Yearly Archives: 2017

India’s Space Mission to Moon ‘Chandrayaan- II’ to be Launched in 2018

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India’s Space Mission to Moon, “Chandrayaan-II”, will take place in 2018, most likely in the first quarter of the year, said the Union Minister of State Atomic Energy and Space, Dr Jitendra Singh.

Addressing the inaugural session of the 5-day Asian Conference on Remote Sensing here today, Dr Jitendra Singh said that India has today emerged as the world’s frontline nation in the field of technology. This, he said, is in itself a glorious vindication of the dream seen by the founding fathers of India’s Space Programme, like Vikram Sarabhai and Satish Dhawan.

It was during the last three years that India could launch a South Asian Satellite which would be also providing inputs and benefits to the neighbouring countries. In addition, he said, the biggest achievement in the last over three years is that the Prime Minister personally intervened to arrange a brainstorming of Space Scientists with each of the different Ministries and Departments in Government of India to promote the application of Space Technology in infrastructure and development works.

In this context, he referred to widespread application of Space Technology in carrying out the Urban Development programmes, including Smart City programmes, the use of Space Technology for geo-tagging of MGNREGA and the assistance from ISRO for the manning of Railway crossings.

Chairman of ISRO Kiran Kumar, who was present, spoke about the various achievements of India’s Space capability in the field of Disaster Management. Veteran Space Scientist and President of the Indian Association of Remote Sensing, Dr Shailesh Nayak also spoke on the occasion.

At the event, awards were presented to outstanding Space scientists under different categories. The 5-day conference is being attended by over 500 eminent foreign delegates and some of the world’s most distinguished faculty in the field of Space Science.

5 Takeaways from New Education policy 2017

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Indian Minister of State for Human Resource Development Satya Pal Singh has said that the new education policy is in final stages and it would be announced in December.

Inaugurating a ‘National Academic meet’ in Thiruvananthapuram on Monday, Satyapal Singh said the policy envisages to ‘correct’ the course of education system in the country, that has followed a colonial mindset. The Minister said it will be the first education policy that was discussed layer by layer and threadbare.

He pointed out that unfortunately after independence, most of the academicians followed the footsteps of British and Western scholars and deliberately denigrating Indian culture. Stating that the biggest challenge being faced by the education system and the government is ‘how to de-colonise the Indian mind’ and the government is working on the policy in this regard.

Dr. Singh said improving the quality of education from the primary level, making higher education affordable to people and accessing higher education to more are some of the major issues faced by the education system. He said skill development is one of the major areas the government has given thrust upon.

To prevent the exodus of students to foreign countries seeking education, Dr. Singh said the higher education institutions should be developed to the standard of Centres of International Excellence. He said accessibility to higher education in the country is only 25.6 per cent while in USA 86 per cent Germany 80 and in China 60 per cent.

The Minister pointed out that the aim of the government is to improve the higher education system in the country to make available to more students. Stating that higher education is very expensive, Dr. Singh said it has to be made more affordable to all sections in the society.

Indicating that changes are necessary in the Right to Education Act, Dr. Singh said the Act lacks teeth. The Act provides right to compulsory primary education. But what is the remedy if parents do not send their children to school. So many things have to be done in improving the primary education in the country’, he added.

The meet was organised by Bharatheeya Vichara Kendram as part of the navathi celebration of P Parameswarn, Director of Vichara Kendram.

Expert wary over collecting trend of apps, sharing health data

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As of 2016 there were more than 165,000 health and wellness apps available though the Apple App Store alone. According to Rice University medical media expert Kirsten Ostherr, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulates only a fraction of those. Americans should be concerned about how these apps collect, save and share their personal health data, she said.

On Oct. 26 the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services will host a gathering of national experts to discuss “Data Privacy in the Digital Age.” Ostherr, who is a professor of English and director of Rice’s Medical Futures Lab, has been doing research on health and medical media for over 20 years, from “old” media like celluloid films used for medical education to “new” media like smartphone apps. She will present “Trust and Privacy in the Ecosystems of User-Generated Health and Medical Data” during a panel discussion.

“Members of the general public, including patients, have begun to play a newly important role in collecting data about health and disease,” Ostherr said. “With the rise of mobile apps and the growth of smartphone and wearable-device use, people’s daily lives have become experiments ‘in the wild.'”

The data collected through these devices offer new opportunities and challenges to researchers who want to gather information about human behavior outside the controlled settings of lab-based studies, she said. However, what the researchers can achieve with the user-generated health data relies heavily on participants’ willingness to share their data, even when doing so may not serve their own best interests.

“Part of my research is looking at ways the boundaries between medical and nonmedical environments are dissolving through the proliferation of apps that allow people to manage their own care outside of clinical settings,” she said. “In some ways those boundaries are breaking down because a lot of things that used to only happen inside of hospitals can happen outside of them now.”

Federal and state policy regulations that shape how personal health data is shared are currently in place. They set rigid boundaries between traditional clinical settings or “medical domains” and domains outside of traditional clinical settings, Ostherr said. But depending on how an app is classified by the FDA, the health-related data an app collects might not be protected.

She said apps that make medical or therapeutic claims are considered a medical device and must go through the FDA procedures for approval and regulation. For some companies, that process is worth the time and effort, because their product could become covered by insurance.

But the vast majority of apps provide “helpful hints” in response to user-entered data, such as ideas for alleviating symptoms of a migraine.

“If your app carefully sidesteps claiming any kind of medical intervention, then it’s a health and wellness app and not a medical device — and it is not regulated,” Ostherr said.

Regardless of whether an app is regulated, Ostherr said, they are all “capturing tons of personal data, some of which would be classified as personal health information if it were subject to oversight by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act.”

And, she said, the likelihood that the data from the unregulated health apps makes its way back into a medical setting where a patient could benefit from a physician’s review of that data is “almost nil.”

Ketamine may help treat migraine compared to other therapies

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Ketamine, a medication commonly used for pain relief and increasingly used for depression, may help alleviate migraine pain in patients who have not been helped by other treatments, said a new study presented at the ANESTHESIOLOGY 2017 annual meeting.

The study of 61 patients found that almost 75 percent experienced an improvement in their migraine intensity after a three- to seven-day course of inpatient treatment with ketamine. The drug is used to induce general anesthesia but also provides powerful pain control for patients with many painful conditions in lower doses than its anesthetic use.

