Smartphone game helps reduce schizophrenia symptoms

IANS | Aug 10, 2015, 06.32 PM IST

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Smartphone game helps reduce schizophrenia symptoms (Getty Image)

Researchers at Cambridge University have developed a smartphone game that can help reduce symptoms of schizophrenia.

The game, called Wizard, helps those diagnosed with schizophrenia practice day-to-day cognitive skills that keep their brains sharp.

It has been designed to help deal with symptoms such as paranoia and hallucinations, and has been paired with the popular brain-training app, Peak.

"In conjunction with medication and current psychological therapies, (Wizard) could help people with schizophrenia minimise the impact of their illness in their everyday life," The Guardian quoted a research team member as saying.

The study found that 22 patients who played the memory game committed fewer errors and needed less effort to remember the location of different patterns of specific tests.

Improvements in memory retention, remembering dates and times and understanding the context, conversation and other forms of communication are all categories that improved when patients used the game on a regular basis.

Wizard is currently available for iOS platform only, and soon it would be available for Android.

The study was published in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society.

Gene drive': Scientists sound alarm over supercharged GM organisms which could spread in the wild and cause environmental disasters

The development of so-called “gene drive” technology promises to revolutionise medicine and agriculture because it can in theory stop the spread of mosquito-borne illnesses, such as malaria and yellow fever, as well as eliminate crop pests and invasive species such as rats and cane toads.
However, scientists at the forefront of the development believe that in the wrong hands gene-drive technology poses a serious threat to the environment and human health if accidentally or deliberately released from a laboratory without adequate safeguards. Some believe it could even be used as a terrorist bio-weapon directed against people or livestock because gene drives – which enable GM genes to spread rapidly like a viral infection within a population – will eventually be easy and cheap to generate.

There is no compelling evidence to suggest that genetically modified crops are any more harmful than conventionally grown food (Getty)
“Just as gene drives can make mosquitoes unfit for hosting and spreading the malaria parasite, they could conceivably be designed with gene drives carrying cargo for delivering lethal bacterial toxins to humans,” said David Gurwitz, a geneticist at Tel Aviv University in Israel.
A group of senior geneticists have called for international safeguards to apply to researchers who want to develop gene drives, with strict security measures placed on laboratories to prevent the accidental escape of “supercharged” GM organisms that are able to spread rapidly in the wild.
Last week the US National Academy of Sciences initiated a wide-ranging review of gene-drive technology in “non-human organisms” and in this week’s journal Science a group of 27 leading geneticists call on the scientific community to be open and transparent about both the risks and benefits of gene drives.

Science News in Pictures

“They have tremendous potential to address global problems in health, agriculture and conservation but their capacity to alter wild populations outside the laboratory demands caution,” the scientists say.
The researchers have drawn up a minimum set of safety rules to protect against laboratory escapes and have called for a public debate on the potential benefits as well as risks of a technology that allows geneticists to rapidly accelerate the inheritance of GM traits throughout an animal population within just a few generations.
Researchers have likened gene-drive technology to a nuclear chain reaction because it allows GM genes to be amplified within a breeding population of insects or other animals without any further intervention once the trait has been initially introduced. This is the case even if the trait is non-beneficial to the organism.
Laboratory experiments on fruit flies have shown that a modified gene introduced into one individual fly can take just a few generations to “infect” practically every other fly in the breeding population, in defiance of the normal rules of genetics which dictate a far slower spread.

Kevin Esvelt, a gene-drive expert at the Wyss Institute at Harvard Medical School in Boston, said the technology was developed theoretically about 10 years ago but it has only been made possible in the lab in the past two years with the discovery of the sophisticated gene-editing tool Crispr/Cas9.
Dr Esvelt explained that gene drives relied on a “cassette” of genetic elements that allowed a genetically modified gene to jump from one chromosome to another within the same individual so that eventually all of the sperm or eggs of the animal carried the GM trait, rather than half. This means that virtually none of the offspring is eventually free of an introduced GM trait.
Gene drives could benefit human health by altering insect populations that spread human diseases, such as mosquitoes that transmit malaria, dengue, chikungunya and Lyme disease, so that they were no longer a threat, he said.

Debate still rages over genetically modified food after nearly 20 years (Getty)

An e-bike venture that caught Ratan Tata's eye

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Last updated on: August 07, 2015 10:59 IST

Hemlatha Annamalai and P Bala's Ampere Vehicles makes e-vehicles in Coimbatore. Do they have a strong business case?

Ratan Tata, chairman emeritus of Tata Sons, is a venerable name in the world of startups and angel investors.

He has invested in a string of e-commerce startups and one automobile company: Coimbatore-based Ampere Vehicles, the maker of electric two- and three-wheelers.
The company's factory is in the midst of a coconut farm, away from downtown Coimbatore.

The entrance is guarded not by an electronically-controlled barricade, but by a hand-operated wooden barrier, which a middle-aged guard lifts by untying a knot from a coconut tree.

