WEDNESDAY 13 DECEMBER 2017

CAMPUS | 3 SCIENCE | 12

Students of Bhavans Public School interact with scientist

Why meteoroids often blow up before hitting

Earth

COOK LIKE MILLENNIALS

An app designed to make recipe books obsolete by providing a myriad of recipes.

P | 4-5

CAMPUS / COMMUNITYWEDNESDAY 13 DECEMBER 2017 03

An enriching and inform-ative interactive session was organised at Bha-

van’s Public School at Matar Campus on December 10, with a key objective to bolster the scientific attitude of the stu-dents. The resource person, a noted scientist and eminent STEM educator Dr Hemant Pande (Dept of Science and Information, Govt Of India) guided the students to advance and diversify the scientific

talents and gain access to resources that will help them achieve their educational goals.

Headmistress, Asha Shiju welcomed the eminent guest and stimulated the aspiring sci-entists to grab the opportunity to explore the experiences and to thrive in mapping their dreams. Director Administra-tion Anjana Menon, Science India Forum guests and teach-ers from Science department graced the occasion.

Students of Bhavan’s Public School interact with scientist

To mark 50 years of enactment of the Passport Act, 1967 a function was held at Jawaharlal Nehru Bhawan, New Delhi during the Passport Offic-

er’s Conference and Passport Seva Divas 2017. A special postal stamp, commemorating the day, was released during the event in the presence of Smt Sushma Swaraj, Honourable External Affairs Minister, Shri Manoj Sinha, Honourable MOS (Independent Charge) Communica-tions, Gen (Dr) VK Singh (Retd), Honourable MOS

– External Affairs, Shri MJ Akbar, Honourable MOS – External Affairs and other distinguished guests.

A scanned copy of the First Day Cover along-with the stamp and Brochure are enclosed herewith.

Commemorative Postal Stamp released on completion of 50 years of Passports Act, 1967

COVER STORY WEDNESDAY 13 DECEMBER 201704

The Washington Post

There will be no more cookbooks from chef Tyler Florence. Sure, you’ve welcomed him into your home through

his books “Tyler Florence Fresh” and “Dinner at My Place,” and such Food Network shows as “Tyler’s Ultimate.” But he will not print any more recipes. Why bother?

“I’ll publish a cookbook and I’ll have 125 recipes. People only use five,” he said. And they won’t even follow them: “They’ll use those as like a guide that they’ll kind of interchange different ingredients with.”

All of this has led Florence to a conclusion that seems unusual for a person who has spent his career producing recipes. “Recipes are dead,” said Florence. “They’re dead the same way paper maps are dead.”

Think about it: Maps help you

find your destination, but it’s still pretty easy to get lost. But now we have GPS, which can precisely guide us to our location, automat-ically reroute us to avoid obstacles and tell us where to find gas or a sandwich along the way.

At the Smart Kitchen Summit in October, Florence announced that he had signed on with what he says will be the kitchen equivalent of GPS. He joined Innit, a start-up building a “connected food plat-form” - connecting the smart kitchen with software that aims to personalise and automate cooking. The company’s newly released app, the thing Florence thinks will be a recipe-killer, promises highly cus-tomisable “micro-cooking content.” It will offer thousands of permuta-tions of meals, and it could preheat your oven, too.

Eventually, it could go further - perhaps suggesting foods based on your genetic profile or how many

steps your fitness tracker registered that day. It might be able to order your groceries or help you build your own meal kit. Someday, it might even know the entire con-tents of your fridge.

Innit’s eponymous app is elab-orate. First, you input some basic information - whether you’re aller-gic to shellfish or on the Paleo Diet. Then you pick a style of dish, like pasta or a grain bowl, select from an array of ingredients, and Innit will configure a recipe, some micro-cooking content - for you. It’s launching with a couple of broad templates - a few swipes will trans-form a chicken taco to a beet-pineapple salsa lettuce wrap, for example - with more to come. Florence’s flavour profiles keep the meals from becoming an episode of “Chopped.”

It might remind you of another experiment in futuristic recipes: IBM’s Chef Watson. The computer

programme analysed thousands of recipes, as well as data on the chemical compounds in food, to create flavor combinations encour-aged by “computer-assisted creativity,” said Florian Pinel, a master inventor and trained chef who worked on Watson.

Though Chef Watson was orig-inally intended to aid professional chefs, plenty of customers were more interested in menu variety than dish creativity, Pinel said.

“Something that’s different from the other nights, but not wildly differ-ent; something that fits your dietary constraints or helps reduce food waste.”

Pinel says the company is no longer updating Chef Watson - though it may explore some nutrition or smart kitchen projects with the program in the future. A consumer-facing site, in partner-ship with Bon Appétit, remains active.

‘Recipes are dead’: What the future of cooking might look like

COVER STORYWEDNESDAY 13 DECEMBER 2017 05

The difference between Innit and Watson is that the former will not only design a meal for you, it will also walk you through how to make it with a video stitched together from hundreds of tech-niques that Florence filmed in the Innit offices. The steps are rese-quenced and times and nutritional information update dynamically as you swap ingredients in and out. The app will also operate certain smart appliances, and there’s more automation to come. Florence con-tends the app can even help novices learn how to cook.

“This is your sous-chef in the kitchen, and if you go along with the guidance, it’s going to help you get it right,” Florence said.

The recipes of the future won’t just be instructions for people.