“Ketamine may hold promise as a treatment for migraine headaches in patients who have failed other treatments,” said study co-author Eric Schwenk, director of orthopedic anesthesia at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia. “Our study focused only on short-term relief, but it is encouraging that this treatment might have the potential to help patients long-term. Our work provides the basis for future, prospective studies that involve larger numbers of patients.”

An estimated 12 percent of the U.S. population suffers from migraines – recurring attacks of throbbing or pulsing moderate to severe pain. A subset of these patients, along with those who suffer from other types of headaches, do not respond to treatment. During a migraine, people are often very sensitive to light, sound and may become nauseated or vomit. Migraines are three times more common in women than in men.

The researchers reviewed data for patients who received ketamine infusions for intractable migraine headaches – migraines that have failed all other therapies. On a scale of 0-10, the average migraine headache pain rating at admission was 7.5, compared with 3.4 on discharge. The average length of infusion was 5.1 days, and the day of lowest pain ratings was day 4. Adverse effects were generally mild.

Dr. Schwenk said while his hospital uses ketamine to treat intractable migraines, the treatment is not yet widely available. Thomas Jefferson University Hospital will be opening a new infusion center this fall that will treat more patients with headaches using ketamine. “We hope to expand its use to both more patients and more conditions in the future,” he said.

“Due to the retrospective nature of the study, we cannot definitively say that ketamine is entirely responsible for the pain relief, but we have provided a basis for additional larger studies to be undertaken,” Dr. Schwenk added.

Trump Goes Modi Way, to Release Secret JFK Files Finally

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Close on the heels of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s move to release controversial Netaji files from archives though they yielded no new evidence to Indian freedom fighter’s death due to plane crash, US President Donald Trump has decided to release the pending thousands of classified government documents related to the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

Trump tweeted on Saturday morning sayiing, “Subject to the receipt of further information, I will be allowing, as President, the long blocked and classified JFK FILES to be opened.”

 


These files are still kept as secret papers at the National Archives under a 1992 law that sought to quell conspiracy theories about the assassination. US intelligence agencies are averse to making the files open as they reportedly contained some documents which could damage national security interests.

The president, however, said “subject to the receipt of further information”, which may hold back some documents too sensitive to reveal any connections. Political pundits are unmoved at the decision saying nothing new would come out of it. The files may “help fuel a new generation of conspiracy theories,” said Philip Shenon, author of a book on JFK probe.

Larry J. Sabato, a University of Virginia professor and author of a book about Kennedy, who wrote a recent article about the documents in Politico maintained similar view. He tweeted after the news broke out thanking Trump.

The focus of both the writers is on the six-day trip by J.F.K. assassin Lee Harvey Oswald to Mexico City several weeks before the president’s murder to meet Cuban and Soviet spies.

Conspiracy theorists have long argued that the government intelligence agencies covered up the truth about the assassination. Trump himself vowed to release the documents and even alleged that the father of Senator Ted Cruz, a Republican primary rival from Texas, had met with Oswald shortly before Kennedy was killed.

“You know, his father was with Lee Harvey Oswald prior to Oswald’s being — you know, shot,” he told Fox News in an interview in May 2016. “I mean, the whole thing is ridiculous. What is this, right, prior to his being shot, and nobody brings it up. They don’t even talk about that. That was reported and nobody talks about it. But I think it’s horrible.”
Now the clamor is for releasing secret files on UFOs. One tweet by Ed Krassenstein‏ @EdKrassen said:”Can you also open up the UFO files, so we can finally see that our country is being run by a leader from a competing galaxy?”

Making big data a little smaller

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When we think about digital information, we often think about size. A daily email newsletter, for example, may be 75 to 100 kilobytes in size. But data also has dimensions, based on the numbers of variables in a piece of data. An email, for example, can be viewed as a high-dimensional vector where there’s one coordinate for each word in the dictionary and the value in that coordinate is the number of times that word is used in the email. So, a 75 Kb email that is 1,000 words long would result in a vector in the millions.

This geometric view on data is useful in some applications, such as learning spam classifiers, but, the more dimensions, the longer it can take for an algorithm to run, and the more memory the algorithm uses.

As data processing got more and more complex in the mid-to-late 1990s, computer scientists turned to pure mathematics to help speed up the algorithmic processing of data. In particular, researchers found a solution in a theorem proved in the 1980s by mathematics William B. Johnson and Joram Lindenstrauss working the area of functional analysis.

Known as the Johnson-Lindenstrauss lemma (JL lemma), computer scientists have used the theorem to reduce the dimensionality of data and help speed up all types of algorithms across many different fields, from streaming and search algorithms, to fast approximation algorithms for statistical and linear algebra and even algorithms for computational biology.

But as data has grown even larger and more complex, many computer scientists have asked: Is the JL lemma really the best approach to pre-process large data into a manageably low dimension for algorithmic processing?

Now, Jelani Nelson, the John L. Loeb Associate Professor of Engineering and Applied Sciences at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, has put that debate to rest. In a paper presented this week at the annual IEEE Symposium on Foundations of Computer Science in Berkeley, California, Nelson and co-author Kasper Green Larsen, of Aarhus University in Denmark, found that the JL lemma really is the best way to reduce the dimensionality of data.

“We have proven that there are ‘hard’ data sets for which dimensionality reduction beyond what’s provided by the JL lemma is impossible,” said Nelson.

Essentially, the JL lemma showed that for any finite collection of points in high dimension, there is a collection of points in a much lower dimension which preserves all distances between the points, up to a small amount of distortion. Years after its original impact in functional analysis, computer scientists found that

The JL lemma can act as a preprocessing step, allowing the dimensions of data to be significantly reduced before running algorithms.

Rather than going through each and every dimension — like the hundreds of dimensions in an email — the JL lemma uses a system of geometric classification to speed things up. In this geometry, the individual dimensions don’t matter as much as the similarities between them. By mapping these similarities, the geometry of the data and the angles between data points are preserved, just in fewer dimensions.

Of course, the JL lemma has a wide range of applications that go far beyond spam filters. It is used in compressed sensing for reconstructing sparse signals using few linear measurements; clustering high-dimensional data; and DNA motif finding in computational biology.

“We still have a long way to go to understand the best dimension reduction possible for specific data sets as opposed to comparing to the worst case,” said Nelson. “I think that’s a very interesting direction for future work. There are also some interesting open questions related to how quickly we can perform the dimensionality reduction, especially when faced with high-dimensional vectors that are sparse, i.e. have many coordinates equal to zero. This sparse case is very relevant in many practical applications. For example, vectors arising from e-mails are extremely sparse, since a typical email does not contain every word in the dictionary.”