Image: Hemlatha Annamalai, Ampere's CEO. Photograph, Courtesy: Ampere

Inside, all is quiet: there's no deafening noise of machines. Hemlatha Annamalai, Ampere's CEO, dressed in dark blue trousers and a blue shirt, sits on a sofa from where she can see the verdant coconut trees.
Annamalai, who belongs to Chennai and studied at the Government College of Technology at Coimbatore, moved to Singapore after her marriage to P Bala when she was 27 and became an entrepreneur.

The idea to work on e-vehicles took root in 2007, when at a conference she heard a Toyota executive saying that the time for internal combustion engines was over.

She and Bala got thinking: if China could sell about 30 million e-vehicles (annually back then), then why not India?

Later, at the international mobility forum in Switzerland, she got a better perspective about e-engines. "I didn't just jump into this business; I did a lot of research and homework," says Annamalai.
In 2008, the couple sold their $1.8-million apartment in Singapore and moved to Coimbatore with their two school-going daughters to set up Ampere. (The name came from Andre-Marie Ampere who theorised the science of classical electromagnetism.)
Bala is an engineer but neither Annamalai nor he had tried to build or sell an e-vehicle before this. They were entering a tricky area.

Some big original equipment manufacturers had tried e-bikes, but those were not doing well. Ampere was foraying into a market where the technology, product and concept were all new.
Annamalai recollects that in 2010, when they were trying to raise money, financiers not only turned them away but also openly discouraged them. "They disqualified us," she says.
The couple slogged on, researching and trying to master the technology and the algorithms. Then, Forum Synergies and Spain's Axon Capital jointly invested around Rs 20 crore (Rs 200 million) in Ampere.

Next came Tata's investment. "This is not only an endorsement for the company but also for the entire electric vehicle industry," says Annamalai.
Expansion plans
The company now wants to mobilise around Rs 20 crore to scale up operations, hire talent and invest in research and development. The idea is to make the products 100 per cent indigenous, compared to 75 per cent currently.
The business case for e-vehicles looks strong: sales have grown at a fast clip, albeit from a low base.

According to the Society of Manufactures of Electrical Vehicles, sales increased 25 per cent to about 5,000 in the June-ended quarter from the year-ago quarter. "Government subsidies that benefit consumers directly triggered the sales," says Sohinder Gill, director (corporate affairs), SMEV.

Under its Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of Electric Vehicles scheme, the central government will also assist e-vehicle manufacturers with Rs 795 crore (Rs 7.95 billion) till 2020 to help them create infrastructure and R&D facilities.
But the success of e-vehicles will depend on their price tags. At the end of the day, the total cost of ownership should work out favourably for the buyer.

Ampere's e-cycle costs around Rs 23,500, and its e-scooter is priced at Rs 40,000-45,000. This is Rs 7,000-8,000 costlier than its competitors.

The company says this is because its two-wheelers come with a 60-volt battery and hence perform better, while others run on 40 volts. A dealer with a rival electric vehicle firm, however, argues that the performance is pretty much the same.
Ampere's customers are farmers and small-time businessmen who use these vehicles to transport their produce to the local markets.

Business to Business (B2B) customers, largely mill-owners in and around Coimbatore, also use its vehicles. Recently, corporations too have started using the vehicles to collect garbage.
User testimonials
P Venkatachalam, a farmer from Pollachi (45 km from Coimbatore) who bought an Ampere e-cycle about one-and-a-half years ago, says the experience was "satisfactory"; so, he's now bought Ampere's e-scooter called the V60. Venkatachalam drives the scooter for nearly 50 km in a day, and says it costs him around Rs 5 to charge the battery.
But given the long power cuts, isn't it difficult to regularly charge the battery? "Not really," Vankatachalam says, "Besides, the cycle's battery, which comes with a one-year guarantee, helps when the power goes off. A small tube light and a fan can run on it for a few hours."

Once charged, the e-cycle can run up to 45 km and the e-scooter to 60 km, he says. The vehicles can carry a load of up to 150 kg at a speed of 40 km per hour.
The battery needs 6 to 7 hours and about 1.8 units of power to be fully charged, says Kalimuthu, who is in charge of Ampere's dispatch department.
If maintained well, it can last for about three years during which it can be charged 750 times. Though a new battery costs Rs 15,000, in three years an e-vehicle proves to be still cheaper than a petrol or diesel version, says Kalimuthu.
Currently the company has 47 dealers across southern states and hopes to add another 20 in the next two months. It has a presence in Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Karnataka and will soon expend operations to Andhra Pradesh, and intends to operate only in South India.

Recently, it received its first export order for e-trolleys capable of carrying a load of 600 kg.
But it's still a while before e-vehicles become popular. Annamalai says that will happen only once volume picks up and bank financing to customers becomes easier. She says it will be another two to three years, at least, before the company will start making profits.

E MANN

Smartphone game helps reduce schizophrenia symptoms

Gene drive': Scientists sound alarm over supercharged GM organisms which could spread in the wild and cause environmental disasters

The development of so-called 'gene drive' technology promises to revolutionise medicine and agriculture

An e-bike venture that caught Ratan Tata's eye