Category Science

Whether you prefer drinking tea or coffee may come down to your genes.

University of Queensland researchers studied the relationship between taste receptor genes and tea and coffee consumption in over 430,000 men and women. People taste bitter flavours like caffeine, quinine and an artificial substance called propylthiouracil differently according to the types of taste receptor genes they have.

Participants with gene variants that made them taste caffeine more strongly were 20 percent more likely than the average person to be heavy coffee drinkers. These caffeine super-tasters were less likely to drink tea as people who are better at detecting caffeine are more prone to becoming addicted to its stimulant effects, and coffee contains more caffeine than tea.

Participants with gene variants that made them more sensitive to the tastes of quinine and propylthiouracil were 4 and 9 per cent more likely than the average person to be heavy tea drinkers respectively. They were also less likely to drink coffee. This may be because super-tasters of quinine and propylthiouracil – both more bitter than caffeine – are more sensitive to bitter tastes overall. They may find the intense bitterness of coffee overwhelming and prefer the gentler bitterness of tea.

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Arunachal Pradesh has gifted India with a fifth brown pit viper with a reddish tinge. Herpetologists discovered the new species of pit viper – a venomous snake with a unique heat-sensing system – from a forest in West Kameng district of Arunachal Pradesh. India has four other brown pit vipers – Malabar, Horseshoe, Hump-nosed and Himalayan – discovered 70 years ago. The new species, Trimeresurus arunachalensis, makes Arunachal Pradesh the only Indian state to have a pit viper named after it. As only one male has been found so far, this single known specimen of the species currently makes it the rarest pit viper in the world.

Comparative analyses of DNA sequences by Mr. Deepak and examination of morphological features by Mr. Captain suggested that the snake belonged to a species not described before.

Mr. Bhatt, a scientist of the Arunachal Pradesh forest department, said that the single known specimen of this species makes it currently the rarest pit viper in the world. The specimen was donated to the museum of the State Forest Research Institute in Itanagar.

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Scientists have for the first time successfully raised laboratory-bred colonies of a critically endangered Caribbean coral species to their reproductive age, a step towards sustainable restoration of degraded reefs.

An estimated 80 per cent of all Caribbean corals have disappeared over the last four decades. The elkhorn coral (Acropora palmate) was one species whose decline was so severe that it was one of the first coral species to be listed as critically endangered under The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened species.

Due to its large size and branching shape, elkhorn corals created vast forests in shallow reef waters that protect shores from incoming storms and provide a critical habitat for a myriad of reef organisms, including ecologically and economically important fish species.

Elkhorn corals reproduce only once or twice a year, synchronously releasing their gametes (reproductive cells) into the water column. SECORE International researchers collected a small proportion of these gametes and produced coral embryos by in-vitro fertilization. Coral embryos develop into swimming larvae within days and eventually settle onto specifically designed substrates. After a short nursery period, researches outplanted the substrates with the newly-settles corals onto the reef.

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This Japanese firm, Spread, is to open the world’s first automated farm with robots handling almost every step of the process, from watering seedlings to harvesting crops. The only part of the process that would require human inputs is seeding.

The farm, measuring about 4,400 square metres, will have floor-to-ceiling shelves where the produce is grown. The robots will also monitor levels of carbon dioxide in the air and adjust lighting and temperature to optimize growth. The use of LED lighting means energy costs will be slashed by almost a third, and about 98% per cent of the water need to grow the crops will be recycled.

The indoor grow house will start operating by the middle of 2017 and produce 30,000 heads of lettuce a day. It hopes to boost that figure to half a million lettuce heads daily within five years.

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Last recorded in the wild in 1870, Jerdon’s tree frog was feared extinct. But an expedition led by Indian biologist S. D. Biju found the elusive Frankixaius jerdonii in the East Khasi district of Meghalaya. They observed the frog hiding in hollow bamboo stems and tree holes around 19 feet above ground, where it carries out the remarkable breeding antics. Females attach their eggs to the insides of tree hollows which hold pools of water. When the tadpoles hatch, they fall in the water, where the females feed them unfertilized eggs until they turn into froglets.

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The Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), a branch of the U.S. Department of Defence, s developing self-destructing electronic components as part of its Vanishing Programmable Resources (VAPR) programme. Its recent ICARUS project is dedicated to the development of air vehicles that disappear upon mission completion. The programme is named for the Icarus of Greek mythology, whose waxy wings melted when he flew too close to the sun.

The VAPR team developed electronic-infused glass strips that can be triggered to shatter into dust and small polymer panels that disappear when they convert from a solid to a gas phase. The team found it was theoretically possible to build larger structures that could be engineered to self-combust.

Self-destructing systems are useful for a range of situations, e.g., destroying sophisticated technologies that are used on battlefields and then left behind. Discarded electronics also pose a threat to the environment as they rust and decompose. The flying vehicles could also be used to deliver food, water and vaccines to people living in remote areas, or to transport supplies to people stranded by natural disasters.

Picture Credit : Google