“The Johnson-Lindenstrauss Lemma is a fundamental result in high dimensional geometry but an annoying logarithmic gap remained between the upper and lower bounds for the minimum possible dimension required as a function of the number of points and the distortion allowed,” said Noga Alon, professor of Mathematics at Tel Aviv University, who had proven the previous best lower bound for the problem. “The recent work of Jelani Nelson and Kasper Green Larsen settled the problem. It is a refreshing demonstration of the power of a clever combination of combinatorial reasoning with geometric tools in the solution of a classical problem.”

Curve-eye-ture: How to grow artificial corneas

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Scientists at Newcastle University, UK, and the University of California have developed a new method to grow curved human corneas improving the quality and transparency – solely by controlling the behaviour of cells in a dish.

The research publishing today in Advanced Biosystems has revealed that corneal cells isolated from human donors and grown on curved surfaces arrange themselves in a very regular lattice-like organisation.

Cells grown this way achieve the precise alignment that gives the human cornea its strength and transparency. This new technique may revolutionise how artificial tissues are traditionally grown in laboratories around the world.

Lead researcher Che Connon, Professor of Tissue Engineering at Newcastle University explained: “We discovered that the cells grown on a dome-shaped surface behaved differently than those on flat one, crawling over the dome in a lattice-like structure – similar to a pie crust.

“These cells then produced large amounts of aligned collagen, the natural fibres that make up the human cornea. This is also the arrangement normally found in the human eye, and there were no easy ways to recreate it in a dish…until now!

“Our tests showed that the alignment of cells and fibres allowed light to be better focused and made the cornea more transparent.

“This has never been seen before and has an important impact on how we think and develop new artificial tissues for human transplantation.”

Cornea transplants

A cornea transplant involves an operation to remove all or part of a damaged cornea, the clear outer layer at the front of the eye ball, and replace it with healthy donor tissue. It can be performed to improve sight, relieve pain, and treat severe infection or damage such as after an acid attack.

One of the most common reasons for a cornea transplant is a condition called keratoconus, which causes the cornea to change shape. Currently there is a shortage of donated corneas in the UK, Europe, and the USA. This shortage has worsened in recent years, as corneas cannot be used from anyone who has had laser eye surgery.

This breakthrough could provide a solution for the shortage of donated human corneal tissues and a practical alternative to the use of artificial plastic corneas which can be rejected by the body.

First author Dr Ricardo Martins Gouveia said: “This study suggests that we will be able to produce corneas that are more similar in shape and form to the natural eye, and likely to be better for transplantation compared with other artificial substitutes. We intend to carry out additional research and we think our team will be able to test these in humans within two years.”

PM celebrates Diwali with jawans of Indian Army and BSF, in Gurez Valley

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The Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi, today celebrated Diwali with the jawans of Indian Army and BSF, in the Gurez Valley, near the Line of Control, in Jammu and Kashmir. He was there for nearly two hours. This is the fourth successive Diwali that the Prime Minister has celebrated with jawans on the border.

The Prime Minister offered sweets and exchanged greetings with the jawans.

Addressing the jawans, the Prime Minister, said that like everyone else, he too wishes to spend Diwali with his family. Therefore, he said, he had come among the jawans of the Armed Forces, whom he considers to be “his family.”

The Prime Minister said he gets new energy when he spends time among the jawans and soldiers of the Armed Forces. He appreciated their penance and sacrifice, amid harsh conditions.

The Prime Minister said that he had been told that the jawans present at the gathering regularly practice Yoga. He said that this would definitely enhance their abilities, and give them a sense of calm.

He said that jawans who leave the Armed Forces after completing their duty tenure, can become excellent yoga trainers subsequently.

The Prime Minister spoke of the new resolve that each Indian citizen must make for 2022, the 75th anniversary of independence. He also encouraged the jawans to innovate, so that their routine tasks and duties become easier and safer. He mentioned how best innovations are now being recognised and awarded at the Army Day, Navy Day, and Air Force Day.

The Prime Minister said that the Union Government is committed to the welfare and the betterment of the Armed Forces, in every way possible. In this regard, he mentioned the implementation of One Rank, One Pension, which had been pending for decades.

The Chief of Army Staff, Gen. Bipin Rawat, and other senior Army Officers were present on the occasion.

In the visitors’ book, the Prime Minister wrote:

“Protecting the Motherland, far from your loved ones, displaying the highest traditions of sacrifice, all soldiers at the nation’s borders, are symbols of bravery and dedication.

I have an opportunity to spend the festival of Diwali with you. The presence of brave soldiers at the border, on this festive occasion, lights the lamp of hope, and generates new energy among crores of Indians.

To accomplish the dream of “New India,” this is a golden opportunity for all of us to work together. The Army too is a part of it.

Greetings to all of you on Diwali.”

NJIT’s Kamalesh Sirkar wins coveted Award for Membrane Science and Technology Innovation

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Kamalesh Sirkar, a chemical engineer acclaimed for his innovations in industrial membrane technology used to separate and purify air, water and waste streams and to improve the quality of manufactured products such as pharmaceuticals, solvents and nanoparticles, won the 2017 Alan S. Michaels Award for Innovation in Membrane Science and Technology.

The award, given every three years by the North American Membrane Society (NAMS), is named for Alan Michaels, a pioneer in the field credited with breakthroughs in ultrafiltration technology and major contributions to controlled-release drug delivery systems, among other areas.

In honoring Sirkar, a distinguished professor of chemical engineering, the membrane society pointed to his “long and distinguished career that has included making fundamental contributions to the field of membrane science and engineering, from membrane fabrication to transport processes and performance of membrane systems, and his lifelong service to the membrane separations community.”

Sirkar holds 31 U.S. patents and three in Canada. He is best known for developing the concept of membrane contactors, a process that permits two phases that do not mix, such as two liquids or a liquid and a gas, to contact each other at the pores of a membrane – without dispersing into each other – in order to introduce or extract specific compounds across it. The technology is used, for example, to introduce carbon dioxide into beverages, to produce concentrations of oxygen at much less than 1 part per billion in ultrapure water needed for semiconductor production, and to extract valuable pharmaceuticals in aqueous-organic extraction systems, among other separation or purification processes.

He also developed a novel membrane distillation technology capable of converting sea and brackish water into potable water with a considerably higher water recovery rate than the standard method, reverse osmosis.

