Researchers have made an important discovery about the causes of schizophrenia, a disease related to dementia or fragmented mentality. Researchers have identified two genes associated with the disease as well as a third gene that carries the risk of schizophrenia and autism. Scientists involved in this research believes, this discovery can go a long way in finding a cure for these kind of diseases. Researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine found that these harmful genes are almost the same in every ethnic or racial group. The findings of this research were published in Nature Genetics . According to an estimate, about one percent of people worldwide suffering from schizophrenia. The scientists identified two risky genes, SRRM2 and AKAP11, based on a comparative analysis of gene sequencing from individuals with schizophrenia and healthy individuals. It compared a dataset of 35,828 patients with schizophrenia to 107,877 healthy or control groups and included a variety of
This signal is coming from a galaxy located about 3 billion light years away from us.
The detection of a new fast radio burst (FRB), named FRB-20190520B, raises some important questions about the origin and source of these signals.
The researchers have published their findings in a new paper in the science website 'Nature'.
The paper notes that the source of FRB 20190520B is "co-located with a compact, persistent radio source and associated with a highly conspicuous-star-formation dwarf host galaxy".
This signal is believed to be close to another unknown object, which is emitting a weak radio signal. This type of combination has been observed only in one other FRB.
FRBs are rapid but brief flashes of radio frequency emission and typically last milliseconds.
They are known to send repeat radio waves at times. Similar radio signals have been detected some time ago as well.
However, scientists have yet to fully understand this phenomenon, and they were first discovered in 2007.
According to Space.com, the discovery of the FRB is attributed to graduate student David Narkevic and his supervisor, Duncan Lorimer.
The paper notes that FRB 20190520B was detected using five hundred meters Aperture Spherical Radio Telescope in Guizhou, China in May 2019.
Scientists followed this up with monthly observations and detected about 75 bursts between April 2020 and September 2020.
Researchers localized FRB 20190520B using the US National Science Foundation's (NSF) Carl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA), a radio astronomy observatory located in central New Mexico.
The researchers also observed that the object continuously emitted weak radio waves between bursts.
Caltech's Casey Law said in a statement, "These features make it look like the first FRB, whose status was determined by the VLA in 2016.
The object is called FRB 121102 and the properties are the same as FRB20190520B.
"Now we really need to explain this double mystery and why FRBs and persistent radio sources are sometimes found together," Law told CNN.com.
The earlier FRB is also constantly close to the radio source.
Researchers have also proven that FRB 190520 may be a "newborn baby," according to the news release.
That means it is "still surrounded by the dense material ejected by the supernova explosion that left the neutron star behind."
The theory is that once the material is depleted, the signs of bursting will also subside.
But the researchers caution that some questions still need to be answered.
“The FRB sector is growing very fast right now and new discoveries are coming out every month.
However, larger questions still remain, and this object is giving us challenging clues about those questions," said WVU's Sarah Burke-Spolar, another co-author, in a statement.
Comments
Post a Comment