They’ll be instructions for appliances. Our devices will know more about how we cook.

It’s the concept of “the internet of actions,” said Sarah Smith, research director of the Food Futures Lab at the Institute for the Future. First, the internet con-nected us with information, and now, our objects can supply that information. The next step is for objects to perform tasks. After all,

“a recipe is a series of instructions to take action,” Smith said. “The role of the recipe becomes even more impor-tant when it’s fed into kitchen systems that are acting on your behalf.”

Bridge Kitchen, a forthcoming app, will eventually walk users through recipes by listening to what’s happening in their kitchen. Yes, you can call out to the app to ask how much paprika you need, but the company promises it will also hear audio cues to know where you are in the recipe - the sounds of chopping, or the sizzle of a fry-ing pan. Those will encourage the app to automatically move to the next step, such as setting a timer or preheating your oven.

“For high-temperature stuff like searing, where you need to very carefully control the amount of time, we can synchronise a timer to the

moment that searing sound starts,” said Arun Bahl, the company’s founder and chief executive. It raises privacy concerns, but Bahl says the audio is analysed by soft-ware within the app, not on the cloud, and is deleted afterward. Bahl also says the app will help you time out multiple recipes so they can be completed at the same time. He is also working toward a feature that would allow users to take a photo of any cookbook recipe, whose text would be automatically incorporated into the app.

What food-tech companies are working toward is a vision of the future in which our digital assist-ants, appliances and health data are unified into a system that makes decisions seamlessly, guiding us to healthy choices and less food waste. It would look something like this:

Midday, your phone’s personal assistant pings you with a few options for dinner. It knows that you went for a long run this morning and also that you’re a bit iron-deficient, because you supplied data from a company such as Habit, which uses DNA samples to sug-gest a personal nutrition profile. It also would know that you have chicken and kale in your fridge via sensors or computer vision - and that you should use the kale

up soon. The meal you select calls for chickpeas and a few other ingre-dients you don’t have, so your phone automatically orders them from a grocery delivery service. Your phone has already preheated the oven, too. Your pan will moni-tor its own temperature so you don’t burn anything. Cooking will be automated, but not too automated.

“Cookbooks are getting more and more tactile, with special flour-ishes on the cover and inside pages. They’re just getting more cook-booky,” said Rux Martin, editorial director of Rux Martin Books for Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, who called recipe apps “just a blip in consciousness.” (Florence, naturally, disagrees: “A cookbook is an iPad with a screen that doesn’t work.”)

But it’s also because cookbooks aren’t merely reference. They’re aspirational. We want to be the kind of person who cooks her entire way through “The French Laundry Cookbook,” even if we manage only one recipe. A cookbook is like a New Year’s resolution: a commit-ment to a better version of yourself. You know you might fall short, but it’s the promise that counts.

So recipes may be dead in the eyes of Silicon Valley, but Martin suspects they aren’t going any-where. The apps are practical, but will they make us swoon the way an Ottolenghi book does?

“Efficiency takes all the pleas-ure out of the kitchen,” Martin said.

“We have enough recipes in the world. We don’t need new recipes. We need sources of pleasure.”

What food-tech companies are working toward is a vision of the future in which our digital assistants, appliances & health data are unified into a system that makes decisions seamlessly, guiding us to healthy choices & less food waste.

MARKETPLACE WEDNESDAY 13 DECEMBER 201706

In celebration of Qatar National Day, Mercure Hotel will be offering a 50 percent discount on their buffet meals at La Brasserie Restaurant on December 18. Guests can enjoy widespread buffet for Breakfast,

Lunch and Dinner. Executive Chef Lahcen will be preparing some special local dishes for the occasion.

On the occasion of the Qatar National Day, held this year under the theme ‘Promise of Prosperity and Glory’, Banana Island Resort Doha by Anantara is celebrating the special event with its all-new

“I Love Qatar” Brunch, which showcases the best of the country’s cuisine and culture, while supporting its thriving local farmers market.

The lavish brunch concept features a rich selection of authentic Qatari dishes that include Balalet, Ghuzi and Machbous, alongside a delicious array of mouth-watering dishes from around the world, all set up in an inviting, locally-inspired atmosphere that fuses the eclectic buffet’s unique tastes of tradition with the country’s renowned hospitality and vivid heritage.

Both inventive and resourceful, the family-friendly brunch sources up to 90% of its ingredients from local suppliers, in a pledge to support Qatari products and play a positive role in achieving economic self-suf-ficiency in the country.

“This year, the Qatar National Day celebrations are coming to us with the promise of prosperity and glory. At Banana Island Resort Doha by Anantara, we wanted to be a part of that promise, in a way that reflects Qatari pride while bringing our unique flavour to the mix. And with our brand new National Day brunch, aptly named ‘I Love Qatar’, we are show-ing the best that our country and culture has to offer, bringing the best of the local cuisine to our guests, and supporting local farms and national self-sufficiency efforts, all at the same time”,Area General Manager for Qatar, Thomas Fehlbier said.

“Not only that, but we are also giving citizens and residents the chance to enjoy the national holiday at our luxury resort and experience every-thing that our magical island has to offer. In doing so, we are as well creating much needed awareness about supporting local farming and Qatari prod-ucts, which in turn promotes productivity, quality and energy efficiency in the market, towards further economic prosperity in our beloved Qatar”, he added.

