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TIMES

THE TIMES OF INDIA, PUNE

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 10, 2015

15

TRENDS

Elephants could hold key to cancer cure

iTOONS

SUNIL AGARWAL & AJIT NINAN

Disease Uncommon In Jumbos Due To Tumour-Suppressing Gene Which May Help Develop Drugs For Us
Theo Allofs / Radius Images

Chicago: Cancer is much less

common in elephants than in
humans, even though the bodies of jumbos have many more cells. Thats a paradox
known among scientists, and
now researchers think they
may have an explanation
which might lead to new ways
to protect people from cancer.
Compared with just one copy in humans, elephants cells
contain 20 copies of a major
cancer-suppressing gene. The
gene helps damaged cells repair themselves or self-destruct
when exposed to cancer-causing substances. The findings
arent proof that those extra
p53 genes make elephants can-

JUMBO PROMISE: Elephants cells contain 20 copies of the gene

which helps damaged cells repair themselves or self-destruct when
exposed to cancer-causing substances

cer-resistant, but if future research confirms it, scientists

could try to develop drugs for

humans that would mimic the

effect. Dr Joshua Schiffman, a
pediatric cancer specialist at

the University of Utah who led

one of the teams, began his research after hearing about Petos paradox, which refers to
the fact that large animals, including elephants and whales,
have comparatively low cancer rates even though they have many more cells than smaller species. Cancer involves
uncontrolled cell growth.
Schiffmans patients include children with incomplete p53 genes because of a
condition called Li-Fraumeni syndrome, which increases their chances of developing cancer. So, Schiffman sought to find clues from the
blood of eight elephants.

The team compared how

elephant cells reacted to radiation, compared with cells from
10 humans and 10 patients with
Li-Fraumeni syndrome.
The elephant cells selfdestructed at twice the rate of
healthy human cells and more
than five times the rate of cells
from patients with the syndrome. Cells that dont self-repair
or self-destruct when exposed
to carcinogens become prone
to developing cancer. While
the research wont lead to any
immediate treatment for humans, progress against cancer
can come from unexpected directions, said Dr Ted Gansler
of American Cancer Society.

Schiffmans team also analyzed necropsy data and found

that elephants sometimes live
as long as humans, yet only
about 1 in 20 die of cancer, versus about 1in 4 humans.
The second group of researchers, working with frozen
zoo specimens, looked at more
than 60 other species and found only elephants and wooly
mammoths, their extinct relatives, had extra copies of the
cancer-suppressing
gene.
They then inserted elephants
p53 genes into mouse cells and
found those cells behaved just
like elephants and self-destructed when exposed to DNAdamaging drugs. AP

Times of India, Pune, October 10, 2015 Pp.15

Pluto too cold for

life as we know it
Reuters

SHORT CUTS
AFP

4,500-yr-old skull
reveals African
migration history

UK firms create worlds

first drone-freezing gun

Viaframe/Corbis

Kounteya.Sinha@timesgroup.com

Kounteya.Sinha@timesgroup.com

SHOW TIME: Fans in costume arrive for the 2015

New York Comic Con. The 4-day festivity is the
largest pop culture event on Americas east coast

Nasa: Ancient Mars had

long-lasting lakes, rivers

ars harboured long-lasting lakes and water

streams about 3.8 to 3.3 billion years ago,
boosting the odds that life may have once
existed on the Red Planet, scientists, including
one of Indian-origin, have found. Using data
from Curiosity rover, a Nasa team has determined that long ago water helped deposit
sediment into Gale Crater, where the rover
landed more than three years ago. The
sediment formed the foundation for
Mount Sharp, the mountain found in the middle
of the crater today. During the traverse of
Gale, we have noticed patterns in the geology
where we saw evidence of ancient fast-moving
streams with coarser gravel, as well as
places where streams appear to have
emptied out into bodies of standing water,
Ashwin Vasavada, Mars Science Laboratory
project scientist at Nasas Jet Propulsion
Laboratory in California said.

