits of heat exposure. International regulations advise

'123456' the most common password, can be cracked in under a second: Study

The most common password was "123456" and a hacker would probably take less than a second to crack it, according to a study conducted by NordPass, a software company that helps users organise their passwords. The password "123456" was held by about 45 lakhs accounts, the study found in partnership with independent experts specialising in researching cybersecurity incidents, according to the Panama-based company's website. The second and the third most popular passwords were "admin" and "12345678", used in about 40 lakhs and 13.7 lakhs accounts, respectively, the study findings on the website show. In India, the most common password was "123456", kept in around 3.6 lakhs accounts, followed by "admin", used in around 1.2 lakhs accounts, according to the website. The research team analysed passwords from a 6.6 Terabyte-database, which were stolen by employing various stealer malware, such as Redline, Vidar, Taurus, Raccoon, Azorult, and Cryptbot, it said. Malware logs included both .

Sikkim flash flood: Study warned about threat of South Lhonak lake bursting

A study by an international team of researchers had warned two year ago that the South Lhonak lake in Sikkim may burst in the future and significantly impact the downstream region. An outburst in the South Lhonak Lake on the intervening night of October 3-4, triggered a flash flood in the Teesta river basin, leaving 14 people dead and 102 others, including 22 army personnel, missing. The event also resulted in the breach of the Chungthang dam, which is the largest hydropower project in Sikkim. The 2021 study, published in the journal Geomorphology, highlighted that South Lhonak Lake had witnessed a significant growth in the past decades due to glacial retreat, thereby increasing its chances of glacial lake outburst floods (GLOF). GLOFs occur when lakes formed by melting glaciers suddenly burst open. This can happen due to various reasons, such as too much water accumulating in the lake. Studies show that the glacier receded about 2 kilometres in 46 years from 1962 to 2008. It furt

6 wks following flooding event critical for public health monitoring: Study

Floods heighten risk of dying in the three to six weeks window following the event, new research in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) says. The risk of deaths in general increased by 2.1 per cent, whereas that in people having heart and lung illnesses increased by 2.6 and 4.9 per cent, respectively, a team of researchers led by those at Australia's Monash University found. This increased risk peaks for around 25 days, but persists for up to 50-60 days after the first day of flooding, they said in their study, having studied deaths in 761 communities from 35 countries that experienced at least one flooding event from 2000 to 2019. In the aftermath of a flood, risk of deaths from natural causes could get enhanced due to contamination of food and water, exposure to disease-causing fungi, bacteria or virus, impaired access to health services, and psychological impairment. These flood-and-death associations varied with local climate type and were stronger in populations with low ...

Omicron subvariant BA.5 more virulent, study in mice finds

Scientists have used engineered mice to compare SARS-COV-2 Omicron subvariants and found that the BA.5 strain was more virulent likely due to its ability to rapidly replicate early during infection. The research, published in the journal Science Advances, addresses a challenge to studying and understanding rapidly evolving variants of concern due to a lack of animal models for running tests that could help explain why variants and subvariants each behave differently in people. The genetically modified mice, called K18-hACE2, used in the research express a human receptor that allowed SARS-COV-2 to enter otherwise inaccessible mouse cells. "One of the things we found is that the strain that causes more pathology, BA.5, replicates much faster early on during infection," said Avery August, a professor in the College of Veterinary Medicine (CVM) at Cornell University in the US. "By doing that, the virus generates a really strong immune response, which then leads to increased pathology a

Upgrading iron plants could lower 2 yrs' worth of emissions by 2050: Study

Roughly two years' worth of global carbon emissions could be cut down by 2050 if iron and steel plants worldwide were upgraded earlier than their scheduled repair, scientists report in a new Nature study. While upgrading these processing plants with low-emissions technology five years earlier than their scheduled refit could lower 70 gigatonnes of carbon emissions, retrofitting them at their scheduled refit could cut down roughly 60 gigatonnes of emissions, the researchers from the University College London, UK, said in their study. Most of the total projected carbon savings, about 74 per cent, could be achieved by upgrading blast oxygen furnaces globally, all of which contribute to around 63 per cent of the world's steel production, the research team found by creating a vast database of more than 19,500 individual processing units across nearly 4,900 iron and steel plants. The second highest net carbon savings (16 per cent of the projected total) could come from retrofitting electr

Implantable device could allow injection-free diabetes management: Study

The study was published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Science

Unhealthy snacks raise risk of strokes and cardiovascular disease: Study

The researchers discovered that just half of the people matched the nutritional value of their meals and snacks. This disparity has a detrimental impact on health indicators like blood sugar and fat levels, and addressing it may be as simple as changing one's diet.With unhealthy snacks, 25 per cent of people nullify the positive effects of healthy meals, increasing their risk of stroke and cardiovascular disease.Researchers from the School of Life Course & Population Sciences and ZOE outline the snacking behaviours of 854 participants from the ZOE PREDICT project in their findings, which were published today in the European Journal of Nutrition.Dr Sarah Berry from King's College London and chief scientist at ZOE said, "Considering 95 per cent of us snack, and that nearly a quarter of our calories come from snacks, swapping unhealthy snacks such as cookies, crisps and cakes to healthy snacks like fruit and nuts is a really simple way to improve your health."Contrary to what is ...