In addition to tantalizing their taste buds with finely made local dishes and a buffet of delicacies from all around the world – all made using fresh and flavourful local ingredients – starting on the 18th of December 2017, Banana Island Resort Doha by Anantara invites guests to its National Day

Brunch to enjoy a relaxed weekend in the company of good friends and family, with a kids’ corner and fun activities guaranteed to be memora-ble for everyone.

For guests looking to be a bit more active during the holiday, the resort’s recreation centre offers a vast choice of activities to inspire, relax and thrill. Both above and below the water, the center presents guests with a myriad leisure activities such as a fully-equipped fitness centre, surf and swimming pools, children and teen clubs, Velo-Taxi tours, Racing Simu-lators, and a range of sports including volleyball, bowling and tennis, in addition to a host of land activities.

Banana Island Resort Doha by Anantara’s ‘I Love Qatar’ Brunch will be available every Friday from 1-4pm. “In 2018, every day at our beauti-ful island will be a day to celebrate Qatari pride, and every day will bring us another step closer to developing a thriving local market for farmers and food producers in the country. And the brunch’s rich local dishes and sumptuous flavours will be an amazing way to celebrate that”, Thomas concluded.

Mercure Hotel celebrates Qatar National Day

Banana Island Resort Doha by Anantara celebrating Qatar National Day with a new ‘I Love Qatar’ brunch

MUSICWEDNESDAY 13 DECEMBER 2017 07

Current playlist

Hawa HawaArtists: Mika Singh &

Parakriti Kakar

Movie: Mubarakan

SoberArtists: G-Eazy feat.

Charlie Puth

PerfectArtists: Ed Sheeran feat.

Beyounce

#1 billboard hot 100 MehboobaArtists: Neha Kakkar &

Yasser Dessai

Movie: Fukrey Returns

HavanaArtists: Camila Cabello

feat. Young Thug

#3 billboard hot 100

Stargazing (kaskade remix)

Artists: Kygo feat.

Justin Jesso

End GameArtists: Taylor Swift feat. Ed Sheeran

& Future #39 billboard hot 100

Swag se Karenge Sabka SwagatArtists: Neha Bhasin & Vishal Dadlani

Movie: Tiger Zinda Hai

WolvesArtists: Selena Gomez

feat. Marshmello

#20 billboard hot 100

Pallo LatkeArtists: Jyotica Tangri,

Fazilpuria & Yasser

Dessai Movie: Shaadi

Main Zaroor Ana

Don’t CallArtist: Lost Kings

HOLLYWOOD / BOLLYWOOD WEDNESDAY 13 DECEMBER 201708IANS

Actors Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks and filmmaker Ste-ven Spielberg are thrilled

about their film “The Post” receiv-ing six Golden Globe nominations.

The Hollywood Foreign Press Association nominated Streep for the 31st time—the most by any sin-gle actor in the 75-year history of the Golden Globes, reports ew.com.

“I’m thrilled for the movie, for Steven (Spielberg) and Tom (Hanks), and for the incredible ensemble of actors who made this movie need its moment in history. Thanks, HFPA,” Streep said in a statement to latimes.com.

Her co-star Tom Hanks has been nominated for the Best Actor award.

“Very happy the work of the oth-ers on ‘The Post’ has been given the attention they deserve. Thank you to the HFPA,” said Hanks.

Presented by Indian media and entertainment conglomerate Reli-ance Entertainment, “The Post” is directed by Spielberg, who has also been nominated for a Golden Globe.

“I am thrilled by today’s recog-nition by the HFPA and particularly happy for our nominees who made this movie happen - Meryl and Tom, Liz Hannah and Josh Singer, Amy Pascal and Kristie Macosko Krieger, and of course, John Williams.

“I only wish (former Washing-ton Post publisher) Kay Graham were still here to experience how much her story affects all of us,” said Spielberg. “The Post” is a drama about the unlikely partner-ship of Katharine Graham (Streep), the first female publisher of The Washington Post, and its driven

editor Ben Bradlee (Hanks), as they race to catch up with The New York Times to expose a massive cover-up of government secrets that

spanned three decades and four US Presidents.

The film is set to release in India on January 12.

Producer Ritesh Sid-hwani says that actress Deepika Padukone

(pictured) is not a part of the “Don” franchise. There were reports that Deepika Padu-kone may replace actress Priyanka Chopra in next part of “Don”. However Sidhwani has a different story to share.

Sidhwani said: “Deepika is not part of ‘Don’”.

He was speaking to media at the success party of his friday released film

“Fukrey Returns” .Talking about next part

of Excel entertainment’s “Don” franchise, Sidhwani said: “We are working on that and very soon we will announce that also.”

Informing more about his future projects, he said:

“Now we have produced comedy and next from our side will be ‘3 Storeys’ which will be a completely differ-ent film releasing in February.”

“Then we are coming up with ‘Gold’ and ‘Gully Boy’ so all these films are different in terms of genre and none of them are comedies, so I think people should follow what they believe in and the kind of stories they want to tell. If you try to do the same thing or emulate something which is not inherent, I don’t think success will come your way,” he added.

Deepika not part of ‘Don’, confirms Ritesh Sidhwani

Actor Varun Dhawan (pic-tured) has started shooting for the upcoming film “Sui

Dhaaga - Made in India”. Varun shared on Instagram a photograph of himself working on a sewing machine.