NAMS cited his service to the community, including his “seminal contributions” of two books “that serve as references to the community.” He co-edited with Winston Ho the “Membrane Handbook” in 1992, considered a standard for membrane separations, and recently wrote the more general “Separation of Molecules, Macromolecules and Particles: Principles, Phenomena and Processes” in which he integrates membranes with classical chemical engineering processes. He has served on the editorial board of the Journal of Membrane Science since 1989 and is the founding editor-in-chief of “Current Opinion in Chemical Engineering” since 2011.

Sirkar, who was elected to the NAMS board of directors in 1996 and served a one-year term as president beginning in 1998, worked with Michaels, who was also a member of the board.

“He was a towering figure in our young membrane community who invented a series of membranes for ultrafiltration-based separation of proteins and macromolecules having different molecular weights,” Sirkar recalled. “That was the second big breakthrough in the field of membrane technology, the first being the Loeb-Sourirajan reverse-osmosis membranes for desalination.”

He added, “He appeared to be particularly fond of the membrane solvent extraction technique that I developed. In fact, he published a paper utilizing that technique in 1992.”

Looking back on the evolution of his field, Sirkar pointed to a number of successes in addition to reverse osmosis desalination and ultrafiltration, including kidney dialysis, membrane separation of air, natural gas and organic vapors, electrodialysis and the development of membrane bioreactors for water treatment, among others.

The award consists of a $10,000 prize and lifetime membership in NAMS.

Learning and staying in shape key to longer lifespan, study finds

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People who are overweight cut their life expectancy by two months for every extra kilogramme of weight they carry, research suggests.

A major study of the genes that underpin longevity has also found that education leads to a longer life, with almost a year added for each year spent studying beyond school.

Other key findings are that people who give up smoking, study for longer and are open to new experiences might expect to live longer.

Scientists at the University of Edinburgh analysed genetic information from more than 600,000 people alongside records of their parents’ lifespan.

Because people share half of their genetic information with each of their parents, the team were able to calculate the impact of various genes on life expectancy.

Lifestyle choices are influenced to a certain extent by our DNA – genes, for example, have been linked to increased alcohol consumption and addiction. The researchers were therefore able to work out which have the greatest influence on lifespan.

Their method was designed to rule out the chances that any observed associations could be caused by a separate, linked factor. This enabled them to pinpoint exactly which lifestyle factors cause people to live longer, or shorter, lives.

They found that cigarette smoking and traits associated with lung cancer had the greatest impact on shortening lifespan.

For example, smoking a packet of cigarettes per day over a lifetime knocks an average of seven years off life expectancy, they calculated. But smokers who give up can eventually expect to live as long as somebody who has never smoked.

Body fat and other factors linked to diabetes also have a negative influence on life expectancy.

The study also identified two new DNA differences that affect lifespan. The first – in a gene that affects blood cholesterol levels – reduces lifespan by around eight months. The second – in a gene linked to the immune system – adds around half a year to life expectancy.

The research, published in Nature Communications, was funded by the Medical Research Council.

Data was drawn from 25 separate population studies from Europe, Australia and North America, including the UK Biobank – a major study into the role of genetics and lifestyle in health and disease.

Professor Jim Wilson, of the University of Edinburgh’s Usher Institute, said: “The power of big data and genetics allow us to compare the effect of different behaviours and diseases in terms of months and years of life lost or gained, and to distinguish between mere association and causal effect.”

Dr Peter Joshi, Chancellor’s Fellow at the University of Edinburgh’s Usher Institute, said: “Our study has estimated the causal effect of lifestyle choices. We found that, on average, smoking a pack a day reduces lifespan by seven years, whilst losing one kilogram of weight will increase your lifespan by two months.”

‘Seeing’ the other side of our galaxy

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Astronomers have successfully traced a spiral arm on the far side of our Galaxy, an accomplishment that provides new insights into the structure of the Milky Way. Efforts to observe the far side of our Galaxy have been hampered by the vast distance and interstellar dust that blocks optical light from those regions. Here, Alberto Sanna and colleagues used radio interferometry with the Very Long Baseline Array to trace the motions of methanol and water molecules associated with a high-mass star-forming region on the far side of the Milky Way. Using the data, they were able to locate the Scutum-Centaurus spiral arm as it passes around the far side of the Galaxy and trace the arm through almost a complete rotation. The authors note that their data suggest that the pitch angle of the spiral arm (a measure of how tight the spiral is) may vary along its length. Their observations provide a record-breaking use of parallax, the apparent motion of distant objects as the Earth orbits the Sun, to measure the distance of stars. They also verify a new method of inferring distances on the far side of our Galaxy.

Reducing racial bias in children

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We tend to see people we’re biased against as all the same. They are “those people.” Instead of thinking of them as specific individuals, we lump them into a group. Now an international team of researchers suggests that one way to reduce racial bias in young children is by teaching them to distinguish among faces of a different race.

The study, published in the journal Child Development, is the first to show a lasting effect – and in kids young enough to not be too set in their ways.

It is co-authored by researchers from the University of California San Diego, the University of Toronto, the University of Delaware, l’Université Grenoble Alpes in France, and Hangzhou Normal University and Zhejiang Normal University in China.

Two 20-minute sessions with 4- to 6-year-old Chinese children, in which they were trained to identify black male faces as individuals, reduced implicit bias in the children for at least two months.

Key to reducing the bias? The repeat session.

“A single session had minimal immediate effects that dissipated quickly. The lesson didn’t stick. But a second session a week later seemed to act like a booster shot, producing measurable differences in implicit bias 60 days later,” said Gail Heyman, a professor of psychology in the UC San Diego Division of Social Sciences and a senior co-author on the study.

Kang Lee, of the University of Toronto and also a senior co-author, said, “We know from other research that preferences for your own race develop in early childhood. Our method has the advantage of being suitable for very young children, and it also improves children’s ability to recognize faces, which is an important social skill in and of itself.”

First author on the study is Miao K. Qian, of Hangzhou Normal University and the University of Toronto.

The researchers are careful to note that racial bias is complicated. For starters, psychologists think there may be at least two different types of bias: implicit bias, or the extent to which we have subconscious negative and positive associations with different races, and explicit bias, or preferences we’re more aware of and can (if we’re not being guarded) articulate. Implicit bias may have perceptual roots, arising from greater exposure to people of your own race, while explicit bias may be learned socially from adults and peers. Then there’s the question of behavior. How implicit or explicit bias translates into biased behavior is a subject yet to be fully explored.

“We think that reducing implicit racial bias in children could be a starting point for addressing a pernicious social problem,” Heyman said. “But it is not the complete answer to racial discrimination or to systemic, structural racism.”