London: British scientists have for the

first time sequenced an ancient African
genome from a 4,500-year-old Ethiopian
skull that has confirmed a massive wave
of migration from Eurasia into Africa
about 3,000 years ago.
The migration into the Horn of Africa
had a genetic impact on modern African
population with 25% of their DNA can be
traced back to this event. Every single
person for which we have data in Africa
has a sizeable component of Eurasian ancestry, said Dr Andrea Manica, who carried out the research.
The genome was taken from the skull
of a man buried face-down 4,500 years ago
in a cave called Mota in the highlands of
Ethiopia.
Marcos Gallego Llorente, the first author of the paper from Cambridges department of Zoology, told TOI, This migration affected the genetic makeup of
the African continent, reaching western,
central and southern African populations, such as the Yoruba and Mbuti,
which were previously thought to be relatively unadmixed, who harbor 6-7% Eurasian ancestry.
About the origins of modern man, the
finding doesnt say much, as we are talking about a migration in the last 4,000
years. Men left Africa for first time at least
60,000 years ago. This exemplifies that the
world has been a very large melting pot of
genes - populations have always moved,
and now weve seen an example of a very
dramatic one, Llorente said.

London: Three British companies have jointly created the worlds first drone freezing gun.
The Anti-UAV Defence System (Auds),
which has a range upto 8km, works by covertly
jamming a drones signal, making it unresponsive and deterring them from entering
sensitive areas. The technology passed with
flying colours in March 2015, when the Auds
team took part in French government trials,
with the counter UAV system detecting and
neutralising a variety of fixed and rotary
wing micro, compact and standard UAVs.
Blighter Surveillance Systems, Chess Dynamics and Enterprise Control Systems
joined hands to create this gun in light of the
growing use of drones over the past few years.
Mark Radford, CEO, Blighter Surveillance
Systems, said We formed the team in 2014 as
we were aware of the urgent operational requirement from our customers for an effective
and affordable anti-UAV system.

The Anti-UAV Defence System works by covertly

jamming a drones signal, making it unresponsive

The guns fully electronic scanning radar

technology with Doppler processing allows all
weather, 24-hour detection of both fast and slow
moving micro and mini UAV targets with unsurpassed ground clutter suppression for near
horizon operations. The accurate stabilised tilt
director combined with the latest electro-optic
infrared day and night cameras and state-of-theart digital video tracking technology can automatically track the UAV and classify the target.

Kounteya.Sinha
@timesgroup.com

London: Chief investigator

of Nasas Pluto Exploration
Programme Alan Stern on
Friday said the biggest finding till date on the planet is
the dwarf planet being geologically active after over
four billion years.
The first colour images
of Plutos atmosphere returned by Nasas New Horizons spacecraft last week
has revealed a blue haze,
while a second handout has
detected numerous small,
exposed regions of water
ice. However, the reason why
water was found exactly in
those places and not in other
areas is a challenge Nasa
still has to come out with.
Who would have expected a blue sky in the Kuiper
Belt? Its gorgeous, said
Alan Stern, in an exclusive
interview to TOI. Scientists
say a blue sky often results
from scattering of sunlight
by very small particles. On

An image captured by Nasas New

Horizons spacecraft shows Plutos
haze layer which is blue in colour

Earth, those particles are very tiny nitrogen molecules.

On Pluto they appear to be
larger but still relatively
small soot-like particles
Nasa calls tholins.
Stren said, The finding
confirms our notions about
water-ice being the dominant constructional material for Plutos mountains and
other geology. The blue haze
tells us that the particles in
the haze are very small.
But does this mean Pluto
have had life once? Doubtful. Its minus 400 degree Fahrenheit and so too cold for life
as we know it, Stern said.

To shed those extra kilos, change your walking speed

Washington: Walking at
varying speeds can burn up
to 20% more calories compared to maintaining a steady
pace, Indian-origin scientists
have found.
Measuring the metabolic
cost of changing speeds is very important because people
dont live their lives on treadmills and do not walk at cons-

tant speeds. We found that

changing speeds can increase
the cost of walking substantially, said Manoj Srinivasan,
co-author of the study.
The researchers found
that by using traditional methods, people may be underestimating the number of calories burned while walking in
daily life or playing sports.

MM Productions/Corbis

HEALTHY HABIT

The researchers found

that up to 8% of the energy we
use during normal daily walking could be due to the energy needed to start and stop
walking.
Walking at any speed
costs some energy, but when
youre changing the speed,
youre pressing the gas pedal.
Changing the kinetic energy

of the person requires more

work from the legs and that
process burns more energy,
said Nidhi Seethapathi, first
author of the study.
The study also confirmed
the researchers prediction
that people walk slower when
covering shorter distances
and increase their pace as
distance increases. PTI