“Haath-pair ka mail guru, ‘Sui Dhaaga’ ka khel shuru! ‘Sui Dhaaga’. YRF 2018 Gandhi Jayanti,” he

captioned the image. “Sui Dhaaga - Made in India” is a story of self reli-ance aimed to connect with every Indian. The film also stars Anushka Sharma and is produced by Yash Raj Films (YRF) banner. To be directed by Sharat Katariya, “Sui Dhaaga” is written by Maneesh Sharma. The film will hit the screens on Gandhi Jayanti 2018.

Varun Dhawan starts shooting for ‘Sui Dhaaga’

‘The Post’ team thrilled over 6 Golden Globe nominations

FOODWEDNESDAY 13 DECEMBER 2017 09

Charlotte Druckman The Washington Post

When Julee Rosso learned this cake was on the agenda, she suggested

the raisins be macerated, which wasn’t part of the original reci-pe’s plan. She consented to adding salt to the batter, which may be standard baking prac-tice now, but wasn’t something you did back in 1982. Although the authors specified a “chunk-style” applesauce and pureed it, we took a shortcut and used smooth applesauce. If you pre-fer a few small apple pieces, you can substitute chunky applesauce.

8 to 10 servings (makes one 10-inch tube pan cake)

Make Ahead: The raisins need to macerate for 30 minutes.

IngredientsFor the cake1 cup raisins1/2 cup fresh orange juice1/4 cup apple juice3 cups flour, plus more for the

pan1 teaspoon ground cinnamon1 teaspoon freshly grated

nutmeg2 teaspoons baking soda1/2 teaspoon salt16 tablespoons (2 sticks)

unsalted butter, at room tempera-ture, plus more for the pan

2 cups granulated sugar2 large eggs2 cups homemade or best-qual-

i ty s tore-bought p la in , no-sugar-added, smooth apple-sauce (may substitute chunky applesauce)

1 teaspoon vanilla extractFor the icing1 cup confectioners’ sugar1/2 teaspoon ground

cinnamon1 1/2 tablespoons fresh lemon

juice1 1/2 tablespoons fresh orange

juice

StepsFor the cake: Combine the rai-

sins, orange juice and apple juice in a small saucepan over medium-low heat; cook until the liquid begins to bubble slowly. Turn off the heat and let sit for 30 minutes. Drain and discard the liquid from the raisins.

Meanwhile, combine the flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, baking soda and salt in a mixing bowl.

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Use some butter to grease a 10-inch tube pan, then add enough flour to coat, shaking out any excess.

Combine the butter and gran-ulated sugar in the bowl of a stand mixer or handheld electric mixer; beat on medium speed for 3 or 4

minutes, until light and fluffy.Add the eggs, one at a time,

beating well after each addition. Stir in the applesauce and vanilla extract. Stop to scrape down the bowl.

Sift the flour mixture over the wet batter, then add the raisins, stirring gently until evenly distributed.

Pour the batter into tube pan; bake (middle rack) for about 70 minutes, or until a cake tester inserted into the cake comes out clean. Cool in the pan for 15 min-utes, then turn out onto a wire rack to cool completely.

Meanwhile, make the icing: Sift together the confectioners’ sugar and cinnamon into a small bowl. Dribble in the citrus juices, stirring constantly to form a smooth icing.

Drizzle the cake with icing. Let it set before serving or storing.

Ingredients are too variable for a meaningful analysis.

Applesauce raisin cake

ENTERTAINMENT WEDNESDAY 13 DECEMBER 201710

IANS

The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) led congratula-tory wishes for India skipper

Virat Kohli (pictured) who on Mon-day married Bollywood actor Anushka Sharma (pictured) in a pri-vate ceremony in Italy.

The couple took to Twitter to announce their relationship and social media has melted ever since.

“Heartiest congratulations to this lovely pair. Wishing the couple a very happy married life,” read the mes-sage on the national cricket board’s Twitter handle.

Cricketer Harbhajan Singh also took to the social networking site to congratulate the newly weds.

“Jug jug jeeve eh sohni Jodi @imVkohli @AnushkaSharma rab hamesha khush rakhe (May this beau-tiful couple enjoy a long life. May God

keep them happy always),” Har-bhajan’s tweet read.

Pacer Umesh Yadav also tweeted: “Happy married life both of you @imVkohli and @AnushkaSharma have a wonderful life ahead may God bless u both with lots of happiness.”

“Best wishes to both of you on your wedding @imVkohli & @Anush-kaSharma. Wishing you a life filled with all the blessings and joys of life,” Test specialist Cheteshwar Pujara wrote. Former BCCI President Anurag Thakur also took to Twitter to wish

Kohli and Anushka: “Heartiest con-gratulations to @imVkohli and @AnushkaSharma for the new innings. Wishing you both all the best always!”

Ex-India Test opener Aakash Chopra wrote: “Shaadi Mubarak, @imVkohli and @AnushkaSharma. May God bless you both with lots of hap-piness.” Former Pakistan captain Shahid Afridi also congratulated the couple, saying: “Congratulations @imVkohli @AnushkaSharma on your wedding. May God Bless you two and give you happiness and a rewarding married life.” Indian women’s hockey team captain Rani Rampal wrote:

“Congratulations to the beautiful cou-ple @imVkohli pajji and @AnushkaSharma for their wedding.”

Wrestler Geeta Phogat wrote: “Awww congratulations...you look soo cute together and wish you both hap-piness and love@AnushkaSharma @imVkohli.”