The researchers worked with 95 children in an eastern city in China. All the kids were Han Chinese and, according to their guardians’ reports, none had direct interaction with any non-Asian people prior to the study. As with most longitudinal studies, there was attrition among participants for a number of reasons, with a final sample, at day 70, of 50.

To measure bias, the researchers used their own Implicit Racial Bias Test (or IRBT), which they’ve validated in a previous paper with subjects in China and Cameroon. The IRBT is a preschool-friendly adaptation of the implicit association test (or IAT). The logic of the two tests is similar: People are quicker to associate positive attributes with members of their own race than with those of another racial category. A difference in response time is taken as a measure of implicit bias. One advantage of the IRBT, the researchers say, is that it uses only pictures instead of words: simple and intuitive smiley and frowny icons that subjects are asked to pair with neutral faces of their own race or a different one.

After measuring the children’s levels of pro-Asian/anti-black bias by calculating how quick they were to pair a frowny or smiley icon with a black male vs. an Asian male face, the researchers assigned them randomly to three different training groups. One group saw black male faces, a second group saw white male faces, and a third group saw Asian male faces. These last two groups were controls to see if learning to differentiate among faces of any race, different from one’s own or the same, produced results that generalized to a third.

Individuation training consisted of learning to identify five different faces that had been numbered 1 through 5, starting with just two faces and working up to five. Training continued until the child correctly matched all five faces with their numerical “names.” This took 20 minutes on average.

There were two training sessions a week apart. A day after each training, children took the implicit racial bias test again. They were tested for bias a final time 60 days after the second training.

The results: Only the training to distinguish among black faces reduced pro-Asian/anti-black bias. Training on white faces or Asian ones didn’t make a difference. Reduction in bias was most significant after the second session and it had a longer-lasting effect than had been documented before.

The researchers are now working with a larger, more diverse group of children in Toronto over a longer term. If their intervention to reduce implicit racial bias is effective in that setting as well, they hope to develop a more consumer-friendly version of their training sessions: a fun, gamified app that could be used in schools and at home.

Women Scientist And Entrepreneurs – Game Changers Driving Science For New India

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Women Scientist And Entrepreneurs – Game Changers Driving Science For New India Women Bio-Tech Incubator At Golden Jubilee Women Biotech Park Inaugurated.

Union Minister of Science & Technology Dr. Harshvardhan inaugurated Women Bio-tech Incubator at Golden Jubilee Biotech Park for Women Society during IISF, 2017 in Chennai today in the presence of Prof. M. S. Swaminathan, Founder Chairman, Women Biotech Park, and State Minister of Industry, Government of Tamilnadu – Shri M C Sampath.

Dr. Harsh Vardhan today delivered the Conclave Address during the Women Scientist and Entrepreneurs Conclave at IISF 2017. While delivering the Conclave Address Dr. Harshavardhan said that globally there has been a special focus on addressing the issues related to Women in Science and framing policies which support the same. In India we have laid special emphasis on empowerment of women. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has stressed upon the need for special programmes which not only technically empower the women but also create employment opportunities.

In the field of Science and Technology and Entrepreneurship, Indian women have had a major presence over the last 100 years. The first women to receive a medical doctorate degree was Anandibai Joshee in 1885, the first Indian women Doctorate in Basic Science was Janaki Ammal in 1931 and India’s first woman to get a doctorate of science from an Indian university was Asima Chatterjee in 1944. These dynamic women have laid a very strong foundation for women in science in India. In the last few years, there has been a special focus on “Women Empowerment by the Government. The DST and DBT have special schemes to attract women scientists and to provide employment opportunities to the unemployed women scientists. Women Entrepreneurship is a very important activity that has been growing rapidly in last few years. “Start up India” and “Stand up India” announced by Hon’ble Prime Minister are initiatives which offer tremendous opportunities to the women entrepreneurs.

Biotech Park is a good example of a Centre and State Government Partnership. The Minister expressed his confidence that with the support of the State Government it will drive many important initiatives under Start up India and Make in India. A large number of Innovation schemes of the S&T Ministry being operated by DST and DBT and initiatives taken by BIRAC have today created a vibrant innovation ecosystem. More than 1000 Start ups and nearly 200 Women Entrepreneurs have been supported. The Atal Innovation Mission also aims to promote the innovation ecosystem.

The Minister was pleased to know the excellent participation in Women Scientists and Entrepreneurs Conclave. He informed that the Ministry of S& lays special emphasis on North East and has a special program and will be happy to set up a Women Bio-Incubator at North East.

He expressed his confidence that the women scientists would contribute significantly to the growth of the country and fulfill the dream of   Hon’ble Prime Minister of “Making a New India”. Women scientists and Entrepreneurs definitely are the Game Changers Driving Science for “Making a New India”.

Women Scientists Conclave with the theme “Women Scientist and Entrepreneurs – Game Changers Driving Science for New India” was held as a part of India International Science Congress, 2017 in Chennai.  The theme of the Conclave was to motivate young women to pursue science and entrepreneurship and explore new opportunities. The conclave showcased the strengths and activities of women in science and entrepreneurship and provided a platform for the young women scientist and entrepreneurs to interact with experts and peers.

The Conclave is being attended by over 350 Women Scientists, Researchers, Faculty and Entrepreneurs. There is participation from across the country – North East, Uttarakhand, Bihar, West Bengal, Punjab, Kerala, amongst others. There was an exhibition and panels. Many Senior Scientists, Entrepreneurs who are role models shared their experiences. Dr. Soumya Swaminathan, Secretary, Department of Health Research (DHR) and Director General, Indian Council of Medical Research  (ICMR) delivered the keynote address.

Presentations were made in various fields of interest viz., Geoscience, Space and Ocean research. Panel Discussion on “Game Changers Driving Science for New India” was held and the discussion focused on (i) Challenges for taking science as a career and (ii) Opportunities for women in Science, Technology and Entrepreneurship. Presentations were given on “Budding Women Scientists” and “Initiatives of the Govt. of India for Women in Science and Science for Women”.

Dr. Harshvardhan also released a book – Genesis of Biotech Park – on this occasion.

Women Scientists Conclave with the theme “Women Scientist and Entrepreneurs – Game Changers Driving Science for New India” was held as a part of India International Science Congress, 2017 in Chennai.  The theme of the Conclave was to motivate young women to pursue science and entrepreneurship and explore new opportunities. The conclave showcased the strengths and activities of women in science and entrepreneurship and provided a platform for the young women scientist and entrepreneurs to interact with experts and peers.

