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What makes infants chuckle No increase in congenital disease from radiation in Kerala
THIS UNIVERSE
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What makes infants chuckle WITH bright blue hair and tattoos, Dr Caspar Addyman is not your average scientist. But then Britain’s “Babylab” is not your average laboratory. Here, inside one of the world’s leading infant-research units, Dr Addyman has spent the morning filtering through the results of his new Baby Laughter project. It is the first in-depth study since the Sixties into what makes infants chuckle. Last time around, the experiment involved a toy clown attached to a piece of string, which scientists held in front of their tiny, unwitting human guinea pigs to see if and when they would laugh. Fortunately Dr Addyman’s experiment, which he launched in August this year, is a little more complex. “Smiling and laughing are indices of our understanding of the world. Adults laugh at something when they find it surprising or unusual; it is exactly the same for babies,” he explains. “Finding out what makes infants laugh teaches us more generally about how humans understand and respond to the world around them, and also the ways in which that can change.” His gleeful subjects, who are all aged between two months and two years, are helping him to hunt for information that could eventually be used to determine how different developmental groups — for instance, people with autism or Down’s syndrome —respond to stimuli at different stages, which might ultimately lead to interventions. It is all smiles in Babylab HQ, at the Centre for Brain and Cognitive Development, Birkbeck, University of London. The lab was responsible earlier this year for a breakthrough study in autism which demonstrated a difference in brainwave patterns in infancy between children who later went on to develop the condition and those who did not. In a reception room stuffed with animal wall-stickers and flashing toys, four-month-old Gaia waits with her mother, Sylvia Rigato, 30, for her turn. “Parent-friendly” language is vital: anything that might summon up images of babies surrounded by Bunsen burners is a no-no. The studies (“not experiments”) are in comfortable rooms packed with toys. Volunteers from across the country respond to adverts on baby-minded websites and magazines. Ms Rigato, also a researcher in the field, says: “It is interesting to see what babies at this age can do.” For the past two months, Dr Addyman, 38, a former banker, has been observing the humours of babies. For him, the measurement of laughter is just another tool in our understanding of how babies learn. Technologies such as eye tracking — infrared lights attached to a computer which capture corneal reflections, recording exactly what a baby is looking at — and electroencephalography, which measures brain activity, showing when and approximately where in the brain information is processed, have meant huge advances in studies in brain development over the past two decades. But there is one thing, Dr Addyman says, that you still cannot do in a lab: make a baby laugh on demand. Accordingly he has launched his study online, allowing parents to log their children’s laughter and Dr Addyman to record results as they are played out in real life. As well as being able to access participants from outside central London, it also saves the lab, which relies on grants, a fair bit of cash. Leslie Tucker, the centre co-ordinator, explains that Dr Addyman’s “crowdsourcing baby research” represents the future of information gathering: “It’s a low-cost way of doing big research and getting big numbers involved.” It can be more accurate, she says, because the data is compiled by parents who see their child on a daily basis, in various moods. Three hundred people have already taken part, answering questions such as “What is the most memorable example of your baby laughing?”, “When was your baby’s earliest smile?” or “What do you think are the main causes of your baby’s laughter?” “Although we haven’t analysed the data in detail yet we can definitely see a few trends,” she says. “So far, we’ve found that daddy seems to be the funniest person, with mummy a close second. Peekaboo is the funniest game but tickling, funny voices and blowing raspberries are all sure-fire hits.” For the record, Dr Addyman adds, we can dispel the myth that your baby’s earliest smiles are just trapped wind: “A lot of first smiles and laughs are happening in the first four months of life, far earlier than traditional theories claimed. Babies’ first-ever smiles are often seen as young as one to three months old, with social smiles [that’s smiling at a person] starting shortly afterwards, between two and four months, and laughter following on soon, at three to six months.” Laughter and tears are our earliest forms of communication, and an insight into how the brain works at a primitive stage. “If you are trying to understand the psychology of humans,” he says, “it makes sense to start with babies. Adults are far too complex. They either tell you what you want to hear or try to second-guess you.” But if a baby does something, he concludes, “it’s bound to be a genuine response.” — The Independent |