Australian actress-DJ-model, Ruby Rose (pictured) says she

has always wanted children. But she doesn’t think it is the right time yet to start a family.

“I’m a romantic and when I was younger, my head would go straight to marriage and family. Those relation-ships didn’t work out but they were amazing, so there are no hard feelings. I don’t know (about marriage).

“I know that we love each other very much and we’re inseparable. We both cook. I’m better at side dishes and she does the whole meal - I don’t have the patience for that,” Rose, 31, told dailymail.co.uk.

She added: “I have always wanted kids but I couldn’t raise my children far away from my mum and my grandparents. I’m not ready to do that now. I’ve just started in film and I’m getting amazing opportunities, but eventually I would like to move to somewhere in Australia by the beach, have a couple of kids and ten animals. That would be the dream.”

AFP

Beyonce (pictured), with lit-tle argument one of the top stars in pop music, Mon-

day ended an unlikely drought—nine years since she had a number-one US song.

Beyonce hit the top of the Billboard Hot 100 chart for her new duet with Ed Sheeran on a remix of the English songwrit-er’s “Perfect,” a tender guitar ballad.

The song sold 181,000 dig-ital downloads in the week through Thursday on the bench-mark US singles chart, which also tracks streaming and radio airplay.

“Perfect” is Beyonce’s first tune to lead the Hot 100 since December 2008 with “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It),” her blockbuster dance anthem of female empowerment.

Beyonce moved in a more experimental direction with her

latest album “Lemonade.”But she initially released it

last year as an exclusive on Tidal, the streaming service led by her husband Jay-Z, impeding the chart performance of individual tracks.

“Drunk in Love,” her duet with Jay-Z off her self-released 2013 album, only reached number two on the Hot 100.

The longest gap between number one songs in the chart’s history belongs to Cher, who waited nearly 25 years between her 1974 hit “Dark Lady” and her 1999 chart-topper “Believe.”

Twitter abuzz with congratulatory messages for Virat-Anushka

After near decade, Beyonce back on top of US song chart

I’ve always wanted kids: Ruby Rose

HEALTHWEDNESDAY 13 DECEMBER 2017 11

IANS

A bionic hand with prosthetic fingers developed by US researchers has helped

Jason Barnes, a musician who lost part of his right arm five years ago, to play the piano and drums with ease.

Researchers from the Georgia Institute of Technology have created an ultrasonic sensor that combines ultrasound signals and machine learning, allows amputees to con-trol each of their prosthetic fingers individually.

“Our prosthetic arm is powered by ultrasound signals. By using this

new technology, the arm can detect which fingers an amputee wants to move, even if they don’t have fin-gers,” lead author Gil Weinberg, Professor, at the varsity, said in a statement.

Barnes, who lost his arm in 2012,

was using prosthesis attached to his muscles and controlled by electro-myogram (EMG) sensors for his daily works. Though they “can detect a muscle movement, but the signal is too noisy to infer which finger the person wants to move,” Weinberg

said. However, the new device attaches an ultrasound probe to the arm, which can help doctors watch how muscles move.

When Barnes tries to move his amputated ring finger, the muscle movements differ from those seen when he tries to move any other digit. The team fed each unique movement into an algorithm that can quickly determine which finger Barnes wants to move.

The ultrasound signals and machine learning could detect con-tinuous and simultaneous movements of each finger, as well as how much force he intends to use, the researchers said.

High-intensity workout three times a week may be safe and help decrease worsening of motor symptoms in people with early-stage Parkinson’s disease, researchers say.

Parkinson’s disease—the second most common neurodegenerative disorder—causes progressive loss of muscle control, trembling, stiffness, slowness and impaired balance.

It was previously thought that high-intensity exercise was too phys-ically stressful for individuals with Parkinson’s disease.

As the disease progresses, it becomes difficult for patients to walk, talk and complete simple tasks.

However, the study published in JAMA Neurology, showed that par-ticipants who indulge in exercise between 80 and 85 per cent maximum heart rate may have benefit as medicine.

“If you have Parkinson’s disease and you want to delay the progres-sion of your symptoms, you should exercise three times a week with your heart rate between 80 to 85 percent maximum. It is that simple,” said Daniel Corcos, Professor at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.

For the study, the team included 128 participants aged 40 to 80 years old. The participants were at an early stage of the disease.

The toxic build-up of urea, a compound created by the liver, in the brain has

been found as the major reason that can cause brain damage and lead to Huntington’s Dis-ease, one of seven major types of age-related dementia, finds a study.

The study found that urea level peaks in the brain even before dementia sets in. The dis-covery could one day help doctors diagnose and even treat dementia, well in advance of its onset, the researchers said.

“This study on Huntington’s Disease is the final piece of the jigsaw which leads us to con-clude that high brain urea plays a pivotal role in dementia,” said Garth Cooper, Professor at The University of Manchester.

Cooper’s previous study revealed that urea is similarly linked to Alzheimer’s, suggest-ing that the toxic build-up of urea could be relevant to all types of age-related dementias.

“Alzheimer’s and Huntington’s are at opposite ends of the

dementia spectrum—so if this holds true for these types, then I believe it is highly likely it will hold true for all the major age-related dementias,” Cooper said, in the paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Dementia results in a pro-gressive and irreversible loss of nerve cells and brain function-ing, causing loss of memory and cognitive impairments affect-ing the ability to learn. Currently, there is no cure.