The Conclave is being attended by over 350 Women Scientists, Researchers, Faculty and Entrepreneurs. There is participation from across the country – North East, Uttarakhand, Bihar, West Bengal, Punjab, Kerala, amongst others. There was an exhibition and panels. Many Senior Scientists, Entrepreneurs who are role models shared their experiences. Dr. Soumya Swaminathan, Secretary, Department of Health Research (DHR) and Director General, Indian Council of Medical Research  (ICMR) delivered the keynote address.

Presentations were made in various fields of interest viz., Geoscience, Space and Ocean research. Panel Discussion on “Game Changers Driving Science for New India” was held and the discussion focused on (i) Challenges for taking science as a career and (ii) Opportunities for women in Science, Technology and Entrepreneurship. Presentations were given on “Budding Women Scientists” and “Initiatives of the Govt. of India for Women in Science and Science for Women”.

 

 

 

 

 

Children who Arrived at Rashtrapati Bhavan from Rameswaram by the bus ‘Dr Kalam Sandesh Vahini Vision 2020’ call on President

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Children who arrived at Rashtrapati Bhavan from Rameswaram by the bus ‘Dr Kalam Sandesh Vahini Vision 2020’ called on the President of India, Shri Ram Nath Kovind, at Rashtrapati Bhavan on October 15, 2017.

Speaking on the occasion, the President said that Dr Kalam is one of the greatest personalities ever. He said that he saluted Dr Kalam and his monumental achievements as a scientist, a scholar and as the President of India. One of the best ways of building the character of the youth of any country is to inspire them to read biographies of great personalities.

The President said that Dr Kalam was one of India’s greatest visionaries and is fondly remembered as ‘The Missile Man of India’ and ‘People’s President’. He has made momentous contribution to India’s scientific heritage through his involvement in varied fields ranging from nuclear technology to designing low cost stents for the heart or lightweight calipers for polio victims. India will never forget the remarkable contributions of Dr Kalam. He had a great passion for teaching and education and truly ignited young minds with the power to think and innovate. He enjoyed being with people. He was adored by people and youngsters. He loved students and spent his final moments among them.

The President said that the Dr Kalam Sandesh Vahini bus presents the life story of Dr Kalam in a very interesting manner. He appreciated the effort. He said he was sure that a large number of Indians, especially the young people have benefited by seeing the mobile exhibition on the life, works and the vision of Dr Kalam.

The Kalam Sandesh Vahini was launched by House of Kalam and Chinmaya University. The Vahini depicts various incidents from Dr Kalam’s life as well as key highlights of India’s scientific achievements, with an aim to educate and inspire the masses. It was flagged off by Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi from Rameswaram on July 27, 2017, during the inauguration ceremony of Dr Kalam’s memorial. The Vahini has travelled from Rameswaram, through various states, to finally arrive at Rashtrapati Bhavan in New Delhi.

Earlier in the day, the President paid floral tributes at the portrait of Dr APJ Abdul Kalam, former President of India, on the occasion of his birth anniversary at Rashtrapati Bhavan. Officers and staff of Rashtrapati Bhavan along with family members of Dr Kalam also paid floral tributes on the occasion.

Burma’s Star Tortoise Makes a Comeback

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The Burmese star tortoise (Geochelone platynota), a medium-sized tortoise found only in Myanmar’s central dry zone, has been brought back from the brink of extinction thanks to an aggressive captive-breeding effort spearheaded by a team of conservationists and government partners.

Efforts to restore the tortoise are described in the latest issue of the peer-reviewed journal Herpetological Review.

The tortoises now number over 14,000 individuals, up from an estimated population of just a few hundred animals in the early 2000s. Burgeoning demand from wildlife markets in southern China beginning in the mid-1990s virtually wiped out the tortoise in a matter of years until viable populations could no longer be found, and the species was considered ecologically extinct.

In 2004, The Nature and Wildlife Conservation Division of the Myanmar Ministry of Natural Resources and Environmental Conservation in collaboration with the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS)/Turtle Survival Alliance (TSA) Myanmar Program established three “assurance colonies” to hedge against the extinction of wild populations. The three colonies began with an estimated 175 individuals, mostly confiscated from illegal wildlife traffickers.

The colonies were sited at facilities within existing wildlife sanctuaries. After the colonies were established, conservationists had to determine the species’ husbandry requirements including diet, feeding, reproduction, and hatchling care. Herpetologists from WCS’s Bronx Zoo helped design the breeding centers as well as provide husbandry expertise. In addition, veterinarians and molecular scientists from the Bronx Zoo conducted health screenings of the captive population to determine what diseases might be present (no major diseases of concern were discovered). Bronx Zoo vets continue to consult with WCS Myanmar vets on various health cases, confirming diagnoses and recommending treatment options.

Approximately 750 animals have been released into wild areas of the sanctuaries, and the long term objective of restoring viable populations in every protected area in the central dry zone is now biologically attainable. However, political and social challenges need to be resolved before large-scale reintroduction takes place to ensure the tortoises are not taken by poachers.

Said lead author Steven Platt, a herpetologist with WCS’s Myanmar Program: “This is the modern day equivalent of saving the bison from extinction. A team of conservationists spearheaded an aggressive captive breeding effort, and have brought an animal back from the brink to where it now has the potential to be reintroduced into the wild in large numbers.”

Said Andrew Walde, Chief Operating Officer of Turtle Survival Alliance: “The Myanmar WCS/TSA partnership is a model chelonian conservation success story. If you had told me more than 10 years ago when the project started that we would have more than 10,000 Burmese Star tortoises, and that we would have returned nearly a thousand to the wild, I wouldn’t have believed it. It is success stories like this that make all the hard work worth it.”

WCS works to save turtles and tortoises around the world. In 2012, WCS launched an organization-wide program to revive some of the most endangered turtle and tortoise species. Efforts include breeding programs at the Bronx Zoo in New York, head-start programs abroad, and working with governments and communities to save species on the brink of extinction.

WCS tortoise conservation in Myanmar is supported by The Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust, the Andrew Sabin Family Foundation, the Panaphil and Uphill Foundations, and the Turtle Conservation Fund.

Brand Finance Downgrades India at 8th in Value, down by 1%

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Brand Finance has evaluated the 100 most valuable nation brands of 2017 and placed India as the 8th most valuable nation brand in the world with a value of US$2 trillion, less by 1% year on year attributed to decline in growth for six quarters in a row.