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No increase in congenital disease from radiation in Kerala IN Kollam and Alappuzha districts of Kerala, there is a stretch of coastal land about 55 km long and 0.5 to 1.5 km wide, where the background radiation doses are high because of the presence of natural deposits of monazite, which contains high levels of thorium (8 to 10 per cent), uranium (0.3 per cent) and their decay products. There is a general perception that birth defects among the population in these high-level natural radiation areas (HLNRA) are more than those in areas of normal background radiation. Scientists from the Directorate of Health Services, Kerala, and the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Mumbai, have demonstrated that there is no scientific basis for this perception. A study published in Journal of Community Genetics has showed that there are no excess stillbirths or birth defects among the newborns in HLNRA. The population density in HLNRA is high; it is stable and non-migratory and people have been living in the area for generations. They are exposed to a wide range of radiation doses providing an invaluable opportunity to investigate adverse health effects, if any, of low-level chronic radiation exposure directly on human population. Scientists divided the area into grids of 100 square metres and measured radiation levels at one metre above ground at each of the grid locations. The average radiation dose in control areas of Kollam district is 1.2 mGy/year with a range of <1.0 to 1.5 mGy/year. Hence, areas with a radiation exposure above 1.5 mGy/year were considered as HLNRA and those below 1.5 mGy/year, as normal level natural radiation area (NLNRA). [Gray-Gy- is a unit of radiation dose; it is the dose when the radiation energy absorbed per kg of material is one joule. Since Gy is a large unit researchers normally use one thousandth of a Gy or milligray in practice] Researchers monitored newborns from August 1995 to June 2011 and collected information on 1,41,540 newborns from 140,558 deliveries. The study covered women admitted for delivery with a gestational age of more than 28 weeks at three hospitals and a community health centre in the area. The researchers collected data on stillbirths and overall as well as specific major congenital anomalies such as clubfoot, heart disease, down syndrome, cleft lip/palate, neural tube defects, and hypospadias (a urogenital anomaly in the male in which the external urethral opening is at other than the normal location) and socioeconomic factors. In the final analysis, they controlled the confounding or competing factors such as maternal age at birth, ethnicity, marriage between blood relations, and gender of the newborn, which may influence the frequency of anomalies. The researchers did not find statistically significant differences in the prevalence of stillbirths, heart disease, or birth defects, at different dose levels at parental residence. The frequency of clubfoot was found to be higher in areas of dose level 1,5 mGy per year to 3 mGy per year. It did not show any indication that it depends on radiation dose. This defect at a prevalence of 2.85/1,000 was generally comparable to that reported from elsewhere in the country An earlier study published in the Health Physics journal in 2009 by scientists from the Regional Cancer Centre and the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre showed no excess cancer risk from radiation exposure at the same high-level natural radiation areas. There is no scientific evidence to show that population groups exposed to low-level radiation may suffer any harmful effect. The congenital anomalies in newborns found in HLNRA is not different from or their frequency higher than those found in any other part of the country. Some of the anomalies are lower in HLNRA probably because of higher literacy, health awareness, and practices in the study population. The writer is former Secretary, Atomic Energy Regulatory Board
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Pesticides put bumblebee colonies at risk of failure OSLO: Pesticides used in farming are also killing worker bumblebees and damaging their ability to gather food, meaning colonies that are vital for plant pollination are more likely to fail when they are used, a study showed. The United Nations has estimated that a third of all plant-based foods eaten by people depend on bee pollination and scientists have been baffled by plummeting numbers of bees, mainly in North America and Europe, in recent years. GM tests magnesium sheet metal to make cars lighter DETROIT: Engineers and scientists at General Motors Co believe they are making major strides towards lighter vehicles by developing a way to expand the use of magnesium in auto parts. Making auto parts from magnesium sheets by heating the lightweight metal so it can be formed into precise, rigid shapes will help GM and other automakers meet demanding US fuel economy requirements, said GM metals researcher Jon Carter. —
Reuters |