Urea and ammonia in the brain are metabolic breakdown products of protein.

If urea and ammonia build up in the body because the kid-neys are unable to eliminate them, for example, serious symptoms can result, the researchers said. “More research, however, is needed to discover the source of the ele-vated urea in Huntington’s Disease, particularly concern-ing the potential involvement of ammonia and a systemic metabolic defect,” Cooper noted.

Decoded: What causes dementia

High-intensity workout may slow Parkinson’s symptoms

This ultrasonic sensor may help amputees play piano, drums

SCIENCE WEDNESDAY 13 DECEMBER 201712

AFP

The Tasmanian tiger was doomed long before humans began hunting the enigmatic

marsupial, scientists said yester-day, with DNA sequencing showing it was in poor genetic health for thousands of years before its extinction. Scientists genetically mapped the animal—also known as a thylacine—using the genome of a pup preserved more than a century ago in a jar.

The research revealed the crea-ture began to undergo a decline in genetic diversity more than 70,000 years ago, leaving it less resilient

to environmental change even before Aborigines are believed to have first inhabited the continent 65,000 years ago.

“Our hope is that there is a lot the thylacine can tell us about the genetic basis of extinction to help other species,” said University of Melbourne biologist Andrew Pask, co-author of a study published in Nature Ecology and Evolution. Pask added the research may eventually enable scientists to clone the Tas-manian tiger and bring it back from the dead.

“As this genome is one of the most complete for an extinct spe-cies, it is technically the first step

to ‘bringing the thylacine back’, but we are still a long way off that pos-sibility.” The animal was once widespread across Australia, but was wiped out on the mainland around 3,000 years ago, having likely succumbed to drought. They survived in the southern island state of Tasmania until 1936 when the last known one died in captiv-ity at Hobart Zoo after the species was hunted to extinction in the wild.

Scientists found the genetics of the animal to be more closely related to fellow Australian mar-supial the Tasmanian devil than the dog-like dingo with whom it shared many physical features.

Jupiter’s famous storm, the Great Red Spot, penetrates well below the clouds—

about 300 kilometres into the planet’s atmosphere, suggest data collected by Nasa’s Juno spacecraft.

“One of the most basic questions about Jupiter’s Great Red Spot is: how deep are the roots,” said Scott Bol-ton, Juno’s principal investigator from the South-west Research Institute in San Antonio.

“Juno data indicate that the solar system’s most famous storm is almost one-and-a-half Earths wide, and has roots that penetrate about 200 miles (300 kilo-metres) into the planet’s atmosphere,” Bolton said.

The findings, based on data collected by the Juno spacecraft during its first pass over Jupiter’s Great Red Spot in July 2017, were announced on Monday at the annual American Geophysi-cal Union meeting in New Orleans.

The science instrument responsible for this in-depth revelation was Juno’s Micro-wave Radiometer (MWR).

The Great Red Spot is a giant oval of crimson-col-oured clouds in Jupiter’s southern hemisphere that race counterclockwise around the oval’s perimeter with wind speeds greater than any storm on Earth.

Measuring 16,000 kilo-metres in width as of April 3, 2017, the Great Red Spot is 1.3 times as wide as Earth.

The future of the Great Red Spot is still very much up for debate.

While the storm has been monitored since 1830, it has possibly existed for more than 350 years, according to scientists.

When a meteor comes hur-tling toward Earth, the high-pressure air in

front of it seeps into its pores and cracks, pushing its body apart and causing it to explode, say scientists. The new research, published in the journal Meteoritics & Planetary Sci-ence, suggests that Earth’s atmosphere is a better shield from meteoroids than previously thought.

“There’s a big gradient between high-pressure air in front of the meteor and the vacuum of air behind it,” said Jay Melosh, Profes-sor of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences at Purdue Uni-versity in the US and co-author of the paper.

“If the air can move through the passages in the meteorite, it can

easily get inside and blow off pieces,” Melosh said.

Melosh’s team looked to the 2013 Chelyabinsk event when a meteoroid exploded over Chelyab-insk, Russia, to explain the phenomenon. The explosion came as a surprise and brought in energy comparable to a small nuclear weapon. When it entered Earth’s

atmosphere, it created a bright fire ball. Minutes later, a shock wave blasted out nearby windows, injur-ing hundreds of people.

The meteoroid weighed around 10,000 tonnes, but only about 2,000 tonnes of debris were recov-ered, which meant something happened in the upper atmosphere that caused it to disintegrate.

Tasmanian tiger doomed long before humans came along

Why meteoroids often blow up before hitting Earth

Nasa’s Juno probe unravels Jupiter’s Great Red Spot roots

TECHNOLOGYWEDNESDAY 13 DECEMBER 2017 13

The Washington Post

Netflix sent out a tweet that roasted a sub-set of its most devoted users over an open fire: those who are obsessively watching

its heavily promoted holiday movie “A Christ-mas Prince.” The snarky tweet got some laughs, but it has also stirred up some backlash - and made some of the company’s subscribers begin to consider just how closely Netflix is watching its users.

“To the 53 people who’ve watched A Christ-mas Prince every day for the past 18 days: Who hurt you?” the tweet said.

While the tweet was clearly intended as a joke, it didn’t sit well with some customers who found the message “creepy.”

“This is amazing. Except for the ‘watching us like big brother’ part,” one Twitter user wrote in reply.

