Category: Tech

A team of scientists from Harvard Medical School has identified a combination of drugs that can reverse the aging process within a week.

Genetics Professor David Sinclair and his team at Harvard Medical School have developed chemical cocktails containing five to seven agents known for their treatment of various physical and mental disorders. Through extensive research on mice and monkeys spanning over three years, they have successfully identified molecules that can reverse cellular ageing and revive human cells. The discovery promises potential rejuvenation possibilities for combating the effects of ageing in humans.

The team identified more than six chemical cocktails that restore NCC and genome-wide transcript profiles to youthful states and reverse transcriptomic age in less than a week. Studies on the optic nerve, brain tissue, kidney, and muscle showed promising results, with improved vision and extended lifespan in mice and, recently, in April of this year, improved vision in monkeys, the senior researcher informed.

Sinclair shared the findings on Twitter in a series of tweets and details in the July issue of the medical journal Aging.

The agriculture sector in India can be transformed by promoting the use of artificial intelligence (AI) and other emerging technologies, says the World Economic Forum while unveiling a report on July 20 in Hyderabad.

Releasing the phase-1 report of the ‘Saagu Baagu’ (‘agriculture advancement’ in the Telugu language) being implemented by the Telangana government in collaboration with it, the WEF said its AI for Agriculture Innovation (AI4AI) initiative has helped more than 7,000 chilli farmers get access to agritech services in the first phase.

In the project’s pilot phase, these agritech services include AI-based advisories, soil testing, produce quality testing and e-commerce. The Government of Telangana plans to scale these services in phase II (from 2023 onwards) to 20,000 chilli and groundnut farmers in three districts of the state. The digital public infrastructure will also be introduced in the second phase. In phase III, by 2025, the target is to reach 1,00,000 farmers.

The first-of-its-kind public-private initiative for agritech in India, Saagu Baagu aims to unlock Ease of Doing Innovation in agriculture and horticulture. It is aimed at bringing value addition with mainstreaming of innovative new age technologies in agriculture. Initiated in 2022, it is being implemented by Digital Green (in consortium with three agritech startups) with support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

In a study published in the journal Nature Medicine, researchers have found that wearable movement-tracking devices, such as smartwatches with accelerometers, can identify Parkinson’s disease long before it is clinically diagnosed.

A team of researchers came to this conclusion by analysing more than 1,03,000 people who wore medical-grade wearables for seven days. The researchers found that a decrease in movement speed could be observed several years before a person is diagnosed with Parkinson’s.

The accelerometer data proved to be a better yardstick than other models based on medical symptoms, genetics, lifestyle, or blood biochemistry data, and could potentially be incorporated into clinical practice in the future, believe the researchers at the UK Dementia Research Institute and Neuroscience and Mental Health Innovation Institute at Cardiff.

A 2021 study showed that wrist-worn accelerometers can detect Parkinson’s with high accuracy. However, the utility of its findings was limited, as the study focused on people already diagnosed with the ailment. Building on this work, the new study explored the possibility of using wrist-worn accelerometers to identify Parkinson’s years before clinical diagnosis.

In Parkinson’s disease, the deterioration of specific brain cells causes problems with movement and other health problems that get worse over time. Unfortunately, there is no treatment that reverses or stops the disease.

Mobile phones, tablets and smartwatches will be largely banned from classrooms in the Netherlands from January 1, 2024, the Dutch government has said, in a bid to limit distractions during lessons.

Devices will only be allowed if they are specifically needed, for example during lessons on digital skills, for medical reasons or for people with disabilities, said the country’s education minister in a statement. The ban is the result of an agreement between the ministry, schools and related organisations.

Schools can find their own way to organise the ban, Robbert Dijkgraaf said, but legal rules will follow if this does not yield enough results by the summer of 2024. Though it is not a formal ban, the government may choose to bring it after measuring progress next year, it said. Dijkgraaf told parliament that he hopes the move will usher in a “cultural transformation” and increase learning.

A similar ban was introduced in France in 2018 for primary and middle schools to improve focus and prevent online bullying. UK schools have also suggested that such a ban could be introduced. 

Ashwini Vaishnaw, Minister for Communications, Electronics and IT, has said the India Mobile Congress (IMC) will have five partner countries, which IMC will decide in consultation with the External Affairs Ministry.

The theme of the IMC this year will be Global Digital Innovation. The union minister expects many industries to be associated with the event and emerge as India’s premier technology event.

Organised by the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) and the Department of Telecommunications (DoT), IMC will be held from October 27 to 29 at the Pragati Maidan in New Delhi. The marquee event is envisaged as a meeting point for industry, government, academics and other key stakeholders in the technology ecosystem, the minister said.

Addressing the curtain raiser of the event on July 12, Vaishnaw said at least 100 universities should be connected to the event virtually. Accordingly, it should be virtually displayed in major institutions such as IIT Madras and IIT Gandhinagar, where other universities part of their ecosystem can also join in.

India is poised to become the world’s largest market for wearables in 2023, according to market research firm IDC. Out of the 504.1 million units of wearables expected to be shipped globally this year, India is expected to account for 130-135 million units, accounting for 26 percent of the total units shipped around the world.