David Haigh, CEO of Brand Finance, said, “Prime Minister (Narendra) Modi’s administration needs to fulfil his promise to rejuvenate India’s economy. Reforms must be introduced to maximise job creation, provide fiscal support and to boost economic growth. However, the less than impressive track record of implementing change renders the nation’s outlook unstable. This poses a threat to its future nation brand value. If Modi is able to carry out the proposed changes effectively, that may be enough to push value growth up next year. At the same time, few realise that India has already surpassed China and the US as the top recipient of greenfield foreign direct investment and the key task is to maintain this position.”

India versus China

On China, Brand Finance report said China is the fastest-growing nation brand of 2017 in absolute terms, with a change of over US$3.1 trillion year on year. This figure is equal to the entire nation brand value of Britain, which illustrates just by how much China is outpacing other countries, it said.

In relative terms, China’s nation brand value grew 44% year on year, or at a 20-times faster pace than the United States’. However, at US$10.2 trillion, China’s nation brand value is still only half that of America’s and sustaining growth will be key to narrow the gap.

Chinese companies make up 50 of the Global 500 most valuable brands, increasing from only 8 in 2008. Chinese brands lead in 4 sectors – banks (ICBC), spirits (Moutai), insurance (PingAn), real estate (Dalian Wanda) – as opposed to zero in 2008. The country also celebrates an annual Chinese Brands Day on May 10th and has a nationwide China Council for Brand Development, dedicated to research on brand building and brand evaluation.

The forthcoming 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China will mark the end of the Central Committee’s five-year term which has seen a revolutionary change in China’s approach to brands. In a virtuous circle, Chinese brands and the transformed national image of China as an emerging global power are reinforcing each other and further add to the country’s attractiveness to investors and tourists.

US under Trump Effect

With a value of US$21.1 trillion, the United States remains the most valuable nation brand in the world but the meagre growth of 2% year on year is putting its dominance at risk in the long run.

The United States’ nation brand value’s stagnation can be attributed to macroeconomic challenges, like the declining participation rate caused by the mass-retirement of baby boomers, ultimately contributing to a slow pace of GDP growth compared to previous expansions.

However, perceptions of Donald Trump’s presidency are not exactly helping Brand America either. Trump’s administration is seen as increasingly unpredictable and although tax relief promises can boost FDI in the short run, a failure to fulfil them, considering that many propositions of new legislation fell through in Congress, will make investors’ confidence disappear.

America’s image in the world is also waning. Sabre rattling in the Middle East and Asia, closing borders to migrants and refugees, and breaching global commitments in relation to climate change, have all seriously undermined the United States’ global leadership. Recovering that influence in the future may be close to impossible.

East and West: Trading Places

The dynamic between American and Chinese nation brands is mirrored by the broader trends of Western stagnation and Asian advance. Established European nation brands, such as Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland, Sweden, Austria, record either a decline or a negligible growth of value. At the same time, Asian nation brands grow at breakneck speed. Vietnam, the Philippines, Thailand and South Korea have all added between 37%-43% to their nation brand value.

Southern Europe growing fast

Unlike their sluggish Northern neighbours, Southern European countries can boast record nation brand value growth year on year. Infamously branded as ‘PIGS’ during the Eurozone Crisis, Portugal (up 22%), Italy (up 34%), Greece (up 41%), and Spain (up 46%), as well as smaller Cyprus (up 57%), have since all introduced necessary reforms and regained the confidence of analysts and investors. Channelling those new levels of trust to a long-term advantage will be the most difficult task of those responsible for managing nation brands of Southern European economies. It seems particularly challenging in the case of Spain, which is balancing on the brink of anarchy following the Catalan independence vote.

Brand Britain shows resilience

The Brexit process has not yet brought the widely expected negative consequences. Brand Britain relies however on the government’s ability to mitigate potential dangers in the near future. Although uncertainty has caused a slight drop in the UK’s brand strength, from a score of 86 to 85, brand value is up 6% year on year to US$3.1 trillion. Britain should now engage with the world, especially booming Asian markets, to sustain growth and dispel negative perceptions.

Iceland: Money is Coming

Iceland is the fastest growing nation brand of 2017, up 83% from last year, and may only continue to enjoy unrivalled growth in the near future. The country’s tourism industry is booming and expanding its share of GDP at the expense of the traditionally dominant fishing sector. Thanks to the hit television show, Game of Thrones, which films most of its winter scenes in Iceland, the country has seen a record 1.8 million foreign visitors in 2016, up 40% from 2015.

The first two months of 2017 saw a 59% increase on the same period of 2016 and the figure is expected to reach 2.4 million by the end of this year. The increase in visitors brings great financial benefits to the nation. Tourists spent US$212 million in 2016, using credit and debit cards alone, and as the number of visitors is forecasted to increase, so will the injection of money.

Future Looks Bright for Singapore

Singapore has not only maintained its position as the strongest nation brand this year, but with a Brand Strength Index (BSI) of 92.9, it is also the only one to score over 90. Singapore’s reputation for investing in its citizens has particularly boosted its ‘People and Skills’ result, factored in the BSI calculation.

The SkillsFuture movement initiated by the government, which allows every Singaporean aged 25 and above to secure S$500 for professional development, helps to maximise the nation’s potential. More than 400,000 people undertook training in 2016, an increase from 379,000 in 2015. The state’s willingness to invest in the development of its people demonstrates a nurturing element that many other nations have yet to adopt.

Indian Origin CEO of Spike Unveils New Concorde Supersonic Jet Ahead of NASA

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Reminding the shortest trans-Atlantic Concorde flights in the 1980s, a new supersonic jet that can travel from New York to London in just three hours at 1,354 mph has successfully test-flown on Saturday without any passengers by Spike Aerospace Indian origin CEO Vik Kachoria.

The prototype of S-512 Quiet Supersonic Jet can carry 18 passengers and it was test flown unmanned for the first time after a series of wind tunnel tests, said Spike Aerospace, the firm behind the new Concorde project.

Apart from Spike, NASA’s project was unveiled last month about a viable commercial supersonic jet capable of breaking the 767 mph sound barrier. The prototype was tested inside a massive wind tunnel at NASA’s Langley Research Center so far.  However, Spike has taken lead with first trans-Atlantic test successfully carried out in three hours with the design and flight controls in tact.

Vik Kachoria, President and CEO of Spike, said: “The SX-1.2 test flights were conducted in a real world situation, and provide significantly more data than wind tunnel tests done in an artificial environment.We were able to test not only handling, but also a range of other considerations.”