Of course, people who watch Netflix should expect that the company knows both what you’re watching and how frequently you watch it. How else could the company get super-specialized recommendations for you, such as romantic period dramas based on books? But what seems to have struck a nerve is that Netflix is using information to share viewing habits publicly.

The tone of the message is also drawing crit-icism. Netflix, after all, produced and promoted the movie, which is in the vein of an uplifting, unapologetically cheery Hallmark film. Sham-ing its subscribers, even in jest, for a feel-good film meant to cheer up its viewers didn’t sit well

with everyone. One user even compared the tweet to “bullying.”

Many other reactions were lighter, with sev-eral people taking the opportunity to say that Netflix itself was hurting them - either by pull-ing their favorite shows or with its disappointing selection.

Netflix has kept up the snark in its replies, though the person running the account has also reassured some users that their viewing habits aren’t worth shaming them over. Netflix didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on the reaction to the tweet, which has been retweeted about 66,000 times and liked 259,000 times and has drawn 4,000 replies.

The tweet was very similar to a campaign that music-streaming service Spotify ran last year, in which it shared insights from consumer data - not naming its users, but sometimes not-ing individual accounts. For example, among other such ads, the campaign called out a single person with a billboard that said: “Dear person who made a playlist called: ‘With Jeb Bush Like He’s a Bond Girl in a European Casino.’ We have so many questions.”

Marketing messages like this don’t violate companies’ privacy policies, said Bradley Shear, a lawyer specialising in privacy and social media. Netflix may be sharing viewing information, but not in specific ways - they’re not revealing, for example, that customer John Doe or Jane Doe is watching “A Christmas Prince” on repeat.

Still, he said, the surprise over the tweet is a reminder that people aren’t always fully aware of what they’re agreeing to when they click

“accept” on a company’s terms and conditions.

While the tweet was clearly intended as a joke, it didn’t sit well with some customers who found the message “creepy.”

Global chipmaker Intel yes-terday launched Pentium Silver and Celeron proces-

sors which are based on an architecture codenamed “Gemini Lake” and are engineered for bal-anced performance and connectivity.

The company is launching “N5000” for mobile and “J5005” for desktop Intel Pentium Silver processors.

Intel Celeron processors include “N4100” and “N4000” for

mobile and “J4105” and “J4005” for desktop, the company said in a

statement.Intel claims that Pentium Sil-

ver will deliver 58 per cent faster productivity performance com-pared with a similar four-year-old PC.

For the first time on any PC platform, Intel has offered Gigabit Wi-Fi capability for ultra-fast con-nectivity with these new processors.

Additionally, systems based on these processors will be able to handle the latest in enhanced

media for a great experience streaming content from popular sites like YouTube and Netflix.

Intel is also delivering Local Adaptive Contrast Enhancement (LACE) display technology to help people clearly see the screen out-doors in glare and bright light.

Intel also have Pentium Gold processors which are already in market based on the Kaby Lake architecture and represent the highest-performing Pentium proc-essors available.

Intel launches Pentium Silver & Celeron processors

‘creepy’ tweet reminds us all how closely it’s watching us

BABY BLUES

HAGAR THE HORRIBLE

Set in the future in a time of interplanetary colonisation, an unlikely

pair race against an impending global crisis and are confronted by

the monsters that live inside us all.Note: Programme is subject to change without prior notice.

VILLAGGIO & CITY CENTER

WEDNESDAY 13 DECEMBER 2017CINEMA PLUS14NOVO — Pearl

Paddington 2 (2D/Animation) 10:20am, 12:30, 2:40, 4:50, 7:00, 9:10 & 11:20pm Daddy’s Home 2 (2D/Comedy) 10:00, 11:45am, 12:00noon, 2:00, 4:00, 4:40, 6:00, 8:00, 9:30, 10:00pm & 12:00midnight Marrowbone (2D/Horror) 10:00am, 2:20, 6:40 & 11:00pm Brad’s Status (2D/Comedy) 12:10, 4:30 & 8:50pmCoco (2D/Animation) 10:00am, 12:30, 3:00 & 5:30pmJustice League (2D/Action) 8:00 & 10:45pmThe Osiris Child (2D/Action) 10:30am, 2:40, 6:50 & 11:00pm Christmas All Over Again (2D/Comedy) 12:30, 4:40 & 8:50pmJungle (2D/Action) 11:00am, 4:00 & 9:00pmThor: Ragnarok (2D/Action) 1:30, 6:30 & 11:00pmActs of Vengeance (2D/Action) 10:00am, 2:00, 6:00 & 10:00pmSheikh Jackson (2D/Arabic) 12:00noon, 4:00, 8:00pm & 12:00midnightThe Mountain Between Us (2D/Action) 10:00am, 2:00, 3:00, 6:50, 8:00 & 11:45pm Wonder (2D/Drama) 12:30, 5:30 & 10:30pmPaddington 2(2DIMAX/Animation) 10:00am, 12:10, 2:20, 4:30, 6:40, 8:50 & 11:00pm

MALL

LANDMARK

ROYAL PLAZA

ROXY

ASIAN TOWNPunyalan (Malayalam) 6:00, 6:30, 8:45 & 9:15pmRichie (Tamil) 5:00, 7:15, 8:45, 9:30, 11:00 & 11:45am Kodiveeran (Tamil) 6:00pm