Last year, the Indian market shipped 100 million units out of a total of 492 million units, second only to China and North America.

Another research firm, Counterpoint in a report in May said that the Indian wearables market registered a growth of 121 percent year-on-year in the first quarter of 2023. This was largely fuelled by low-cost wearables from companies such as Fire-Boltt, Noise and boAt. Counterpoint report, however, said that India would account for 27 percent of the total units this year.

The research firms agree that the increase of wearables is spurred by the number of smartphone users, who also owned a smartwatch. IDC said that India had already surpassed the United States and China in terms of market size and will continue to grow further. Counterpoint said that for every smartphone sold in India, there was also a smartwatch sold.

The United States has destroyed the last of its declared chemical weapons stockpile, a White House statement said on July 7.

The US had a September 30 deadline to eliminate its remaining chemical weapons under the international Chemical Weapons Convention. These weapons were first used in modern warfare in World War I, when they were estimated to have killed at least 100,000 people, by Iraq during its conflict with Iran in the 1980s, and in the Syrian war.

US workers at the Army Pueblo Chemical Depot in southern Colorado began destroying chemical weapons in 2016, and on June 22, completed their mission of neutralising about 2,600 tonnes of mustard blister agent.

In the 1980s, the Army planned to incinerate 520 tonnes of chemical weapons at Kentucky’s Blue Grass Army Depot, but the community around opposed. It led to a decades-long battle over how these weapons would be disposed of. It began destroying these weapons in 2019, through neutralisation, by diluting the deadly agents so they could be safely disposed of.

To dispose of the mustard blister agent, robotic equipment removed the weapons’ fuses and bursters before the agent was neutralised with hot water and mixed with a corrosive solution to prevent the reaction from reversing. The byproduct was further broken down by microbes, and the mortars and projectiles were decontaminated at 538 degrees Celsius and recycled as scrap metal. Leaky or overpacked munitions were sent to an armoured, stainless steel detonation chamber to be destroyed at high temperatures.

The Indian Space Research Organisation’s second attempt at a soft landing on the Moon, Chandrayaan-3, is set to launch at 2.30 pm IST on July 14.

The Chandrayaan-3 mission will be launched into space by the Launch Vehicle Mark-III (LVM-III), earlier known as the GSLV (Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle) Mark-III. This will be the fourth operational mission for the launch vehicle. It is powered by two S2000 solid rocket boosters that will provide the thrust required for takeoff. Once the solid boosters separate from the launch vehicle, it will be powered by the L110 liquid stage. After the separation of the liquid stage, the CE25 cryogenic stage will take over.

The spacecraft consists of three modules—lander, propulsion, and rover. The spacecraft will carry many science payloads that will help scientists on Earth understand the Moon better. The propulsion module will carry the spacecraft from an injection orbit around Earth till a 100-kilometre lunar orbit. It will also carry a payload that will take spectral and polarimetric measurements of Earth from a lunar orbit.

The lander will be carrying the RAMBHA-LP, ChaSTE and ILSA scientific payloads, while the rover will carry APXS and LIBS. Both the rover and lander have been designed to operate on the Moon for about 14 days.

University of Washington Professor Shwetak Patel and other researchers have built an app that turns smartphones into thermometers without adding new hardware.

The app, FeverPhone uses the phone’s touchscreen, battery temperature sensors and a machine-learning model to estimate people’s core body temperatures. When the researchers tested FeverPhone on 37 patients in an emergency department, the app estimated core body temperatures with accuracy comparable to some consumer thermometers. The study, however, did not include people with severe fevers above 101.5°F.

The researchers used the data from different test cases to train a machine learning model that used the complex interactions to estimate body temperature. As more test cases were added, they were able to calibrate the model to account for the variations in things such as phone accessories. Then the team was ready to test the app on people.

To use FeverPhone, the participants held the phones like point-and-shoot cameras — with forefingers and thumbs touching the corner edges to reduce heat from the hands being sensed. They then pressed the touchscreen against their foreheads for about 90 seconds, which the researchers found to be the ideal time to sense body heat transferring to the phone. The app estimated patient core body temperatures with an average error of about 0.23 degrees Celsius, which is in the clinically acceptable range.

The study has been published in the journal Proceedings of the ACM on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies.

A team of researchers at the University of Tokyo are developing interchangeable robot arms that can be worn like a backpack.

The team lead and a professor at the university, Masahiko Inami, in an interview said that the device was inspired by traditional Japanese puppetry and a short story by novelist Yasunari Kawabata. In the story, a man borrows a young woman’s arm and proceeds to spend the night with it. The arms are also inspired by the idea of jizai, a Japanese term that roughly defines autonomy and the freedom to do as one pleases.

The Jizai Arms system consists of a backpack-like base unit with sockets for up to six arms, and interchangeable hand modules depending on the task. The arms can be controlled by the user or remotely. The aim is to boost a relationship like between a musician and an instrument, where a musical instrument becomes a part of the performer’s body.

The researchers believe that the Jizai Arms system has the potential to help in emergency situations, such as search-and-rescue missions, but is surely not a rival to human beings. It is rather something that helps humans do as they please, such as a bicycle or an e-bike. It not only supports humans, but also can unlock creativity.