Spike Aerospace CEO Vik Kachoria

The test included adjustments made mid-air to its mass, balance and controls and the aircraft was piloted by engineers KrishnaKumar Malu and Mike Ridlon at a private airfield in New England in the US.

Malu said: “These test flights are providing incredibly valuable information which we can use to refine the design.I am very excited about how helpful these tests will be to our supersonic development program.”

Spike hopes to make its S-512 supersonic aircraft ready by 2021, with its first commercial flight available by 2023. The prototype can reduce the flight from London to New York by eight hours, to just 3 hours and 30 minutes.

“Flying 450 mph faster than any other civilian jet, the Spike S-512 will enable customers to do more and enjoy more out of life,” Spike said.

Here are some specs of S-512:

Spike S-512 Quiet Supersonic Jet Key Highlights:

  • Speed: Mach 1.6 (1,100mph)
  • Passengers: 12-18
  • Range: 6200nmi
  • Sonic boom less than 75 PLdB
  • Patent-pending Quiet Supersonic Flight technology
  • Innovative Multiplex Digital Cabin
  • 40% time savings for 13% additional cost

The Spike S-512’s cabin incorporates patent-pending Multiplex Digital technology offering panoramic displays through wide windows with room for up to 18 passengers and fully customizable interior configuration, good for private air travel, said the aerospace company on its website.

The spike S-512 promises the expansive, high-definition screens spanning each side of the cabin with displays showing any view one wishes, whether it’s real-time aircraft surroundings, favorite movie or a work presentation – all with a simple touch on a mobile device.

The cabin of the S-512 assures quiet and comfort with bespoke leather seating, reduced noise or higher levels of silence, higher oxygen levels and high-speed wireless Internet connectivity. It has eliminated traditional windows allowing the S-512 to offer unprecedented noise reduction for smooth, relaxing supersonic flights.

 

 

 

Health Ministry discontinues Paper Greetings, switches to eGreetings

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With the aim to reduce use of paper and give a boost to digital initiatives of the Government and to promote a contemporary and eco-friendly method of sending greetings, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has decided to go forward with e Greetings instead of paper-based greetings starting this festive season. In a circular issued today, the Health Ministry has advised its staff to send festival greetings in the form of eGreetings. Further, the Ministry has also said that it will not entertain any request for printing of season’s greeting card. The eGreetings can be sent through the eGreetings portal of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology developed as part of the “Digital India” initiative.

The eGreeting portal created by DeitY and NIC allows users to select and send greetings from multiple occasion-specific templates. Government Departments can also customize the greetings by adding tag-lines and messages related to their programmes and schemes. The portal includes greetings for various occasions, including days of national importance. The portal also addresses eGreetingsof the specific needs of government organizations. For instance, specific templates can be created for National Science Day, Women’s Day, various health days, as well as for national campaigns. Each department can create its own greetings and slogans to connect with their employees, colleagues and stakeholders. The designs and templates of the greetings are being crowd sourced. The portal is also open to use by all citizens. This would promote greater interaction and participation of citizens in the process of creative work for the government as well as dissemination of information pertaining to subjects of national importance.

The portal is also open to all citizens for sending eGreetings to their family and friends. Users can access the portal using the link http://egreetings.india.gov.in.

The female brain reacts more strongly to prosocial behavior than the male brain

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Behavioral experiments have shown that when women share a sum of money more generously than men. To gain a more in-depth understanding of this behavior, neuroscientists from the Department of Economics looked at the areas of the brain that are active when decisions of this kind are made. They are the first to demonstrate that the brains of men and women respond differently to prosocial and selfish behavior.

Selfish behavior activates reward system more strongly in men

The striatum, located in the middle of the brain, is responsible for the assessment of reward and is active whenever a decision is made. The findings show: The striatum was more strongly activated in female brains during prosocial decisions than during selfish decisions. By contrast, selfish decisions led to a stronger activation of the reward system in male brains.

Disrupted reward system leads to more selfish behavior in women

In the second experiment, the reward system was disrupted by administering medication to the participants. Under these conditions, women behaved more selfishly, while men became more prosocial. The latter result surprised the researchers. As Soutschek explains, “these results demonstrate that the brains of women and men also process generosity differently at the pharmacological level”. The results also have consequences for further brain research, with Soutschek stating that “future studies need to take into account gender differences more seriously”.

Culturally conditioned behavior patterns are decisive

Even if these differences are evident at the biological level, Soutschek warns against assuming that they must be innate or of evolutionary origin. “The reward and learning systems in our brains work in close cooperation. Empirical studies show that girls are rewarded with praise for prosocial behavior, implying that their reward systems learn to expect a reward for helping behavior instead of selfish behavior. With this in mind, the gender differences that we observed in our studies could best be attributed to the different cultural expectations placed on men and women.” This learning account is also supported by findings that indicate significant differences in the sensitivity of the reward system to prosocial and selfish behavior across cultures.

Denied 3 Times, Nobel Peace Prize for 2017 Finally Goes to ICAN

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After three denials, the Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided to award the Nobel Peace Prize for 2017 to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) after three unsuccessful expectations in the last three years.

The committee will award ICAN for its work to draw attention to the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of any use of nuclear weapons and for its ground-breaking efforts to achieve a treaty-based prohibition of such weapons. More than that the upcoming threat of use of a nuclear bomb by North Korea has forced the panel to see the reason to vouch for nuclear peace.

“There is a real danger that more countries will try to procure nuclear weapons, as exemplified by North Korea. Nuclear weapons pose a constant threat to humanity and all life on earth,” saaid the Nobel committee.

Through its work, ICAN has helped to fill a legal gap heralding the rationale for prohibiting nuclear weapons. ICAN is a coalition of NGOs from around 100 different countries pledging to stigmatise, prohibit and eliminate nuclear weapons. To date, 108 states have signed the commitment, known as the Humanitarian Pledge.

ICAN has been spearheading a prohibition of nuclear weapons under international law. On 7 July 2017, 122 of the UN member states acceded to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons and ratified by 50 states. The nuclear ban will become effective and binding under international law for all the countries that are party to the treaty.

“This year’s Peace Prize is therefore also a call upon these states to initiate serious negotiations with a view to the gradual, balanced and carefully monitored elimination of the almost 15,000 nuclear weapons in the world,” it said.

With this year’s award, the Norwegian Nobel Committee wishes to pay tribute to ICAN for giving new momentum to the efforts to achieve this goal, said the citation.