AL KHORRichie (Tamil) 11:15am, 1:45, 4:15, 6:45, 9:15 & 11:45pm Punyalan (Malayalam) 12:30, 3:15, 6:00, 8:45 & 11:30pm Just Getting Started 10:30am, 3:00, 7:30pm & 12:00midnightJungle (Tamil) 12:30, 5:00 & 9:30pm

THE OSIRIS CHILD

Paddington 2 (Adventure) 2:30pm Olaf And Coco (2D/Animation) 4:30pm Punyalan Private Limited (2D/Malayalam) 2:30 & 11:30pm Anna Durai (2D/Tamil) 2:30pm Brad’s Status (2D/Comedy) 7:00 & 9:30pmChristmas All Over Again (2D/Comedy) 5:00pm Marrowbone (2D/Horror) 7:00pm Jungle (2D/Action) 9:00 & 11:15pmFurkey Returns (2D/Hindi) 5:00 & 9:00pm The Osiris Child (2D/Action) 7:30pm Kodiveeran (2D/Tamil) 11:15pm

Paddington 2 (Animation) 11:00am & 1:15pm Richie (Tamil) 1:20, 6:10 & 8:40pm Jungle 3:00, 5:30 & 11:50pm Furkey Returns (Hindi) 4:20, 7:10 & 10:10pm Coco 3:30 & 6:10pm Marrowbone 11:00am, 3:50 & 11:10pm Brad Status 11:00am, 1:00, 10:30pm & 12:30am Punyalan (Malayalam) 11:00 & 1:40pm

Anna Durai (2D/Tamil) 2:30pm Brad’s Status (2D/Comedy) 5:00 & 9:30pm Paddington 2 (Adventure) 2:30pm Marrowbone (2D/Horror) 7:15pmPunyalan Private Limited (2D/Malayalam) 2:15 & 9:00pm Olaf And Coco (2D/Animation) 4:30pm Jungle (2D/Action) 7:00 & 11:30pmRichie (2D/Tamil) 5:00pm Furkey Returns (2D/Hindi) 7:00 & 11:30pm The Osiris Child (2D/Action) 9:15pmKodiveeran (2D/Tamil) 11:15pm

Punyalan Private Limited (2D/Malayalam) 2:30 & 11:00pm Kodiveeran (2D/Tamil) 2:30pm Jungle (2D/Action) 7:30 & 11:30pmOlaf And Coco (2D/Animation) 3:00 & 5:30pmBrad’s Status (2D/Comedy) 5:00 & 9:30pm Christmas All Over Again (2D/Comedy) 5:15pm Anna Durai (2D/Tamil) 7:00pm Marrowbone (2D/Horror) 7:00 & 9:30pmThe Osiris Child (2D/Action) 9:15pm Richie (2D/Tamil) 11:30pm

CROSSWORD CONCEPTIS SUDOKU

ALL IN THE MIND

08:00 News08:30 The Listening

Post9:00 Debt Machine10:30 Inside Story11:00 News11:30 The Stream12:30 Artscape — The

New African Photography

13:00 NEWSHOUR14:00 News14:30 Inside Story15:00 Al Jazeera World16:00 NEWSHOUR17:00 News17:30 The Stream18:00 Newsgrid19:30 Witness20:00 News20:30 Inside Story21:00 NEWSHOUR22:00 News22:30 The Stream23:00 Witness

13:00 Bunk’d15:05 Miraculous

Tales Of Ladybug And Cat Noir

15:30 Bizaardvark 17:00 Tangled:

The Series 17:50 K.C.

Undercover 18:15 Descendants

Wicked World 18:20 Bunk’d 20:10 Miraculous

Tales Of Ladybug And Cat Noir

20:35 Disney The Lodge

21:00 Alex & Co. 21:50 Lolirock22:40 Evermoor

Chronicles 23:05 Rolling With

The Ronks

13:50 Australia Doesn’t Just Want To Kill You

14:45 Cats 10115:40 Deadly

Islands16:35 Untamed &

Uncut17:30 Treehouse

Masters19:20 Treehouse

Masters20:15 Cats 10121:10 Shamwari:

A Wild Life22:05 Tanked23:00 Treehouse

Masters23:55 Deadly

Islands00:50 Untamed &

Uncut01:45 Treehouse

Masters

13:10 Alaska: The Last Frontier

14:40 Gold Divers: Under The Ice

15:25 Diesel Brothers

16:10 Street Outlaws

17:00 How Do They Do It?

17:50 Storage Hunters UK

18:20 Container Wars

18:50 Deadliest Catch

21:00 Sean Conway: On The Edge

21:50 X-Ray Mega Airport

22:40 Breaking Magic

King Features Syndicate, Inc.

BRAIN TEASERSWEDNESDAY 13 DECEMBER 2017 15

Yesterday’s answer

Conceptis Sudoku: Conceptis Sudoku

is a number-placing puzzle based on a

9×9 grid. The object is to place the

numbers 1 to 9 in the empty squares so

that each row, each column and each

3×3 box contains the same number

only once.

BACCARAT, BLACKJACK,

BRIDGE, CANFIELD, CASINO,

CHICAGO, CLOCK,

CRIBBAGE, ECARTE,

EUCHRE, FANTAN, GO FISH,

HEARTS, KLONDIKE,

MICHIGAN, NEWMARKET,

OLD MAID, PATIENCE,

PIQUET, POKER, PYRAMID,

SEVENS, SNAP, SOLITAIRE,

SPIDER, STOPS, TWENTY-

ONE, WHIST.